750: 10 Business Tools I Can’t Live Without

0:01Okay, I have been on this ruthless pursuit to purge any clothes that I'm not actually wearing. Like if I haven't reached for it in months, it's got to go. I am trying to be really intentional about what I bring into my closet right now, which means I am only buying pieces that I know I will actually wear and use. Revolve just gets it though. I'm literally wearing my brown Autry sneakers from there right now and my new suede purse. It fits my laptop in it. So it's basically a fancy shoulder bag that works for everything. I love finding pieces like that. Things that look good, but also work hard for my actual life.

0:35Their holiday shop is live right now with all the good stuff. Sparkly party dresses, cozy sets, cute gifts, everything you need for whatever is on your calendar. And it's all in one place, which makes shopping feel way less overwhelming. Whether it's a weekend away, a big night out or a holiday party, your dream wardrobe is just one click away. Head to revolve.com forward slash gold digger, shop my edit and take 15 % off your first order with the code gold digger. Fast two day shipping, easy returns. it's literally the only place you need to shop from. That's revolve.com forward slash gold digger to shop by favorites and get 15 % off your first order with the code gold digger offer available for a limited time.

1:15So happy shopping. What works for me? What was a waste of time? Where am I having gaps? What did I have too much of? What did I not have enough of? And so really leaning on my calendar as like a resource and a space, but also just really looking at it as a way to define a rhythm for myself and my year. Hey, my name is Jenna Kutcher and I am obsessed with all things business, marketing numbers, and helping you to navigate both the messy and the magical seasons of this thing called life. I'm a small town mama who took a$300 camera, grew a successful photo biz, and now I work from home and run a seven figure online business.

1:52I teach you the tried and true secrets to building a career you adore. Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money, hardship, growth, loss, and marketing are all topics we discuss here. Think of this as your one-stop shop for happy hour with a gal pal mixed with business school. Pull up a seat, make sure you're cozy, and get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. So if you were to see the amount of work that me and my team get done every single week, you would think that there were at least 30 people on our team. Like seriously, People are always shocked when I tell them how lean my team is.

2:28But there's one big secret that my small but mighty team has, and that is that we don't do it alone. My team and I rely on a ton of different tools for running our own business. And I'm so excited to spend today walking you through each tool. Rather than you having to scour the internet and get 10 million different opinions when you Google, what is the best software for X, Y, or Z, let me literally do the work for you because I'll tell you, we've probably tried and tested just about every single thing. I'm going to break it all down because there are a lot of different tools out there that could be beneficial for your business, but maybe you're wondering, is it worth it?

3:11Is it actually going to help? And what do I use that tool for? Well, today is your episode. And before we dive in, I just have to make a note I am not a tool junkie. In fact, I am generally speaking, not a super early adopter when it comes to tools. Usually different types of tools and software and things freak me out because I'm not really great with tech. And so if you are someone like me who is often leery about adding something new or trying something different, I just want you to know you are not alone. So these are ones that are easy to use, easy to implement, and absolutely life-changing.

3:48Let's dive on into 10 business tools that we could not live without here on team Jenna Kutcher. Sales super teams aren't built overnight. They require unicorn level talent, hours upon hours of training, huge bottomless budgets, and the perfect mix of impossible luck and 24 seven work. Or they just have a better sales platform like HubSpot Sales Hub. It's an all in one platform filled with all the tools and insights to deliver personalized communications people are looking for. Smarter prospecting? Check. Faster revenue? Yep. Scales with you? It sure does. Plus, with tons of AI-powered features, teams can spend less of the day on boring, time-sucking tasks and focus on growing the relationships that matter most.

4:34Let's face it, your old platform just isn't cutting it. It's cumbersome. It's expensive. It's causing a rift between marketing and sales. I could go on, but let's focus on the keys to winning. Are you ready for your sales team to reach all-star selling status? Sales Hub is a dream come true for sellers. Visit hubspot.com slash sales to stop dreaming and start selling with Sales Hub. That's hubspot.com slash sales. One of the toughest parts of starting and growing your own business is figuring out how to use social media. Like how do you talk about your products without sounding salesy? What should you even talk about?

