Platforms That Help Me Do It All

The Products/Platforms That Help Me Do It All you are my favorite by fifiduvie On Monday I talked about how the heck I do it all, on Tuesday I asked you what you needed help with, yesterday I told ya about the people who help me do it all, and today its all about my favorite products and platforms! OK, so some of the links are affiliate ones, but for serious, I wouldnt pimp it out unless Ive used it for myself and wanna marry it. Dont tell my husband. For CRM (Customer Relations Management): Batchblue Ive used SalesForce in my Corporate America life, and hated the unprettiness/clutteredness/textbasedness of it all (although it looks like theyve updated it since). Thankfully, I found BatchBlue early in the game and used their basic plan ($9.95/month) for over a year before adding my Virtual Assistant to my mix and throwing em an extra $10/month, happily. The most amazeballs thing about Batchblue is their super-sophisticated social media integrations. If you have a name and an email address, you can click the Search Social Network button and have Batchblue find their Twitter account, Facebook profile, Flickr username and LinkedIn profile, which you can then add to that contacts Social Media tag. You can also add RSS feeds for, well, anything (I set ones up for blogs, Etsy and Pinterest) so that persons latest tweets and posts and pins and pics are all within their entry. Its also really easy to attach files, create To Dos and Events (that sync with your calendar), run reports for w hatever you find important (i.e. I have one that tells me how many consultation calls end up signing on as clients), create web forms that then sync with the contacts info, and keep track of Deals. The only downside Ive had with Batchblue is that their iPhone app has never not crashed on me, so I cant rely on it. With all the updates they come up with and the general awesomeness of the company, Im sure theyll be fixin it in no time. For newsletters: Mailchimp If every company aspired to be like Mailchimp, wed all be in a much happier place. Not only do they keep upping the amount of their free accounts (it used to be 500 subscribers, then 1000, and now 2000), but they keep things so user-friendly and pretty and easy from creating your first newsletter to reading the data of who opened your last email that its pretty much a pleasure to send an update to your fans. And when I do run into trouble and I did recently they have real people at the other end of the IM system that not only help you, but have personalities and might send you a ninja sticker postcard(!!!) after talking to them. And yes, I have said ninja sticker postcard. Its amazeballs. For social media management: Hootsuite Im a cheapskate. With all the free platforms out there, somethings gotta be really super good for me to pay for it. I think this proves how much I love me some Hootsuite, as I didnt bat an eye when they switched to a paying platform, and I happily give em my $5.99 each month for all they do. Yeah, I know people like TweetDeck and I think its still free, but I was super annoyed by the desktop pop-up Id get every time my home feed was updated. Whether on my desktop, laptop, or iPhone, HootSuite is the one-stop-shop for me to update my twitter account,  my Facebook profile, my Facebook fan page, my LinkedIn profile, and my FourSquare account (you can also add your ping.fm account, mixi (whatever that is), WordPress and MySpace). So, no need to go anywhere else to update all your statuses, schedule updates/tweets in advance, shorten links, and create private and public lists (no more homefeed overwhelm!). For clipping, organizing, and To Do-ing: SpringPad I discovered Springpad about 2 months ago, and immediately unsubscribed from BaseCamp and stopped updating Delicious and Evernote. Im kinda afraid to explain it because theres so much and its so varied, I might (a) write for pages and pages and put you to sleep (b) make everything super convoluted, so head over to their info page and get the scoop. Then, know that you can keep all your bookmarks, all the products you want and recommend (whether youre surfing online or out in the world), all your take-out menus and fave spots, and all your notes/To Dos and put em in one place or in multiple notebooks in the same place. Theres even a Bulletin Board option for each notebook, so you can pull out images and satiate the visual piece of your notes youre yearning for. The only downfall Ive experienced with Springpad is that it wont mark a To Do as done until the To Do date passes, so if you have reminders set-up for something, itll keep reminding you to do it even if its been done (if that makes sense). Pretty annoying. Springpad, please fix this! I love you! For email: Gmail Ive been using Gmail for my personal account for years, but it was a no-brainer to keep on using it when I became a Woman of the World (aka entrepreneur). I love me their folders, their filters, their forwarding, their starring system, their themes (the Bus Stop one changes with the weather!), their Priority Inbox, the amount of space I get, and their stacked conversation view. If youre curious, I did sign up for a free trial of Google Apps, but couldnt find the benefit, so never took the time to install/use it. If you use