My Top 4 Tools to Increase Productivity in Business

My Top 4 Tools to Increase Productivity in Business

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

We’re continuing our Tools in Business Series over here and chatting about our top tools for productivity over here at Brandmerry. 

If you didn't already know, I'm a big, big fan of optimizing my time. 

I have a lot of podcast episodes about time management and Monday With Michelle episodes about time management because time to me is my greatest asset and I want to make sure that all of the things that I am doing as a business owner are really optimized to use my time at peak performance. 

Because, like you, I’m not only a business owner, I am also a mother, a wife, and a woman. And I want to make sure that I'm not spending all of my time running and scaling my business and that I'm spending optimal time doing the things that I love. 

Yes, I love running my business, but I also love traveling, I love working out, I love having fun and hanging out with my family and experiencing life.

When I'm sitting down to work, I want to know that what I'm working on and the process that I'm going through to do it is allowing me to get it done in an efficient manner. 

My husband and I often joke that efficiency is key over here, and these tools that I'm going to share with you today have really helped me do just that. 

The following are my top tools that we use over here at Brandmerry to increase productivity, and whether you're a solopreneur or you're working with a team, these productivity tips and tools will allow you to grow your business efficiently.

SMALL BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY TOOL #1: Slack

The first one that I want to share with you is called Slack. 

Many of you are probably familiar with Slack, but some of you might not be. 

Slack essentially allows me to not live in my inbox. I do not have time for that. 

I have very specific times of the day when I'm checking my email. I typically check it twice throughout my workday, depending on what's happening. I check it first thing in the morning and then I check it right before I close my computer for the end of the night. 

The thing that I love about Slack is that the people who need to get in touch with me regarding important things that are happening within the business, contractors and team members, all communicate via Slack. 

By using Slack, we're not sending email chains back and forth and making sure that everyone's CC'd. By avoiding this mess, it has helped tremendously in my business because I don't have to check my email often. 

As a result of not living in my inbox, I'm not getting distracted with things that are coming in that aren’t a priority, but then end up pulling my attention from what I was doing. I know you all know what I'm talking about. 

Slack is a really great way to keep the team communication going and to even have communication with your clients.

I know a lot of people who use Slack to communicate with their clients as well. You can use it and make it your own, but I absolutely love it because it's a clean platform that allows you to handle communications without living in your inbox. 

I have to say, like I know I'm talking about tools today, but that's a side tip as well. Don't spend all your time in your email. 
Turn off your notifications. 

I promise you the world will be okay if you're not living in your inbox.

SMALL BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY TOOL #2: Task Management Tool

The second tool that we love to use over here at Brandmerry is a task management tool. 

Now, there are a lot of options out there, and I want to share with you the one that we used to use and where we've shifted to and why in 2021. 

Originally I was using Trello and Asana in my business. 

Both are absolutely amazing tools in their own right, and Trello worked really well for me as a solopreneur. I still use it from time to time to organize content ideas, map out launches and organize my weekly schedule using the card feature. 

Trello was something that I was using mostly to manage my own schedule, my weekly workflow, and the things that I needed to do. I wasn't using it to communicate with my team because I found that it wasn't really supportive in doing that, but it was great for managing my own tasks and priorities. 

Then, as a team, we were using Asana.

Asana was really helpful in organizing our tasks that were repeating themselves every week, and to be able to assign new things when we were preparing for a launch. We would list out every single thing that needed to be done, assign it to whoever needed to do it, and put a deadline on it. So everyone's really aware of what was happening in the big picture, and the things that they needed to do individually.

Then, in early 2021, we made a big shift and elevation in my marketing strategy. 

If you followed any of my videos, workflows are something that I use consistently in my marketing strategy. 

Every single week we are following the exact same workflow to make sure that I'm creating consistent content that not only attracts new community members, but also nurtures my audience, and ultimately builds that know, like, and trust value with you.

Having consistent content is really, really important as a business owner and it's really important to me as well because I have found that creating consistent content actually leads to an increase in sales. As a result of this and to make sure we honor this consistency, we have this weekly workflow that we are repeating. 

As we elevated the Brandmerry workflow this year, we found that we needed to switch platforms in order to serve the new communication at the highest level.

The platform that we are using today is called ClickUp, and I highly recommend it. It's kind of a combination of Trello, Asana, Airtable and so much more.

