The 7 best online tools your business needs in 2022
It’s time to cut the learning curve and go with a tried-and-tested recommendation, LinkedIn friends.
There are affiliate links on this page which means I am likely to receive a small commission if you purchase something through a link at no extra cost to you. Howevah, please know that I only ever recommend products I have personally used and love! Here they are!
1. Call booking software (and power hour payments)
💯 Recommended: Book Like a Boss (BLAB) starting from $7.50 per month, plus there's a handy 14-day free trial to take it for a spin first
What I expect: When a prospective client books a discovery call, I need them to complete a couple of quick questions to help with my pre-call research, and find a suitable time in my calendar. I want them to automatically receive a calendar invite with a Zoom link, and an appointment reminder beforehand to reduce no-shows.
🤩 Why you'll love BLAB:
I fell in love with BLAB in 2019 and sold ALL my power hours and even digital products there for a very long time! It hooked up to my calendar, gave me a whole load of flexibility in terms of call durations, pre-call questions, buffer time before/after calls, limits to the number of calls accepted per day, and more.
Honestly, it's brilliant! And the only reason I stopped using it for e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g was because I created a membership which needed more complex rules in terms of trial periods, recurring billing, and other boring stuff). I still use BLAB for discovery calls.
What I used before: Calendly and Acuity. Both were okay (not awful - not great) ... but BLAB ticked all boxes for me.
🔗 Check out Book Like a Boss (BLAB) here.
2. A one-stop-shop for selling power hours, memberships, subscriptions
💯 Recommended: ThriveCart - special limited lifetime offer from $495
What I expect: For clients to be able to easily navigate towards a sales page that is both uncomplicated and informative. And for them to have the option to pay by card or PayPal (who doesn't love using their PayPal credit towards a new purchase!). Plus ways to create free trials, recurring subscriptions, AND for the client to be able to self-serve/manage their own account/payment details. I also wanted an easy way to create affiliate links and automate their kick-back payments.
🤩 Why you'll love ThriveCart:
One-time payment. Lifetime access. No joke! It's amazing!!
I transitioned to use this for ALL of my online sales pages, checkout carts, and order bumps. As of May 2022, and less than a year after buying ThriveCart, I've generated £14,019 of sales (pretty phenomenal ROI there when it only cost less than £600 for lifetime access!).
As well as high-converting cart pages, you can also easily create one-click upsell funnels, bump offers, trials, recurring payments and much more.
It integrates seamlessly with other software, too - I use it with ActiveCampaign to further automate the purchasing process.
What I used before:
Kajabi: way too expensive when the product is lower priced and/or in the early launch stages and not yet generating regular sales to cover software operational costs.
Creating a simple PayPal button - the process was complicated and I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to test it without putting transactions through on my own card/refunding myself. It was a massive PITA.
MemberVault - I do actually love MemberVault and I host my training materials there, but the payment options didn't offer the flexibility I wanted.
🔗ThriveCart - special limited lifetime offer from $495
3. Project management software
💯 Recommended: ClickUp - free, with extra functionality from $5 per month
What I expect: An easy way to oversee and keep projects on track across my business. To quickly convert emails into tasks with assignees and deadlines, and have a daily view of what needs to be done so that nothing gets lost in the inbox. To get everything out of my head and into a platform so that I minimise mental clutter (recurring tasks in particular!). To invite team members so that everyone knows what they need to be doing and by when.
🤩 Why you'll love ClickUp:
"One app to replace them all" is what they say - and I have to agree! Believe me, I’ve used a LOT of task and project management tools in my time (Todoist, Trello, Asana, and more). ClickUp is heads and shoulders above the rest!
Plus – there’s heaps of functionality that you can use for free (whereas the other platforms charge for that kinda stuff).
What I used before:
Trello - this works great as a task management system for visual thinkers, but I needed something more complex and what I'd call more of a project management system.
Todoist - I LOVED the simplicity of this for years, but I felt like I outgrew it. It didn't have great task dependencies and the list-based structure didn't work well for visual thinkers.
Asana - I know it's a favourite of many, but the basic functionality feels clunky, and if I want to use any of the extra features, the price isn't justifiable (plus the last time I checked - paid users had to buy two spots... it wasn't available for a solopreneur).
TeamWork - it looked like it had come straight out of the 90s and should be hooked up to a dot-matrix printer. Not pretty to look at and not at all great for visual thinkers.
🔗 ClickUp - free, with extra functionality then from $5 per month
4. Time tracking
💯 Recommended: timeBro - £12 per month (min of three months) >> I integrate with the free version of Toggl
What I expect: to be able to easily track and report time spent on billable and non-billable tasks so that I can identify efficiencies (or time sucks!).
🤩 Why you'll love timeBro: Track your billable (and non-billable!) time without it feeling like a drag or PITA!
timeBro automatically records all programs and displays your working day – to help you remember every minute. This saves 75% of your time spent on time tracking, apparently! And I can believe it. Super easy to use.
See also: Why you need to start tracking your time (and how it’s quicker than you might think). And that does NOT mean it’s a way to 10x your productivity and hustle your socks off for a few more hours each day. Nor is time tracking only ever useful for those who have hourly rates. #MythBusters.
What I used before: tbh, I started out using Toggl years ago and it has loads of great reporting functionality (I love how it integrated with timeBro for ease of use). I've also used MinuteDock (I liked that it gave my own clients a log in so they could pull their own time reports!), and Teamwork (because time tracking was part of the project management software).
5. Launch planning - project timelines
💯 Recommended: Launch List for Rebels - $37
What I expect: an easy and straightforward way to project plan out a launch in Excel prior to plugging it into a task management system. I want to know exactly what I (and my team) need to be doing and when so that the launch can be as proactive as possible with minimal stress, worry and lastminute-ness!
🤩 Why you'll love Launch List for Rebels:
"Launch List" is a magical spreadsheet that will generate a totally custom and step-by-step launch task list for you within 10 seconds so you never need to stress again 😱
What I used before: spreadsheets I'd created myself - which were fine, but Launch list took my launch planning to another freakin' level!
6. The best lifetime deals and special offers
💯 Recommended: AppSumo > get $10 towards your first purchase
What I expect: to find new tools/systems that will improve efficiency and profitability in my business, and to snaffle a lifetime deal or a bargain price.
🤩 Why you'll love AppSumo: AppSumo helps me quickly discover incredibly innovative products (this is how I found out about Book Like a Boss in 2019) that boost productivity and streamline my business
What I used before: I was looking at more well-known brands which were often costly in comparison to a lifetime deal on AppSumo for a start-up with pretty much identical functionality.
🔗 Sign-up for App Sumo here and get $10 towards your first purchase
7. The most perfect cards and little gifts for friends and clients
💯 Recommended: thortful (UK-based) - from £3.39 for a card, £8.99 for a card plus yummy chocs > 30% off
Okay - so less of a "tool" but hear me out...
What I expect: Super funny/cute/original cards that truly bring a smile to the recipient's face (if you're old enough to remember the Royal Mail ads, I wanted a "saw this and thought of you" moment).
🤩 Why you'll love thortful: thortful is a UK-based creative card marketplace supporting a community of designers, illustrators and photographers who create beautiful, unique greeting cards (most of which you won't find on the high street!).
thortful believe that creators should be appropriately rewarded for their creative talents, so they pay them an industry-leading royalty rate too - they deserve nothing less!
🔗 30% off your order with this link
What I used before: Generic cards that served the purpose and were okay and did the job... I just didn't LOVE them.
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