Inside this week’s episode, Melanie delves into five of her favorite time-saving, automation tools that boost her productivity and helps her team be more efficient. Plus, she shares a few bonus tools and compares a few popular technologies and why she isn’t using the cool kid’s choice for task management software.

 

Key Takeaways

2:25 Melanie starts with her most favorite time-saving, productivity boosting tool that helps her manage her team and stay focused on time sensitive project deadlines.

4:39 A good task management system helps an entrepreneur eliminate foggy thinking or feeling lost with what to do next. Melanie gives some examples of how this kind of online software works with routine tasks as well as tracking project deliverables.

7:29 A sanity-saver for Melanie – having a task management system that emails reminders to the team and business owner so that you know if something is falling behind.

9:23 Melanie’s 2nd favorite tool is a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) system that allows us to integrate automatic follow up with email management and online sales.

13:21 This tool offers a lot of integrated online forms, surveys and segmenting options for advanced marketing analytics and documentation.

15:36 One of the simplest tools to increase productivity (and its FREE) is Google Calendar. We use it with an online scheduler to allow our clients, partners and other parties to schedule easily.

18:00 This tool can actually save you money by freeing up your assistant’s time from chasing down appointments and having automated appointment reminders.

19:38 There’s now a cool plugin that links our CRM with our online scheduler Acuity to automate our follow up steps after an appointment is confirmed.

21:24 Another productivity tool, especially if you collaborate, is Google Drive (and its free!)

25:30 A newer tool that Melanie and her team are transitioning to is Zoom for live video teleconferencing (and she uses it to record for guest podcast sessions too!)

30:58 This tool is not normally a productivity too, but this one is a time (and cost) saver for anyone who creates a lot of online websites and landing pages.

33:06 A favorite app that saves a ton of time – and has helped boosted Melanie’s creativity is Canva for Work. Most people know the online tool but the iPhone app is amazing!

 

Mentioned In this Episode:

TeamWork Task Manager Software

InfusionSoft Demo

Google Calendar

Acuity Online Appointment Scheduler (Free 30 Day Trial Available)

Google Drive

Dropbox

Zoom Video

Facebook Live

Optimize Press

Wordpress

Canva Graphics (Free 30 Day Trial Available)