5:12There's a recent episode of a great podcast called This Is Small Business that talks all about this. You'll learn how to reach your customers with social media, how often you should post, and how to infuse fun into your online identity. Speaking of fun, host Andrea Marquez is joined by none other than Kat Norton, Miss Excel herself, who somehow managed to make spreadsheet formulas joyful. So you know this episode has some great advice. The episode is called How to Create a Social Media Strategy to Reach New Customers, and you can go listen to it right now wherever you get your podcasts. This Is Small Business answers so many of these kinds of questions, questions that all entrepreneurs have.

5:52Whether you're dreaming of starting your business, looking to take a part-time side hustle full-time, or you're a few years in and you're ready to grow, this show covers it all. Learn more about how to start and grow your biz by listening to This Is Small Business, an original podcast from Amazon. Big thanks to This Is Small Business for supporting Gold Digger. Go show them some love on your favorite podcast app. Before we dive in, I want to make a very important note that every single one of these tools is going to be linked up in today's show notes and show description. Now, these are literally the tools that we are using day in and day out.

6:29They are tried and true. And if I have a partner or an affiliate code for you, those are going to be linked as well. So a lot of these have special free offers at zero expense to you. I get to refer you to them because I love them. So basically, if I can save you some money or get you a free trial, I have done all that. You can click the links in the show notes or show description to take advantage of all these different offers of my absolute favorite things. Okay, let's dive on in. So the first thing, if somebody told me, Jenna, you can only pick one thing that you have in your business, one software or one tool that you get to use, this is the one I would choose.

7:09So the one that I would choose is called Monday, monday.com. This is what we use for our project management. So I will never forget five years ago, I was coming out of postpartum after having Coco. I remember coming back online and feeling like I have no idea what I need to do. I would literally like open my computer and sit there and be like, I know I should be doing something. I don't know what to do. I had no idea where projects were at, where tasks were at. I was the one that was basically pushing every single thing forward, which also meant that I was the linchpin in my business. We had not used any project management tool.

7:46Monday.com changed my life and it changed my team's lives when we implemented it. And I have to give a huge shout out to my right hand girl, Marissa, because she's the one that picked this one out. We picked it out for a few different reasons. So there are a bunch of different project management softwares out there. This one is the prettiest. It's like the most visually appealing and it can connect with a lot of different apps and things that you might already be using in your business. So there are a ton of different integrations. What I love about monday.com is that you can create so many different boards where you are tracking projects from start to finish.

8:19You can assign team members, you can assign deadlines, you can assign status updates, you can leave notes, you can upload documents. So this is basically like the hub of my entire business. This is where I log into every day where my team can assign me different items that they need me to review or add input on. It's where my to-do list lives. It's where every project from start to finish lives. So just before recording this, I popped in to follow up on a huge project we're working on. And I literally could click to the Monday board and see the status of everything. What's in process, what's done, what we're waiting on being completed, like everything.

8:54We also use this as the hub to save all of our resources. So if you are someone who is constantly scouring your Google Drive or Dropbox to find different files or folders, you're not organized. That was me. Monday.com has made it so that we are super, super organized in how we are saving our files and downloads. As a reminder, all of these resources are going to be linked in today's show notes and show description. And we have amazing bonuses for you. So monday.com is the number one thing I use. It is amazing. And I literally always have a tab with it open. That is like my ride or die. If I could only have one, I'd choose it.

9:33Okay, the next thing that I would say that I love and use every day is a system. I don't even know what to call it. It's called front.com front. So this is an inbox management tool. And we started using this probably over a year ago, maybe even two years ago at this point, probably two years ago. And I love this because basically it's this email management system that helps you sort through all of your incoming emails. You can assign emails. You can actually have conversations with team members below emails so that it's not going back and forth and adding to people's inboxes, but you can discuss things like under the radar, which is super helpful.

