I couldn't live without these 5 Business Tools

There are so many things that make up a solid business strategy. For me - there are a few things I couldn’t live without; the support of my partner (Dan), my amazing team, the internet (of course), and these 5 business tools that I use weekly (if not daily). These life-altering tools play such an important role in the success of my business (and my sanity). These tools are so crucial, they are worth a huge investment, but fortunately - they are all super affordable and some even have top-notch free versions as well. I am sure you are all eager to find out what tools I couldn’t live without, so let’s do this!

Okay, so before diving in, I did want to mention that these tools are in no specific order. They all play a super important role in my business.

Notion

First up, Notion. Now I know I said this is in no specific order, but there is a reason I am mentioning this one first. That is because this is more or less the brain of my entire operation. This is where I organize my thoughts, my content, my clients (and their content), my team tasks, my goals, my research, my brand deals, my affiliate links, and literally everything else that I do in my business.

If you are a Notion novice, then let me take you through a couple of the features Notion offers and how we use them.

Databases. In Notion, you can build databases. This can be a table, board view, calendar view, and so on. I use these databases for my content calendar, to track the progress of our clients, to organize my business and personal goals, and so on. With a database, you can great a variety of different properties, like dates, tags, links to other databases, and more. If you want a visual of this and how it works, check out my recent video on my YouTube channel all about how I use Notion as a content creator, you can find it at www.youtube.com/katie.
Template Buttons. Another feature in Notion that we use frequently is their Template Buttons. These are templates that you create for something you create over and over again in Notion. This can be used for team task assignments, social media posts, or whatever it is you need. I use this for numerous things, but it’s especially helpful when creating new posts on my content calendar. You just select the template button for the social media you’re creating content for, say Instagram, and then drag it onto your calendar. Simple as that. Again, if you want to see this in action, make sure to check out my Notion videos on YouTube.

What is the cost?

If you are just starting out and don’t have a team, you can use Notion (wait for it....) completely for FREE. Yep, I said it. Free. They do have a free version that is great for growing businesses, the paid version allows for you to add teams or clients to your databases, guests, and unlimited files (meaning more storage). But even with those paid packages, they only run $4 and $8 a month. Super affordable. Whereas Asana runs more up to $25 per month and Trello runs up to $18 per month.

Why Notion versus competitors?

Regarding why I choose Notion versus the other project management systems - in my opinion, it’s just better. Yes, the cost plays a part, but it’s more about how customizable it is. You can create databases that fit your specific needs versus being trapped in a pretty created database like Trello/Asana. You can really make Notion your own and if you know “coding” - you can customize it even more.

Now, the one concern a lot of people have about Notion is that it takes a lot of upfront work to create all of these systems and databases, but to help ya’ll out with that, I created a Notion Content Creator Bundle that houses all of the databases you need for your content creation business, you can check it out by going to www.katiesteckly.com/bundle - This content creator Notion bundle includes my in-depth content calendar (with 9 custom views to keep your content organized on all social media platforms), a brand partnership tracker, affiliate marketing tracker, and a customizable brand guide.

Dubsado

Though Notion is the brain of my operation, the brain doesn’t function without blood flow, amiright? And in this case, that is workflows that are set up in another tool called Dubsado. The great thing about Dubsado is that is goes beyond just “workflows” - it provides support in storing and getting signatures on contracts, setting up meetings, invoicing, and storing client details.

Here are some of the features Dubsado offers and how we utilize them for my business.

Forms. Dubsado allows you to customize reusable form templates for your contracts, lead capture forms, questionnaires, and proposals—all with your unique branding. Because we get a lot of inquiries about our services, we have an application form placed on our Creatorly Media website that allows folks to fill in what they need, a little about their business, and what package they’re interested in. This will then be placed in our internal Dubsado databases, where we can manually review the application and if we are a good fit, we can start moving them forward into our client onboarding workflow.
Workflows/Reminders. Thankfully, Dubsado takes the repetitive work off your plate with automated workflows, recurring payments, confirmation emails, payment reminders, and more. Once we approve an application, we will send them a pre-created questionnaire - and if the client doesn’t fill this out, it will send them reminders. If they do fill it out, it will automatically place them in a “Review Questionnaire” tag so that we know we are ready for the next step. Having this automation removes the guesswork and helps us stay on track with our client onboarding process.
Payment/Contracts. You can create invoice templates with payment plans and keep track of every dollar earned or spent. You can also add your contracts into Dubsado to make signing electronically a breeze for both you and your clients. Once we reviewed the questionnaire and if the person seems like a good fit, we then send them an onboarding email that includes a proposal. This proposal includes an easy way for the potential client to select the service they want, pay the invoice, and sign the contract.