You can really do a lot inside of this platform, and it's super customizable. There are a lot of different features including team chats, embedding Google Docs and Folders, assigning everything to different people, tracking progress, checklists and more. 

But, while we found ClickUp to work best for us, choosing a task management platform is based on your needs. I really think you can’t go wrong, but if you don’t have one in place you’ll struggle.

As a solopreneur, you might not think it’s necessary, but you’re going to want to hire support and a team down the road. 

If you start putting your daily tasks into workflows, into SOP’s (standard operating procedures) for your business, then when you bring people on, it's much easier for you to say, "Hey, these are the things that I would like you to do." 

Otherwise, when you decide you're going to bring people on to your team, then you've got to take everything out of your head, remember everything, put it on paper, put it into task management and that’s just adding more work to you in the long run. 

I recommend getting a task management platform started right now, no matter what you choose, and getting in the habit of putting your tasks and putting your workflows on there. 

I've also found that using these platforms takes the mystery out of, what should I be doing, or what do I need to do this week? And we're less likely to miss something or forget to do something because we know that it's in our platform.

SMALL BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY TOOL #3: Loom

The third productivity tool I want to share with you is called Loom. 

I record a lot of videos over here at Brandmerry, and if you are in the coaching, consulting, strategy business, you're probably making a lot of videos as well. Whether you have a course or a membership site, or you're working with your clients and offering feedback.

I have found that the process of recording and saving and downloading and uploading and sending and all that stuff, is a massive headache. When I was traveling full-time in our RV in 2019 and 2020, I had very little internet most of the time so recording a video, then having to download it and upload it for my team required so much energy.

That’s when I really fell in love with Loom because it allows you to record things on your computer and save it to a cloud drive which your team can then access.

It makes the entire process so easy because you can record your video directly in Loom. 
You can choose to record just videos of your face, or screen-share or even a combination of the two.

A lot of my training videos that I have are a screen-share, but my face in the bottom left-hand corner, so they feel more personal to me and my brand. 

I often will record feedback videos for my clients if they are creating a sales page or a new free gift for their audience and rather than typing up all of those notes, I’m able to walk through the video with them on screen so they can make adjustments. What would take 30 minutes of my time, suddenly takes five.

And perhaps my favorite part is that once I record it, it's there. 

All I have to do is send a link to my client and say, "Here's the link to your video. Go ahead and watch your feedback." 

If Delana on Team Brandmerry is uploading a video into one of our courses, then she has a log-in to Loom and all she has to do is download the video on her end. I'm not downloading it, uploading it to Google Drive so she can download it, and then upload again. 

Loom is a fantastic resource and saves a great deal of time. You don't realize how much time you spend with this whole download/ upload situation. When you can shave off 15, 20 minutes every single video, that adds up quite a bit.

SMALL BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY TOOL #4: Calendar

The last one I want to share with you is something we all have access to, and it's your calendar. 

When it comes to productivity, it can truly be that simple.

I have paper calendars for all of my upcoming dates and launches and projects that I'm working on so that I have a bird's eye view of what's happening in my business. 

Then I also use my Google Calendar religiously. Every single thing is in my Google Calendar from a date night with my husband Ben to a workout, to a team meeting, to an upcoming launch that we are working on here at Brandmerry.

Every single thing is put into this calendar so that I am really filtering the things that are a top priority to me. Nothing gets on that calendar if it's not a top priority.

Using the calendar is a great way to also be in charge of your schedule to get in the habit of saying, "You know what? Yeah, I might have a 15-minute pocket here, but I want to use that to go make lunch or go walk around or do something,” rather than jamming your calendar. 

I've found that having my Google Calendar filled out actually gives me more time and space to breathe, and I'm honoring my commitments at the same time.

So aside from all of the things that I've shared with you that are great for business, I will say that the Google Calendar that many of you have, but probably aren't using to its highest potential, can actually help you in business and in life the most.

It's super easy for you to get started with just this one tool.

We have a business calendar, so all of my business meetings are on there, and then I have a personal calendar where I put my workouts, as I've talked about with my morning routine on my podcasts before, as well as date nights, appointments, different things like that so that we're making sure nothing's overlapping. 

I'm making sure to get tons of time in between, and again, I'm focusing on the things that are important that are moving my business and my life forward. 

There you have it. 

Those are the four productivity tools that we use over here.

We're really simple over here at Brandmerry and prefer to keep it very minimalist. 

I promise you, just by using these four tools, you will notice a huge difference in how you're spending your time.

