What Works for Me Can Work For YOU
Here are the tools I recommend for organizing your creative life, growing your business, and increasing your productivity.
NOTE: I maintain affiliate relationships with some of these companies (meaning I make a commission when products are sold), but I will always and only recommend products I know, love and trust.
Tools To Build Your Creative Business
Kit – Grow your audience and income through email, landing pages and e-commerce
Why is this a top pick? Because building an email list is ESSENTIAL to maximizing your God-given gifts by reaching others.
I’ve used Kit (formerly ConvertKit) for years, and it has put our business on a whole new level by being able to stay connected with our audiences. They truly have creators like you an me at heart, and you’ll see it from the second you start your account.
Kit can help you at any level, whether you’ve never started an email list, or a creative who is emailing their audience frequently. Plus, they have perhaps the best set of resources for creative entrepreneurs to help you make a REAL living doing what you love.
Concerned about costs? No worries, they have a FREE option for up to 10,000 subscribers!
Senja – Find, manage and share testimonials easily
One of the most difficult things creatives deal with is feeling guilty about being “salesy” or promoting themselves.
It would be so much easier if other people would say nice things about us. The thing is, even when they do, we don’t know how to share it effectively.
Senja solves the dilemma beautifully by helping both find, collect, manage and then share testimonials about your art, project or platform. It connects with all of your social networks and helps you highlight the best comments, reviews and testimonials so that you can authentically share what people say about your work.
You can now get the PRO level of Senja for just $1 for the first month by using our promo code ALLENSENJA!
Mighty Networks – Online Memberships, Courses and Platform Management
For years, I’ve built my communities with Mighty Networks so that I would never be dependent on social media companies to connect with my community.
Mighty Networks has an incredible list of features for creators, including online course creation help, dynamic ways for you to engage with your community, and most recently a powerful intergration with our other recommended email platform, ConvertKit.
Mighty Networks propelled our community from simply existing to truly connecting and thriving. Highly recommended!
Upwork – Hire Freelancers and Build Your Business
Today’s creative entrepreneur is asked to do so many tasks that we aren’t trained for, or just don’t have the time for. How can you find the right help – at an affordable price?
Upwork has been the best place for us to find long-term and short term freelancers that you can vet through your own desired qualifications and budget.
Tap below to search their huge marketplace of freelance service providers.
Todoist: A highly intuitive task management system
Todoist is a task management app with both a simple, intuitive interface and a wide variety of integrations with other apps (Google, Zapier, etc) which allow you to keep your projects and tasks in front of you at all times.
The free version contains all the integrations, but to get features like labeling, assigning tasks and other productivity hacks, a monthly subscription is required.
Clay: Intuitively Manage Your Network
As your contacts and network grows, it can get hard to remember not just who you know, but WHY you know them.
Clay is a revolutionary app that helps you manage your network by connecting all of your social media contacts with your personal database so you never forget the relationships you should be nurturing. It’s been an incredible help in connecting the dots between the people that we’ve met throughout the years!
SiteGround: Host Your Website Easily and Effectively
We switched our domains to SiteGround last year and the results have been FANTASTIC.
Great customer service and the tech works smoothly and websites are ultrafast! This will make your WordPress sites easy to maintian.
Scribe: Easily Record and Share Your Workflow Steps
When you know how to do your tasks, it’s easy to forget that someone else doesn’t know EXACTLY how you do it – until you have to show them.
Scribe is an incredible tool that helps you record how you do what you do online. It automatically creates and shares step-by-step guides, complete with text and screenshots — so you don’t spend valuable time screenshotting and trying to share your steps. It’s been a game-changer when I’ve brought volunteers, helpers or VA’s into my process.
Tip: Even if you don’t have assistants yet, start creating Scribes NOW so you’ll save time later.
Clay is a revolutionary app that helps you manage your network by connecting all of your social media contacts with your personal database so you never forget the relationships you should be nurturing. It’s been an incredible help in connecting the dots between the people that we’ve met throughout the years!
Tools for Content Creation, Livestreaming and Podcasting
Canva – Create Professional Quality Graphics and Logos
Almost every graphic that you see on our website has been created on Canva. It helps even visually-challenged creatives to make high-quality social media posts, images, print materials and more. There are literally thousands of templates for any kind of post or design you need.
There is a free plan available, but by joining Canva Pro you get unlimited access to over 2 MILLION stock photo files – which is more than worth it instead of paying for every single image you use over time.
Plus you can create a library of unlimited folders to create templates you can use again and again. It’s an incredible tool for creatives in any field, and you can try it out for 30 days risk-free.
Buzzsprout: Create and publish your podcast
Podcasting is a great way to share your art and your message with more people. We use Buzzsprout to host our podcast, and it’s been a great fit for our show. They really support you, whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned podcaster.
You’ll get a great looking podcast website, audio players that you can drop into other websites, detailed analytics to see how people are listening, tools to promote your episodes, and more.
Tapping our button lets Buzzsprout know we sent you, gets you a $20 Amazon gift card if you sign up for a paid plan, and helps support our show!