... and just to bring this full circle for you, once a client pays and signs the contract, that is when they get added to our “brain” - a.k.a. Notion.

What is the cost?

Unfortunately, Dubsado doesn’t have a free version, but you really wouldn’t be needing Dubsado unless you have to paying clients. If you have clients, I suggest getting set up with this tool immediately and avoid doing what I did for a long time, which was doing all of my communication and payment via email. Dubsado has two packages, a starter package, and a premier package. The starter package is $200 per year and the premier package is $400 per year. If you think about it, that’s actually not too bad. For the top package, it’s around $33 per month. If you have a couple of regular clients per month, that’s only around $15 per client. If you just make sure to factor that cost into your services, it shouldn’t affect your profits.

Why Dubsado versus competitors?

Regarding why I choose Dubsado versus competitors, honestly - Dubsado is quite compatible with the other business management platforms. With pricing, it’s pretty close to one of its competitors, HoneyBooks. HoneyBook only really has one package and it is $390 per year. I think it’s great that Dubsado has an option for a smaller need or starter business. Another great thing about Dubsado is their free trial, instead of just 14 days like HoneyBooks, you get your first three clients for free - no time limit!

If you are interested in trying it out, click here!

Canva

With all of that planning, it’s time to put some of that into action. Regardless if you’re creating content for social media or your business assets, Canva is unbeatable. Especially for beginners. As someone that has an abundance of experience creating designs in photoshop, even I enjoy the ease and convenience that Canva brings to me (and my team). If you have been around for a minute, you have probably already dabbled in Canva’s graphic design platform, but there are so many features that help us stay on track as a business.

Here are just a couple of the features we use, beyond just “designing graphics”.

Canva Teams. As a business with a team of people working on the same projects, it’s essential we stay organized and can all easily access each other's work. Canva makes this so easy with their Shared Folders and Communication features.
1. Shared Folders: When working on a design, you can add it to a shared folder so that anyone in the team can access it, duplicate it, or add to it. You can create folders for the different areas of your business, for clients, etc. One way we use this shared folder feature is for all of our Instagram clients. When a client first signs on to work with us, we will create a few unique, branded Canva graphic templates for their approval. These will be stored in their Canva shared folder for our team to use as inspiration when creating their monthly graphics. We then also create folders for each month of content, this keeps things organized and allows our team to get a visual of the content that has been created by others on the team to avoid too much repetition in design style or color.
2. Communication Features: The communication feature allows us to leave comments on not only a specific design, but the individual slides, text boxes, or graphics inside each design. For example, if there is something I want to show a team member how to do in Canva, I can create a mock design and leave comments to help them understand my vision. We do this a lot, especially for our Creatorly Media projects and assets.
3. Brand Kits. This ties back to the team, as it helps them stay on-brand for our clients, but this is a feature offered to everyone. There is even a simplified version of a brand kit offered in the free version of Canva. The Brand Kit allows you to add color palettes, logos, and elements right within the editor, making it so easy to keep on-brand for yourself or your clients. We have a brand kit for every client we work with, I have one for my personal brand (Katie Steckly), and we have one for Creatorly Media.
What is the cost?
Canva is so affordable. Just like Notion, there is a free version, which can really get you by for a while if you don’t have the funds right now, but once you’re ready, you can get their premium membership for just $12.95 per month. If you want to try out Canva Pro to get access to the team feature (and other amazing upgrades), you can get your first 30 days for free by using my link here.
Why Canva versus competitors?
Competitors? What competitors? Honestly, Canva is unbeatable in my opinion. There is a similar company Visme, which just like Canva is a graphic design tool. But they have multiple packages, and their paid package is really more like Canva’s free package. Their largest package is $24.75, and I just don’t think it beats Canva.

Later

Now that you have your content created, it’s time to get it scheduled on your various social media platforms. Say, “see you Later” to all of the other scheduling platforms and... well, sign up for Later. Excuse my lame pun - but I truly believe that Later is definitely the front runner when it comes to scheduling your social media content.

Here are a few of the features that allow me to run not only my social media but also the social media of our clients.

Multiple Users & Social Sets. Later makes it so easy to be a social media manager for multiple clients. You can have multiple users and these users can be clients or your team. You can also have multiple social sets, the social sets include Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. We have a Social Set for each client, and the users of the social set will normaly consist of 3 people. The manager of the specific account, the team member who posts their content, and the client. This allows those three people to view the content, post by notification, and review the analytics.

