BIRD WILLIAMS: You're listening to Bird Means Business Episode 76. 

Hello, Hello! And thank you for tuning into Bird Means Business podcast. I am your host, Bird Williams, and I am super-duper pumped for this episode on the top 10 tools in my online business. Y'all, I often get questions about how I make all this work, and which are the tools I use and love. So I'm super pumped to give you a glimpse into some of my favorite tools I use to run my online business. 

Y'all know I like to dive in deep and get super transparent. And, you know, I'm learning that the best way for me to do that is where I can really engage more with you, you know? Like, hear you talk back to me, and share my screen. And really make sure I'm getting your questions answered. So if you're in the Prove It Plan community, you know, we do a monthly live Q&A every single month, where I answer all of your questions about the business plan you're developing through the course. Well, for this month's live Q&A, we're also going to go behind the scenes to talk about any of the tools in my business, so that you can really see how I use them practically. You can actually see how it all looks behind the scenes and how it all works. 

Again, these monthly live Q&A sessions are exclusive to those brand builders inside of Prove It Plan. So if you want to learn more about my online course for developing a strategic business plan, and join the community, you're going to want to go to birdwilliams.com/proveitplan. And I hope to see you in the members’ area soon. 

All right. Now, before we get into my favorite 10 tools that I use in my online business, let's start with why. I like to start with why with everything I do. What's the purpose behind what we're doing? Why are we even talking about tools and tech right now? Because my friend, gone are the days where all of your business documents are stored in file cabinets. It's the digital age. And this means we have access to tools or technology that do a few things. I'm going to name three of them. 

One, it improves our efficiency. We can work smarter and not harder and get more done. Which gives us the ability to enjoy more free time, right? To have more of a personal life because our business systems are more efficient with the tools that we're using in our business. 

Number two, these tools and technology allow for easier collaboration. So when you're working with that independent contractor or with clients, these tools help make communication much easier, and much more dynamic. 

And then number three is that it allows for automation. Automation is one of my favorite words in business. Because there's nothing like being out and about enjoying your day, and getting an alert for something that's maybe posted, or one of your programs that sold that you're not even focused on in the moment. It was automated meaning it was working for you while you weren't having to work on it in the moment. I love automation. So that's one of the things that these tools help bring us. So it's so important that we think about these and that we're strategic with the tools we use in our business. 

I'm going to share 10 tools that are working well in my online business. And the hope is that it helps provide context for you as you determine what you need for your specific business. Meaning this isn't a one size fits all situation. I'm not saying sign up for everything that I'm using. I'm hoping that you can say oh, that's how that works. Hmm, I wonder how that could work in my business based on my specific needs. And I want you to stay tuned to the end of the episode to hear my number one piece of advice when it comes to choosing your tools and your technology needs. Okay? 

I understand that it can feel overwhelming to make a leap with a new tool or technology in your business. But my friend, the more you take these leaps, the more uncomfortable you get. Like I said in the past, the more comfortable you get with being uncomfortable, the easier it will become, and the more you'll expand your possibilities. Look, as an entrepreneur, you're going to have to do scary things. You're going to have to do things that you're just a little unsure about. But that process, going through that, stretching yourself, is going to help you be a better business owner and build a better brand. Okay? 

Now, I will say I'm gonna move pretty quickly through these top 10 tools for time's sake. But like I said, if you're in the Prove It Plan community, we're gonna dive much deeper. And like I said, I'll give you the behind-the-scenes visuals as well. I am so excited about that. Because again, I kind of geek out over stuff like this, because it's how I make all of his work in my business. It's how I'm able to do so many things, run multiple businesses, have a family, and all the things. I'm asked often how I do it all. Well, my tools and systems, and technology help me in a huge way.  Okay? 

So let's get into these 10 tools. Alright, let's start with the one I get the most questions about - Dubsado. Now, I'll just say I'm going to link all of these tools in the show notes so that you're able to see them there and just click. So if you go down to the episode description, you can just actually click them. Otherwise, I'd have to spell them all out. Instead, I'm going to just link it in the show notes for you to be able to click and go right to it. 