Capsho: Create Fresh Marketing Content Fast and Effectively
Once you’re creating daily and weekly content through a livestream, podcast or vlog, it can quickly get hard to keep up with the constant work of creating descriptions, headlines and resource links.
We discovered Capsho and it immediately relieved the burden of coming up with marketing copy. Created by marketers, you’ll get A.I. generated captions and social media posts are perfect for repurposing your content while keeping your style and touch, in just 10 minutes!
Our Recommended Podcast Setup Equipment List
After podcasting successfully with the same equipment for nearly a decade, it’s become apparent that we should share the details on the hardware and software that makes our podcast, The God and Gigs Show, run smoothly week after week.
Here is where you can find all the equipment (if not available, the closest applicable product we could find) on Amazon so you can refine and update your podcast / content creation setup.
Podpage: Create a Podcast Website Easily
For years we’ve used WordPress to host our podcast and our articles…but some things are better left to the experts.
We’ve now moved our podcast episodes to their own home on Podpage and the difference is night and day. Podpage automatically populates our episodes on a beautiful page, includes links to all players apps, and even helps us stay updated with our guests.
It’s the perfect solution for the podcaster who wants a first-class home for your podcast.
TubeBuddy: Grow Your YouTube Channel and Discover What Your Viewers Want
Using TubeBuddy was THE KEY to taking our YouTube channel from invisible to almost monetized.
This incredible back-end tool shows you all you need to know to start effectively growing your channel and actually seeing what works on the 2nd biggest search engine on the planet.
Riverside: Record Your Podcast Easily In Audio and Video – And A Lot More
I’ve used several online and off-line digital video and audio editing programs over the years. But none of them have ever done all the things I need them to do – clips, video editing, audio clean-up, livestreaming to multiple platforms – until Riverside showed up.
Riverside has quickly become my content creation Swiss Army knife. Need virtual podcast recording? Done. Editing for audio and video? Smooth. Then post clips directly to YouTube Shorts? One click.
It’s truly saving me hours of time and streamlining my workflow every time I open it. You can’t go wrong by giving it a shot with your video / audio / podcasting needs.
Tools to Manage and Automate Social Media
ManyChat: Automate your responses to social media posts
One of the widely known, but rarely utilized secrets of social media growth is harnessing the power of direct response. The problem is that few creatives have time to monitor and respond to so many different platforms and accounts.
That’s what makes ManyChat so powerful. You can set up automated responses that help guide your followers to the right links and resources and actually serve them 24-7, without having to waste time stuck on social media.
ManyChat has several options for all levels of creatives and content makers – and they all will help you grow and utilize your social media presence the right way!
MeetEdgar: Effectively Post your Social Media Easily
We’ve been using MeetEdgar for years and it’s been a HUGE time saver. Edgar is a social media management tool that automatically shares and reposts your status updates, taking the busywork out of scheduling and saving you hours a week.
We’ve found it extremely useful to make sure our best content doesn’t go to waste when it’s posted only one time.
Use our link, and if you decide to become a Edgar customer, you’ll get $10 off your next invoice!
Vizard: Create Video Clips Effortlessly
We’ve been using Vizard since it first came on the scene – and it’s become our secret weapon. It’s great for podcasters, video producers – anyone who needs quick, well-designed social media clips in video format. Being able to add in B-roll clips, save our branding, and get 20-30 clips through their A.I. generations has been a game-changer. PLUS they now have a prompt-based editor that can clip videos based on your specific needs and requests!
Tools to Fund Your Business and Manage your Money
Skip: Easily Find and Apply for Grants and Business Loans
There is no bigger obstacle to the success of a business than securing the funds and capital to start, build and grow.
Thankfully, we’ve found a platform and resource that helps small businesses and creative entrepreneurs effectively do this in a powerful way.
Skip has created an incredible set of tools and a strong community focus that helps entrepreneurs find, apply for, and secure grant funding and financing for their businesses. It’s truly a game-changing platform that helps you build a business plan, fine-tune your marketing, and become a player in amazing opportunities for funding and growth.
We can’t recommend this enough – and you really should move from the free version to Skip Plus so you can use their robust A.I features and automatic grant applications.
EveryDollar: Manage your Money Confidently
Anyone who has faced the “too much month, not enough money” quandary can understand the need for a budget – especially business owners who have to balance personal and business expenses.
We’ve used EveryDollar to monitor and plan for both – and ‘zero budget’ planners like this help you to look ahead and avoid cash crunches that can stifle your business.
Ally: A bank without all the extra stress
When it comes to personal finance, we’re all seen all of the worst parts of traditional banking – extra fees, unresponsive agents, the works.
Creatives need a stress-free place to manage and keep their money, and Ally has been on-point for us for years. No fees, easy transfers, a beautiful app and no stress when it comes to setting up additional accounts or getting replacement cards. Highly recommended for your personal banking needs.
Relay: The perfect bank for Profit First
We’ve been devotees of the Profit First model for business money management for years – and it’s why we’ve never had a major money meltdown. But finding a bank that supports the model wasn’t easy.
Enter Relay. This well-thought-out banking app made running our financial accounts simple and pain-free. Additional debit cards was as easy as putting in our info. Plus we got a bonus deposit just for starting an account. Score!
