How I Run My Business (These are the tools that grow my business)

I'm going to be honest with you, it probably looks like I'm doing a lot every single day to be able to run a multi six figure business, post weekly on YouTube and manage my two children and have a life with my husband. But this year more than ever I have probably worked less and we still managed to double our revenue from 2019 and hit our revenue goal three, three months early. But I'm not doing this all myself. You need to understand that you cannot do this all yourself. So I wanted to break down all the different tools and all the automations that I have currently running my business and my YouTube channel. So maybe that can help make your life easier and you can get some things off of your plate and stop stressing out over doing all these things. If you're new to my channel. My name is Trina, I am a YouTube strategist and this channel is for content creators, online business owners and entrepreneurs who are wanting to grow their business owners without burning out. So what a better video than to break down all the tools that I use to help me avoid burning out. So I'm going to try a different setup here. As you can see, I'm going to try to break it down in categories and the first category that I'm going to talk about is lead generation. So how do I get people to buy my courses or work with me? So we're going to start at the top here. Alright, let's talk about how I generate leads. I use social media, mostly social media. So how am I pumping out content on Pinterest and Instagram all the time? Well, the two tools that I use there are Tailwind, which my Pinterest strategist just automates all of our pins every single month in there. And Planoly is how we set up our Instagram grid to see what photos look best so we can start to plan out what kind of content we're going to create. Then we schedule it where it sends it to my phone and then I manually push it. But we already have it planned inside of Planoly. When it comes to YouTube you can schedule inside of YouTube. So we don't have a tool to schedule on YouTube. And same with Facebook, we don't have a tool to plan on Facebook. So our content is what is generally new people to our business. Once they see our stuff, the next step we want them to do is to get into our email list. So the way they do that, let's do a column for funnels. We talk about it on our YouTube channel, we talk about On Instagram, maybe you've heard me mention my YouTube roadmap or my training on how to create a month's worth of content in just eight hours. Those are all opt ins or lead magnets. And when you click on the link that I mentioned, it takes you to a page that which you can create on your own website. But I use a software called LeadPages and basically what it is is it's a landing page or a website page that gives us a lot of data about conversions. And so that's why we use that specifically. So once you go to LeadPages, you're going to be asked to put in your email. Now that means you are being added to my email list, which I have with ConvertKit. So that this is all automated, right? We automate our social media posts that hype up our lead magnet. It sends people to our lead magnet and gets them on our email list. From there we have automations inside of ConvertKit that will send out emails to you. So that very first email you get will be that freebie or that opt in or that workshop that you signed up for. Then you will get a system of about four to six more emails. So that ultimately will pitch you a program that I have or a digital product that I have. How do I host my products? So all my courses are in a platform called Teachable, which allows me to upload my videos, makes it password protective. You can actually use Teachable as your checkout system as well. But for us, we use a different checkout system called ThriveCart. And the reason why we use ThriveCart instead of the teachable checkout page is because ThriveCart just gives us more data. It allows us to know how many people, people clicked on buttons, how many people left the course in their cart. And so it just gave us more data. So that's why we upgraded. But out of all of these, you could literally get by with just two. You could get by with ConvertKit because ConvertKit allows you to create landing pages just like LeadPages. And you could get by with just Teachable because Teachable will have that checkout page so that you can actually get paid for the courses and the digital products that you create. Let's go back to Legion and talk about how I create these things, how I create like a webinar or a PDF. So the only place that I use right now to create a worksheet or a PDF is Canva. And I love Canva. It's literally the only thing that I use to create worksheets checklists, those types of things. Even slide decks from my webinars, which I'll share with you in a minute, because they have things, they have templates already done for you. All you do is you go into Canva, you search a template you're looking for done. You can do Instagram stories in there, you can do pins for Pinterest in there. You can do, like I said, a slide deck in there. Checklist, workbook. Canva's amazing, and it's my only place that I'm currently creating graphics for my business. Now, you heard me talk about webinars, so let me share with you kind of how this webinar looks. So webinar is another way to generate leads. So within the webinar, I one need a landing page for somebody to register for. Then I send them the link to that workshop in ConvertKit. Now, once they click on that link, I have my webinar on a landing page, a lead page, and the actual video piece of it is on YouTube. I literally just take a YouTube video, put it on unlisted and put it on a landing page. So basically, the only tools that I'm using for my webinar are things that I already have. ConvertKit to send you that link, YouTube to host the video, and then embed it on the lead page, the lead page, and then finally thrivecart, where you can check out and buy the product that I pitch you in the webinar. So this literally lets me automate a heck of a lot of my tasks in my business. So let's talk about how I manage my time and what that looks like. So let's go over here and do a column called Time Management. The biggest way that I'm able to block out time and how people are able to schedule time with me is through Google Calendar. So I live and die by Google Calendar. If it's not on my Google Calendar, it doesn't happen. We put all of our kids things in there. If they have, like doctor's appointments, school, whatever, my husband puts his things in there. If we have to physically be somewhere, it's on Google Calendar. Now, the reason why I have Google Calendar is because it links with my scheduling system. My scheduling system is how people book strategy sessions with me. It's how people can book podcast interviews with me. And that software is called Acuity. And basically I can use Acuity to have people