I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about what I use to run my business so I figured I’d put together a quick post about what I use and why. If I miss your favourite piece of software, leave a comment below.

#1: WORDPRESS

There is plenty of competition, but nothing will ever beat WordPress. It’s so damn easy to use a child could do it. If you’re going to hire someone to build your website, make sure it’s someone who’s going to do the job properly. Remember, WordPress is supposed to make something complicated easy enough for the every day Joe to be able to handle. Case in point: I had a client who’s entire WordPress website is so difficult to work in, I’ve had to call in the troops on a number of occasions (thanks Christina!). Every single page had it’s own page template, the navigation was hard coded right into the site. It was a nightmare and it also means that she’ll need to hire someone anytime she wants to make a simple change on her site. So use WordPress, but hire someone who’s going to set it up properly.  You’re going to need web hosting too, and Hostgator is a great choice.  If you use code fallspecial25 you’ll save yourself an extra 25% off their already easy-to-deal-with prices.

#2: CARBONITE

Imagine you have all your client files neatly laid out on your computer. There’s invoices, completed files, graphics .. everything. And you wake up in the morning and when you turn on your trusty computer, it does … nothing. It’s happened to me and it’s totally not my idea of a good morning. Not only were all my business files held captive inside a tiny little box that had no intention of ever opening up again, but there were also all my son’s baby pictures there too – all his firsts. If you don’t have some kind of an automated back up system, you could be kicking yourself in the ass. Hard drives fail … and every single one of them will … trust me. Take the time to get something like Carbonite in place. It works in the background and takes care of backing everything up without hogging your system resources. If you have a hard drive fail, you simply replace the hard drive, press a few buttons inside Carbonite and wait while they happily replace all your missing files. Give it a try through this link and they’ll even give you 2 months free on your subscription.

#3: AWEBER OR MAILCHIMP

There’s reasons to use both of them and I’ve recommended both to my clients depending upon their needs. If you’re planning on doing a lot of information marketing, get yourself an Aweber account. If you need an autoresponder, get yourself an Aweber account. If you’re only going to have one list and you’re planning on sending out a handful of newsletters to your list, get yourself a Mailchimp account. Mailchimp starts out free – but they don’t have an autoresponder for the free account. Once you surpass 2000 people, the price between both average out. Don’t think you’re going to start off with Mailchimp and then move to Aweber when you’re bigger. They don’t allow you to just place folks on the newsletter list, which means everyone is going to have to opt in on Aweber again. And truth be told, a lot of people don’t do that. If you’re in doubt, go with Aweber.

#4: GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Most people have this, but few people actually use it. Take some time to go through the system and figure out how it all works. If you’re running a business, you need to measure what’s going on. In order to measure something, you have to actually use the dang thing. So get yourself a free account, place the bit of code and get measuring.

#5: SKYPE

A lot of folks don’t have the money or the need for a separate phone line for their business. Skype is a fabulous option. They do have online phone numbers you can buy (sorry, no Canadian numbers) and their subscriptions for long distance are second to none. Seriously, who could beat $3 for a months worth of calling in North America?

#6: BOOMERANG

I’m in love with this service. So much so that I bought the pro version. If you’ve ever sent an email and then forgot about it because they never replied, you NEED this service. You can also schedule your email messages to go out at a later time, and “boomerang” messages back on a certain day or time. Try it out – I’ll bet you love it too.

#7: MY INTERVALS

This is the project management system I’ve used since I started my business back in ’09.  They’re inexpensive, have fabulous support, and have robust features that are sure to fit any business.  Project management, document storage, online timers – it’s all there.

#8: SCHEDULE ONCE

These guys have free and paid plans.  For me, the free plan works perfectly.  I switched to them after Tungle left the scene last year.  The one thing I wish the free plan did have was the email reminders.

#9: CLICK TO TWEET

As I put together my blog posts, I sometimes have a sound bite that would make a perfect tweet.  This is a free service that doesn’t require any signup.  Plug in your tweet, click the button and you get a link that you can insert into your page.   You can definitely do this on your own, but for those of you who are a little tech-challenged this is a perfect solution.

#10: RECITE THIS

Truthfully, I haven’t started using this, but it’s on my list to start.  This is free, online, and will create a stunning graphic for your quote in a matter of seconds.  Great for anyone who needs to add some Pinterest love to their business.

#11: SUCURI

I had a client who recently had malicious code placed on her site.  She was using some other service who monitored her sites, but wanted to charge another $200 to fix it.  Who’s got time for that?  Not me and not you.  Hook yourself up with Sucuri.  They’ll monitor the site AND clean anything that ever comes up.  True peace of mind.