Dubsado is the first one we're starting with. And this is a business management system that allows you to schedule appointments, build forms, and create workflows to streamline your projects from start to finish. One of my favorite things about Dubsado is the automation. So let me explain how I use it in my business. Let's say that someone wants to book a strategy session with me. They're going to go to my website, which is birdwilliams.com. And I host my website on Squarespace. And I'm providing that differentiation so you understand. Dubsado I use inside of my website, which is Squarespace. We're going to talk about Squarespace in a second. That's one of the tools. But let's just focus on Dubsado for now. So they're going to go to my website, and they're going to go to the strategy session page, cause that's how they want to work with me. Now, if you're listening to this in real-time, it's birdwilliams.com/strategy. I'm actually on maternity leave, and that page is going to reflect that. But normally, this page is set up to have an embedded form, which is a Dubsado form, where the prospect could put in, you know, some basic information. And then once they fill out that form, the prospect would be a transition to the contract. And the contract, they could read the entire contract there and actually sign it. Once they sign the contract, it would transition them to paying the invoice. All right, they're on my website. So they fill out a form. So I understand some basic things about their business and their needs. They've signed the contract and they've paid the invoice all right there. And then once those three steps are completed, the client would receive, automatically, an email with a link to schedule our strategy session. Then once they book the session, they will automatically receive a questionnaire that dives even deeper, so that we can both prepare for the strategy session. They'll also automatically receive confirmation emails for their appointment time. And also reminder emails based on timeframes that I set up in the beginning through Dubsado.

The keyword here is automatically, meaning this is all happening as a part of an automated workflow that I set up in Dubsado one time. I go into Dubsado. I know what it is that I need. I know the workflows I want to create. I know the client touchpoints. And then I say, okay, this is what I want it to do. Set it all up. And it happens automatically. Meaning I'm not having to remember to send a contract, or an invoice or reminder emails, or the questionnaire. It's all happening automatically behind the scenes as I'm living my life. That means that when someone goes to want to book a strategy session with me, I don't have to remember all those steps. I could be out with my girlfriends at lunch, or working out, or working on something else in my business as this whole process happens. It's magical and amazing. So having Dubsado also allows me to not need to hire an assistant, or spend as much time on the administrative side of my business. It gives me the freedom to focus on the areas of my business that really need me the most because this happens automatically. 

Let's say right now 12 people were like, I want to go book a strategy session with Bird. And I'm not on maternity leave, so I'm accepting one-on-one appointments. Well, 12 people could come into the system. And I don't remember what my max is on my strategy sessions, how many people can book at a time. But you can set up limits as well. So let's say you're like, I only want five people to be able to set up a session a day, for example. You can set that up to where no one can book more than five times a day. But again, you're not having to manage that process. It's just automatically happening. Beautiful. The thing about Dubsado, it's only $35 a month. So when you go to dubsado.com, and you use my code, birdwilliams, you'll actually get 20% off your first month or a year, depending on how you choose to sign up. So how it works is you can actually start off with using Dubsado, for free to have a free trial for your first three clients. And then once you add your fourth client, you would automatically receive that 20% discount if you used my code whenever you signed up. 

I dive into Dubsado into much more detail in Episode 16. It's an episode I did a while back, and it's called how I automate client communication in my online business. So if this sounds like something that you could use in your business, I highly recommend you listening to that episode. And I'll be sure to link it in the show notes as well. 

All right, let's move on to number two. The number two tool that I love to use, and these are in priority order. But number two is my email service provider. So I'm currently using Kajabi as my email service provider. But first, let's back up a bit. An email service provider is the tool through which you send out email communication to your audience. Now, these are people who have subscribed to your email list. There are so many different types of email service providers out there to choose from. A super common one is MailChimp, for example. So I've used many email service providers in my businesses. MailChimp, MailerLight, which was free actually. ConvertKit was like $39 a month. ConvertKit was another email service provider I've used in the past. And I'm currently with Kajabi because it's an all-in-one platform that I also use to host my online courses. So I figured I'd save money by not paying separately for an email service provider, since that's already included in Kajabi, which is where I host my course. 

