Stephanie Approved Resources and Tools

Brain Training and Mindset

BrainWave: 35 Binaural Series™ This app uses 35 Advanced Binaural Brainwave Entrainment Programs for focus, relaxation, sleep, anxiety, confidence, meditation, and more. From the app description: “Different states of mind are associated with specific brainwave frequencies that would be inaudible if played directly. As you listen, your own brainwaves fall into step and synchronize with this frequency. BrainWave uses low, mid, and high-frequency ranges of Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma binaural tones combined in layers and stages to create powerful multi-stage experiences.”

Entrepreneur Mind Hacks: Book 1: Productivity & Creativity – Top entrepreneurs share powerful mindsets for Productivity and Creativity

Business Essentials: Legal

Legal Templates and More The goal of Nicole's template shop is to give you what you need to: 1-Protect your business, 2-Stay legal, and 3-Not lose your mind in the process of doing 1&2

Nicole’s templates are straightforward and fill-in-the-blank easy. She notes everything you should consider and shows you where your customized information should go. All of the legalese is where it should be, and there are blanks with explanations beside them to customize to your company's specifics.

Legal documents are frequently at the bottom of a small business owner's to-do list. Until something goes wrong. Then you are left wishing you had thought about your business’s legality sooner. I recommend Nicole's legal templates for online service providers, freelancers, and small business owners.

Client/Prospect Communication

Jotform is a form-generation and legal e-signature collection tool I have used for years.  It can integrate with several third-party services. Unlike similar services, JotForm does NOT cripple features, show ads, or show a logo on your online form. All features are available to “free” users. You only need to upgrade if you need more submissions and space.

I also use Jotform for all of my legal agreements. Not all e-sign software is the same, and some do not have all the steps necessary to be considered a legal signature in the United States. Jotform is one that does.

High Level (AKA Go High Level) is my one-stop business toolbox. I use this powerful business engine to systematize several of my back-end business processes and manage my marketing and sales activities. High Level is the all-in-one sales and marketing software built just for small businesses. Integrating CRM (client relationship management), appointment calendar, e-commerce, social media, email marketing, and 2-way text into a single, powerful system helps you simplify marketing, grow sales, and save tons of time. If you want pre-created automations that you can plug into your business immediately, try Rainmaker.Ai. Rainmaker.Ai is Frank Kern's white label of High Level. He provides pre-created automations, a vibrant community, and a large amount of digital marketing training as a bonus.

Content Creation: Audio, Podcasting, and Video

Animoto Easily make and share your videos with an easy drag-and-drop video maker. No experience is necessary.

Audacity is one of my favorite tools for creating and editing audio files.  All you need is a computer, a microphone connected to your computer, and this software. Click the link to see a quick (7 minutes) video showing you how to create and edit an audio file.

FreezeTag Dog Tag Silencer and Connector Removing extra jingling noises to your audio because your pet walked into the room while you were recording can be difficult and time-consuming. This tag holder keeps your pet's tags from clinking in the first place. It's great for dogs and cats.

Jing is a simple and FREE way to enhance your fast-paced online conversations. Create images and videos (up to 5 minutes long) of what you see on your computer screen, then share them instantly! (Signing up with this service gives you a screencast.com account too.)  Use it to create quick tutorials, blog posts, social media posts, or send a visual email.

Loom Get your message across easily and quickly with video messages.

Microphone: Movo PM10 Lavalier Microphone and Lapel Microphone for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Other Smartphones Note, I used an adapter to plug into my phone.

Fugetek Professional Selfie Stick Tripod I love this tool because it is lightweight, easily adjustable, compact, and comes with a Bluetooth remote that makes taking video and pictures easy.

Portable Selfie Stick Tripod for iPhone – Versatile Selfie Stick

Content Creation: Ideation

Mindmapping Tools to Help You Get Your Ideas Together  Mindmapping can be a really great way to gather all of your ideas for anything from blog posts to product creation. In this post, I share some recommended mind-mapping tools.

Content Creation: Written and Visual

Canva is an all-in-one visual communication platform that allows you to design beautiful graphics without going to design school. Create attractive presentations, infographics, videos, t-shirts, websites, social media posts, and more.

Grammarly Write with confidence! This is the best editor and works on all of your devices. “From grammar and spelling to style and tone, Grammarly’s suggestions are comprehensive, helping you communicate effectively and as you intend.”

Rev transcription services for client sessions, podcasts, videos, and more. You can choose between AI transcription, human transcriptions, English closed captions, and live captions for Zoom.

