My Top 15 Favourite Tools & Apps of 2022/3

Hey everybody, it's that time of year when I collate all my favorite tools and apps into a handy free guide which you can download for free. So check that out in the show notes. Now I've categorized this guide into all in one tools, Broadcast tools, Design tools, Automation tools, Planning and Organization, Project management and website management. So lots to discuss in today's episode and let's dig in. I'm Rob Da Costa and this is the Agency Accelerator Podcast. As someone who has stood in your shoes, having started, grown and sold my own agency, I know just how it feels in the ups and downs of agency life. So this podcast aims to ease your journey just a little by sharing mine and my guests experiences and advice as you navigate your way to growing a profitable, sustainable and enjoyable business. In 2023, we are losing the battle against social media for grabbing our attention away from the core things that move the needle for our business. And we're also constantly seduced by shiny new objects. Now I've recorded lots of podcasts on this topic before Shiny new Objects and mindset focus, time management and productivity. So I'll leave some of the links to those episodes in the show notes in case you want to listen to them again. But the purpose of me putting together this guide is to save you some time chasing shiny new objects, spending going down those rabbit holes of researching tools and playing with them only for them to turn out to not deliver what they promise. So I've put together the 15 tool and apps that I use to help me run my business more efficiently and I hope that you'll find some of them useful. No doubt some of them you will know, but I'm hoping that there will be a few new ones that you don't know. So let's dig in and at the end of the episode I'm going to share with you the top five of the 15 that I'm going to talk about today. Now for each product or tool or app I mention, I will leave a link to that app in the show notes so you don't need to spend any time researching around. So let's get started and we're going to start off with the all in one integrated tools and probably the most important tool and definitely the most expensive tool I use to run all of my business is Kartra. As I said, Kartra is completely foundational and fundamental for me running my business. It's an all in one platform that enables me, amongst many other things, to do all my email marketing to create sequences and automations. I also Host my memberships, the self running agency and the Build, Nurture, Convert blueprint email marketing course on this platform. So I can create products, I can take payments, I can give access and all of that stuff that's done in Kartra. It also hosts and stores all my videos. And you can also create webpages, you can create forms, you can do calendar booking, you can run surveys and quizzes and so much more. So you can pretty much see that it can do most of the things that you need to run your business. And since it's an integrated platform, it means that all the different parts of the of Kartra play well with each other. And that means that you can create, for example, specific complex sequences based on user actions, such as if they watch three quarters of a video. So for me, Kartra is a fantastic all in one platform. It competes with the likes of Kajabi if you know that platform as well. So the question for you will always be, do you want to buy an individual suite of best of breed products and then try to connect them all together or do you want to use an all in one platform like Kartra? And for me, I make that choice of using an all in one platform. So none of the tools are doing things as well as the individual tools would be, but they do them well enough. And the fact that it's in one platform, they integrate really easily and seamlessly means that I've been using it to run my business for the past four years and I'm very committed to it and I have no plans to move away. So that is the number one tool, which is Kartra. Now, as I said, it's not the cheapest of tools. And at the time of recording this, it cost me approximately £1,400, which is about £1,700 a year to use Kartra. But considering I don't have to, for example, pay for video hosting, I don't have to buy a separate email marketing platform, it actually is really good value. And the big benefit is that you won't ever have to experience the headache of trying to get various tools to talk to each other and end up using tools like Zapier, which cost you even more money to get them connected. Okay, so that is the all in one category covered with Kartra. Let's move on to talk about broadcast tools now. And I want to talk about first of all some webinar technology, because if you're not using webinars to engage with your audience, then I think you're Missing a trick. It's a great way of instantly building empathy and credibility with your audience because they can only hear you, but they can see you, and you can deliver some value through the webinars. So the first tool I use is WebinarJam. And this is the platform I use to host my live webinars, which in 2022, made up a large part of my marketing. Now, whether I'm running a masterclass, a workshop, or a webinar, I will host it on WebinarJam. And it's a great platform where you can deliver your present, you can chat with your audience, you can also deliver files, you can put offers online and other things that make running a webinar really simple and a lot easier than using Zoom. And of course, you can buy the Zoom part of webinars as well, which will give you something equivalent, but it's more expensive. So that is my live webinars with WebinarJam. And then the second thing I do with webinars is I turn them into evergreen or like on demand webinars. So after I've delivered a live webinar a number of times, I'll then turn it into an on demand webinar because I know it's the content will engage with the audience because I've refined it based on the feedback I got. So I use ever webinar to do that. So Those are the two webinar platforms I used in 2022, and I'll continue in 2023. And as I said, I think webinars are an important part of your marketing strategy because you can get in front of your audience and they can see and hear and learn with you. Okay, number four on my list, a really useful tool that is free, by the way, is a tool called Loom. L O O M, not Z Loom. I'm sure you've heard of this now, but this is a tool that helps you build even more engagement with your audience because it enables you to record your screen with or without you being in the recording, and then share