Recommended Tools
We agree that in business the most important thing is the vision, strategy and skills. However, the choice of tools that will help us to realize them is equally important.
Good choice of tools will provide us with the flexibility and speed.
The wrong choice can effectively hinder our activities.
Below you will find a list of the most needed tools to automate your business up. All presented tools are proven in daily operation, because we use it or we used them yourself or on behalf of our clients. The list will progressively grow, so be sure you looked there from time to time.
If you have any suggestions for other tools or have additional questions about the presents, please write an email. We are happy to answer questions and tell you how to practically start business automation.
Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that if you buy one of them we will receive a commission for the sale. Always think about your purchasing decision, because only you know best, do you really need the product.
The Essential Tools
Every business needs the income to live, these tools help you generate them. First, show the best side (website), then enchant the quality of customer contact you (marketing automation) and, finally, present your offer in a perfect sales process (CRM). These tools are our must have.
LiveSpace - sell smarter. Sales CRM for teams that aim high. Make your sales process easier, set goals, and always have all the information about your customers right at your fingertips. Do you know why 98% of customers are satisfied LiveSpace CRM? That's because this software improves the quality of the collected data, facilitates teamwork, and boosts sales results.
ActiveCampaign - Your email list is one of the most important assets of your business website. But many email systems are a huge headache to manage and lack the flexibility to create awesome automated sequences. Others can do automation but are incredibly expensive or complicated. Active Campaign is neither. It's a very easy to use, very affordable yet very powerful email marketing system you can use from day 1 with your website.
Thrive Themes Membership - Thrive is the marketing framework we use on top of WordPress. They provide us with themes, lead generation plugins (pop ups, in post call to action etc), Landing pages creation and all sorts of amazing goodies that help us make traffic convert into money. We highly recommend you become a member, it's very affordable and the software brings immense value to your business.
WordPress Themes
Once you have your WordPress site up, you need a theme and framework that will allow you to do things like collect emails, format your content and overall make your site do what you want and look pro. Here are the top tools we use:
Thrive Themes - ($49 for a single site license)
Thrive Themes - We use the entire Thrive framework for our own sites (this site is built on Focus Blog). The themes are optimised for conversion and speed while giving you the tools you need to run your marketing fast and easy.
WordPress Plugins
WordPress plugins allow you to add a great range of functionalities to your site, they're easy to install in just a few clicks and can save you a lot of money in development costs. Here are the main ones we use:
Yoast SEO - (Freemium)
This plugin could easily be a paid plugin (and there is a premium version but the free version will do just fine) and will handle all your SEO needs on WordPress, from titles to meta tags to sitemaps, this is your one stop SEO shop for WordPress.
Ninja Forms - ($99 for a single license)
Unlock unlimited for possibilities (without code) on WordPress with this fantastic plugin. Wether you want to do surveys, advanced order forms, conditional forms or plug it into any other service or payment gateway, Gravity forms can do it.
Sumo - (Freemium)
Sumome is a collection of useful tools for marketers all in one package. Email captures, heatmaps, contact forms, analytics integrations, share buttons. Check it out because their free version is actually worth using!​
Productivity
Running your business involves managing a lot of moving parts. If you don't have efficient systems and delegation in place, you are going to drown under the tasks. Here is what we use to keep ourselves on check:
Nozbe - (Freemium for Basic)
Simply Get Everything Done. Busy people and effective teams get tasks and projects done thanks to Nozbe system and apps for the Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iPad and iPhone. Get organized today in your office or on the go. Alone or with a team.
Evernote - (Freemium for Basic)
Take notes, capture web pages, capture images, organise your notes and access them from anywhere for free. There is a reason why Evernote is worth more than the New York Times itself.
Goalscape - (Freemium for Basic)
It’s a neurological fact: Goal setting activates our inner reward system. This system is the basis of drive and motivation. If we want to increase our drive and motivation, we need to be clear about the goals we want to achieve. Goalscape helps to gain this clarity and at the same time fosters the motivational energy that is required to succeed.