10:15And I love this because it's really helped me get to a place of inbox zero, which I never thought was a reality for me. And so what's beautiful is Steph, my VA goes through all of the emails that come in every day. And her goal is to assign me no more than five emails. And these are emails that only I can respond to. Otherwise she tries to take care of everything else. And so it's this beautiful way that we can test emails that we're going to send out to our email list and comment suggestions and feedback without again, doing a huge chain of back and forth. And it's just really cleaned up our inbox.

10:47It's front.com. I really, really like it. And again, I use this. So basically it integrates and pulls in all of our Gmail activity into one space. And then it just makes it a lot easier to assign emails to different team members and kind of save you from the inbox overwhelm, to be honest. And trust me, I get very overwhelmed by my inbox. The next thing is new to us. So this is within the last year and it's G4 and Looker Studio dashboards. So this is kind of a collaborative thing. I recently did an episode about measurement and why I'm like so nerdy, excited about measurement when it comes to analytics and tracking insights on basically everything in my business.

11:28So we hired this measurement company about a year ago, and they've basically set up these incredible dashboards for every area of our business where we can see this is how our landing pages are converting this, how our email list is growing this, how many sales we've done each week. Like they're beautiful, they're visual, they're color coded, they're everything that Jenna Kutcher loves. And so relying on G4, which is basically Google analytics, they recently did this update to G4 and combining it with using these Looker Studio dashboards, we now have like a whole different level of doing business.

12:02And I love this because it's been able to take our information and organize it in ways that we want to see it. So if you are like me, a lot of times, if I were to go into Google Analytics, I didn't even know what I was looking at. Like I didn't know why certain things were important. I didn't know why certain things were highlighted. I didn't really understand how to use that information to lead to actual action. And so having this G4 Looker Studio combo that is facilitated through our measurement team, this is a tab that I am having open each week. And it's also a tab that I'm encouraging my team to get comfortable on.

12:39One thing I've realized is that a lot of us are uncomfortable looking at and reading data and understanding how that data informs our decisions. And so leveraging these beautiful dashboards, I'm having my team hop in and say, okay, what questions should you be asking? What tweaks should we be making? What should we be implementing? And so first things first, if you are not on Google Analytics yet, you need to figure out how to place the code on your website, even if you have zero interest in it. This is a way that you can start gathering data on who's visiting your website, how they're getting there, how long they're staying there, what they're clicking to.

13:12It's going to give you all sorts of insight. Even if you just implant the code, which if you Google it, it will walk you through step by step by step and you don't do anything else. You are going to be so thankful because when the time comes and you get nerdy like me and you want to have things like dashboards, you have to have Google analytics installed because you can't go back and get data. You can only get data that you've collected with the code installed on your site. So do yourself a favor. If you do not have that yet, even if you have zero interest in doing it right now, go get that code on your website so it can start tracking all of your traffic and insights.

13:45And I'll tell you that having measurement and dashboards has been so game changing for our business. And again, nerdy, but I'm super excited about it. It's time for Cyber Monday, Dell technology's biggest sale of the year. You'll find the lowest prices of the year on select Dell PCs like the Dell 16 plus with Intel Core ultra processors. And with built-in advanced AI features, it's the PC that helps you do more faster. From smarter multitasking to extended battery life, these PCs handle the busy work so you can focus on what actually matters to you. Plus, earn Dell rewards and enjoy perks like free shipping, expert support, price match guarantee, and flexible financing options.

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15:00Look, I've become kind of a systems nerd and anything that gives me more space in my day, I'm all in. And a reliable connection is a huge part of that because when the internet lags or cuts out, everything pauses and suddenly the simplest tasks take forever. I learned really early on that dependable internet, it's not a luxury, it is a must. Whether you're a content creator like me, a restaurant owner, or running a busy dry cleaning business, you need that steady connection to support your team and your clients. That's why I'm excited to share a solution for my fellow business owners. Spectrum Business keeps businesses of all types connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, and mobile services, all with connectivity solutions built for your budget.