a URL of the recording because it's stored in the cloud and you can also download it. So I use this specifically for communicating with my clients, and there are two reasons why I do this. First of all, giving feedback via Loom saves me a ton of time because I can give the feedback in real time rather than having to craft an email response. And second of all, from my client's perspective, a video rather than an email is much more engaging and it's A great way to build relationships. And in that sense I also use it with my prospects. Now, as I said, Loom can be used for free and you can store up to 20 videos. And the maximum length is five minutes, which is usually enough. But if you buy an annual subscription, which is about $8 a month, you then have unlimited videos and unlimited time. Okay, so let's move on to the next category, which is design and layout tools. And I'm going to go through pretty quickly because you're going to know these. So I work a four day week and on my fifth day I focus on my personal YouTube channel. And in 2022, 23, I'm also doubling down on my DaCosta coaching YouTube channel. So I'm editing more videos every week for different platforms. And that led me to sort of upgrade myself from the free Imovie software on a Mac to buy Final Cut Pro. And it's enabled me to make my videos much more professional. But the one caution here is that there's such a steep learning curve and I'm probably only using like 10% of the functionality in Final Cut Pro. So make sure when you buy a product like this, you also watch some YouTube videos or do some training to help you learn and get as proficient as you possibly can. So that's number five, which is Final Cut Pro. And number six, which I think you'll also be really familiar with, is Canva. And I use Canva for creating all of my content, such as my YouTube thumbnails, social media posts, guides like the one you can download with this lesson and so much more. And you know, if you don't have designers in house, then it saves you having to outsource to a designer. You can create great looking documents and Canva's always improving its functionality. You now can import PDFs, you can create animations, you can look for photos and videos royalty free of course, which is really useful. And there are lots of pre designed templates which make life really easy. So I really like Canva, simple to use and has a big effect on my business and I'm sure you know that. So that is the design and layout category. And now move on to talk about automation. So obviously Kartra sort of fits in this bracket as well because you can automate your emails. But if you just want to look for a really good email automation platform, then I recommend ConvertKit. And I want to say that I have no skin in the game about any of these. These are just tools that I've used that I would recommend Because I've used them. So I think ConvertKit is one of the best of breed examples of email automation. So it enables you to capture people's email addresses, create forms, send emails, create sequences, automations, broadcasts, and of course it keeps you GDPR compliant as well. And ConvertKit is a simple tool that you can initially use for free with limited functionality and up to 1,000 subscribers. But then when you get beyond that, you can use the paid version. And this is the tool that I used prior to me moving to Kartra. And of course there are other email marketing automation platforms like Mailchimp, Mailerlite and ActiveCampaign. But I think if you want a starter, then ConvertKit is really good. And then if you want to progress to more sophistication, then something like Active Campaign is really good because it adds things like CRM into the program as well. So that's number one in my automation. And the second one I want to talk about is Waalaxy. Crazy name, right? But Waalaxy is a LinkedIn automation tool that I started using this year and I really love it. Now I totally understand that LinkedIn outreach automation is a bit of a controversial topic and LinkedIn doesn't particularly like it. But the way you use Waalaxy is you do a search on LinkedIn and then you build a list which imports into Waalaxy and then you can set a sequences up to, for example, reach out to the people, endorse them, send them messages and a whole bunch of other sequences. And I really like this approach and I would never ever recommend, for example, buying cold email lists. But this is a good alternative to that because you can connect with people, you can send them messages to sort of nurture that relationship, and then you can try and get them to sign up to something in your email list. That's exactly how I use this strategy and it works really well for me. So that is my favorite LinkedIn automation tool, which is Waalaxy. Okay, let's move on to planning and organization tools. And the first in this category, this is tool number nine is my remarkable. And this is still absolutely the product of the year for me. So if you have not heard of remarkable, it's an E ink paper tablet that allows you to take notes as if you were writing on paper. In fact, the feeling is so similar to writing on paper, it's totally amazing. And it's a good example of a piece of kit that just does one thing. But does it really work? Because you can't browse the Internet, you can't send emails, you can simply take notes and it just feels like you're writing on paper. And as a result of using this for the last few years, I've become completely paper free. In fact, I can't remember the last time I bought a printer cartridge. But perhaps more importantly, I find things now because I don't know about you, but I used to grab a piece of paper on a call or whatever, write some notes, put it away, and then I couldn't find that piece of paper three days later. So now everything is stored on the Remarkable or my client notes and everything else. And then when you've written a note, you can turn it into text and then you can email it yourself. And you can also sync your Remarkable with your computer so it's easy to move documents around. Absolutely love this product. Can't rate it highly enough and it changed my life. And lots of my clients have bought Remarkables as well and it's changed their lives. So do look into that if you haven't heard of it. So that's my number one planning and organization tool. And number 10 on my list is a really simple game changer for me. And it's a Chrome app called tobii, and I've been using this for a few years now. It's a free Google Chrome extension that helps you organize your most frequently used tabs. Because I don't know if you're like me, but during the day