Resources, Tools, and Programs

Get Online

WEB HOSTING

Hostgator – If you want to host a single domain then you’ll only need the “hatchling” plan but if you plan to add multiple domains (your main website, a couple of blogs, and other related sites) then you’ll need an upgraded shared hosting plan. You can get a break on price if you buy annually rather than the monthly plan. It uses cPanel, which is a very popular control panel that lets you easily manage many aspects of your account, including the files, applications, and email hosted on your account or server.

MomWebs – great for those starting out, plans start at $5 / mo. for a single domain.

TigerTech* – They are a little more expensive than the other shared web hosting companies, but I think they are worth it. They provide a personal touch to their service and a custom control panel. This means they don’t use cPanel out of the box and you can have fewer restrictions when it comes to naming conventions and passwords, etc. For example, my client who is a software programmer, uses special characters in his customer-facing email accounts such as “++” and while other hosting companies may not provide this capability, TigerTech allows this plus many other custom touches.

WordPress* – Open source software you can use to create websites, blogs, or apps.

WP Engine – They offer great service, fast-loading sites, and automatic backups on a very secure platform. When it comes to security patches and WordPress core updates, WP Engine is proactive in keeping your site secure with automatic updates. They also perform proactive security and malware scans to ensure that all WordPress sites running on WP Engine are free from intrusions. Whether it’s a security update for a popular plugin or emergency maintenance due to an issue with a data center, WP Engine’s technical support team is fanatical about great customer service.

*What I use and recommend

DOMAIN REGISTRARS

I switched to Namecheap for my domain registrar (the company used to register my domain names) after using GoDaddy for many years. I like Namecheap’s intuitive dashboard and the free domain privacy feature. It really cuts down on the spam, phone calls, and direct mail since my domains are now private.

Design Tools and Resources

BUSINESS CARDS AND MARKETING MATERIALS

Free Logo Maker – Anyone can register and create their very own logo themselves in as few as 10 to 15 minutes.

Overnight Prints – Online printer of business cards, postcards, brochures, and other printed materials. Also stands alone in the industry when it comes to delivery.

Vistaprint* – An easy-to-use online printing service that allows you to design products like business cards, calendars, and invitations. Vistaprint can also make unique items like smartphone cases, T-shirts, mouse pads, and coasters.

*What I use and recommend

DESIGNERS AND BRANDING

Greatest Story Creative – Annie Franceschi works with only small businesses and does branding that shows your value, tells your story, and grows your business.  Your one-stop creative partner for the name, logo, words, graphics and website you need to clearly and confidently share what you do. I’ve done many projects with Annie over the years and highly recommend!

How to Fascinate – Sally Hogshead, the creator of The Fascinate System™, helps people be understood by their co-workers, partners, and families. You can take the “Fascinate Test” to discover how you impress and influence others using your innate qualities. Also provides an actionable roadmap for team interactions!

WordLab – Dedicated to helping individuals and small businesses get free help for any kind of naming, slogan/tagline, or other related branding project.

 

GRAPHICS AND STOCK PHOTOS

CoverActionsPremium* are Photoshop Actions that are great for ecovers, binder graphics, and doo-dads.

Deposit Photos* – Stock photo agency that offers a wide and very varied catalog of stock photos, vectors and more, at very cheap prices and with convenient buying options.

Design Pickle – Specializes in providing personalized graphic design support for small to medium-sized design jobs. Fast, easy, and affordable graphic design.

Other online stock photo sites:

  • iStockPhoto
  • Canva* (YES! Not only is Canva an online design tool that allows people to easily create beautiful designs using ready-made, highly customizable templates, but they also have an extensive collection of stock photos.)

*What I use and recommend

PHOTO AND IMAGE EDITORS

Canva* – A free online graphics design tool that helps you create designs for almost any purpose including social media posts, ebook covers, posters, flyers, infographics and more.

DesignBold – User-friendly, robust, and intuitive freemium online design platform built to help anyone create professional-looking, eye-catching visual content for print or digital media in a matter of minutes.

PicMonkey – A free online tool that allows you to do basic photo editing without downloading any kind of software.

Piktochart – Tool for creating infographics. While putting together an infographic, they will interpret info, then create a combination of text, images, and charts or graphs to share with others.

Snappa – Pre-loaded with every possible set of dimensions for every major social media platform — and keeps them updated. The templates also give a ton of flexibility in being able to create messaging for a wide variety of clients and industries.