I use my email service provider in two ways. Number one is sending out weekly emails to my tribe. So if you're not already receiving weekly emails from me. They're non-spammy emails that are full of business tips and behind the scenes. I kind of dive deeper in my weekly emails. You can subscribe at birdwilliams.com/join. So when I send out weekly emails, this is a way to nurture my audience and to provide great free value. So that when it does come time for me to launch a product or service, I've built that know, like, and trust factor to make the decision to work with me even easier for our prospect. So to learn more about this process and the importance of email marketing, you're going to want to listen to Episode 58. It's called, "Is Your Marketing Strategy Just Social Media?" I talk about the importance of an email marketing strategy in that episode. 

The first way I use my email service provider or just those weekly emails, right? Get them drafted. Send them out through Kajabi. The second way I use my email service provider is through landing pages for freebies. So my freebies are free content that I provide. You can actually go to birdwilliams.com/resources, and you'll see tons of my freebies. These are free resources like guides, checklists, worksheets, to help you along your entrepreneurial journey. I put a lot of work into my freebies. So you can click any of these boxes that you see at birdwilliams.com/resources. And you'll be taken to a landing page, which is run through my email service provider. It's run through Kajabi. And on this landing page, you're going to put your name and email in to receive or download the freebie. And at the same time, you'll be joining my email list. So again, I'm giving you jam-packed info that I've worked really hard to provide and improve your business or your life through my freebie. And then in return, you're giving me your email address so that I can keep in touch with you. It's a win-win situation. Okay? So those are the two ways that I use my email service provider. 

All right, moving on to tool number three. Let's talk about organization. The next few tools that I bring up will be all about organization. The first one is my project management system, Asana. Now Asana is one of my favorite tools in my business because it helps keep me and my team organized. Within Asana, there are projects. And then within each project, there are tasks and subtasks. So let me give you an example of this. One of the projects I have in Asana is “Content Calendar”. So this is my content calendar. All the content that I put out is housed in Asana in this project. One of the sections inside this project is “Podcast”. That's one of the types of content I have in my business. Now one of the tasks inside of that podcast section is "Finalize show notes”. And a sub-task for that task is "Send draft of show notes to Bird". So this is a task that my digital marketing assistant is assigned to. So you can see how you can get into the nitty-gritty with this and ensure that none of the balls get dropped. So I have my content calendar project, then my podcast section, and then a task that says finalize show notes because that needs to happen for every single podcast episode. I have the show notes, where I include all the links to the episode and a little blurb description, right? And then a sub-task of that is to send a draft of the show notes to me. My digital marketing assistant drafts it. Sends it to me for approval. I might make some tweaks. And then she publishes it. So it's just a beautiful system to make sure that you don't forget anything. 

Each of these tasks or subtasks can be given a date and assigned to a specific person. And I will say that I found Asana to be more useful when my digital marketing assistant joined the team. So when it was just me, it wasn't as useful to me. But I will tell you that there's so much value that you can get out of having this level of organization as a solopreneur. Honestly, I used my iCal a whole lot before using Asana. But man to be able to have this level of detail and to kind of see it all laid out. And again, to make sure you're not dropping any balls. Being able to set up recurring tasks and all of that. Just so much more beautiful in Asana than just like in your regular calendar. 

I'll quickly mention that one of the competing project management systems out there is called Trello. And I've heard really great things about Trello. But I chose Asana because unlike Trello, which just gives you one view which is like this board view. You can kind of view your tasks in boards. Asana allows you to view your projects or tasks as multiple views. So not just the board view, but also a list view and a calendar view, and a dashboard. So it was a little bit more dynamic for me. And that's why I chose Asana. Asana is actually, in terms of pricing, anywhere from free to $25 a month plus, depending on how many users you have. So if it's you and a teammate, if you have multiple teammates, that'll determine the pricing. 