Watch the full video here!

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

My Top 4 Tips for New Course Creators

My Top 4 Tips for New Course Creators

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

This post contains affiliate links which means if you make a purchase through a link, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you!

If you are an entrepreneur or you're thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, you have probably recognized that there is a lot of money in creating courses. And aside from the money aspect of it, which is why a lot of people gravitate towards it, the focus that I really want to put your energy towards is the impact that you can have. 

If you are doing one-on-one services or consulting, you have a limited amount of people that you can work with at a time. And that's one of the reasons that I fell madly in love with creating courses.

It allows me to serve more people and to support more people without sacrificing my precious time, which you probably know is a huge value over here at Brandmerry and just for me as a human being as well. 

So I thought it would be kind of fun to do a blog that is all about my top tips for new course creators. 

Now, even if you're not new, maybe you already have a course, listen in because the information I'm going to share is going to save you tons of time, money, and energy in the long run. I really want to share this with you because as you know, streamlining and simplifying the process of running a business is so, so important and dear to me.

So these four tips are really designed to remove the overwhelm that you might be feeling on what is required to build out your course.

TIP #1: STREAMLINE YOUR PROCESS WITH AN ALL-IN-ONE PLATFORM

The first tip that I have for you is to make sure that you are not trying to piece it all together.

When you start out and look, I did it too, you want to bootstrap. I totally understand. I was the exact same way. And to be honest, I needed to. 

But, when you're creating a course and you have intentions of evergreening that course, meaning you want to be able to sell this at any time and somebody can sign up at any time and it's not reliant on you sending an email or processing a payment or something like that,  it is going to save you a lot of time and energy to have it all in one location.

In my business, I use a platform called Kajabi. Maybe you've heard me talk about it before, but Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for course creators. 

What this allowed me to do was create the sales page, checkout page, confirmation page, process the payments, send the emails, send weekly check-ins and automated emails, deliver the materials, drip it, releasing it live, etc...all in one area. 

When I first started my business and I was selling a group program and a few small courses, I was just piecing it all together and it became really messy and very confusing. If one thing didn't work, then I had to figure out what wasn't working and why it wasn't working and fix it. 

At the end of the day, I realized I was actually spending more money.

By piecing together a bunch of different options that varied in price, I was actually spending almost the same amount of money that I would spend to just invest in a platform like Kajabi. 

Not to mention, by switching to Kajabi, I also ended up saving myself a lot of time trying to build everything on different platforms. So I really recommend that everybody tries to find a platform that allows them to do all of those things. 

Now is every platform perfect? No, of course not. It never works out like that. And everybody has different desires. 

But I know for myself, when I was ultimately choosing Kajabi in the beginning, I wanted to have a way to stay in contact with my clients as well as to really streamline the onboarding process. 

Don't try to piece it all together. You're going to recognize that someone is going to have to go to a sales page and then the checkout page, and then you need to email them their login information, and then you need to email them important information, and then they need to log in and then you have to house all the materials right?

There are a lot of moving parts. And the more that you can streamline that, have that all in one platform, the better it is going to be for you in the long run. 

So, I recommend Kajabi to so many of my clients, and actually have a free trial for you. You can go to Brandmerry.com/kajabi to get started on the platform. In addition, I’m giving away a bonus when you ultimately commit to Kajabi which includes an entire mini-course on Launching.

Tip #2: TAKE CARE OF YOUR CUSTOMER WITH ONBOARDING

That whole process leads me to tip number two, taking care of your customer. 

I don't know about you, but I've signed up for courses before and I’m so excited and then I don't get an email or I don't get the information that I wanted, or I don't get taken to a confirmation page. 

Then I'm really confused about where I'm supposed to start and what I'm supposed to do. So one of my top tips for my clients is that you need to take care of your customers. 

Think about if you were going through that process. Think about if you saw a course was for sale and you built up the courage and strength, you pulled out your credit card and you put your credit card number in there, and then suddenly you felt completely lost.

How would you feel? It wouldn't feel very good and it's going to put a sour taste in your mouth. 

One of the best things that you can do truly for your business and for the longevity of your clients sticking around and referring their friends, is to take care of them from the very beginning and make sure that they feel super supported. 

So when you are designing your course, so many people focus on just the course, and we're going to talk about that. But I also want you to think about that onboarding process because it is so important. 

