Discover the essential tools and software to power your online business while freeing up your time and capacity.
If you’ve been here for any period of time, you’ll know that I’m really passionate about supporting women to run businesses that thrive within the parameters of the capacity they have.
And that also means running them operationally in a way that frees up space for them to be more present in their lives, away from their work.
And that’s why you always hear me talking about the power of systems and automations.
One thing I strive to normalize is that utilizing tech doesn’t have to be impersonal, pushy or veer into the realm of “bro marketing”.
They’re morally and energetically neutral.
It’s the way people choose to utilize them that determines whether that’s the net result or not.
What they are are tools.
You get to slow down to speed by thoughtfully infusing you, your brand values and your secret sauce into your different marketing touch points and offer pathways by utilizing systems to reliably deliver that at scale.
It works for your people because it guarantees a seamless customer experience, 24/7; and it supports you because it means that you have the peace of mind knowing that the right messages are going to the right people – and in a really high-touch and intentional way – to generate sales while you’re offline and firmly in your life.
And especially when it comes to profitability, it allows all of that to happen in a way that keeps your expenses low and margins high so you can leverage both you and your team’s time for things only a person can deliver on.
So much of the early burn out that I experienced in my business – and the big monthly expenses that accumulated – was because I wasn’t truly maximizing tools and software in this way.
My offers and delivery required a lot and I was constantly creating new things in a way that prevented me from creating repeatable systems to make marketing and selling easier.
I’m in a season of life where I don’t want to be on all the time; nor do I want a huge team to manage.
I want my business to be able to hold and serve more people, with the tools and systems that we have so we can scale revenue and profits, without scaling my time.
And that’s why I’m always looking for ways to systematize anything we’re doing and report back on what’s working.
Over the years, I’ve felt it important to get comfortable sharing my revenue numbers with you, to show you what’s possible in the way that my mentors did; but I think it’s equally important to break down expenses, too.
So, all of that being said, let’s peel the curtain and discuss all of the tools and expenses powering my business and freeing my capacity right now.
MANYCHAT: We use it to direct traffic from our social media posts into our sales event in an automated way. That looks like using a trigger word that people can comment in the caption, which triggers an automated DM that shares the link to register for our sales event.
KAJABI: We use Kajabi for all of our various pages from landing pages to transaction pages – as well as for hosting all of our online education – so that people can seamlessly go from making a payment to accessing what they paid for. We also recently started using Kajabi for the private podcast for our LFB alumni membership, Traction.
EASY WEBINAR: We sell our signature offer via a webinar and it’s hosted on Easy Webinar. Once people register, they automatically get entered into an email sequence with reminders about the webinar that are sent directly from Easy Webinar so from registration to the event, all of those moving pieces take place via the platform..
CANVA: All of our webinar slides are designed by us in Canva. Again, we’ve created our own template, so that when it comes time to make tweaks or changes, we simply duplicate the template and make the necessary amendments. We also use Canva for any other design needs like graphics and ad creative.
LOOM: I record my evergreen webinars in Loom, as it allows me to record the part of my screen where my slides are so that my presenter notes are hidden. And we also use them internally within the team for feedback.
VIMEO: To host videos in a webinar platform, you need to first upload the video to a video host. There are different options like YouTube, for example, but we prefer Vimeo.
ZAPIER: We use Zapier to allow our different software to talk to each other to avoid the team having to do it manually. A lot of the software allows you to connect to different platforms, so we use Zapier in those instances where that isn’t an option.
CONVERTKIT: ConvertKit is our email service provider of choice. All of our newsletters are created there, along with all of our funnels and onboarding sequences for students.
DEADLINE FUNNEL: This is the software we use to create unique links and deadlines based on people’s IP addresses. It makes sure that everyone’s deadlines for joining before the bonuses expire are honored automatically. When the deadline passes, we redirect people to the normal sales page which has the normal pricing and no bonuses. With live events, you can set Deadline Funnel to redirect to a waitlist page instead.