15:42And they have a truly incredible offer. Business owners can get free business internet advantage forever when you add four or more mobile lines. It's simple with no contracts and no added fees. Visit spectrum.com forward slash free for life to learn how you can get business internet free forever. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Okay. The next one is ManyChat. So I have talked about this topic and shared about why this has been so transformative. So ManyChat is the one tool that got me excited about creating content. Again, what is ManyChat? So ManyChat is a software that integrates with platforms like Instagram and Facebook to allow you to set up those automations that are called chat funnels.

16:34These automations look like when you go onto my Instagram and I say, you know, comment the word pod and I'll send you my free podcast training. And then you comment the word pod and all of a sudden in your DMs, you're getting messages from me where you can register for the training. It's super seamless. It's super slick. It's amazing. Many chat is a platform that allows you to do that. Now, Now, ManyChat changed the game for me and my marketing, but it's also changed the game for so many of you. I have talked about this topic so many times in the last year because I definitely think it is the most effective strategy to be using with your content creation.

17:08So if you want to see how this works and what it looks like, go on to Instagram right now, search for me, Jenna Kutcher, and type the word chat. Just send me a DM with the word chat, C-H-A-T, and you can literally see how the automation works. And you can also experience it and learn more about how you can do this in your own business. If you are someone who is struggling to tie creating content to a true ROI in your business, this could be the ticket for you. And the cool thing is, is if you're not ready to start using an automation, you can start using some of the strategies that we're using with automation inside of your own content creation process to start to see that, whoa, this could really work and simplify things for you.

17:51The thing that I love about ManyChat is that I can go to bed at night and my Instagram can still be serving people, connecting people to what they need and gathering incredible insights and information and even email addresses for me while I sleep. And so while I personally want to respond to every single comment and DM, a lot of it can be tackled with automation that gets people closer to the finished result without requiring a human to manually be doing it. Now, again, this strategy helped me earn over$1.7 million in the time that I've been using it. And it's also helped me gather 50 ,000 new email subscribers based on my followers, like people who were already following me, who already enjoyed my content, but hadn't actually subscribed to my email list.

18:35So there is so much value in it. I absolutely love ManyChat. It is an amazing company. And if you are someone like me, I used ManyChat years and years and years ago. and their thing at the time was that they could send Facebook messages to people. If you were someone who used it years ago, stopped using it, it is totally different now. So get on back with it. Again, I have a link and a code for you in today's show description and the show notes. It's all listed out, but ManyChat is the real MVP, especially in connecting your content to real tangible results. The next one is HoneyBook. So if you have listened to the show since day one, you might remember HoneyBook was the first and only sponsor of the Gold Digger podcast in those early days.

19:22They believed in me and the show and the vision of the show since day one, which is super honorable. I have been using HoneyBook. So here's a funny story. I bought HoneyBook on December 31st, years and years and years ago to get it as a tax write-off. this was when I was a wedding photographer and I was literally still doing all U.S. Postal Service mail contracts and checks so anytime a bride would book me I would mail them a contract they would have to mail it back to me and checks it was I had this file cabinet in fact I still have this file cabinet I just like can't throw it away of all of the paper contracts the paper trails that I was tracking I had this like little tracking sheet where I'd have to mark down like invoice sent, received, deposited, everything was manual.

20:09HoneyBook changed the game for me on this one. So what's really interesting is that as my business has evolved over the years, I have still used HoneyBook basically on a daily basis. So back in the day as a wedding photographer, I used it as my project management tracker for all of my clientele. So what's beautiful about HoneyBook is that you can send out invoices, you can get contracts signed, you can send out automated messages during a certain flow. So for me, it was like, email my brides one month out, two weeks out, one week out, here's the information that they need. And basically, I created these amazing templates, brochures, different things inside a HoneyBook and had that entire system automated.