#12: OFFICE AUTO PILOT

This isn’t something I use in my business, but one of my clients does use it.  Oh. My. God.  I love it.  Contact management – check!  Payment processing – check!  Email marketing – check!  Task management – check!  affiliate management – check!  It integrates with WordPress, has if-then rules .. hell, it can even handle direct mail postcards.   This is not for everyone because it’s pricey – but when your business is large enough to warrant it, you’re going to kick yourself in the ass for not getting on it sooner.  You can’t beat a 90 day money back guarantee either.

#13: TINEYE REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH

I love this little site.  I plug in a URL or upload an image and it’ll give me a number of hits where that image appears online.  This can be uber useful for businesses trying to track down their own images.

What piece of software is a must-have in your business?

This question came in from Natalie who was about to launch a brand new business. Check it out:

Hi Dawn!

I loved your guest post on Mogul Mom today! Thanks so much for getting these tips out to everyone. I’m reaching out to you today to find out if you have content posted anywhere about how to get around having testimonials when you are just starting out.

My business is getting prepared to launch in the next few weeks. While my partner and I have extensive experience in our field we are creating a new service for the dental community and are concerned about how to build a reputation for being trustworthy without having any clients to brag on us yet. I’d love to know your thoughts on this.

Luckily for Natalie (and you), I do happen to have a few ideas to building your online rep when you haven’t jumped out the door yet.

1.  GIVE IT AWAY

Find some folks who can try your product or service free-o-charge in exchange for an honest review.  Use these first few happy clients as bubbly testimonials as you role out your new baby for the universe.  Be absolutely, positively, unabashedly sure that you continue to get testimonials from people once you’ve launched and the bucks are rolling in.  In the beginning, this will be easy because you can email each person as they finish up with you (or in the case of long-term clients, once they’ve been on board long enough to have some say in the matter).  When you get busy, you can work in some automation or hire yourself a virtual assistant.

2.  YOUR SKILLS ARE TRANSFERABLE

Make a list of everything that you do in your current role/business/job. Is there anything that translates to your new schtick? If it does, hustle that person for a expertise type testimonial. Before I ran Monday Morning VA, I built Avon businesses. That had nothing to do with what I was going to start doing here at MMVA, but if I had been smart, I would have plucked a few sound bites from all the men and women I helped build an Avon customer base. Why? Because that SKILL is relevant to the work I do now.  It’s no different from when you used to write a traditional resume when you had no job experience. What skills can be marketed to your new employer? Figure that out, then mine it for some hot testimonials.

3.  USE SOCIAL MEDIA

When you start your website and blog, make sure you leave comments on.  (Save yourself some hassle and get Akismet hooked up right away).  Ask a question that’s pertinent to your business and your post.  You can pluck those beefy comments and place them onto your raving fans page.  You can do the same thing on Facebook and Twitter and just screen capture those comments.  Easy.

4.  TESTIMONIALS ABOUT YOU

You may not have a product or service yet, but I bet someone’s worked with you in some kind of capacity.  If someone has some love to shower on you, capture it as a testimonial.  Knowledge on a subject is just as important as anything else, so if someone tells you that you’re the top dog in your industry, you want that on your page.  Set up Google Alerts to notify you when you’re mentioned on other sites or in tweets.

What’s your favourite tip to gather testimonials?

I’ll be the first to admit that there’s no hard and fast rules to building and designing a website-slash-online business, but that never stops people from seeking recommendations and best practices. Grab a notepad, here’s some of my top “don’t make this mistake” tips.

SUBSCRIBE HERE – TO FEEDBURNER

I recently came upon a great website and was amped up at the information they promised to provide. Subscribe here their pretty orange button said! Sadly, they were using Feedburner in lieu of a real honest-to-goodness mailing list. Yes, that’s right – in lieu of. That means if you’re currently using Feedburner you have to make a solemn promise that you will ditch it and move to a real marketing platform.  It’s clunky and junky and on it’s way out.  It’s definitely not what you want to use to build your business.  There’s two services that I recommend – Aweber and Mailchimp.  If you’re not sure which to use, comment below.

GIVE ME A “Y”

The trend used to be that you’d give away your prized PDF book valued at $450 when people graciously joined your list. Some people have moved away from that trend and are giving away their valuable content for free – without even needing to provide an email. They want their best information in as many hands as possible so they’re giving it away without ANY hitches at all. It’s all about building your audience.  If this doesn’t suit you, give ViperChill’s Cloud:Flood a try.