fill out a form about what we're going to talk about on our strategy session, and then they can pay for their strategy session on acuity. Now, the one tool that I live and die by for project management is Asana. This literally keeps track of all the tasks that I need to do every single day. So I will plan out about 90 days in advance and I will load up my Asana, knowing exactly what should be worked on every day. When I sit down to my computer, when I'm planning, I can see if I have too much on my plate that I need to change or rearrange things. This is also a way that I'm able to assign my team different tasks. This is how we run our YouTube production agency. It's inside of Asana. Every single client gets their own project board. And then my video editor has access to it and she gets deadlines. My graphic designer has access to it and she gets deadlines. Even the client gets deadlines. So they know exactly when they need to film that video so that we can edit it and get it uploaded to their YouTube channel on time. The one tool out of all of these I probably couldn't live without is Asana. Now this probably can go under time management as well because it's set up to automate. So it does save us time when we're booking clients or if clients are wanting to work with us. And that client management system is called Dubsado. And what Dubsado allows us to do is first have an intake questionnaire for new clients. So they fill out all the information that we need about them and we have it saved inside of our system. Dubsado. It also allows us to set up workflow so as soon as somebody submits an inquiry to be a client, they automatically get sent a link to get on a 15 minute discovery call with me. Then if I deem they're a good fit and we can work together, they automatically get set a proposal of what we're going to cover in our time together. If they approve that proposal, then they get sent, sent automatically the contract that we've created. And if they approve that, then they get the invoice, then they get the welcome email. And so that's how we're able to onboard our clients without me even having to be around. This has happened multiple times. I've gotten Instagram message from somebody who wanted to work with me. I send them the link to submit it and everything is set up automated that they're booked by Tuesday. I've gotten multiple clients on a Saturday message me and we've had them have their discovery call on Monday or Tuesday and they've already paid by that next day, which would have been Wednesday. This last category, I'm kind of going to throw it into the business. Miscellaneous things. The first app is going to be Slack, and this is how my team communicates. Instead of just sending emails back and forth. We will have different types of channels inside of Slack. So my content channel, maybe our Pinterest channel, where my graphic designer, my Pinterest strategist, are in there. And so this is literally how we keep track of everything. We also have a system that every Friday, everybody puts in what they completed that week and what they're planning to complete the next. They need anything from the team for that next coming week just so we can all make sure everybody's getting what they need. So we live and die by Slack as well. Squarespace is where my website is. It's not a huge piece of my business, but it's great to have a website because people can go read about your agency, they can find you in Google, you can put blog posts there. And so we're all on Squarespace for that. QuickBooks, this is all the financial stuff, right? I check QuickBooks every Friday to see, okay, what was our weekly income, what revenue did we generate, what expenses did we pay? And then I have an accountant who also uses my QuickBooks to know what taxes I need to pay every single quarter. So this is really important to make sure you're getting paid. It's also important to make sure that you're saving money for your taxes. And it can really help you just evaluate, am I spending more than I'm making? What do I need to do to change that Loom. And what this is, is amazing. So you can basically record yourself and your screen to send a message. So just this week, Aaron, my assistant, and I were tweaking the we, and so she would tell me what page she had done, I would go look at it, and I would use Loom to record the screen and myself walking through. Okay, I think this needs tweak. Maybe we move this around and then send it to her. We also use this with clients. So every single month, I send my clients a monthly report. And so I have the report on the screen and I'm down in the corner explaining to them what is all this data and what does it mean for them. So Loom really just makes you be able to connect better and be able to share what you're trying to say with an actual example on the screen and with your face speaking to an individual. And then I know I get a lot of questions about YouTube, so let's just throw in here a YouTube section. So I edit all my videos on Final Cut Pro. I personally edit videos on Final Cut Pro. My video editor edits on Adobe Premiere Pro. Final Cut Pro is just available for Apple or Mac users where Adobe you can use PC, Mac or whatever. And then I do all my keyword research and all my video planning with TubeBuddy. I'm sure you've heard me talk significantly about them. I'm actually a live streamer on their channel every couple of weeks, but it has just saved me an immense amount of time. If you want to try out TubeBuddy, I'll have a link down below for 20% off. If you want to test it out, I personally am on the Legend plan. I have an entire link on how to use TubeBuddy. I'll link it right up here and down in the description box so you can see see in more detail about TubeBuddy. This is what runs my business. It can seem like a lot, but like I said, some of these are repetitive and we are actually going through all of our expenses this year and figuring out what we can cut. Can we streamline things? There are tools out there that literally combine courses, landing pages, email, something like Hijabi or Kartra. Those are all options as well that I haven't dug into. I started my business over five years ago when none of those were available. This is what we started on and I just haven't wanted to convert yet to anything else because I haven't had the time. Now since I get asked a lot about video editing, I'm going to tell you I have a free workshop that shows you how to edit your videos in under two hours using Final Cut Pro. So I'm going to link that on your screen right now if you want to check that out because it's one of the biggest questions I get all the time. Go over there, sign up for it and then you will also see the tools that I have and how my system works when you sign up for that so that it's all automated. Leave a comment below if you get any questions about these tools or if you're setting up a business. What questions that you might have down in the comments and I can't wait to chat.