All right, next step, we have tool number four. And this is Loom. Now loom allows you to record video messages of your screen, your camera, or both. And it's faster than typing an email or having to meet live. Y'all, I love Loom for recording my SOPs. 

My SOPs are standard operating procedures for tasks in my business that I have to train others to do. Because remember, talking about training others and talking about having a team. We are trying to build a better brand. So when you're trying to build a better brand, you're growing your team, right? You're not gonna just do all the things in your business forever, because you cannot build a better brand that way. You cannot grow your business that way. And you cannot have the freedom and flexibility to actually step away from your business and not feel chained to it. Right? So one of the things in terms of growing your team is needing to have these SOPs where you kind of explain the things that you do. And an easy way to do this is through Loom. So you don't want to have all the how-tos about your business in your head. Because again, you want to be able to step away from your business. 

With Loom you can actually record your screen to demonstrate how to complete a task. Let me give you an example, kind of keeping up with our earlier example of the podcast. One of the loom videos as an SOP for my podcast is upload approved show notes into Anchor in Squarespace. So it's a super quick video showing how this task is done. How do you upload approved show notes once they're approved by me into Anchor in Squarespace? And I actually provide the link to the Loom video inside of the Asana task. So in Asana, where the task is loaded up, there's actually a space for description for whatever you want. So I actually link the Loom video right there so that when my digital marketing assistant is being onboarded, for example. Her training video for how to upload approved show notes into Anchor in Squarespace is right there within the actual task. Yes! I just get really excited about that. Like I loved it so much whenever I had it all setup and easy because it wasn't like I was having to show her how to do everything. Everything was in Asana. All the links were there and she could just watch the video of me doing it and say, "Okay, I know how to do that." And if she ever forgets or needs to refer back, it's always there. Now Loom has a free version. I paid $10 a month based on the number of videos that I have. 

All right, we're going to move on to tool number five. And we're still talking organization here. Tool number five is Google Docs. So most of us are familiar with the Google Drive Suite. And Google Docs are my preferred tool for long-term descriptive work. So a lot of my templates are in Google Docs. Whenever I create a project plan initially, to kind of get all the ideas out of my head, I put it into a Google Doc. Any initial content I think goes into Google Doc. 

So let me give you a really practical example. Let's stick with that example of the podcast. So I write outlines for each of my podcast episodes in Google Docs. And also transcriptions for each episode are in Google Docs before they go into Squarespace. If you don't know, you can now actually read the transcripts of each of the podcast episodes. So let's say you prefer to read instead of listen. I have it set up now. It was a project we worked on really hard over the last few months to transcribe all of the episodes so that you can actually read them as well. Well, those transcriptions first happened in a Google Doc and are then moved into Squarespace, as just an example. 

The template for the show notes that we mentioned with that earlier example of the show notes approval task. That template for what the show notes should look like that my digital marketing assistant is going to actually draft. They're in Google Docs. And again, I link the show notes template from Google Docs into the exact Asana task. So it's right there for her each week so she can just copy and paste it and update the show notes for the new episode. So it's just super-duper easy. I love Google Docs. And I really love how collaborative they are, as well. You can give others access to an entire folder inside of your Google Doc. Or just a particular document or spreadsheet or file that you want them to have access to. And it's really easy to see and keep organized. And the best part is it is free. So with every Gmail account you have, you automatically get a certain amount of free storage for your Google Drive. And of course, depending on how digital asset-heavy your business is. You can go a pretty long time on the free version before having to pay for more space. Now if you have tons of audio and video files. That might be a different story. But for most people, it's just a lot of text files. You can go a long time with a free version for a Google Docs and Google Drive. 