Email Marketing
Staying in touch with your fans is the life and blood of your online business and email is a fantastic way to do that. Email has more users than Facebook and a higher reach than any other medium. Plus, it's owned by you, not by a social network or anyone that can decide to shut you down or change the rules.
FreshMail - (Free for up to 500 subscribers)
FreshMail is a basic but solid autoresponder and email marketing system. It doesn’t have too many bells and whistles, but it’s also not overly complicated. Very reasonable pricing makes this the number one choice to start out with.
Lead Generation
The 2 main goals of your website are to generate leads and to generate sales. Anything that helps it do better in either of these is worth investing in. Here are the tools we use for our sites to generate leads:
Thrive Leads - (from $67)
Thrive leads allows you to handle everything that has to do with lead generation on your site. Opt in pop ups, content upgrades, Opt in forms, slide boxes, hello bar types opt in, they also offer the best segmentation on the market.
Landing Pages Creation
If you want to do business online, blog posts and WordPress pages are just not enough. Sometimes you need to build "landing pages" for your email campaign, for your PPC etc. Sadly, WordPress is not very good at these by default but with these tools you should have it covered. Here's what we use:
Thrive Landing Pages - (from $59)
Thrive landing pages plugs into your WordPress site and lets you design branded landing pages just like you want them. Unlike most other landing page systems it's a one off payment instead of a monthly payment making it the best value for money tool in terms of landing pages!
Marketing Automation
In every business comes the moment that email marketing is not enough. Then there is the marketing automation, where you can fully track and manage customer relationships. Here you can set up various automatic actions that will give the customer what they will need at the right moment.
ActiveCampaign - (from $9/month)
Active Campaign starts at $9/month yet allows you to do what some $1,000/month platforms can't do. You can setup advanced automation, it connects with most apps on the market and it's incredibly easy to use (a lot more than the other email apps).
CRM + Sales Automation
Collecting and analyzing data about your customers is crucial for any business. CRM systems allow you to gather all your communication information with the client and its effects in one place. An important element is the control and optimization of the sales process, so as to sell more easily and more.
LiveSpace - (from $19/month)
Sales CRM for teams that aim high. Make your sales process easier, set goals, and always have all the information about your customers right at your fingertips. Do you know why 98% of customers are satisfied LiveSpace CRM? That's because this software improves the quality of the collected data, facilitates teamwork, and boosts sales results.
Business Automation
Thanks to the small automation of daily work, you can gain more time than you would expect. With such services, such automations are simple and fun.
Zapier - (Freemium for Basic)
Connect your apps and automate workflows. Easy automation for busy people. Zapier moves info between your web apps automatically, so you can focus on your most important work.
Helpdesk/Customer Support
You've probably heard the importance of good customer service. It's true, because very often through the prism of service customers form their opinion about our company. The tools available make it easier to provide good service and control the process at the same time.
FreshDesk - (Freemium for Basic)
Fully featured customer support solution, which includes ticketing system, support forum and feedback forums, as well as lots of automation and monitoring tools.
Outsourcing, Hiring Temp Staff
The best way to speed up work on projects is to find the right specialist or take advantage of ready-made solutions. The following services will provide both.
Good place to hire staff for small to medium projects. Alternative freelance marketplace.
Money Transfers
Whether in private life or in business sometimes you have to send money abroad. It is not worth overpaying for this bank. I often use this site because they have the best currency conversion and no hidden costs.
Send money with the real exchange rate. Banks could charge you up to 5% in hidden costs when sending money to any bank account abroad. TransferWise is up to 8x cheaper. It's only fair.
More recommended tools & resource lists coming soon, including:
- Invoice Software
- Online Meeting & Webinar Platforms
- Project & Task management
- Sales Funnels
- Payment Platforms
- Membership
- Affiliate/selling platforms