I would argue that making sure that your onboarding process is clear and has a step-by-step process, will save you money because you're going to have fewer people asking for a refund,  feeling confused, ending up in your inbox, or just not knowing what to do overall. 

So when it comes to the onboarding process, here's a very simple step-by-step that I recommend.

STEP ONE: THE CHECKOUT PAGE

Let's assume they go to your checkout page or a sales page. They're on your sales page learning more about your program. They click a button that takes them to the checkout page, whether you have a pay-in-full or a payment plan. One of the things that I love to include on a checkout page is a video. 

Now I host the entire thing inside of Kajabi as I've mentioned before, so I can upload a video saying, "Hi, I'm so glad that you're here. Here's what happens next."

I'm taking away some of those fears that my ideal customer and potential client is experiencing like, "If I put my credit card number and what happens? Where do I go? What happens next?" 

So I create a video that's me on camera sharing the step-by-step of signing up. I also love to recap on the checkout page exactly what they get and share some testimonials as well.

STEP TWO: CONFIRMATION PAGE

So they go to the checkout page, put in their card information, agree to your terms and policies, then what happens? 

You take them to a confirmation page. Please don't skip this step. It's very important. 

After they’ve signed up it's important to put their fears at ease. Trust me they are thinking, "Oh my gosh, I just put my credit card number and now what happens?" 

This is why I love to create confirmation pages for my courses that are typically just me on video. I think that's such a great way to build trust and build a relationship with your audience by saying, "Congratulations, you're in. You did it. Here's what happens next."

I also like to type out any information that they might be getting in their inbox, let them know their login information is on its way, let them know that they're going to get an email with this, this, this and this. 

I'm really just focused on guiding them through the process, holding their hand and making them feel really supported every single step of the way.

STEP THREE: DELIVER THEIR EMAILS

The next step is to deliver all the info they need to get started. 

I love to deliver one email that contains their login information and another email that has more of the logistical pieces. 

• Where do they log in? 

• Do you have a community or a Facebook group where you're supporting them? 

• Are there calls that they need to put into their calendar? 

• How do they ask questions? What does that look like? 

You can outline all of that inside of the email.

And, of course, I like to take it a step further, and you can totally steal this from me if you want, and actually say, "This is the first thing I want you to do. And the second and the third and the fourth," so that it's very clear and we can remove some of that overwhelm.

STEP FOUR: LOG IN

Then comes the final step of the onboarding process, and that's getting them to log in to where your course is. 

When they log into your course, I love to have a welcome video there as well. In fact, inside of my programs, we have a start here section, which gives a walkthrough of the membership site.

It has a checklist if necessary and it tells them where they can get support and answers some more questions, encourages them to get started and tells them exactly where to start to get the best results. 

It's really about holding your client's hand through the entire process, making sure that they feel supported and you've removed the overwhelm. 

So my second tip is to put your time and your energy into creating a really streamlined onboarding process. And again, if you're using an all-in-one platform like Kajabi, you can do all.

TIP #3: KEEP IT SIMPLE 

Don't try to be fancy. 

When it comes to building out your course, I talk to so many entrepreneurs every single day. 

They're like, "Well, I really want to launch a course but I want to wait because I need a backdrop. And I want to be able to hire a graphic designer for my workbooks. And I want to have a nice camera," and so on. 

I’ve got to be honest - that is just keeping you from putting your content out there. And by delaying putting your content out there, you're actually delaying sales and the overall growth of your program.

I highly recommend that you are not fancy when you put your course out there the first time. 

Many of my first courses didn't even have video, they were just workbooks, and I just created the workbooks in Pages on my Mac computer. 

You do not have to have a fancy graphic designer helping you with your workbooks in the beginning. Go into Canva, choose a template and change it with your colors and some photos and truly make it your own. 

When it comes to filming, so many people get hung up on the fact that they have to work with a professional videographer, or they have to have perfect lighting or a perfect backdrop.

That is absolutely not required, I still don’t do that in my course and it has served over 300 people. Remember, it's about delivering value. That is what people pay for. You can use your Quicktime or Loom on your computer to record, or just on your phone. 

One of our favorite tools to use in course creation is Loom. Loom is an online program that you can use to record videos, store them in the cloud, and organize them. They're just a great place to do a screen share, the camera only, whatever.

Honestly, if we're talking like bare-bones, you need something to record on, which could be a computer, a phone, or a camera if you have it. 

You need some sort of light, which could be your ceiling light. You could even position yourself in front of a window or purchase a cheap ring light and tripod online and make a workbook in Canva and that's it.