Analytics. This brings me to the next feature we love and that is Later’s analytics. This takes Instagram’s insights and places them in a more digestible format. You can see an overview, post performance, story performance, etc. We use this for both our business and clients, it helps us see what content is performing best, so we can make sure to do more of it. It also can do the opposite and show us what isn’t performing well, so we can cut that out of the strategy. It’s also a great place to pull details for the analytics report we create for our clients each month. Sure, you can find this information in Instagram, but the way it’s put together in Later is so much easier to understand and utilize.

What is the cost?

Later is pretty affordable as well, especially if you’re just posting for yourself. It adds up over time if you have multiple clients, but again - just like I mentioned with Dubsado, it’s something you need to factor in when creating your client packages. They do have a free package, but honestly - it’s missing a lot o the best features. The smallest package is $15 per month, and it gets you access to pretty much everything you need. Auto-publishing, story schedulers, analytics, and more. If you are going to be like me and have multiple clients on your Later, you will be spending a bit more, the highest “package” is $80 per month, but it will go up from there if you need beyond the allotted 6 users and 6 social sets.

Why Later versus competitors?

There are a lot of other schedulers available, but none of them compare to Later and all of the amazing features they offer. Beyond what I told you today, they have hashtag suggestions, a link in bio features, and a lot more. They are also one of the only (that I know of) that allow you to auto-publish multi-slide carousels - outside of the Facebook business suite.

Just like the rest, click here for the link for signing up for Later.

Flodesk

We are on the home stretch now. If have been in the business world for a while you know that email marketing is very important for a well-rounded strategy. I have tried a few different email marketing platforms and more recently actually discovered FloDesk and it’s now our email marketing home.

Let me share with you some of the FloDesk features and how we use it in my business.

Lead Magnets/Freebies. One of the best ways to grow your email list is by using something called a “lead magnet” - which essentially is just something of value that you are giving away for free in exchange for the person's email address. FloDesk allows you to set up these signup forms that will automatically send your freebie to the person and add them to a segment (or tag) you created. We have many different freebies I have created over the years and because I have mentioned them in numerous YouTube videos over the years, we are constantly getting new email subscribers with this method. Once they are added to a segment, this will place them in a workflow that is set up to provide them more value and lead them to our newsletter.
Workflows. FloDesk makes it so simple to create these workflows. Once you have folks placed in the segments we just chatted about, you can then set up an entire workflow that dictates exactly what happens next. Let’s use one of my Instagram freebies as an example. Once someone grabs an Instagram-related freebie, they are placed in my “Instagram” segment. This then triggers the Instagram Workflow, which will send them through our Instagram welcome sequence, which is 4 meals across the course of a month providing Instagram tips and strategies. Once they receive those 4 emails, they are then added into the next stage of the workflow which is an Instagram mock newsletter, mimicking the same style of our weekly newsletter called the “Creator Letter”. This gives them a warm welcome into our weekly newsletter and then once received, they are immediately placed into our Creator Letter” segment so that they now will receive those weekly emails. This process is long and seems complicated, but it’s all about user experience. It’s warming them up to the idea of receiving our weekly newsletter, instead of just bombarding them with multiple emails at once.

What is the cost?

FloDesk’s pricing is truly remarkable. Most email marketing platforms have a starting price, which raises when you gain more email subscribers, but with FloDesk - it’s one price, unlimited subscribers. $38 per month, that’s it. It will never raise. Pretty amazing, huh? On top of that, I actually have an affiliate link for FloDesk that gives you 50% each month, making your total more around $20 per month. Here is the link!

Why Flodesk versus competitors?

I have already touched on this a bit, but you can’t beat the price of $20 per month for unlimited subscribers. I know a lot of folks used to start by using MailChip due to their free option, but even their free option limits you to 2,000 subscribers and once you’re past that, you have to upgrade to their first tier, which is $250 per month if you want to have up to 50,000 subscribers. And beyond subscriber count, FloDesk is just more modern and easier to navigate.

Again, check out my link if you want that 50% off.

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These tools all play a very important role in my business, at this point, I don’t think I could live without any of them - which is why I wanted to share them with you. There are so many awesome tools you can subscribe to for your business, but I think if you are going to start someone, let it be one of these. If you have any questions or want to suggest any tools you use for your business that we should look into - let us know by messaging us on the Creatorly Media Instagram, @creatorlymedia.