Stencil – Lets you create ads, YouTube thumbnails, Facebook headers, Twitter images, Instagram posts, and more! From your browser! Quick gorgeous graphic design assets with just a few clicks.

*What I use and recommend

THEMES, TEMPLATES, AND PAGE BUILDERS

Elegant Themes* – I moved most of my sites over to the Divi theme and am lovvving it!  It’s built on WordPress and with its visual drag & drop page builder, integration features, and affordability, it’s a great resource.

LeadPages – Drag and drop editor with conversion expert support making it a breeze to create landing pages with its easy to use interface.

TemplateMonster – Offers all the templates anyone could wish for – website templates, Flash templates, WordPress templates, Facebook layouts, and a whole lot more.

ThemeForest – A huge marketplace of pre-made themes for sale for a variety of CMS platforms as well as HTML websites.

Thrive Themes* – Similar to Divi, it provides WordPress themes & plugins, built from the ground up to make your entire website convert more of your visitors into subscribers, customers & clients.

WuFoo* – Online form builder to create contact forms, online surveys, and invitations so you can collect data, registrations, and payments that you need. Pricing starts at free.

*What I use and recommend

Getting Organized

BACKUP AND SECURITY

Carbonite* protects your data by backing it up to the cloud. Copying data to another hard drive isn’t enough these days – what if there was a natural disaster or a burglary? Backing up data to the cloud should be part of your contingency plan! Also includes WebRoot so no need to purchase a separate anti-virus subscription.

LastPass* remembers all your passwords, so you don’t have to. There is a “family” option that lets me share specific items with my family (so they stop bugging me about the Netflix password).

Solid Backups (fka Backup Buddy) – The plugin is the best way to back up (and move) a WordPress site. It allows for scheduling, offsite storage, and it can do database and/or full backups.

Sucuri* is a website and blog security monitoring service. This service has saved me and my clients a ton of downtime and headaches. Once you get an alert that your system has been hacked, you send the alert to them and they take care of it.

*What I use and recommend

PROJECT MANAGEMENT / TEAM COLLABORATION

Asana* – is one of the best collaboration and productivity apps for teams you’ll find and it’s free. This web-based team collaboration service specializes specifically in workflow management, but it also handles the nitty-gritty of task management with ease. Business owners with teams can use it to keep track of the daily to-dos of projects – it has space to separate out the projects, tasks, assignments, due dates, and notifications. It has it all and I love working with it.

Basecamp is everything you need to pull people together to work on projects or with clients. Every team needs a way to divvy up work, hash things out quickly, make big announcements, keep discussions on-topic, store and organize key files and assets, lay out milestones and deadlines, and have regular check-ins to make sure everything’s all right. I think this is a great program for large teams; this is what many associations and non-profits use for IVAA’s day-to-day activities as well as to manage volunteers and projects.

HoneyBook is an all-in-one solution that lets you send invoices, sign contracts, book and schedule, automate workflows, manage projects, send forms and questionnaires, and accept online payments. (Click on my affiliate link for 50% off first year)

iMeet Central (formerly Central Desktop) – A collaboration platform that connects people and information in the cloud, making it possible to share files, combine knowledge, inspire ideas, manage projects, and more. Pricing starts at $45/user per month with a 10-user minimum so it may be ideal for marketing agencies, but probably a little too much for the solopreneur.

Meistertask – Create a project, add as many team members as you want, assign tasks, and follow each other’s progress. MeisterTask’s flexible project boards adapt to your workflow and make sure everyone is always on the same page. Task management has never been more intuitive.  Features include a customizable dashboard so that you can see what’s been done in your projects while you were away, get a quick overview of your open tasks, and decide what to focus on that day.

Slack – Real-time messaging, file sharing, and powerful search.

SmartSheet – Manage projects, and keep track of files, discussions, and calendars all in one place.

Teamwork – Combines high-performance features that build smarter workflows and close communication gaps so you can focus on getting things done.

Trello is a visual-based, free team collaboration system, using boards, lists and cards.

ONLINE SCHEDULERS, SIGNATURE COLLECTION, AND STORAGE

Online schedulers are great because they eliminate the back-and-forth emails with clients to schedule phone calls or meetings. All of these programs let you easily schedule appointments online and adding an online calendar can turn even a basic website into a powerful sales tool that works 24/7.