DON’T CUT OFF RSS

Most people think like this: if someone signs up to receive my blog posts via RSS and they can read that whole post without ever coming to my site then I’m losing money. So they make the choice to send out their RSS feeds with one paragraph (if you’re lucky) thinking that it’s enough to entice you to click over to the site and read. What usually happens is that people get ticked off that you’re ruining their time that they delete you (and possibly unsubscribe). Make me another promise – send out your RSS feeds with your full posts.

EVERYTHING HAS A PURPOSE

Everything that lives on your site must have a purpose. If it doesn’t – you need to get rid of it. Let’s say you have a tag cloud that takes up half your side bar because you think it’s pretty cool. A month goes by, two months, six months … no one has ever clicked on the bugger. Why would you want to keep it there? It’s not serving any purpose (other than your love of tags). And yes, the bigger problem IS indeed the person who has no idea if anything is worthwhile because they haven’t been tracking anything on their site. You’ve got two promises to make this time around: start tracking your statistics and become a deleting mad man for anything that doesn’t work on your site.

DON’T TRY TO CATCH TWO RABBITS

A client recently relayed her problem to me: she has too many talents and passions for one business. Acting, teaching, spirituality, health and fitness, and energy healing. Trying to push that into one business is going to be too much – for you and your audience. If you’re a multi-passionate entrepreneur then you need to figure out exactly what you want to be doing and move in that direction. Marie Forleo has a video that tackles this subject – check it out.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COLOUR

Waaaay before I built businesses online, I had a friend who was a pretty talented web designer. Y’know, back before WordPress was prevalent and we had to hand code HTML sites. Anyway, on one of his website revamps, he splashed the pages with a black background and either red or white text. Back then we were all “oooh” and “aaahhh” … but now we’re all “hey stop it – that’s killing my eyes” and “dude, PLEASE change your colours”. Readability is a big issue when you’re choosing the colours for your site, but there’s also some psychology behind the whole thing too.

According to one site, orange is “the most flamboyant color on the planet! It’s the colour tied most this fun times, happy and energetic days, warmth and organic products. It is also associated with ambition. There is nothing even remotely calm associated with this colour. Orange is associated with a new dawn in attitude.” And red is “associated with movement and excitement. People surrounded by red find their heart beating a little faster and often report feeling a bit out of breath. It’s absolute the wrong colour for a baby’s room but perfect to get people excited.”

In case you want to put that into some business context – check out how many “buy now” type buttons are either red or orange. Check out this site that talks about it more.

Your turn:

If you have any “don’t make this mistake” type tips of your own – list’em below.

If you did a Google search for “multiple streams of income” you’re going to find a boatload of sites, mounds of information, and probably more than a handful scammy-looking sites.  (don’t believe me, go ahead and look for yourself … I’ll wait).  Some of the sites are very specific – they might focus on different ways that a Real Estate agent can find new ways to make money.  A lot of it isn’t very helpful – knowing that I need to have more than one client or that I should take on a part-time job is NOT useful.

Lesson #1:
There’s always gold in your business

Way too many people think that there’s nothing “else” they can offer in their business.  Nuh-uh.  No way.  There’s always gold in those mines.  During one particular guide session, I was running through some ideas on how the client could add some extra money in her business.  When I wrapped it up there was silence on the other end.  Did I lose the connection?  Does she think these are the most mundane ideas ever.  She responded with a “Wow.  These are incredible.  I wasn’t sure my business idea would fly let alone being able to do all that.”

Success.  She dubbed me a gold finder.

Lesson #2:
There’s only 3 ways to make money

This mind map is one I made up a few years back.  There’s a lot of stuff happening in there, but it all fits nicely into 3 little buckets of entrepreneurial happiness.

MAIN EVERYDAY INCOME:  This is easy – if you have a business that makes money from the work you do day-in and day-out, it falls into the main everyday income bucket.  If you’re a service based business, your foundation income comes from finding clients and providing the service.  Way too many businesses stop here … but eventually you’re going to max yourself out – there’s only so many business hours that your store can stay open or that you can work.

SMART CAPITALIZED INCOME:  If you offer any type of group services, you’re working inside the capitalized income zone.  Entrepreneurs quickly find out that the income potential skyrockets when they figure out how to leverage their time and energy properly.  This can be anything from membership programs to live events.

PASSIVE INCOME:  Passive income used to be a pipe dream, but it’s a reality for many online entrepreneurs.  Anything that doesn’t require your constant attention to deliver the goods will fit into this bucket.  Did you write an eBook?  Create a video series?  Record a CD?  Are you an affiliate for anything or anyone?  These are all passive ways of making money.  And yes, I plunk Affiliate Income into this bucket too.