LAST PASS: When you have team members, you’ll have many people needing access to certain software so we use LastPass to aggregate all of our passwords in one place and give access to contractors and team members. Once permission is granted to someone, it simply pre-populates the password so you never have to actually share the details. I use it to allow my team to have access to our company credit card to make certain purchases.
PROOF: Have you ever seen those little notifications pop up on a sales or registration page that tells you that someone just signed up and where they’re located? Well that uses a piece of software called Proof. It’s a little bit of code that you add to the pages that you want to track, and it automatically authenticates sign ups.
CLICKUP PAID PLAN: I’m a big fan of breaking down workflows and projects into clear project plans and in our business all of that happens in ClickUp. If it’s not in ClickUp, it’s not happening so that’s where the majority of our task management and communication happens. We opt for the paid plan so that we can use things like the AI feature, video recording and unlimited storage space.
TRY INTERACT: One of our most successful funnels is our quiz funnel. We host it on Interact because their analytics are far better than the others – especially for the price – which allows us to make improvements that increase our conversion rate without reinventing the wheel.
HOTJAR: This is one of the most powerful analytics tools we use. It basically allows you to see how users interact with your website, sales and registration pages to really understand behavior analytics to improve your copy, messaging and positioning. It’s been a game changer for us and I recommend all of my students in the refine and scale phase to use it.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS: This is a free one but one that we use a lot to measure where our traffic is coming from so thought I’d add this to the mix.
HELLO AUDIO: This is the platform we use to host our private podcast, UNCUT. We upload the episodes and they automatically get pushed to our members’ podcast app of choice.
VOXER: Think of the app as a walkie-talkie communication app. Kinda like voice notes in WhatsApp or Instagram DM. There’s a free option, but I use the paid option so I can access my archive of conversations. I use these to host Office Hours for LFB and Traction.
GOOGLE DRIVE: Every file and document in the business is meticulously organized inside our Google Drive and again, we opt for the paid option just because of the sheer volume of files we house inside. Whenever I’m creating something, I always start in Google Drive first.
GOOGLE FORMS: We use these for all of our testimonials and feedback forms and for things like our newsletter Ask Me Anything feature and for UNCUT submissions.
TYPEFORM: We also use Typeform to get insights as new people join our email list. We use Typeform here just because it flows better aesthetically from our sign up page.
AMERICAN EXPRESS PLATINUM COMPANY CARD: All of our company expenses goes on my company credit card, which is a game changer when it comes to booking travel from points. I’ll be sharing more of my tips on this in Sunday’s issue. If you use my link, you’ll get 22,000 points when you’re approved and spend $3k in your first three months.
In terms of other expenses, I spend $1,400/month for my assistant who works 10hrs per week and spend on average around $1,200/month on ads. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
So there you have it, those are all of my company expenses and the tech stack powering everything we do.
My intention, as always, is to pull the curtain back and candidly share what happens behind the scenes of a 7 figure business but please don’t think you need everything I use in yours. The trick is not to overcomplicate things.
If you like a tool you’re using and it’s fit for the needs you have and feels intuitive to you, stick with it.
Sometimes we can spend too much on things we’re not quite ready for or spend way too much time debating whether to use software X or software B that does exactly the same thing. And ultimately it doesn’t matter, and those aren’t the decisions you want to spend tons of time ruminating on.
I’ve shared this in the past but it’s worth the reminder.
Jeff Bezos has a really good decision making process that I love.
He distinguishes between one-way and two-way door decisions.
You can only go through a one-way door in one direction. These are the kind of decisions that are hard to come back from.
These, he says, are the ones to make slowly and thoughtful.
In two-way door decisions, you can reverse your decision without suffering enormous consequences.
These are the ones that you want to make quickly. It’s the speed with which you make these kinds of decisions that builds momentum and traction.
And that’s what I want you to really lean into when you’re making decisions about tools and software.
Is it worth spending days thinking about a decision you can easily pivot or reverse? No.
Allow yourself to be in motion.
It’s by increasing how many of those kinds of decisions that you make, that you begin to free up so much brainpower to apply to the decisions that do really matter.
