Nearly everything I use and advise my clients to use is on this list. Please note, while some of the tools outlined in this blog are free, others are not.

Here is this year's Ultimate Guide of Tools The Pros Use.

We'll begin with the absolute simplest tool that's also free...

LastPass

LastPass is our agency's default password vault where we house all passwords, URL's and share amongst team members. Lastpass is a password management software that stores your (encrypted) log-in details such as your user names and passwords. It's free, it offers great organizational features, and it can also auto-fill all your passwords and payment details for you anywhere you go online. Never rely on the dreaded "Forgot Password?" button ever again!

For a nominal fee, you can upgrade to the paid version which you'll get the app for your phone enabling you to access, save, share and auto-fill passwords from your mobile device. I use this app just about every single day.

Should you wish to use additional features they offer, you can set up team shared folders, have them create encrypted passwords for you and you can even store credit card payment details so that it can auto populate for you at check out. The paid version comes with a mobile app so no matter where you are, you have your entire world of passwords, URL's and payment details with you always.

How I Use LastPass:

Not only do I use LastPass to store all my passwords, I also use it to conveniently share my log in details with colleagues, freelancers, and team members without ever having to actually provide them with my sensitive log-in details. (It also gives you one-click control to pull back shares as well). 

Google Drive

Google Drive is a cloud based file storage service that allows users to digitally store, synchronize, and share files with others. 

What kinds of files? A ton. Google Drive comes with their own applications for you to create your documents online such as Google Docs (Word), Google Sheets (Excel), Google Slides (Powerpoint), and more.

It also gives you the ability to collaborate on projects by sharing files and adjusting permissions.  Collaborators are able to view, comment, or edit your file (or all three) depending on what you allow them to do. And, it's much easier to share and send a link of a Google Drive File rather than emailing large attachments.

I use Google Drive for two main things:

1. I house all my staff files on here so my entire team works from and in Google Drive.
2. I store Client projects and files in there enabling me to grant access to certain folders for them which makes the transfer of assets, documents, and spreadsheets simple and painless.

BackBlaze

Backblaze is a cloud storage back-up that offers much more bang for its buck. While most cloud storage systems will limit the number of devices you can use to back-up your files, BackBlaze offers unlimited back-up to as many drives you have connected. 

How I Use Backblaze:

I use to it back up all my important files across all my hard drives, and I also use their app for easy, safe, and convenient access. 

Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 is a cloud based software aimed towards corporate users that provides productivity applications through the web. It includes a suite of Office Web apps, which are web based versions of traditional Microsoft office applications such as Microsoft Excel, Powerpoint, Access, etc.

Microsoft Office 365 is also subscription based, and has different plans based on what your business needs.

How I Use Office 365:

I use Office 365 for my agency email, and I can set up group inboxes for my different teams, so that my clients can easily and directly email, say, my copywriting team or my design team. Also, Office 365 has great customer support, which is worth mentioning! 

TextEdit

TextEdit is Apple's version of a simple word processor and text editor that comes free with your operating system (if you have a PC, then your version is called Note Pad). When you paste text into it, it strips the code from it and changes it into plain text. This is absolutely vital if you need to take copy from a document or website to use in anything digital - email, website, landing page, etc.

How I use TextEdit:

I use TextEdit every single day to copy and paste "code-less" text from and into different documents and materials. I would be lost without it! 

AppointmentCore

If you are a user of Infusionsoft/Keap, AppointmentCore is an incredibly powerful scheduling software for Infusionsoft users. It also offers full integrations with Google, Outlook, Infusionsoft, Zoom, GoToMeeting, PlusThis and a handful of others.

It is incredibly versatile enabling you to create multiple calendars with specific availability, meeting length restrictions and the ability to have your entire organization's calendar availability easily accessed to schedule appointments that are powered by automated reminders.  

Grammarly

Grammarly is an online application that checks grammar, spelling, punctuation, style. (Its paid version also detects plagiarism). It offers a free browser extension for Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox, so you can install it in your browser, and have it work everywhere you write on the web.

Grammarly comes with a free version, but if you want premium features (like its plagiarism checker, or the vocabulary enhancement tool), then you would have to purchase a subscription.

How I Use Grammarly:

As much as I'd love to catch all my grammar errors, type-o's and misspelled words, it's just not feasible for me. I move fast, and don't always have the time to review and review again. Grammarly is a huge help. As of writing this, they recently made Grammarly available inside Google Docs which makes sharing docs with clients a little more error-proof. 🙂

Grasshopper

Grasshopper is a VOIP phone service that allows you to have a centralized call system that can route calls to departments, ring directly to your team's cell phone (great for remote employees) and also provides voicemail and text messaging capabilities. 

