PP 115: The 5 Tools that Help Me Life-Proof My Business
Quick Show Notes: The 5 Tools that Help Me Life-Proof My Business
As a mompreneur, I never truly know what each new day will bring. In this episode, I share the 5 tools that help me life-proof my business.
Episode Transcription
At the time of this recording, I am a mom of 5. I have 8 cats and a dog, and life is a little bit crazy.
If you haven’t already listen to one of the earlier episodes, I encourage you to go back and listen to Episode 1 which you can find at TheKimSutton.com/001 and you’ll learn a little bit more about me.
But before you do that, I want you to know that 8 cats is not a normal in my house. Last month my cat Fame had 5 kittens. So, as of right this moment, I have five cats jumping around my office and that helps inspire today’s episode.
The 5 Tools that Help Me Life-Proof My Business
Today’s episode is all about the 5 tools that life-proof my business. In this technological age we can often think that with our wireless devices, with our desktop computers, and our smartphones, and our tablets, and our laptops that we are equipped to deal with anything. But let me tell you – it doesn’t always work that way.
That was a cat by the way.
Cords get chewed through. Tornadoes go through town. Yes, a tornado went through my town earlier this summer. Hurricanes just hit, unfortunately while I am recording this episode people are dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. Blizzards and thunderstorms happen. Kids have sick days and sporting events. I think you get me. So, through all that, we need to set up a business that we can essentially operate from anywhere.
The tools I’m gonna share with you are allowing me to do just that. The first tool in full disclosure actually two tools.
The 5 Tools that Help Me Life-Proof My Business – 1 and 2
The first one is Infusionsoft, which is my CRM, and the second is Memberium. Memberium is the software which allows me to give customers access to specific pages of my website where they can download tools, resources, courses, and programs that they purchased from me, and Infusionsoft is the program that allows me to do all of my marketing except payments, and then distribute you on the appropriate timely basis that material to my clients.
The 5 Tools that Help Me Life-Proof My Business – Number 3
The third tool is Harvest, which is my accounting software. I love Harvest. I can set up recurring retainer payments to clients. I can invoice for both me and my team. I can see income reports for the whole year or previous years, and it’s just so robust. I love the way that harvest works. Before I continue I just want to let you know that all the tools and resources that I’m talking about you will be able to find links to in the show notes at TheKimSutton.com/PP115.
The 5 Tools that Help Me Life-Proof My Business – Number 3
The third tool that I love is Dropbox. Now, I’ve had Dropbox since I started my business in 2012, but I never really used it to its fullest potential until just this year. Everything that I create either for me or a client is now safe to Dropbox, so that, I can access it from anywhere. Should heaven forbid my house burned down. I know that I can go to the library, and pick up right where I left off. I can also share any of the files that I’ve created with my team, and with my clients. All the files are saved in one central location and can be split into folders for easy organization.
The 5 Tools that Help Me Life-Proof My Business – Number 4
The fourth tool that I especially love is the Google Suite. Now I know there are a lot of different tools in the Google Suite, so, I am just going to encompass them all in one. I use Google for my email. I use Google slides to create presentations. Google Docs to easily create email swipe files for clients. And Google Spreadsheets because it’s just as easy as Excel, and again I can share easily with clients. What I love most about the application such as slides, docs and spreadsheets is the fact that more than one of us can be in the file editing at the same time. There’s no longer any reason for us to be emailing back and forth after revisions are made and updates are made in real time.
The 5 Tools that Help Me Life-Proof My Business – Number 5
The fifth and last tool that I especially love to help me life-proof my business is Trello. Trello helps me organize projects for my business as well as for clients businesses. We can bring all of the team members in, assigned tasks, upload files, create calendars and much much more. Regardless of where we are. We can constantly be updating the project status and we can even integrate Trello with other applications such as Slack, Dropbox, or Google Drive. Again for links to any of the tools that I have mentioned you can visit my website at TheKimSutton.com/PP115.
With all that said go forth and have a positive and productive day!