ClickBook – Free appointment scheduler for solo business owners with 1 physical address, mobile & online services, and 50 max current bookings. An upgrade is required for additional staff and physical locations or more than 50 current bookings.

Collect signatures and get paid in one go, using DocuSign. It’s as easy as adding a payment amount and inserting a drag-and-drop ‘Pay’ field via your mobile, then sending your invoice.

Dropbox* is a file hosting service that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. There are different levels, such as personal, business, and enterprise accounts. I use this program as a file-sharing program between me and my clients. It provides a way of sharing files securely as well as having a backup.

Dropbox Sign (fka HelloSign) is a powerful browser extension that allows you to sign documents from right within Gmail. Once the extension is installed, any attached document you receive through Gmail will have a “Sign” button to load the Dropbox Sign window. Sign; then download your signed document.

HoneyBook is an all-in-one solution that lets you send invoices, sign contracts, book and schedule, automate workflows, manage projects, send forms and questionnaires, and accept online payments. (Click on my affiliate link for 50% off first year)

PBworks Wikis – Wiki pages are a great alternative to storing Word docs in a central location.

Pocket – Save articles, videos, and stories from any publication, page, or app. Curate your own space filled with everything you can’t wait to learn.

systemHUB – Secure, cloud-based software to store your business SOPs, systems, processes, and checklists – it’s standard operating procedure (SOP) software made easy. 

Unroll.me lets you ditch the emails you don’t want and keep the ones you do.

*What I use and recommend

SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULERS

Buffer – shares your content, schedules your posts, and monitors your social media accounts.

CoSchedule – marketed as a “mission control for your marketing roadmap,” it features a marketing calendar, scheduler, email marketing, workflow, team management. Starts at $80 / mo so it has it ALL.

Hootsuite – a social media platform that publishes your content, manages your social profiles, and promotes your brand. Create keyword search streams to track mentions, respond to customers, and nurture leads.

Meet Edgar is what I use and recommend. It is the social media queue that never runs out because it creates a database of your posts. I set up the calendar and categories, then it sends items out according to my schedule. Let me repeat, it never runs out. With other programs you have to keep uploading posts every few months or so, queue them up, then remember what you loaded and when. With Edgar you don’t have that problem. I’ve never loved a program so much in my life and recommend this program wherever I go 😉

Customer Service Programs / Helpdesk

CUSTOMER SERVICE SOFTWARE

Freshdesk – A full-fledged cloud-based customer support solution that offers everything a business needs to deliver exceptional support.

Kayako – A cloud-hosted help desk software that puts all your customer service channels in one place, which is the better and more efficient way to address customer concerns.

Zendesk – Web-based helpdesk management solution offering customizable tools to build customer service portals, knowledge bases, and online communities.

Zoho – A software suite that provides customer relationship management, helpdesk, bookkeeping, and email campaigns that allows small businesses to manage their contacts and automate their email marketing and lead generation tasks.

COMMUNICATIONS

8×8 – Reliable cloud-based technology for all of your business phone service needs. Communicate easily and continuously across all lines of business and devices.

Google Voice* – Users can obtain a single phone number to be used on all of their devices. No longer do you have to give out an office, cell, and home number.

Nextiva – Combines high-quality service with incredible technical support, as well as delivers powerful communications capability with simplicity and ease of use.

RingCentral – A top choice for organizations interested in scalable VoIP service and streamlined communications. Their services carry a high per-user fee, but the wide variety of business-friendly tools means you’re still getting a great deal.

*What I use and recommend

Get Legal

ARTFUL CONTRACTS by Amy Nesheim

These programs, products, and trainings are created by Amy Nesheim, a lawyer who helps protect creative entrepreneurs, freelancers, coaches, and consultants by taking the guesswork out of the legal side of your creative business so you can get back to what you do best.

Free Masterclass – How to Legally Protect Your Business – Amy’s free training will help you: 

  • Avoid the 3 BIG mistakes that are putting your revenue at risk
  • Show up like a professional with contracts that impress your clients and protect your business
  • Put the right policies in place on your website so you don’t get shut down by the internet police
  • ​Stop copycats from stealing and selling your content
  • Figure out if it’s the right time to form an LLC for your business (and what that even means)

Free Download – The 9-Step Checklist To Building Your Business On a Solid Legal Foundation – Amy created this checklist to help you start your business off on the right legal foot so you can avoid problems (and save money on attorney fees) later on! Access this free checklist today to check off the steps to make sure your business is legally legit!