All right, tool number six is iCal. And this one is going to kind of round out our organization section. So iCal is the calendar that comes with Apple products like a MacBook, or an iPhone. And I live by my iCal. So if you're team PC, I love you. We can be friends. I just don't understand your world. And I am sure though, that there's something similar to iCal for PC users. I just don't know what that is. But iCal might seem basic, like a really basic tool. But it's the one tool that I'm using every single day no matter what. So I couldn't leave it out of the list. 

For me, my iCal is my to-do hub. Yes, there are tasks in Asana for my team collaboration, and even my own private or individual work projects. And yes, there are client appointments like strategy sessions that are in Dubsado, in the calendar there in Dubsado. But I like iCal to bring everything together and reflect all of my tasks and appointments, so everything is in one place. And I personally like to use iCal for that. I know some people will use just Asana, just their project management system. I like seeing it in iCal because I also have shared calendars with my husband for personal or family appointments and events. And I just try not to have multiple places to look for things, making it just simple and easy for my life. And I don't know how we would manage everything without the shared calendars between me and my husband. So I can't tell you how many times we've reminded each other, like, "Add it to the cal", so that we don't have to remember that so and so has a birthday party coming up. Or that it's superhero day and our boys’ school next Wednesday or whatever it might be. We can actually just add it to our joint calendar. And we call our joint calendar Will's Cal. And it's its own specific color. And then I also have different colors for each of my businesses. And I also have a different color for just general calendar items. And I have a fun calendar item as well. So I love how organized it keeps me. I love that it's all in one place. And it's also color-coordinated so that I can see the differences in what it is I have going on. If I see something that's a purple event, I automatically know that's a fun event. If I see something that's red, that's for Bird Williams. Green is for The League. Orange is a joint calendar with my husband, things that he is also aware of. 

The beauty of having a digital calendar over a physical one, where you write everything down, is that you can easily move things around. Right? You can just kind of drag and drop events if needed. But at the same exact time, the danger of having a digital calendar over a physical calendar is that you can easily move things around, right? So what I mean by that is, it's great when you unexpectedly need to push a meeting back and you can just easily move it to another day without having to rewrite it all out. But it's not so great, because you can get into the habit of making unrealistic time containers for things, which I am very guilty of. And it can cause you to just constantly move a task to the next day, to the next week, to the next month. You get my drift. So if you're not physically writing it down, it can sometimes feel easier to just move it. So it takes a lot of self-awareness and discipline to be realistic about what can actually be done in a day and then actually sticking to it whenever you're using a digital calendar. 

When it comes to iCal, it's free. It's an application that automatically downloads on your MacBook or iPhone. And like I said, it's one of my favorite tools. It's one I use every single day. 

Tool number seven is Anchor. Anchor is my current podcast hosting platform. So I chose it honestly, straight up, because it was the quickest and easiest way to launch this very podcast, Bird Means Business, which I share all about in Episode 13. It's called, "How I Launched My Podcast in Five Weeks with $9.95". So Anchor was also free, which is great. And while it does have its limitations, kind of compared to competitors like Libsyn, for example, it's another podcast host. I have seen more updates recently since it's been acquired by Spotify. And honestly, it's worked really well for me so far. So to hear more about Anchor and how you use it with launching your podcast, and even in your weekly podcast tasks. You're gonna want to check out Episode 13 "How I Launched My Podcast in Five Weeks with $9.95." And I'll make sure that I link it in the show notes as well. 

Okay, moving on to tool number eight. Good ol' Zoom. I feel like we're all very familiar with Zoom after what 2020 meant from our work-from-home worlds. But in my online business, I use Zoom for podcast interviews and client calls, and also workshops or events like my monthly live Q&A with the Prove It Plan community, for example. So Zoom has a free version. But if you plan to have a session that's going to last for over 40 minutes, you're going to want to upgrade. I pay $16 a month for Zoom. 