There is gold in every business.  Your job is to find and leverage it.  @mondaymorningva

Lesson #3:
Ideas


If you’re having a hard time coming up with some ideas on what to offer, here’s a handy list that that has been compiled from ideas I’ve given clients as well as things I’ve found ’round the internet.

>> create an informational product

>> host a workshop

>> offer coaching sessions

>> offer a critique or some kind of make over service

>> go out and speak to an audience

>> whip up a teleseminar

>> sell audio or video

So tell me … where’s the gold in your business? 

You need to update your blog.  You sit down in front of your computer.
20 minutes later, you walk away from the still blank screen in a search for inspiration.

Sound familiar? Yes Ma’am.

First things first: I’m giving you permission NOT to write 7 days a week. Or even 5 days. I’d much rather see you create one great piece a week, than send out 5 mediocre articles. I bet your audience feels the same way. If your business relies heavily on news – then perhaps hire a freelancer to help ease some of the burden.

FINDING NEW IDEAS

Readers

:: if you don’t have an autoresponder set up yet for new subscribers, get one done right away. Like today. New eyes on your material is a great way to get a fresh look at things you may have missed. It doesn’t matter if you have a survey in place or you just want them to email you – the point is that you want to find out what types of things they expect to learn from you, what they’re hoping you may cover, and what burning questions they have about your niche.

:: go back through old blog posts and comb through the comments. What types of things are your readers asking about? What products are they mentioning? I’m willing to bet there’s a pot of gold sitting in those comment sections.

:: I know you have a Fan Page and Twitter account set up already – so start asking your followers there the same types of things you’ve asked in your autoresponder.

The Internet

:: Google Alerts is a great way to have relevant information land inside your inbox. You can do something similar with Twitter as well. You’ll want to make use of keywords that are relevant to your niche so you’ll pull in what others are talking about. And no, this isn’t about pilfering others ideas. Take the idea and put your own spin on it or make the article about your point of view on the subject.

:: On a forum, people are always asking questions and giving their opinions. Find a busy one and you’ll have a fresh batch of ideas daily.

:: Check out Amazon.  Find a relevant book from your industry and check out the reviews.  Gold. Mine.

You have permission to NOT write every single day.  @mondaymorningva

It’s All You

:: Whenever you can work in a personal story to your piece – do it. We love to be able to relate to one another!

:: Keep a notepad with you all the time. I’m sure there’s been more than one time that a great idea came to mind but you forgot all about it by the time you got in front of your computer.

Your Turn

How do you keep your ideas flowing?

In a little under 10 years, I went from a perky, happy-go-lucky, ass-kicking young adult to something that I can easily equate with an empty conch shell after the little hermit crab left it behind to take up a new residence.

Yep, hard to believe but it’s the truth. Pinky swear.

I prided myself on being stead fast. I was going to work at my marriage. But there comes a point when you have to give yourself (and your kids) the best chance of making it through life. In November 2010, I separated from my husband. There were plenty of reasons that led to the decision – don’t worry, none of them were physical abuse – but since I promised myself that I wouldn’t bare all on the internet for my son to find one day, I won’t go into details.

I packed up what was left of my little broken family, found a great place in the city and took up residence.

I chose this path because it felt right – it was right. But it certainly didn’t stop me from worrying what life was going to be like. I half expected to fall flat on my face.

And I expected to be broken, unfixable.
And I expected to be a quivering, sobbing, uncontrollable blob.
And I expected to be a struggling work-from-home-mom with a (then) 4 year old vying for my attention while the business I’ve been building for 3 years slipped through my worked-to-the-bone fingers.

And I was wrong.

Turns out that I was a hell of a lot stronger than I ever gave myself credit for.

See, when I left, I knew there was no turning back. There wasn’t going to be any happily ever afters. Knowing that meant digging in my heels and fighting like hell. It took awhile but eventually, that spark started flickering deep down in my belly. The more I dug in my heels, the stronger that fire became. Freedom meant choice. And with choice I knew I could take my life anywhere I wanted or needed it to go.

When my son started school this past September, I knew it was a fork in the road for me – it was time to kick things into high gear and start moving. I started doing things for me. I picked up books again. Music filled the house. I began seeing a massage therapist to keep the pain away instead of waiting until it was so necessary to see her because I could no longer move. I invested in my spiritual side with Grace Quantock’s Soul Detox Sessions because I knew that if I left my toxic marriage fester it would kill me. I started moving outside of my comfort zone – I went to a movie by myself. I met a Reiki teacher, signed up for the course, and added a new service to my business and more than that I started a brand new business after receiving my Master/Teacher certificate. And most importantly, I reconnected with my son.

