While every business is wonderfully different, there are some key tools every great entrepreneur knows they need to keep their business running smoothly and creating the impact to change lives. Today I’m sharing the top 10 tools in my toolbox that have helped me become more efficient at serving my clients consistently well. 

1. Start with Why

If you have never read the book Start with Why stop right now and at least watch this video!  Simon explains how great leaders and business owners communicate through their why. This is truly one of the best ways to create a litmus test to test if your next idea is truly worth doing. 

2. A Morning Routine 

I promise I’ll get to more tactical tools here in a bit but these first two tools are truly the foundation of creating a business and life that sets your soul on fire.  Creating a morning routine that gets you ahead of your day is invaluable to your health, your energy level, and your business. I’m not gonna lie, I hate getting up out of my warm bed at 5:16 each morning, I never want to do it. However as soon as I’m out of bed, and at the foot of my bed getting dressed for my workout, I’m totally fine. I use the 5-second rule and make myself do it.  Mel Robbins explains in her Ted Talk that you are never going to want to do the thing.  But if you count down from 5 and when you get to 1 you do it, you don’t hesitate, you just do it, you can stop procrastinating.  Try it tomorrow morning! 

3. Content Scheduler

For the longest time I had random scraps of paper with ideas for blog posts, steps for completing my next project, and constantly was forgetting to post to Facebook and Instagram. I finally went on the hunt for a place to keep it all straight.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a site called CoSchedule – an all in one marketing program.  This is where everything I’m working on lives now.  My ideas, my to-dos, my checklists. I can access it from my phone or my computer, and can set up things to automatically post! I’m saving myself so much time, and not driving myself crazy! 

4. A well thought out client workflow.  

A lot of businesses know what they do, I take pretty wedding photos. However not many actually think through each and every step their clients take with them.  Having a consistent client workflow that you can duplicate over and over again is the key to happy clients that are more than happy to sing your praises to the world! This also means you’re not reinventing the wheel every time you get a new client! 

5. Email marketing provider

I just made the switch from MailChimp to ConvertKit and I’m so incredibly happy with the switch.  I was with Mailchimp for years and it was so amazing to get my feet wet in email marketing. If you are just starting out with Email Marketing Mailchimp is a provider who has a free plan up to 2000 subscribers. My only real complaint about MailChimp is the lack of ease when it comes to segmenting or tagging subscribers.  Multiphasited businesses would definitely benefit from ConvertKits intuitive segmenting capabilities.  

6. Business Podcasts 

Podcasts are one of my favorite things in the world!  I live in the middle of nowhere! Seriously the closest Target is 80 miles away, 80 MILES!  So I spend a lot of time in the car, and podcasts have quickly become my favorite thing to listen to! Currently, my favorite business podcasts are RISE, You’re Welcome, The Lifestyled Company Podcast, Goal Digger, and Cultivate Your Life with Lara Casey. I also have RISE. Together, Stuff You Should Know, and Happier with Gretchen Rubin, constantly playing as well! 

7. Grammarly 

Ok guys confession time, I am a terrible speller. Seriously I have a mild form of dyslexia that made 5th grade spelling the cause to so much anxiety my teachers actually ended up only giving me half the spelling words everyone else would get.  When we would each have to read a paragraph out loud to the class when we were reading I would try to count ahead and practice reading that paragraph over and over. More often then not I would miscount are be totally caught off guard when it was my turn. The crazy part of all of it is I was reading at an 8th grade level on my own.  I understood what I was reading it to myself, but something would just not translate between my brain and my mouth.  I can tell you if a word looks like it’s spelled incorrectly but I can’t tell you how to spell it correctly.  This is why Grammarly has been such a lifesaver for me. It’s a free web extension that proofreads for you, corrects words that are miss used, and is seriously my saving grace! 

8. Dropbox 

If you are a business or student or use a computer at all in your life, you need dropbox.  Dropbox is a cloud storage system that allows you to access documents from any computer with internet.  This means you don’t have to worry about losing that jumpdrive your term paper is on, you can switch from your desktop to your laptop with ease, and never forget a document at home! 

9. Social Media Scheduling 

Plannoly and Tailwind 

Even though CoSchedule has the capabilities to schedule Instagram and Pinterest pins these two programs are worth looking into as well.  I love with Plannoly I can see a visual of what I have planned out for Instagram. I also love that I can save groups of hashtags, and auto post from Plannoly! Plannoly aslo has both a moblie app and desktop platform for when two thumbs just aren’t fast enought! Tailwind’s tribes are so powerful for leveraging the power of Pinterest!  

10. Stock Photography

The SC Stockshop and Social Squares are two of my absolute favorite places to get stock photography for my business. I use stock photography for everything from social media, to digital products like PDF’s and worksheets, to backgrounds on my websites! We live in such a visual world where the value of your business can be placed based on how professionally you show up online! 

BONUS

11. A place to keep all your notes 

I am very pro pen and paper. I love my Simplified Planner, but sometimes I need to easily find the notes I’m looking for. Evernote has been that spot for me since I was in college!  You can create different notebooks and then add notes to those books. I have a notebook for each year of taxes where I will scan in receipts for farm expenses. I have a notebook for gift ideas with a note with a running list of ideas for each person in our family. I use it for business too and have notebooks for things like blog ideas, books I want to read, podcast episodes people have recommended. I love that I can use the search bar to find notes and tag different notes that are related to the same subject even across notebooks! Evernote has an amazing app for both your phone and desktop which means everything is always accessible from either place! 

There you have it! 11 tools every entrepreneur needs to be successful! Is there anything else you would add to the list? Let me know in the comments!