How I Use Grasshopper:

Grasshopper is the system my agency uses and we love it. It always works and it comes with text, voicemail, and an employee phone directory. If you have a growing company that is either virtual or spread out across multiple geographic locations, Grasshopper is a cheap and powerful solution you'll want to consider.

Our agency now runs using Hubspot and we were able to integrate the two easily. We can now call contacts right from our CRM and track the call as well as the call outcome.

Zoom

Zoom is a web based conference, live video, screen share and messaging platform. You can also record calls. This makes it great for live training and providing clients with a copy of the training afterwards.

The free version is downright amazing. What I really love about Zoom is it's so simple to launch an online conference call and invite someone to it. It even integrates with your email and calendar.

How I Use Zoom:

I use Zoom for ALL of my meetings. If you do anything where you need meetings with your staff and clients or customers then Zoom is the best solution for you!

We have even integrated Zoom with Hubspot, so any meetings booked through our Hubspot meeting links (which we just email to clients when they need to set up a chat) automatically set up as a Zoom meeting.

We also integrate Zoom with our Slack channel which allows us to send a simple chat message with "/zoom" that instantly launches a zoom meeting with the Slack member.

Last but not least, I integrated Zoom with our agency Google Drive so my meeting recordings are instantly dropped into our agency folder. 

Slack

Slack is a workspace and chat room designed to replace email as a method of communication. It's super convenient for discussing anything and everything with your team (individuals AND groups), especially if you're tired of managing an email inbox filled with emails that never seems to cease. 

How I Use Slack:

I use Slack for my entire agency to discuss projects and communicate amongst each other; plus, I even use it with some clients who aren't able (or don't like) to check their email inbox throughout the day. 

We save our emails for client communications which has cut the amount of emails down by 60%. It has an amazingly powerful free version I'd suggest that you try today!

SnagIt

SnagIt is an application allowing users to capture screens on their laptops/computers and make notes to share with others. This is especially useful for recording information on your screen that you want to demonstrate for other people so they can refer to it later.

Here's how I use it:

I am constantly working with my team to make adjustments to client projects ranging from landing pages, ads, digital marketing campaigns and graphic design. Sometimes you need to show them a specific area you are talking about and SnagIt enables you to capture your screen and then mark it up. It's easy, painless, and clear. 

Google Chrome

As you hopefully already know, Chrome is Google's web browser and, in my opinion, the most powerful browser for a small business owner. 

If your goal is to be able to work anywhere in the world at anytime then this is a must-have for you.  I have been in London editing docs that were sitting on my office computer in Los Angeles and then finished the edits and emailed them to myself and the client.

ColorPick Eyedropper

ColorPick Eyedropper is a fantastic browser extension that allows you to grab the color code for anything online with the simple click of a button.  

How I Use ColorPick Eyedropper:

I use it to ensure that I'm matching brand colors for all  marketing and advertising assets.  I also use it if I need to copy a color from my site over to a platform that allows customization such as Facebook Instant Articles.

Loom

Loom is an innovative work communication tool that helps get your message across to clients, team members, and anyone through instantly shareable video. You can use it to capture your screen as it records your voice; and, you can use it with your webcam.  When you're done recording, you can share your video instantly with a link. 

How I Use Loom:

I use Loom to communicate with both my team and clients.

With my agency team, I use Loom to provide feedback and edits on work, to explain a new process, and to onboard new team members..   

With clients, I use it for everything from explaining a step-by-step process, to showing them how to troubleshoot an issue, or simply to answer any questions they have.

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks is an accounting program that is web based and designed for the small business owner. For my business, QuickBooks Online has much to offer. It integrates well, is cloud based, and nearly all bookkeepers and accountants use it. 

Hubstaff

Hubstaff is a fairly inexpensive time tracking and payroll software that integrates with PayPal, QuickBooks, TeamWork, Trello and many other platforms.

It offers screen capture, geolocating and idle time capture to make sure your payroll is accurate and as painless as possible.

It also allows you to also set budgets and user roles to make staff management and reporting easier for you and your team.

How I Use Hubstaff:

All my agency team members use Hubstaff to track their time, and I have integrated for easy payroll. 

Stripe

Stripe is a third-party payment processor with a shining reputation among developers for being incredibly easy to work with...and it IS! Everything is built in, it's quick to set up, and you can easily enable convenient features like subscriptions, card storage, and bank payouts. And the best part is there's no merchant gateway you have to work around. 

Gusto

Gusto is an online, cloud-based company that provides easy management of payroll, benefits, and human resource services that businesses can tailor to fit their specific needs. It's able to automate and schedule calculation and payment of payroll (and payroll taxes at the local, state, and federal level).

Gusto provides simple benefits administration and management, HIPPA-, ACA-, and ERISA -compliant consolidation of employee data, and easy integration with a number of 3rd party software systems. 