How to Protect Your Business So YOu Can Grow with Confidence with the Cover Your Assets training program – Get the over-the-shoulder video trainings, legally binding contract templates, checklists, and guides that teach you how to safeguard your business revenue, avoid unnecessary legal risk, and get paid what you’re owed… (and when you’re owed it)!

Legal Protection Bundle – Get the legally binding contract templates, guides, checklists, and over-the-shoulder video trainings you need to safeguard your business, filter out trouble clients, and get paid what you’re owed… (and when you’re owed it)!

LISA FRALEY, JD Legal Coach and Attorney

These programs, products, and trainings are created by Lisa Fraley, JD., Legal Coach® & Holistic Lawyer® for coaches and entrepreneurs. Lisa is well-known for her holistic and loving approach to the law. She aligns legal steps with the chakras (how fun!)

Legal Solutions – including DIY legal templates, 1:1 legal services, legal master classes, and online legal courses.

Free tips on her blog

Get Legally Enlightened with Lisa Fraley podcast

Marketing Tools & Programs

CRM & EMAIL MARKETING

Active Campaign – A mobile-friendly service that has SMS automation with sales & CRM. Very easy to transfer over with free account migration.

Aweber – A service that includes 700+ email templates with bulk email sending. It has 99% email deliverability and it’s a Stevie Award Winner!

ConstantContact – is awesome! I used that program when I first started out and only had a newsletter. Just remember that this is mainly for sending out newsletters so if you want to provide programs, products, etc. then you’ll need the other programs as well.

ConvertKit – Reliable support focusing on concierge migration with text-based emails, and a Slack Community to connect with other users.

Drip – E-commerce, forms & surveys, lead capture, marketing automation, membership, and payment processing.

Keap (fka Infusionsoft)* – CRM, marketing automation, sales automation, online sales, analytics, and mobile. (I’m a Keap Certified Partner so contact me for discounts and specials.)

Mailchimp – Templates, unlimited sending, predicted demographics, email, and chat support.

ONTRAport – Consolidates newsletters and subscription emails into one summary message with campaign reporting, built-in best practices, and high-converting campaign maps.

*What I use and recommend

MEMBERSHIP PLUGINS

AccessAlly* – Works with WordPress and it’s what I use to run my membership programs.

LearnDash – If you don’t use WordPress, If you want to create and sell courses on your membership website, check out LearnDash.

Teachable – Online course platform for creators. Read this article on how to create a course within your Teachable school.

Wishlist Member – is a powerful, yet easy to use membership solution that can turn any WordPress site into a full-blown membership site. I used this for many years to deliver training programs and control membership permissions. It’s a WordPress plugin so it’s super lightweight and easy to use.

*What I use and recommend

SHOPPING CARTS

1ShoppingCart and 1AutomationWiz are great if you need a middle-of-the-road shopping cart solution or if you want to integrate autoresponders or digital delivery options within your shopping cart.

WPeStore and WPAffiliate WordPress Plugins-  A complete solution to sell digital products from your WordPress blog securely.  If you don’t want to pay ongoing fees and commissions to sell via a third-party web site, then WPeStore is a great solution. At only $49.95, you can sell your digital products, integrate with autoresponders, easy checkout and it’s a multi-site license so no need to buy multiple licenses for your other sites. While you’re on the site, check out WPAffiliate add-on for only $30 more.

For startups, I recommend e-Junkie. It is very inexpensive and you can increase your plan as you grow. For example, for 10 products it is only $8 per month. It also has a built-in affiliate program (albeit very spartan!) and it integrates with Paypal so no need for an additional merchant account.

Clickbank is a marketplace for digital information products. It aims to serve as a connection between digital content creators and affiliate marketers, who then promote them to consumers. It’s pretty easy to use and only requires a one-time payment of for the product activation fee after which you can add as many products as you want to your marketplace. This is great to use if you want to get up and going quickly as it automatically has the affiliate piece built-in.

TELESEMINARS / WEBINARS

Instant Teleseminar by Xiosoft – If you are going to be holding teleseminars and want a professional delivery method, then InstantTeleseminar is for you. It’s easy to use, customizable, and provides Q&A submission page, replay page, slide presentation, and branding options. They provide a bridge line for up to 250 guests on the line and many more on the webcast, but you can also use a different bridge line if you prefer.