SAY WHAT?

>>LIMITING BELIEFS – can overtake you. They can envelop you so you can’t see past your own damn face. Don’t sell yourself short because you WILL live up to your own expectations. When I stopped expecting that I would fail, I suddenly grew wings.

>>STAY OPEN – After I figured out how to fly, I used my new found talent on my business. My business wasn’t stagnant before the session, but afterwards it was like the invisible shackles exploded. It’s not until you see how much further your business can go that you realize how much it has been holding back. I had customers lining up in droves. If I remember correctly, I had 7 or 8 new client consults within a week of doing my business Reiki session. It’s slowed down to a more manageable number now, but they’re still coming. And it’s exhilarating.

>>YOU’RE NOT ALONE – Some people just need to hear a friendly voice that tells them that everything’s OK – you’re not alone and you’re doing things right. Some of us need a little more prodding. There is a world of people out there who are willing to give you a shoulder to cry on or lend a helpful eye. This fact was proven to me last week when I received an out-of-the-blue email from an entrepreneur I didn’t know who had spotted something on my site that needed my attention: my old B-School links were outdated and weren’t working.

>>THE UNIVERSE GIVES YOU WHAT YOU NEED – Sometimes, the universe just gives you a little somethin’-somethin’ that you need to get your business back on track. I like to keep my karma points hopping so I have some gifts for you.

1. Head over to my newest Fan Page and give it a like. At the beginning of every month, I pick one person to receive a free session. There’s a signup box to get in on the weekly mini doses of Reiki too. Doesn’t matter where you live – distance sessions are just as effective as those in person. Check out the testimonial from Bonnie to see just how effective they can be.

2. Check out the new and improved B-School. Marie has a ton of great advice and tips for free but if you sign up with my link, shoot me an email and I’ll hook you up with a series of 5 business Reiki sessions. The value: $375.00.

>>CALM AND MOVING – I gained 50 pounds after I quit smoking and had my son. I found exercise abhorrent and it usually made my back ache. Yoga on the other hand seemed to fit the bill. At first I didn’t think of it as exercise but I swear you’ll be sweating in no time. To keep all those crazy thoughts out of my head, I tried meditation. That worked so well, that I signed up for Heather Chauvin’s Awakening Your Child’s Confidence program that teaches meditation to kids. Kids feel stress too, right?

SO TELL ME KITTEN

What do you do to keep your business and life moving in a positive way?

Psst … have you been thinking about getting a newsletter started? Maybe you want to look like a pro when you zap your new blog posts to your email subscribers. Or maybe you attend a lot of trade shows and want to figure out a way to gather emails from would-be clients {cuz having them write really tiny on that pad of paper is so passe}. Watch the videos below for some instant answers on how things work and ideas on how to get your groove started.

{if you’re reading this anywhere other than on the site, click through for the sign up form + to view the videos}

HAWT TIP:

Aweber wants you to try them out … for free – cancel anytime if you hate it. Email me if you can’t figure it out. Easy as pie!

Can You Have More Sales, Too?

Helping over 102,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber’s opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

Take a Free Test Drive today!

If you’ve been hiding under a rock lately, you may have missed a whole whack of things I’ve been doing away from Monday Morning VA. Don’t worry, this is your chance to catch up.

MOGUL MOM
::The Pricing Mistake you Won’t Recover From
::Do you Really Need to be on Facebook and Twitter?
::Facebook Ads 101
::7.5 Tips to a Better Testimonial

BUSINESS DARLINGS

::Uh-oh, Is Your Blog Your Homepage?
::The Million Dollar Side Bar
::Are You Making This Fatal Mistake With Your Website?
::Weekly Roundup: Website Tutorials
::Here Twitter, Twitter
::2 Easy To Use WordPress Hacks
::Building Your Website: Smart Add Ons You Should Use
::Drowning in Choices

This week over on The Mogul Mom, I tackled Facebook Ads. This is one of my favourite ways to advertise because it {can be} cheap and it’s always effective if you do it right. There were a few folks from my Fan Page that asked some questions of their own, and there’s a featured case study with an actual Facebook Ad that didn’t convert as well as the business owner had hoped.

So whether you’re looking for some sage advice on getting started with Facebook ads, or you’re looking for some dirty little secrets to score higher results head over to Facebook Ads 101 and stake your claim on the Facebook train.

……………………………………………………….

HAWT STUFF TODAY:

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There’s nothing to lose : test drive Bschool for 30 DAYS and if you don’t see the results, you’ll get a full 100% refund. Register before May 16th!