Here's how I use Gusto:

I am a full-time employee of my full-service digital marketing agency Built By Love. Therefore, I need to run payroll for myself and include all the proper state and federal taxes. I used to use QuickBooks payroll and it was a nightmare. Services like ADP are too expensive and not worth the investment based on my full-time staff size; so, Gusto is the perfect price and fit.

Literally within 2 clicks of a button everything you need to have done, submitted, and handled for all tax purposes and payroll is done. It is so simple and their customer support is absolutely amazing. 

Even better, they have a feature that is payroll on autopilot. OMG, amazing!!! We recently upgraded to their HR package which handles vacation tracking for staff and PTO, employee surveys, and onboarding with documents. They'll even send your tax forms out and make your payroll tax payments for you.

I only wish I had started using them sooner!

ClickUp

ClickUp is a project management tool designed to help you centralize and streamline your all your processes. It utilizes a unique and convenient hierarchy structure that aids easy project planning and workflow; plus, there's a wealth of customizable features that makes communicating with team members, assigning tasks, and changing project statuses, due dates, and priorities a breeze.  

It also allows for project-view modification, so individual team members can choose to view and interact with ClickUp in the way that best suits them. 

Here's how I use ClickUp:

I run my entire agency project management on ClickUp. It's easy, powerful, intuitive, and their support is incredible. At the time of writing this, they released sprints, custom dashboard reports, and you can track production capacity. I am continually impressed with thier aggressive rollout of updates and integrations. This is the future of project management.

Personal Capital

Personal Capital is a free tool geared towards investment planning, but it also lets users put their financial accounts in one location.  Their investment planning options include retirement planning, keeping track of your assets, etc. As mentioned, it is a free service, but they also offer paid financial advisory services if you need it.

Here's how I use Personal Capital:

I've been asked many times by business owners and entrepreneurs how I manage my finances -- this is my tool. I use Personal Capital as a Dashboard to see the entire spectrum of all of my assets, investments, and accounts across all the various platforms including my overall net worth and trends.

Google Analytics

Everyone should know this one right?  It's the default web traffic tool we all know and sorta love. Just in case you're brand new to the scene I'm providing a short description below for you.

Google Analytics is a web analytics service that allows you to track and report traffic to your websites. It tracks your data such as buyer behavior, evaluates the performance of your content and products and allows you to use these analytics to drive real impact. It also allows you to process all your data and share it easily through reports.

Google Tag Manager is a tag management system that allows you to quickly and easily update tags and code snippets on your website or mobile app, such as those intended for traffic analysis and marketing optimization.

Databox

Databox is a business analytics platform intended for use with HubSpot. It helps you to track the performance of your company, teams and individuals anytime and anywhere, even in real-time.

What I love about Databox, of course, is its built-in integration with HubSpot, and that it comes with premade dashboard and report sets and excellent support.

Impressionwise

Impressionwise provides multi-layered, real-time email verification and validation services as well as list cleaning services to get rid of dormant accounts, disposable accounts, non-human invalid traffic, habitual protesters, and more.  

All of this serves to protect and enhance your sender reputation, so you can better engage your list and get better results. 

Hubspot

Your CRM is the foundation of your entire business. Without a well-equipped, well-designed and intelligently managed CRM your business is being built without a strong foundation. Cracks will eventually show in your foundation.

If you're a company making over $500,000 in gross revenue and you're growing (or plan to grow) -- you should be using Hubspot. If your business is smaller than that, then Keap/Infusionsoft would be a better choice (see below).  

HubSpot is the Ferrari of the CRM's bar none. It not only seamlessly marries marketing, sales, and services so everyone is working off the same system of record. And you can track actions taken with forms, emails, or virtually anything else sent to clients within the CRM.

And as mentioned in the Zoom overview, the meeting tool is AMAZING.  It's branded to your company, automatically scans and syncs with your calendar, and adds the booked meeting to the lead’s contact record.

Keap

Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) is one of the best CRM choices  for small businesses.

It is an email marketing and sales platform that automates all the tools necessary for a small business to thrive such as email marketing, tracking lead sources,  marketing campaign automation, ecommerce, and sales pipeline automation. 

If you own or operate a small business with plans to stay competitive, scale the world of technology, and free up your time so you can focus on more important tasks then Keap/Infusionsoft is for you.

PlusThis

PlusThis is a popular library of 50+ additional features you can add onto your marketing automation including SMS, Facebook retargeting, video tagging and way, way more.

FixYourFunnel

Fix Your Funnel is an application used with Infusionsoft that helps create automated SMS messages that captures leads through multiple step conversations.

Additionally,  it can track data through your SMS messages, tag personal contacts, add contacts through your campaign builder, etc. You can use it to track any inbound calls, and has an integrated dialer that allows you to contact anybody in your Keap/Infusionsoft saved searches.