Zoom* is a favorite tool in the online coaching world and for those who do webinars. This video and web conferencing service allows cross-platform messaging, file sharing, and video, voice and screen sharing.  One of its biggest draws is its high-quality HD video and features include recording, screen sharing, video conferencing, and audio calls. I also use it for my webinars, which you can upgrade your plan for just the month.

*What I use and recommend

Resources for the Freelancer / VA

JOB BOARDS & REFERRAL AGENCIES

Nina Feldman Connections – a resource and referral network agency, this service is for highly skilled service providers. Once you sign up, Nina matches you up with business owners (you pay a finder’s fee).

VANetworking – Tawnya Sutherland is an industry veteran and the founder of VANA, one of the premier online companies specializing in serving virtual assistants with resources, training, and a job board.

We Are Virtual Assistants – a thriving community site offering information, job postings, and advice to virtual assistants. You can join for free.

TRAINING

Social Media Manager Pro is the best social media management training I’ve found.

Freelance University (formerly VA Classroom) for skills training from everything from podcast production to online event management.

OBM Academy – Take this FREE assessment and discover how your strengths & interests are a fit for becoming an online business manager (OBM).

VACT – training courses for the UK-based virtual assistant by my fellow military spouse, Amanda Johnson.

Event Calendars and Listings

Done-For-You Content

PRIVATE LABEL RIGHTS (PLR)

PLR is a big help when it comes to writing special reports, articles, etc. If you need great content for yourself or to resell to others, these are the best sites to purchase from:

  • Coach Glue by Melissa Ingold and Nicole Dean provides instant-expert templates allowing you to design and create high-end coaching programs, workshops, and content for business coaches that you can license, brand, and sell to your own clients.
  • Content Sparks by Sharyn Sheldon has professional, ready-to-go content for business coaches, consultants, and educators.
  • Thrive Anywhere by Lynette Chandler is perfect for those who cater to the self-help market. She offers beauuuuutiful planners and journals. For example, her Thankful Heart Guided Gratitude Journal is a powerful resource you can use to help your audience cultivate an attitude of thankfulness so they can transform their mental health, relationships and more.
  • Content Drafts by Nicole Dean. Professionally written articles and reports you can use for lead generators to build your list, conduct challenges, and create content for upsells, etc.
  • Done-For-You Templates by Ron Douglas. They have options for personal use too.
  • Publish For Prosperity by Alice Seba. This site was created in response to the demand from personal development coaches, speakers and publishers who wanted more practical, high-value content with private label rights.  Alice not only provides the content, but also provides the training so you can excel in your online business.
  • PLR.me by Ronnie Nijmeh specializes in content for authors, speakers, coaches, therapists, and health professionals.

 

DONE FOR YOU MARKETING TEMPLATES

If you’ve been thinking there must be an easier way to market your business and feel frustrated when you tell yourself, “I should do that,” but never get around to it and aren’t growing your business as much as you’d like, these fill-in-the-blanks templates will definitely help! All of these packages are from DFY Templates by Ron Douglas and Alice Seba, who have a combined 30+ years of experience.

All of the packages have different purchase options depending on if you need personal access (used by you in your personal business only), want the developer option (used by you in your business and with your personal clients to help them with their business), or require PLR resell rights (edit, rebrand, and resell as you want).

I will keep adding to this list, so be sure to come back often.

Grow Your Team

JOB BOARDS AND REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP) SITES

VA Networking – Tawnya Sutherland is an industry veteran and the founder of VANA, one of the premiere online companies specializing in serving virtual assistants with resources, training, and a job board.

We Are Virtual Assistants – A thriving community site offering information, job postings, and advice to virtual assistants. You can join for free.

RESOURCE & REFERRAL

Nina Feldman Connections – Connecting you with freelance administrative, computer, document support, and website service providers. This service is free to business owners.

Financial, Accounting & Payment Systems

INVOICING & ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE

FreshBooks – Reliable and fast accounting suite that turns otherwise complex financial management into an enjoyable experience.

HoneyBook is an all-in-one solution that lets you send invoices, sign contracts, book and schedule, automate workflows, manage projects, send forms and questionnaires, and accept online payments. (Click on my affiliate link for 50% off first year)

QuickBooks* – Web-based accounting solution that caters to individual accountants and small businesses.

WaveApps – Free online accounting, bookkeeping, and invoicing software. For additional fees, you can also accept online payments and run payroll for your employees.

*What I use and recommend