Recommended courses, apps and software for new + experienced (sometimes overwhelmed) business owners who want to simplify and work smarter.
Over the years, I’ve collected my favourite resources that I use daily to grow my business and my clients’ too!
As small business owners, especially when we’re just starting out, we don’t have a lot of time, money or resources so I pick my courses, apps and tools very carefully.
And yet there’s so many moving parts and hats we need to wear. Skills we need to learn.
I still remember how I was so hesitant to spend my first $15 online. Before that, I spent years consuming free resources. After all, I had just left my 9-5 job and haven’t even made any income yet.
Everything changed when I made the mind-shift change. I was the textbook example of trading pennies for the dollar. The moment I made my first investment (I know, it’s so cliche but that’s really what it is), the doors opened up and I would usually get my money back 5x fold and save 5x the time.
A lot of the resources here are free or have free tiers. Use them as much as you can until you feel the need to pay.
Hope that you find them useful and helpful.
If you need any specific tool, don’t hesitate to reach out and ask! :)
COURSES
The Boss Course
a.k.a. Be The Boss In Your Wardrobe: The online course that gets you dressed and out the door in under 5 minutes.
Ziva Meditation
I thought meditation doesn't work for me until I found Ziva.
About Ziva
Ziva’s mission is to give you the tools to perform at the top of your game.
Enter: The Ziva Technique, a powerful trifecta of mindfulness, meditation and manifesting (aka making your dreams your reality), that not only has the power to uplevel your health, sleep and sex life, but help you kick a$$ at work and thrive at home.
The Ziva Technique isn’t an app, it doesn’t require you to sit in lotus pose or burn incense. It’s a trifecta of mental tools used by the world’s top performers. You learn the technique once by enrolling in our zivaLIVE or zivaONLINE courses, and then you’ve got a practice you can do on your own for life.
Our amazing team of veteran meditators will help guide you on your journey, answer your questions, and help you weave this powerful practice into the busy-ness of your every day.
Over 15,000 students have learned to meditate with us in person (zivaLIVE) or online (zivaONLINE), including Oscar, Grammy, Emmy and Tony award winners, NBA players, Fortune 500 CEOs, Navy SEALs, busy parents and entrepreneurs. When you graduate from Ziva, you’ll have an incredible, supportive community, a super-powerful daily practice and the ability to step into your full potential.
Colour Combinations
The Real Hue (What You Didn’t Know About Colour)
My go-to book not just for outfits, but for design and branding as well! Nat at Make It Look Easy has colour superpowers and this has been her brainchild for years. There’s heaps of colour combos I never thought to try and I’m always amazed when they work beautifully!
Reach More + Create More Impact
Tailwind
Pinterest is by far my biggest organic traffic source, and I only have a handful of blogposts. I’ve seen my traffic increase just by scheduling pins via Board Booster and Pinterest.
My favourite Tailwind feature is that it pins on the optimal time that your audience is on, something Board Booster doesn’t have (at least not at the time of writing).
I use them both and while I’m still at the early stages, I’ve seen some good organic growth which I’ll let you know about in another blog post!
Missinglettr (Free 14-Day Trial with Missinglettr)
Super cool startup that’s changed my life with a super intelligent AI campaign manager (at least that’s what I think anyway).
Plug in your website or blog, and it automatically creates campaigns based on your posts. Graphics too!
Just love these guys and the moment they rolled out Facebook integration, I was sold.
Systems & Boards
Airtable
Wow, where do I start? The fact that I’ve officially ditched spreadsheets for this beauty?
It’s like Excel in the 21st century. Or like Numbers married Trello who married Google Forms. lol!
Anyway, you’ve got forms, tables, different views to organise your data, this my friends, is an amazing game changer.
Milanote
Ok, now this takes brainstorming and note-taking to new levels.
Think of Trello marrying a cork board and they had a baby. (Sorry, a bunch of people around me are getting engaged and married recently so it’s the only analogy I could think of.)
I love how you can move things around and mindmap with lists, categories, photos and notes, all in one app.
Make Connections with An Email List
Privy (Free)
I actually stumbled on Privy when I was setting up a Shopify site for a client. I’d describe it as very similar to SumoMe but I find their interface more beautiful and easier to use.
I love that even on the free plan, you can create landing pages and separate sharing links so to give you more stats on where your signups are coming from.
The only caveat is that the free plan only grabs email addresses and not names, which is important to me as we want to know our subscriber’s names, right?
Fortunately, their paid plan lets you add a new field.
I also love their support—they’ve given me some great agency pricing because I wanted to switch to their platform and just need a few premium features to do this.
And the best part? You can have customisable confetti after signup. 😍
Leadpages (Free 14-Day Trial)
I used to be on Clickfunnels but I found it too complicated and clunky for me.
I’m a minimalist at heart (or at least trying to be), and Leadpages matches my brand to a tee. I am especially in love with Leadboxes!! All you need to do is create one and link it to any button or link and it works like a popup. Brilliant!
The support team also seemed a lot nicer. Maybe this might change because they’ve just offered free trials? I hope not!
I love Leadpages and wish I jumped in sooner. It’s one of the best tools I have in my marketing arsenal.
Best for the more advanced marketers who have complicated funnels, it has great functionality for sure.
There's a fabulous ad lookbook as well that they've created, featuring yours truly! See if you can find me. But that's just a bonus because the ad inspiration on there is amazing! ;) Download it here.
Make Things Pretty
Figma
My #1 tool for creating my social media graphics.
It’s originally built for app designers, but don’t get turned off by this.
It’s actually easier and in some cases, more powerful than Photoshop.
Not convinced? Challenge accepted. Will you give me a chance to show you?
Subscribe to my Youtube Channel and keep an eye out for my upcoming tutorials!
Google Slides
They’ve come a long way from the clunky and ugly first version.
It’s the easiest tool you can use for creating PDFs and presentations.
Unless you’re creating long ebooks, in which case, I’d recommend…
Apple Pages
I’ve helped many entrepreneurs grow their businesses with Pages and Google Slides.
Yep, you really don’t need to learn Illustrator or InDesign to create great-looking material for your people.
Get Paid
Book Like A Boss
As you probably already guessed, it’s also a booking platform.
I just love fun brands like Book Like A Boss, they make business a lot more fun!
They’re relatively new in the scene but they have answered 90% of my calendar app needs. Prior to this, I used Timekit.io which was very basic but it was free, and on the free plan I could select multiple calendars and accounts, which Calendly didn’t do.
Acuity, while powerful, didn’t have the aesthetics I wanted.
Book Like A Boss, on the other hand, has a fun interface, with a bit of black for mystery & authority that aligns with my branding.
Can’t wait to see how this platform matures!
Wave Apps
My default invoicing software which I love. They’re also on the free tier and they just take a percentage when I get paid through their platform.
You can also plug in your bank account and credit card accounts and pretty much do your bookkeeping within the app.
…More to come so stay tuned!!
