The Ultimate Starter Kit for Small Businesses Like Mine

When you have to make a pitch video, it sort of sucks to waste time searching for a great video prod tool.

When you have to buy a theme for your new WordPress site, it definitely sucks to spend $79 only to find out your theme has crap shortcodes. (At least, it sucks for non-developers like moi.)

So because I don’t like sucky things, here’s a list of the biz tools I personally use and really love.

I use them for creating, marketing and selling my ebooks & videos, managing my clients and blogging in general. As I change tools, I’ll update this list with the new tool and the reason I switched.

Invoicing: FreshBooks

I used to work for Intuit and wrote what might be millions of words about QuickBooks. But QB is just not the right software for my needs.

When it comes to managing my small business finances, the software I use needs to do just this for now:

  • Let me create estimates and send them to my clients, and let my clients approve/accept the invoice online
  • Let me turn estimates into invoices, invoice my clients and manage those invoices (i.e., open invoice, pay/close invoice, archive)
  • Automatically follow-up on overdue invoices
  • Let me customize and send emails to my clients
  • IMPORTANT! Allow billing in multiple currencies
  • Integrate with an online payment tool (i.e., PayPal)

I get that all with FreshBooks. And I pay $19.95/mo for it.

My few caveats with FreshBooks?

  • Time-tracking is a pain in the ass ‘cos FB makes you jump through hoops filling out a form about the time you want to track… when I just want to enter hours, make a brief note to explain the hours, and assign those hours to X client on Y date
  • Although FB integrates with a range of tools I already use (e.g., Basecamp), it never prompts me to connect my services – so it’s up to me to figure out how all my services could work together (crybaby, right?) when I really don’t have the time or insight to do so

UPDATE: As I find myself quoting on more and more projects, I can’t help but long for a tool that backs up one step and helps me manage my leads before they turn into estimates. It’d also be great to create proposals in the same tool.

Deal Management: Stride (BETA)
I started using Stride in Mar 2012 after they posted on HackerNews. So far, so good. Here’s what it does for me:

  • Lets me enter new contacts super-fast (as in, in a few fields)
  • Lets me click a button to show what phase of the deal I’m in: Lead, Pitch, Negotiation, Closing or Won
  • Gives me the option to either enter approx what a deal may be worth (e.g., 3 dollars signs or 5 dollar signs?) or the exact quoted figure
  • Tally the $$$ I may make on the open deals, when I win them… which is really good ‘cos I’ll be able to make better quoting decisions if I see that I have $50K or $5K in the pipeline

What I don’t love is that, when you click “Won”, the deal leaves your primary dashboard. Part of me just wants to see my won deals in the same view for an ego boost, if nothing else. Keeps me motivated.

I’d also like to see them offer a Proposed Start Date option, so I can use the tool as a calendar of upcoming projects. Seems like a natural fit – and fairly easy to do.

I’m on the free program ‘cos I have fewer than 25 deals in the works right now, but, as I use the tool more and more (now that I have it), I imagine I’ll have to upgrade to the paid version. Luckily, it’s only $7.

Making Videos: Camtasia 7 for Windows
I’ve been using Camtasia for over a year, so I’ve become a bit of a power user. Like most installed software, it’s sort of clunky and not that easy to use. But here’s what’s great about it:

  • Quick screen recording – just hit “Camtasia Recorder”, and you’re good to go
  • Capture a screen in almost any resolution/size you’d like
  • Create videos in standard MP4, for iPhones and in multiple other formats I can’t even hope to need right now
  • Slice up your video – remove the intro stuff, pull out awkward pauses in the middle, fade out nicely at the end
  • It comes preloaded with a stock audio library that, although small, is pretty decent
  • The video tutorials are good, and there are tons of YouTube videos for the tutorials that aren’t
  • You can create a table of contents for your larger presentations, which is sweet

A few caveats with Camtasia?

  • It doesn’t let you do split-screen videos. For $400, you expect a little more. Maybe I’m crazy to expect more… but I’m pretty sure some smart startup is going to offer more for less and nip at Camtasia’s heels.
  • You can’t do anything really fancy with it. I’ve seen teen girls on YouTube doing more interesting stuff than Camtasia does, and I doubt they’re spending $400 on their video editing software.
  • I get deep anxiety whenever I have to disconnect the  audio and video tracks to do somewhat more advanced editing. I almost never disconnect the two ‘cos I’m scared the audio won’t match the movement of my lips on the screen.
  • If you want to do lengthy videos (e.g., 30 mins) with callouts and transitions, save often! Camtasia has crashed on me repeatedly.

When I think that services like Candidio charge ~$200 for not much more than what Camtasia does… and they charge it every time you want to edit a video (basically), Camtasia is really great value for money.

Email Marketing: MailChimp

Ah, MailChimp. How do I love thee? It was your good looks that first attracted me to you – and the sweet nothings you would whisper at the top of each page, linking me off to some hilarious and/or cute YouTube video completely unrelated to my work and, thus, a welcome distraction.

But it was your simple and lovely solution that made me fall in love.

MailChimp, I love you.

I look at people using Aweber, and I think, They don’t know what they’re missing. Hell, maybe the truth is that I don’t know what I’m missing by not using Aweber… but I don’t care.

MailChimp is the perfect email marketing tool for me, and here’s why:

  • The “Autoresponders” tool lets you not only send out automatic responses to new subscribers… but also set up campaigns to distribute content to subscribers to X list in cool ways — like a “20 day copywriting crash course”, which I keep meaning to do (NB: you have to pay for the A/R functionality)
  • In my WordPress theme, I can easily send new subscribers to various lists in MailChimp (which is good on the part of WooThemes, WordPress and MailChimp)
  • As your subscriber list grows, MailChimp automatically bumps your account up to the next level… and, impressively, bumps it back down if your list shrinks

I think I pay $20/mo, and it’s totally, 100% worth it.

File Storage: Dropbox

I make some pretty mondo-sized files, and I’ve lost files on my hard-drive more than once, which sucks. So I need a way to store my large files (and small ones) in the cloud, where I don’t have to worry much about backing data up or things getting lost when I accidentally visit a lyrics site and some virus instantly turns my computer into its bitch.

Enter Dropbox.

As with most great things in my life, my hubby Jones introduced me to it. Dropbox kills me ‘cos it:

  • Acts like just any old folder on my desktop… but is sort of like Mary Poppins’ bag – bottomless and surprising
  • Lets me invite people to a selected folder simply by right-clicking and entering their email address
  • Gives me MORE STORAGE when I get more people to sign up (so sign up here – I’m not an affiliate… but I do get more storage for peeps that sign up via my link)
  • Is pretty inexpensive (I don’t even know what it costs, and I’m a cheapskate, so I’d know if it were pricey)
  • Is just plain awesome

I save almost nothing on my desktop now, which makes my computer happy. I can’t imagine a world without Dropbox in it. In fact, if zombies were to overtake the world tomorrow, I’d fly to wherever Dropbox is and save the peeps there just to keep Dropbox going.

Of course, that’s pretty dumb…

Email marketing
Accounting
Shopping cart – include why chose WooCommerce with the theme that lets you fulfill digital products
PayPal – experience and why

Affiliate program – what i considered, why i opted out of using them
Screen recording
Webinars
Camera equipment Recording Copy Talk – “In Person HD” camera
Web hosting

Website itself

DropBox to store my large files