As a creative entrepreneur, I’ve had to find business tools that keep me organized, especially being on the go all the time between branding sessions and coaching. Since they’ve been so helpful for me, of course, sharing is caring! Here are my top 5 business tools that I use every single day.  Believe me when I say that I could not have lived without any of them during this past wild ride of a year! They have helped me run my business in a way that feels seamless, professional, and dare I say, less stressful! As a business owner for the past eight years, I honestly don’t know how I lived without any of them. Had I known or invested in any of these resources sooner, I most certainly would have reached a lot of my goals faster and easier!

OK first up is Dubsado! It’s a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform and project management software that has simplified my business, my processes, and my workflows. Dare I admit that I used to have my clients actually print and sign their contracts?! I wish I was joking.

DUBSADO: CLIENT + PROJECT MANAGEMENT

When I came across Dubsado I was excited, yet overwhelmed. There is so much to this program and I still don’t use it to its full capacity. Being able to send contracts, invoices, appointment requests, and special forms all via Dubsado has been life-changing. What used to take me hours now takes me minutes and with that extra time I can continue working on my business in other ways. That makes me one happy woman!

As I mentioned, there are many parts of the software that I don’t use fully including the financial reporting, task management, time tracking, and video integration. I honestly don’t think there is anything I wish it had that it doesn’t! Another integral piece I love about Dubsado is when I was setting it up and exploring, their trial was based on number of clients, instead of a time trial. How genius is that? As a busy business woman and creative entrepreneur, I appreciated having as much time as I needed to explore the software.

Want to receive 20% off your first month or year?! That’s a no brainer. You can use my affiliate link here or the code: “TRACEYJAZMIN” on checkout, yay! 

MILE IQ: MILEAGE TRACKER

Mile IQ is another one of my absolute favourite business tools that helps you track your mileage via an app on your phone. This is for people who need to keep track of their mileage in order to claim it as a tax deduction. Can you believe that I used to go back through my paper calendar to then figure out where I went each day to then put those locations into Google Maps and do all of my mileage tracking manually? It took me HOURS!

*insert wtf emoji* 

With this app you can literally swipe to classify all the drives you take as personal or business. From there you are given a report every month that tracks your mileage in either miles or kilometres for you. Cue the confetti!

To explore this business tool for yourself, you can sign up and get 40 free drives!

PLANN: SOCIAL MEDIA PLANNER

Up next in my business tools toolbox, is my social media scheduling app Plann. As a branding guru, photographer, and overall very visual person I again couldn’t imagine life without this app. It helps me plan out my social media ahead of time and is the key for all creative entrepreneurs if you want to have a cohesive Instagram feed.

Not only can I write my captions and hashtags for Instagram ahead of time, but more importantly, I get to see how my feed will look visually with the drag and drop scheduling view! I believe that having a cohesive Instagram feed when you are a small business is one of the biggest reasons that someone decides to engage with you. I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by it’s cover, but if the look of your feed doesn’t catch your audience’s eye, they probably won’t want to dive into your captions and content. Given my business, I consider my Instagram as a resume of sorts and a direct reflection of my business and my portfolio. 

I’ve signed up as a Power User so that I can import all of my content without any restrictions! If you’d love to get a free credit towards your own Plann account, you can sign up with my link!

FLODESK: EMAIL MARKETING PLATFORM

One of my newest business tool additions is an email marketing platform called FloDesk. I’ll admit, I avoided email marketing for almost the entire eight years I’ve had my business. Okay that’s not entirely true, I have used it here and there but I have never sent a consistent email marketing strategy because the platform I was using was so incredibly intimidating and confusing. Not to name names but it had something to do with a monkey…

Moving to FloDesk was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. They make email marketing so easy and simple, hallelujah! Their beautiful templates and the overall user experience is so simple that it actually makes me excited to plan and create a newsletter. Back when I was rebranding my business, I committed to creating an email marketing strategy but I was constantly getting stuck on navigating HOW to actually do it. FloDesk eliminated all of my struggles and within minutes I had created a simple email workflow for all three of my lead magnets.

I gave access to my branding designer Bonnie who was able to hop in and input all of the codes (and update them every single time I made a change, haha!) If you’ve been thinking about creating your own strategy or even just sending out a newsletter here and there, I highly recommend FloDesk. Don’t worry if you have zero experience when it comes to the design part. They have a library full of beautiful templates that you can customize to suit you perfectly.

You can sign up with my affiliate link and receive 50% off your subscription – start the carrr! Use my link here!

TAILWIND: PINTEREST SCHEDULER

Last but absolutely not least, the power of Tailwind. This is one of those business tools that has truly surprised me over and over again as I’ve built up my Pinterest for Business. I started using Tailwind a few years ago and had a measly 300 views per month.

Now, I have.. *wait for it*

HALF A MILLION VIEWS per month! See for yourself 😉

Incredible, right?! Again, this is another business tool that I’m still not using to its fullest potential. I haven’t even begun to explore tribes, groups, rich pins, and all of that jazz. 

Tailwind helps me schedule my Pinterest content (and Instagram too if you want), to keep a regular schedule and does all of the hard work for me. It tells me how many posts to pin, as well as when to pin, then does it all behind the scenes for me. Believe me when I tell you that Pinterest is an extremely underutilized tool for your business. Just think of how many people use it every day for inspiration!

Trust me it’s magic, and another business tool investment that’s a no-brainer! To receive a $15 credit for your account, you can sign up here via my affiliate link, yay!

Don’t lose these affiliate links, pin this blog for later!