The top 5 Tools my business couldn’t live without
Confession time 😳
I am that person who has 100 tabs open in 5 windows and can NEVER resist a new shiny tech tool. Right now while I’m writing this I have approximately 1 million tabs open and my computer is pretending to be an aeroplane judging by the sound coming from my fan.
HOWEVER, this somewhat concerning behaviour from me is fantastic news for you - because I can confidently say I have tried almost every tool under the sun for running your online business and I have some clear favourites.
While I have nothing on Eat Lit Food in my review game I do know a fair bit about this whole tech & systems thing so here we go…
The top 5 tools my business could NOT live without.
Cue the Romantics. 🎵
01. PALLY
THE DEETS ☝🏼
Your Investment: Free for first 15 posts then $15USD/month
Fave Features:
Scheduling across Facebook, Linked in, Instagram & Google my Business
Incredibly easy to use & nice user interface (it looks pretty)
Grid planning & calendar view
Saved Hashtag lists & post templates
Great analytics game
Link in Bio tool
Notes & comments on posts
(The list goes on & on…)
THE TEA ☕️
I have tired literally EVERY tool in the social scheduling book, from agency life as a digital strategist with Kontentino to just about every free trial I could get my hot little hands on, and I can confidently say NONE of them have even come close to Pally for ease and enjoyment of use.
Admittedly - I log into my social scheduling tool expecting MAGIC to happen ✨ - like I’m going to log in to HootSuite and all of a sudden marketing will be easy, the ideas will flow and I will have miraculously completed one of those “batching” sessions everyone keeps talking about.
Unfortunately for me this had never happened.. UNTIL… The sweet sweet combination of some branded templates from Hndrx, a social strategy session with my genius friend Sofia and PALLY came together and made the beautiful image below that is MY CONTENT SCHEDULE.
Seriously I can’t rave about this platform enough. And as if the features weren’t already amazing - the development team are SO responsive that they respond directly to you and implement changes to the platform on request almost immediately.
Legends. Literal Legends.
Make Pally your pal too and your socials game will be forever changed.
P.s. Shout out to the real MVP Ripples Creations who introduced me to Pally.
This is an actual photo of Me & Pally planning
world domination. Legends
02. CANVA
THE DEETS ☝🏼
Your Investment: Free plan or $20 USD/month
Fave Features:
Brand Kit Function
Links to Google Drive & other File Storage Solutions
Background remover tool (LIVES WERE CHANGED)
Template library with a template for literally everything.
(Again I could be here for weeks)
THE TEA ☕️
If you’re NOT using Canva in your business then it’s UNCLEAR what you are doing with your life and you need to sort this out stat. Canva is the place where boring goes to die, simply logging in to Canva is guaranteed to give you about 100 creative ideas off the bat.
My pals at Pally posted a post the other day saying Self-Love is using CANVA. I couldn’t agree more.
And if photoshop quality posts with zero design skills FOR FREE was not enough for you I’ve also taken to using Canva to make my flat cleaning roster and any and all birthday cards with it too.
Can’t say this enough - get the Free Canva plan right now you won’t regret it.
03. CLICK UP
THE DEETS ☝🏼
Your Investment: Free or starting at $5USD/month
Fave Features:
Save Tasks, Lists, Folders & Spaces to Templates
Integrations for days - Google Calendar, Toggl, Slack, Zapier
Convert any list into any view you could want & filter & sort by any custom field
Inbuilt automations for expert level task mgmt
Make dashboards for task tracking & project management
It’s pretty AF & let’s me customise ALL the colours (important I know)
THE TEA ☕️
Click up is like Trello on crack. But not in a strung out way, in like a hyper focused and kind of brilliant way. As you probably know by now my background is in accounting & finance (Hey Tegan 👋🏼 ) and my linear brain LOVES click up. It’s like having the worlds best spreadsheet that has really pretty colours and also let’s you sort or filter in any way you want at the click of a button.
What I will say about click up is that it took me a hot minute to learn how to use it & you do need to sit down and think carefully about your info hierarchy to get the most out of it. BUT, even at it’s most basic level using it like a fancy spreadsheet it is still by far my favourite task management tool out there.
I use it for everything from my content calendar to tracking my analytics to making sure I stay in touch with my friends at regular intervals. (Don’t judge me, running a business is busy and we don’t want to miss a birthday do we 😂 )
If you want to stay organised as you grow and scale one things for certain you’re going to have to upgrade from pen & paper to keep track of your to do lists & better yet make sure you develop good SOP’s.
In my humble opinion click up is the most fun & sustainable tool that will grow with you as your business takes off.
WANT ACCESS TO THE TEMPLATE LIBRARY?
Chuck your deets below and you’ll be the first to know when the CoCo Template library is live and the launch party is happening complete with all the party favours 🎉
04. XERO
A quick disclaimer - this is my recommendation for companies - if you’re a sole trader (laughing at myself as I spelt this “soul trader” at first) you simply must get your hands on Hnry. Head to Hnry, sort yourself out and then skip to numero 5.
THE DEETS ☝🏼
Your Investment: Starting at $27 NZD/month
Fave Features:
Integrated bank feed for coding your transactions
Complete your GST returns via the system
Advanced reporting tools for all your financial reporting needs
Customise your charter of accounts so you can track your revenue expense categories accurately
The basics like invoicing, quotes etc
Most accountants (in NZ) wont accept anything less (haha)
THE TEA ☕️
Xero is not so much a favourite tool as an essential tool for running your business. The cost of not having a financial tracking software is not just that you wont have cool stuff, or losing you time, but it’s very difficult for you to comply with your legal & financial obligations (ie paying tax) if you are not keeping up to date & accurate records in your business.
That said, Xero is a pretty darn cool Financial tracking software it let’s you do all the normal stuff with a lot of customisation, it’s UX is pretty clean & nice and easy to follow and on top of that their support is pretty on to it when you can’t work something out.
there is ONE MORE reason that I love Xero - and it’s pretty outstanding. 💖
Xero offers a Xero Support Programme for all it’s customers where you can access fully funded counselling/psychology services through the Xero Assistance Programme.
That’s LIT - like next level customer experience stuff there Xero. Good job.
GOOGLE WORKSPACE
THE DEETS ☝🏼
Your Investment: Free or starting at $6 USD/Month
Fave Features:
Integrates with literally EVERYTHING
All the free tools that come with it, docs, slides, forms, jam boards, training platforms - so much more
Business emails are essential
I love that I can colour code the labels in my inbox 🤦🏽♀️
THE TEA ☕️
If you’re an avid blog reader you would have already heard me jam on why I love G-Suite. Again, you somewhat NEED a business email and your choices are essentially G-Suite or Outlook (I tried Hey.com once and I predict they’ll be great in about 2 years time). The reason I go G-Suite over everything is that the RANGE of tools they offer is unparalleled - they are simply better in every way and they integrate with everything natively (this is important).
If you’re working online you will inevitably end up creating a free Gmail account because you need to use G-Suite tools. You may as well have everything together.
AND - if the MX records scare the Beejeezus out of you in order to set it up - drop us a line & we can help you out with the Business Management Bundle - where we handle everything for the small fee of $250 + GST.
AND THATS A WRAP 🌯
You officially have ALL of the tea on my top 5 tools and why exactly I love them. Put on a good playlist give them a whirl and be sure to let me know how you go!
Big love always,
Megs x