20:51And then on wedding days, I would be able to pull up forms that my clients had filled out saying their parents' names and their bridesmaids' names and everything, and everything was in one place. So I wasn't like searching through my inbox folders, like, where's that one PDF? It was all in one place. It was like this pipeline from start to finish with a consumer. Now we use HoneyBook for a lot of our internal processes. So if somebody new joins the team, they're signing contracts or signing job descriptions, NDAs, whatever that is. When somebody comes on this podcast, we have a whole podcast contract they fill out.

21:22So it is like the home of a lot of our legalities. And it is also the place where we send invoices out of. So it's beautiful because it can integrate with things like QuickBooks, where if you are someone who is collecting in payments or you're offering payment plans to your customers, using HoneyBook can be a way where you can automate those processes, have automatic follow-ups, and have all of your accounting information on one platform that you can literally connect with QuickBooks or export for your accountants. So I love HoneyBook. I use it. And it's really cool to see how it's been applicable in my business from day one of this podcast, which was 2017 until today and how we've been able to use it throughout the entire evolution of my own business.

22:05And it's still been a trusted and loved tool. Okay. The next one could be life-changing for you. It is called show it. So show it is the website platform that I use. I cannot tell you how many times I get asked, where are you hosting your website? So ShowIt is similar to say a WordPress or a Squarespace, but it's its own platform. And I have been on ShowIt for years and years and years. And I've gotten so many of my friends over on to ShowIt. Now here's what's really interesting about ShowIt. When I first joined, ShowIt was kind of a niche hosting site, mainly for photographers. That's like the niche that they were in.

22:49They were amazing website hosts for people that shot photos. It was very geared towards that. Now over the years, I can't stop talking about it. And so all of a sudden they're starting to get digital marketers and authors and course creators and coaches. And it really has expanded. I love show it so much. I have used both WordPress and Squarespace. Show it is so much easier to use than either of those. So what I love about show it is that it's very drag and drop. And so I feel like a lot of times when you were working on other templates, like you couldn't actually like get things visually how you actually wanted them.

23:28It was very clunky. Things wouldn't save or it would crash. When I had WordPress, which is what I had for many years, I would have to email my designer who would have to email a coder, which was usually in a different country, just to get it to change from like, here are my 2016 rates to changing the number to 2017. And it would take like three weeks for just that one little change to happen. And it was expensive. Now I can log into my website, I can build out pages by myself, the number of pages that I've built on my own website, I can change out photos, I can change out words, I can fix typos, I can swap things like I have built over 100 pages for my business.

24:07And this is not an exaggeration in show it. I love that I feel confident in it. I love that I don't need to understand coding. I love that I don't have to have a designer. I love that I am able to go in and tweak and fix things. And guess what? My team can too. It is such a user-friendly platform. And so basically show it is like the host, the place where you're building it. Now, secondary to show it and what is like peanut butter and jelly with it are tonic site templates. So if you love my website, I have to tell you a little secret. My website is based on a website template. My web designer, Jen Olmsted, I have been with her for probably five or six years, used a template to build my website.

24:53You know why? Because her templates are so beautiful. I was like, Hey, you don't even need to reinvent the wheel on my site. Use this template because I love it. And let's just tweak it to make it my own. So basically Tonic creates templates that work with ShowIt. So you need ShowIt as the host. Tonic is like the beautiful design build out. And so I am obsessed with my website. And if you are someone who cannot say the same, you got to go check out Tonic. Again, linked in the show notes and the show description. And we also have a code for you on that. And what I love is that you can take any template and you can make it feel so your own.

25:30Nobody will know it's a template. just by changing colors, pictures, fonts. Like it is incredible how quickly you can customize. I know people that have literally got their website up in one day who have been waiting for years, right? Or been waiting on the designer and then waiting on the coder. It is so easy to use and user-friendly. And as someone who used to be very afraid of tech, who is still not considering herself a guru, I love that I can go in and basically build out a page or tweak a page any day of the week without feeling concerned that I'm going to break the whole thing. So again, Show It is like the base, the foundation.