I can open way too many web browser windows and tabs, and then I struggle to find what I'm looking for. My computer slows down, so I end up closing it or opening another tab. Well, thankfully I found a solution to this and now I'm much more in control of this and I have way fewer tabs. So if you set Toby as your homepage when you open Chrome, you'll then have like an index of all the frequent tabs that you use. So that's the planning and organization category. Let's move on to calendar and project management and making on my list again in this is tool number 11 is amazing Marvin, which is another silly name, but a really good tool. And this has helped me get myself much more organized by enabling me to plan my day, week and month in detail. And the thing I like about this, I can use it on my computer, but I can also have it on my phone. So when you think of those random things walking the dog or whatever, I can quickly put them into Marvin. And what you do with this is you can assign alarms, you set stopwatches, and you basically plan your day and it helps me get really laser focused and ensure that I'm delivering on my priorities that move my business forward each day. So if you've fallen following me for a while, you know that I talk about doing a year plan and turning that into quarters and months. Well then I take my month plan and I turn it into weeks and days using Amazing Marvin. And as I said, it works across my phone and my computer and I use this as start of every single day. And the thing is, you can plan your day and you get that sense of satisfaction of ticking things off and seeing them crossed out, which is great and makes you feel really good about your day. So I'd really encourage you to use some kind of calendar project management tool like this rather than just a note in your pad that where you cross off three items and you add in four more and the to do list never gets any shorter. You know what I mean, right? Okay, number 12 is a new entry to this year's list. And this is another really simple free app called Add Event. So if you are organizing an event, then you can use Add Event, which gives your clients a one click link to add that event into their calendar. And I use this in my self running agency group where I just say to people, right click on this link and it will automatically put the next call in to your diary. So makes my life a lot easier and it makes it much more efficient with my clients. So do look into Add event. And number 13 on my list is one that you're going to know really well as a project management tool, which is Asana. And this enables me to plan all my projects and communicate effectively with my VA team who happen to be all over the world. Which means we can quickly see the progress of a campaign, we can add new campaigns, we can assign tasks to team members and so on. I'm sure you know these tools really well. And of course there are tools like Monday that you can use as well. Okay, so that is the calendar and project management category. And now let's move on to the last category which is website management. And there are two tools here I want to talk about. So number 14 is Thrive Architect. Now this year I relaunched and redesigned my website and I went all in on basing my website on WordPress because before it was a bit on Kartra and a bit on WordPress, but I decided that I was going to use WordPress for SEO, speed and functionality. So I use WordPress with Thrive Architect, sort of the designer sitting on top of it. And the important thing about Thrive is that it makes it easy for me to make changes to the site. And it uses an intuitive sort of drag and drop user interface, meaning even non techies like me can manage 99% of the changes. And I think that's important because in this day and age, we shouldn't be beholden. And to get every single change made by a web designer, which costs you lots of money and slows you down. So I use Thrive Architect and the last tool I want to talk about, a brand new tool that I've been using, which is called Surfer SEO. And of course, one of the things I like you need to do is make sure that my website is optimized as much as possible. But like most of us, I'm not an SEO expert. So Surfer SEO is sort of filling that gap by making it easier for me to gain organic traffic and telling me the things that I need to improve to get more traffic. So that is Surfer SEO. And they also provide some training as well, which helps you really use the product as well as possible. So as I said, I'm just getting started with this tool, but I'm looking forward to seeing the results in 2023. And just a couple of honorable mentions because that was our top 15. But the others I use, I'm not going to go into detail, are Zoom, which you'll know, of course, Google Drive, which is a really great way of sharing all of my content with my VA team all over the world. Zero for my accounting. Okay, so at the beginning I said I was going to share with you a summary of the top five of all of those 15, which are my top five. And not surprisingly, remarkable comes in number one. This is the E ink paperless tool that I use. I love that. It really has changed my life. Second of all is Kartra. Because it's so foundational in running my business. Loom has become super important in terms of giving clients feedback and doing it quickly and also creating more engagement. Toby is the Chrome extension to manage all your tabs and I absolutely love that simple concept that works really well and helps me stay organized because if I'm honest, I'm not that organized a person. And then the fifth favorite one is Amazing Marvin, which is my to do list prioritization time management tool. So I hope you found that useful. I've spent a lot of the time over the years wasting loads of time researching and playing with tools. So the point of putting this together is to help you. Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, you can download all of this in a really handy guide that talks about the plot in more detail and gives you all the links and details that you need to know. So check out the show notes to grab your copy for free. I'd love to know if there's some tools that you love that I should be considering to include in next year's guide, so do let me know. And of course, if you found today's episode useful, please do share it with your colleagues. Make sure you have subscribed to the podcast, and please do consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. But other than that, hope you have a fantastic rest of your week and I will see you next Thursday for the next episode of the Agency Accelerator podcast. Sam.