it and love it, please leave a comment Id love to hear! For calendering: Google Calendar Ive been toying with the idea of switching to iCal, but Im on so many different machines that I love the web-basedness of Google Calendar, as well as the ability to create multiple calendars for different categories (and color-code em!). It also seems to Sync with every application possible, so I have my Batchblue To Dos there and can see em every day in that view. I dont love that it doesnt live on my phone (I have to log-in to a web page to view it), but I do have the benefit of knowing its always updated no matter where I am. For time tracking: Freckle Ive been using Freckle for less than a month, and while I dont bill my clients based on my time, Ive found Freckle enormously helpful (and easy! and pretty! and visual!) in tracking my time, taking stock of what Im actually spending my time on. This has lead me to some valuable info for my business: what takes up most of my time, what I need to spending more/less time on, whats worth delegating, if Im charging enough based on the non-session time I dont bill clients for, etc. Even if this isnt something youre interested in in the long-term, the free 30-day trial (and they email you a week before its up so you wont get billed accidentally!) is an eye-opening exercise in time management. And having that timer on for each task has definitely keep me more focused and more unitasking! For legal signing: EchoSign I started using EchoSign a few months ago for the agreement I have my new clients sign, agreeing Im not the boss of em and that they wont sue me and whatnot. I was nervous that just typing their name into a Word document wouldnt hold up in court, and scanning the document back and forth ended up being more complicated than I originally figured it would be. With EchoSign, I was able to upload my agreements, add the name/initial/date/signature fields I need, and keep em on file until I send em to my new client. Once the client signs it (by typing), it gets sent to me to countersign (again, by typing), and then we both get PDFs of the agreement for our files. Everythings time stamped and saved in the EchoSign files, so theres a real detailed record there should I need it later on. The only complaints Ive had is in the shady wording EchoSign used when I first signed up which theyve since updated and reflected in their pricing (they charge more for a month-to-month account than what the y advertise the price there is if you prepay for a year, but they dont say that). But the actual products pretty great and gives me peace of mind, so I put up with it. For fancy schmancy online scheduling: TimeTrade When I first knew I wanted a fancy schmancy online scheduler, I did my research. It was a few years ago so I dont quite remember the others I looked at, but lots of them seemed salon- and gym- based. What I found with TimeTrade was a system that worked for any service-based business one that was easy to set-up, looked nice, converts to the time zone the computer thats using it is registered in, could sync to my Google Calendar, and cost $30 for the entire darnfalooting year. The only complaint I have with TimeTrade is that I cant create a Breathing Room rule between appointments in other words, itll book me back-to-back appointments unless I put in a calendar entry it can read that says otherwise. Ideally, Id love to tell it that there needs to be 15 min in between calls instead of creating a timedriver buffer calendar entry when an appointment comes in, but Ill live. For blogging/websiting: WordPress Im a bit spoiled here as I know this is tough to set-up/design and my man did it all for me, so I cant speak to that. What I can speak to is that Im fairly developer-illiterate, and it didnt take me too long to figure out WordPress so I could add pics, links, movies, yada yada yada to my posts. And all the plug-ins it offers rock. Cant wait to get my whole site over to WordPress so I can be an updating queen. For conference calls: FreeConferencePro Ive been using FreeConferencePro since I started coaching in 2007, and love it for (a) giving me my own number (b) allowing me to customize the greeting (aka make a sexy lady voice say the word amazeballs) (c) having a recording feature so I can email the link to my clients after each session, which they can then download or listen to online. I can count the amount of times the link has been down on one hand, and while its soooooo not fun when it happens (and the customer service team doesnt really care), its happened so infrequently it wasnt enough for me to change providers. I really hope this was helpful for you all! If you have any questions about any of these products or have your own you wanna show love to, drop a comment Id love to hear it. For file sharing: Dropbox Whether youre sharing files between computers, with other people privately, or with the world at large, Dropbox is the coolest. Theres tons of storage involved with a free account (I have a crapload of files on it and have only used half of my available storage), and the app is great for when I need to read files on the road. Simple explanation, simple to use, super amazeballs product. **********************************************************************************************