Do you have favourite apps that make your life and biz easier, cheaper and/or more efficient? These are my TOP 5 Apps and Software Suites, and let me tell you, they’re worth every. damn. penny.
#1 Zoho One
I am pretty sure this is made by a bunch of coders who sit around all day wondering how they can make my world better.
I have the Zoho One package. It’s like the automation version of Adobe Creative Suite in that it has all apps included at no additional charge.
I use it for invoicing, custom forms, payment integration, custom databases, contact management systems, project management software, online sales chat, analytics, help desk software, remote help app, and lord knows what else. I use it for everything and I’ve barely brushed the surface.
Here (below) are the apps I have installed. There are many more available to me. I’ve underlined the ones I use on the daily.
#2 Google Drive – with extended space (1TB)
It took a while to convince me to trust this, but now I use it for pretty much everything now. AND, because I’m stubborn, it took a while for me to give up and pay that whopping $3/month for the space upgrade. I have no idea how much time I wasted before that with Dropbox, downloading and deleting files so there’d be room for more. Google Drive is cheaper to extend space and way easier to use in general.
I’m even considering ditching Office 365 because I get almost all the same features via Google Docs, Sheets, etc.
#3 Zoom
I hate to love it. Use it every day for coaching and virtual video production, online rehearsals and even recording tutorials. And I’ve figured out how to use ‘Close Captions’ to create transcripts – a game changer for coaching calls and long meetings!
#4 Canva
Decades of designing ads and sales & media kits, logos and layouts in InDesign or Illustrator… AND NOW the bulk of this can be done in a few clicks, using templates I actually like, and it’s done. Pro level gives you seemingly unlimited access to images and illustrations as well.
I can’t get over the fact that Canva also lets me use high grade pro images for my designs without additional charge. It’s all included in the $17 CAD/month. This is about the cost of just ONE image I would’ve had to buy from Creative Market for used in my media and sales kits, website designs, etc.
Plus, it cuts out the background of images – so if you need a pro shot of you on a transparent background, it’ll do that for you in one click. No more spending 10 minutes with a lasso in Photoshop!
Fair warning: I’m sort of an affiliate. What I mean is that if you use my link, I get bonus features. So click it!
#5 Anchor.FM
I started a podcast on a whim and to extend my content. The concept was to use audio from my video interviews (which were livestreamed on FB & IG), place them on the EntrepreneurLife Community website, and then upload them to my Entrepreneur Interviews Podcast using Anchor. Worked like a charm.
It was about two hours from the time I decided to do this, to the time I’d uploaded my first episode and sent it off to all the platforms. Anchor is free, distributes my podcast on Apple iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts and all the top platforms. Easy. Free.
BONUS #6: Elementor Pro for WordPress
Just because I can code, doesn’t mean I want to… #justsayin
Yes. I’m an affiliate. But pretty much every WordPress Site I run has Elementor Pro running in the background, making my life easier. Including this one.
Some people use Divi and other builders. I’ve found these least hassle, breakage or BS with Elementor.
Life’s just too short to constantly be reinventing the wheel.
Also, because 80% of my website design projects end with handing the site over to the client and their staff to maintain, it needs to be easy for them to do so. And they need to have creative freedom to add beautiful calls to action or input form widgets and galleries without being a coder or being afraid to break the website. And most clients wouldn’t know how to make their site mobile-friendly as well. This is easy and automatic, for the most part, with Elementor.
If I had to choose between a WordPress Template and Elementor Pro, I’d choose Elementor. If you have zero design skills, start with a template, add Elementor to make it easier to customize, and just fill in the content and branding.