Next is tool number nine. And this is my website host Squarespace. So similar to your email service provider, and really all of the other tools that I'm mentioning. There are so many options out there. And when I launched Bird Williams, I built my own website. And I chose Squarespace because I've used WordPress in the past. And I've used Wix in the past. But I kind of found that Squarespace seemed to be more user-friendly. That's just me and my preference. 

When I rebranded Bird Williams, which I share all about in Episode 44. It's called "Behind the Scenes of the Bird Williams Rebrand". I purchased a separate template from Go Live HQ. And so basically, you can buy these templates, one-time payment for a template, which can be incorporated into your Squarespace website so that you can have a more aesthetically pleasing website. Instead of having to use typical Squarespace templates. And so that's something that I did upgrade whenever I rebranded my business. 

I'm constantly in Squarespace. I'm making updates here and there to certain pages, maybe new marketing banners or pop-ups. And so it's important to me that I really understand my website design. And that I'm not fully reliant on a web designer every single time I need to make a change or an update. You have to understand that your website should be your marketing hub. This is where you should bring everything back to. So it's important that you're strategic with the layout and thoughtful about the purpose behind what you're putting on your site. And again, you can integrate other tools like Dubsado, like the Dubsado form I mentioned, that is on the strategy session page on my website. You could integrate a form, like an embedded form there. Or even your email service provider. It also integrates with Squarespace. So I have a form at birdwilliams.com/join, where you can join my weekly emails. That is linked to my email service provider, again through Squarespace. So you can integrate your other tools into your website, as well. I just want to make sure I point that out. I'm trying to provide distinctions between all the different tools and how they can also work together. And Squarespace pricing ranges from $12 a month to $40 a month. I pay $26 a month for the Commerce plan. 

And finally, tool number 10, Canva. Y'all, I'm so grateful for Canva. And anytime someone doesn't know about it, and I introduce it to them, I feel like I'm giving them a million bucks because it's been that valuable in my business. So Canva is a graphic design platform that makes it oh so easy to design social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents. The list goes on. And their templates make it easy for you to just drag and drop your own images. You could upload your images into Canva, change your branded colors, update fonts, and on and on. 

One thing to consider with something like Canva is that if you haven't done a brand discovery, where you've really thought about what message you're trying to communicate through your brand. And you aren't using consistent brand colors, or fonts, or design. Your branding will look very random and not cohesive, which is not what you want. So in that rebrand episode I mentioned, Episode 44. Which again, I'll link in the show notes so that you can check it out. I share about hiring a graphic designer who came up with, she designed templates for social media posts for presentations for my freebies. And she designed them in Canva so that I could then go back and make the tweaks that I needed over time. So this ensured that my branding was always going to be consistent and cohesive going forward. I wasn't going to randomly use the Canva templates that exist in the platform. I'm actually using the templates that my graphic designer has designed and that live in Canva so that I can make tweaks to maybe the text, for example. But I'm not just picking something random that doesn't fit with my branding. 

I also want to point out that I used Canva completely free in my business up until I rebranded. And I did that because I wanted to add extra features, which again, aren't necessary when you're just starting out. So I just want to point out, you could start with Canva today for free, and use it for a long time. I made a lot of money in my business before I ever needed to upgrade. But even with those extra features, it's only $13 a month. 

Whoo, that was fun. You know, these are the kind of episodes that if I was just starting out or trying to really understand how to uplevel my business, I would love to hear and kind of see and understand how some of these tools are used in a business. So I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed sharing about it. And I had to hold back because this episode could have been two hours long if I would have gone as deep as I wanted to. But I am excited to dive in deeper with the Prove It Plan community during our monthly live Q&A. 

If you're in Prove It Plan, and you can't attend this live. No worries, because you can actually pre-submit your questions to me. And we'll make sure that we record the entire live session and add it to the members’ area for you to access whenever you're ready. 

So real quick, before we jump off, let's quickly go through each of these 10 tools one more time, especially for those of you who are taking notes. 