Images can be catered towards what audience you’re aiming for, or the videos can be dynamic and have the capabilities of tracking, scoring and marketing to your audience depending on its viewer history.

PicSnippets

PicSnippets integrates with Infusionsoft and allows you to upload your own pictures and then lay custom text over the images to send via email. The custom text could include the email recipients name and any other information. It's an incredibly easy and effective way to get your email recipient's attention.

Zapier

Put simply, Zapier connects everything. Zapier does nearly anything you need it to do to automate, integrate and trigger actions between platforms.

Zapier's list of integrations is impressive. Check it out if you do anything online with a CRM then this is one of those integrations you'll eventually need.

PandaDoc

PandaDoc is an online document management and automation software that helps users create attractive proposals, quotes, contracts, and other documents that can be shared online and signed with legally binding eSignatures. It includes an easy-to-use document builder, CPQ functionality, workflow management, high-level analytics, and built-in electronic signatures for faster, more streamlined processes.

How I use PandaDoc:

I use PandaDoc for sales proposals, contracts, and client engagements. Their support is incredible, you can create beautiful documents, it's easy to use, and it natively integrates with Stripe, Zapier, Hubspot, and many other systems.

Yeti Text

YetiText is for HubSpot user's businesses looking to scale and grow with the addition of text messages. 

Using YetiText, you can: 

• Send texts directly from Workflows and contact pages.. Support for MMS allows you to attach images, contact cards, and audio files with your message of up to 1600 characters.
• Generate leads through keyword-based Auto Chats. Using a fully automated back and forth conversation you can save incoming answers to contact properties in HubSpot and start Workflows right away to begin automation with your new leads.
• Live 2-way SMS for more effective communication with contacts. YetiText's Live Chat lets your team engage in more live text messaging conversations. Whether a contact texts your number for the first time or in response to a Workflow text message action, your team will be alerted and be able to quickly engage.

LiquidWeb

LiquidWeb is my personal favorite WordPress hosting company. They offer white glove service and lightening fast dedicated WordPress servers. Admittedly, they are not the cheapest out there but you seriously cannot beat their customer service and that's why I am loyal to them.

How I use LiquidWeb:

If you are running a WordPress site and you're not 100% happy with your hosting service then check LiquidWeb out, you won't be sorry for it. My entire agency runs an agency plan and offers hosting services under LiquidWeb.

ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is a landing page platform that is 100% focused on sales funnels. It conveniently automates all the tools necessary to create you sales pages, allowing you to bypass designing and programing these pages by yourself or hiring somebody else to do it.

ThriveThemes

ThriveThemes is an absolute game changer for WordPress websites. It's a visual editor in WordPress that allows users to set up themes that are simple to read, and creates a better user experience while increasing conversions and sales.

Thrive overwrites the entire structure of how you typically edit a WordPress page and provides you with an incredibly easy to use drag and drop builder. It also comes with templates built for its platform and the necessary marketing plug-in's also. They have plugins that will target content to your audience, and create more calls for action. This means rarely you will need to go grab random plug-in's and hope they don't break your site. 

Here's what their editor looks like. Notice how you can drag and drop all kinds of different elements into your page easily without knowing code.

AccessAlly

AccessAlly is a WordPress solution designed to help businesses successfully sell, teach, and engage their customers and prospects.  It allows you to create beautiful, pro-level membership and course websites (without costly custom coding), automate your content sharing, and collect useful, usable customer data. Plus, its order forms, built-in LMS, member directories, and gamification can all be easily integrated within your marketing automation system. 

Headliner

Headliners makes video creation easy by allowing you to add animations, captions, gifs, videos, images and more to your audio, and video files. You can also easily export your video to share across social channels.

Envato Elements

Elements is the creme de la creme of online libraries for design resources. It gives you instant access to templates and assets for scene generators, icons, logos, mockups, backgrounds, fonts and more. 

Font Bundles

FontBundles.net is a website dedicated to providing you fonts. It is more selective by choosing more professionally made font choices.

It also comes in bundles, meaning you get several fonts with each bundle, but it does come at a price.

Vimeo

Vimeo is a video hosting platform that allows you to upload videos online that can be shared anywhere online. Vimeo is the player I suggest clients use when they want high quality videos that are specific for web pages, training videos and sales videos.  Below is a video of mine that is housed in my Vimeo account.

We all know YouTube, yes? Just in case you have been hiding under a rock, YouTube is the most popular video hosting platform in the world.

How I use Youtube:

YouTube is where I house all my public facing videos as well as my unlisted client training videos. All the videos on this blog post are YouTube videos (excluding the one video in the Vimeo section).

Hire A Professional Consultant

**Shameless plug alert** It is crucial to have the proper strategy and know-how to take the tools listed above and put them to your best use for monetization.