Content Promotion

Quuu Promote Add your RSS feed and set it up in a few steps to get your content shared hundreds of times across social media.

Share Link Generator is a super simple tool that allows you to create Facebook share links, Twitter “tweet this” links, Google Plus share links, LinkedIn share links, Pinterest “pin this” links and email “mailto” links that will work anywhere — even inside emails and Word documents! You will not need iframes or JavaScript either, just a simple link.

SocialBee helps you get more leads with less effort. They are a combination of social media management tools and optional custom concierge services. Use what you want when you want. The application is a simple tool that you can use to automate your social media publishing across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram. The tool offers these features: evergreen categories, one-share categories, category-based scheduling, customization of your posts per social media platform, uploading RSS feeds, uploading images, performing bulk uploads, and more. Automatically post to your accounts on a schedule from repositories of posts so that your social media accounts never run dry. Click the link and try it for free for 14 days.

Productivity

Google Drive is a great, free alternative to MS Office products, with built-in collaboration ability. The information you produce is saved in “the cloud,” so you can access it from anywhere, and you can share your documents with others and even work collaboratively in real time. You can sync with your computer or create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and even forms that you can host on your website to collect information – which is collected in a Google spreadsheet. Pretty smart!

Paper Tiger is a powerful personal productivity tool that I have used and have been certified to teach since 2007. In addition to finding your paper files (or other physical items such as storage boxes, etc.), you will be able to find your digital files too! Paper Tiger Online connects to your Google account, making it Digital Tiger so that you can find all of your information with just one search to find your digital files that are stored in Google Docs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDFs, MP3s, etc.) and your paper and other physical items indexed in Paper Tiger. Many people are starting to move to a more paperless environment but still have a great deal of paper that they must manage each day. This tool allows you to do both. If you'd like help figuring out which version is right for you, let me know.

RescueTime is a web-based time management and analytic tool for people who want to be more efficient and productive. RescueTime is a tool that allows you to easily understand and optimize how you spend time and attention. One of the most important things about RescueTime is that there is NO DATA ENTRY. You install a small application on your computer, and it “magically” tracks what software and which websites are actively being used. The best way to get a sense of how it works for you or your team is to sign up (for free!). You'll be up and running in a minute or two.

Time Trade is an online self-scheduling tool that syncs with both Google Calendar and Outlook. No more back and forth in emails trying to find a time that works to schedule an appointment with you. Instead, send them the link to your availability calendar. You have the option to create multiple calendars and block off time as well. You can create as many or as few availability calendars as you need, and there is no chance of double booking because it is all synced with your primary calendar.

Swag

Queensboro Embroidered or printed apparel has fabulous customer service and a satisfaction guarantee I have not seen elsewhere.

Teams and Outsourcing

99Designs is a site you can use if you need design work like logos, brochures, business cards, and more. It’s unique because you run a contest to find the best design you like.  You submit the description of what you want (the more detailed, the better), and designers will compete against each other to win your fee.

Zoho Project management across a virtual team can be a challenge. Zoho can manage to track a large number of tasks. It also has several different add-on features (like a CRM – customer relationship management component) that you can use.

Teleseminars, Webinars, and Livecasting

InstantTeleseminar I have been using this tool to run teleseminars and provide password-protected and recorded coaching calls since the company first started. The CEO of InstantTeleseminar interviewed me a while back, and I shared how I have used this tool in traditional and not-so-traditional ways to grow my business.  You can check out the interview here. I love InstantTeleseminar because it is really easy to use and has fabulous quality. Nervous about hosting your own teleseminar? No worries! They have recently created a step-by-step training program that is available to all customers. Learn more or Sign up for their $1 Trial

Meetn is better than Zoom in many ways. HD Video & Audio Online Conferencing Made Smarter. Stream simultaneously to multiple social media platforms, video sharing with one-click simplicity, title events before you start recordings, seamless and transparent approach to display a “Call-To-Action” (CTA) for offers during live presentations, pin protect events and replays, and audience controls.

Websites and Online Portals

Name Cheap Creating your online identity starts with registering and purchasing your domain name. If you already have a domain and are looking for a low-cost, high-customer service alternative, Name Cheap can help you there too — domain transfers are free and easy.

Pretty Link Pro (WordPress Plugin) Shrink, track, and share any URL from your WordPress website on the Internet. Unlike other link-shrinking services like TinyURL, burl, and bit.ly, this plugin allows you to create short links from your domain name.