8 Must-Have Online Business Tools

I get asked what business tools and resources I use to run my business a lot. So I thought I’d write a blog post to answer this question. I first want to point out that running an online business doesn’t have to include a bunch of fancy programs that cost you half of your monthly income. You just need a few tools that cover your bases in the online world, and you are set to run your business like a pro! 

For example, to run my own business successfully, I rely on eight must-have online business tools that help me stay organized, manage my team, and have that peace of mind that everything is running A-okay at the end of each day. 

Let’s dive right in.

Slack

Slack is a channel-based messaging platform that allows teams to collaborate and coordinate their work through a digital medium. My team and I use slack for almost all of our communication for our client work. Instead of searching through emails, I just ping any (or all) team members on specific projects, client wins, and general team discussions. 

Asana

Asana is a fantastic (and free!) project management tool that helps me and my team stay organized on all of our client projects. Within Asana, we can manage, collaborate, plan and execute all of our assignments and keep on top of the status of any work or projects happening across our team. It’s actually a really intuitive platform and easy to use right out of the gate.

Dubsado

Dubsado is an amazing tool and has saved me SO much time in my service-based business. While Dubsado is also considered a client management software, it’s used more for the client onboarding process rather than client projects.  

When clients are led through my sales funnel, they ultimately end up inside my Dubsado database. This platform helps me streamline client leads, client emails, invoicing, contracts, proposals, and questionnaires, so it becomes an automated process that I literally never have to worry about! 

If you want to get 25% off your Dubsado subscription –click here!

ConvertKit

Convertkit is an email marketing tool that is specifically built for creators to automate their email. Instead of pressing that send button every time I have something to tell my list, I set up my emails in Convertkit to send the emails at the appropriate time for the appropriate people.

Convertkit is really easy to use and has an excellent interface that makes setting up sequences, tagging, and building landing pages a piece of cake. Not to mention, it’s pretty affordable! 

Squarespace

I feel like you’re either a WordPress fanatic or a Squarespace lover. I am the latter. Mainly because it’s intuitive and easy to use (do you see a trend happening?), but it also has beautiful templates to choose from and amazing features that cover a variety of website needs. 

You can quickly set up a beautiful site that is personalized and uncomplicated to manage as your business grows. Everything you could possibly need in a website management service is here, including hosting, content delivery, security, and support. It’s a little pricey, but I’ve found the price 100% worth it.

Airtable

Airtable is another project organization tool that has been so helpful for my business. I can upload every single piece of my client’s projects into this visual database that works similar to a spreadsheet, except that I can add images, links, and more. I love that I can upload my Pinterest client’s Pins straight into the spreadsheet with everything else related to the Pin right there with it. Airtable has kept my client projects SO organized.

There are data analysis capabilities inside Airtable, and you can link data segments together, too. But I’ll save that for another post. Again, Airtable is an intuitive program that is easy to use, and it even has templates to help you get started!

Thrivecart

When I started selling products and courses last year, I needed a tool to process payments! After searching online, I decided to use Thrivecart, mainly because it specializes in delivering digital content and subscription services. Since everything I sell is digital, this made the most sense for me. 

Thrivecart lets me set up bump offers, upsells, and down sells. It also has flexible payment options, it’s easy to use, and it was a one-time purchase fee. 

Google Drive

With all of my client work and digital products, I need a good storage system to hold all of my files on the cloud. Not to mention, Google Drive gives me access to web-based apps like spreadsheets, docs, presentations, and forms –all of which I use in my business. It’s super easy to share files with my team members or my clients to collaborate on and execute projects. 

While I do use other tools in my business besides the ones I mentioned above, these eight tools have been my must-haves over the years as I started and grew my business. As your own business grows, other tools might be more appropriate for your biz needs. But hopefully, you can use some of these tools to help you create, manage, and grow your creative online business! 

If you have any questions about any of them, send me a message!