One of the things that I see holding course creators back is that they wait to put their materials out there because they want them to be perfect or professional. But the biggest thing that I've learned as a course creator is that you will modify and change as more and more people work through your program. 

The best way to create a course that over-delivers, is super valuable, and is profitable for your business, is constantly making small adjustments. So if you're waiting to put the course out there until it's perfect, then you're not going to be able to make those adjustments and move forward with your progress. 

The best thing that you can do is get your content organized, put it out there and then ask for feedback and make those adjustments as you go.

I keep mentioning Kajabi obviously because that's the platform that we use over here at Brandmerry, but inside Kajabi, I can upload my workbooks effortlessly. 

I can upload my videos natively without having to use Youtube or Vimeo. If I want, I can upload an audio file. 

You can choose to deliver your content in so many different forms making it really easy for your audience to access those materials on their desktop or on their mobile phone because you can download an app to use with the membership portal as well. 

Keep it simple. Don't try and be super fancy with it because you're going to change and adjust as you go. That is the art of creating an amazing digital product.

TIP #4: GET PAID TO CREATE YOUR COURSE

We are coming in hot with tip number four and this is one of my favorite things to teach. 

One of the coolest things that you can do is get paid to create your course. I mean when someone told me this when I first started my business I was sold within like five seconds.

Now I'm not talking about a beta program. Some people really love that and if that works for you, that's amazing, but I’ve found using the term “beta” gives you a little permission to not do a full launch or get paid. 

I'm talking about actual cash in hand to then create the course. 

Let me give you an example of this. One of the first courses that I created was called Brand New Adventure. I now have a branding course called You! Branded. You! Branded came from putting Brand New Adventure out there, getting paid for it, adjusting it over the course of a year, and then really packaging it into what I ultimately wanted to create, and adjusting the name and some of the marketing.

But when I first sold Brand New Adventure all I had was an outline for my modules, the onboarding process was done so I could accept payment and email my clients and I had a sales page, and that was it.

I sold Brand New Adventure, in fact, it was a $7,000 launch, my biggest at the time, and every week over five weeks, I would create the new module. I would drip a new module and video training on Monday and then I would support students inside the Facebook Group. I got paid to create the course and the program. 

So if you've got an audience, even if it's a small audience, you can sell the course or the program before it's even created. 

Similar to a membership site. If you want to host a membership site. We're talking about courses here, but platforms like Kajabi work for membership sites as well.

Brandmerry Academy, my membership community that teaches marketing, is hosted on Kajabi as well. 

When I first sold that program, I didn't have all of the monthly trainings created. I created them as I went throughout the year with my Founding Members giving feedback on what they needed most. 

This is a really smart business move because a lot of entrepreneurs will spend months and months and months creating a course, creating a program and then attempting to sell it and finding out that people don't actually want it. 

You get to test your marketing, you get to test your messaging, and then you get to actually create it for someone specifically, get feedback, adjust it, and then evergreen it down the line if that's something that you choose to do. So it's such a fun strategy, get paid to create.

CONCLUSION

Those are my four tips for course creators and I highly, highly recommend you take them and you run with them. I wish someone would have told me these four things in the very beginning. 

It would have saved me a lot of time and energy. 

Speaking of saving time and energy, I clearly talked about Kajabi a lot. I don't recommend anything that I don't use and I don't believe in, and they truly are, in my opinion, one of the leaders in course creation because of the amount of time and energy and tech headaches that they will save you through the streamlined process. 

If you’re interested in giving Kajabi a try, you can go to Brandmerry.com/kajabi and test it out.

When you wrap up your trial and become a paying member of the platform you’ll get a special bonus from me. This is only available to community members who use my custom link above.

Inside of this bonus is an entire training on hosting and selling on webinars authentically. 

Might I add, not like sleazy, but like truly authentic, valuable webinars that convert. Hosting challenges, if you want to host a live video challenge to sell your course or sell your program as well as an entire training that I call Launchpad, which is all the step-by-steps of launching your course. 

Kajabi will support you in creating your course, there are a ton of materials out there, but then you've got to know how to market it and launch it.

So sign up at Brandmerry.com/kajabi and sign up through that link, then you will be gifted my entire bonus bundle to support you in marketing and selling your brand new course after your trial.

Check out Brandmerry.com/kajabi for more info.

Watch the full video below!

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.