All right, so number one is Dubsado. This is the business management system that allows me to schedule appointments, build forms, create workflows, to really streamline my projects from start to finish. It's all about automation, and I love it. 

Number two is my email service provider. I currently use Kajabi. But I've used to so many different ones. And I use Kajabi because it is connected to my online courses. So with your email service provider, you're going to send out regular emails to your audience. And you're also going to use it for any freebies you might have as a part of a marketing funnel, for example. 

Number three is Asana. It's one of my favorite tools in my online business. It is my project management system where I collaborate with my team and have all of the tasks in my business. 

Number four is Loom. That's where I can screen record tutorial videos and how-tos so that I can have my SOPs jumpin'. 

Number five is Google Docs. This is where I put more of my longer form content that will then be uploaded to other tools in my business. 

Number six is iCal This is kind of the hub for all the to-dos that I have from day to day and week to week. 

Number seven is Anchor. This is my podcast hosting platform. 

Tool number eight is good ol' Zoom. This is where I record my podcast interviews, how I host my client calls, where I run my workshops and events. 

Tool number nine is Squarespace, which is my website host. 

And finally, tool number 10 is Canva. This is the graphic design platform that makes it so easy for me to just tweak templates that my graphic designer has made for me so that I can easily post on social media or update freebie content and on and on. 

Now, as promised, here is my number one piece of advice when it comes to deciding the tools that you'll use in your business. Don't allow yourself to get stuck here. Don't get overwhelmed with all the options or paralyzed by fear and indecision. And don't just do what you see someone else do. Do what's right for your business based on the season that you're in, and the resources that you have. 

Let me give you three quick steps as you're trying to kind of navigate all of this. First, make your best-educated guess based on what you need the tool to accomplish in your business. So if you're listening to this, and you're thinking, "Wow, Dubsado actually sounds really neat. Is it right for my business?" Well, ask yourself, what is your end goal? What are you trying to accomplish? What are those client touchpoints, the process that you're working your prospect or your client through? And then ask yourself if this tool can actually accomplish that in your business. And if you feel stuck, there's like a free tutorial on all of these websites. You can go to Dubsado's website and watch one of their free tutorials. Or even look at YouTube for reviews of Dubsado versus its competitors. Okay? But you're going to just make the best-educated guess based on what you need to accomplish in your business. 

And then number two is that you just start. Look, I want you to give yourself a deadline and make it happen. I want you to say by the end of the month, or two weeks from now, or whatever it might be. Something realistic. But also something that's going to challenge you to not just keep lollygagging. Make a decision to start. "I'm going to have my decision made by that date." And I don't want you to allow decision fatigue to overwhelm you, which is why you're going to give yourself this deadline and just start. 

And then number three. And this is maybe just the most important lesson in entrepreneurship 101, period. You're going to figure it out and adapt over time as your needs change. So you're going to make an educated guess based on what you need the tool to accomplish in your business. You're going to start. And then you're going to figure it out and adapt and change over time. 

My friend I'd rather you start with something that only works for a season. But you started. Than to keep asking questions and talking yourself out of it and going through this like crazy loop. Look with the email service provider for Bird Williams. I started with MailerLight because I had heard that MailChimp was limiting. And MailerLight was free, up to a certain point. So I was like, great, I'll start there. Then I needed more. And so I went to ConvertKit. And it was really great in a lot of respects. But then I moved to Kajabi whenever I started having courses since it was an all-in-one option like I explained earlier. So it would have been much easier to not have had to transition platforms twice. But I didn't have courses when I first launched my email marketing. 

So that just goes to show you that you have to start somewhere and give yourself grace to figure it all out over time. Of course, do your research and be diligent. But don't make mountains out of molehills. Okay? 

Also, don't not start because you want all the fancy bells and whistles from the very beginning. Start with what makes sense. Like, make sure you look at the numbers and make sure it makes sense there too. And start with what will get the job done because you can always upgrade over time. Now that being said, there is a big difference between you having the resources, but fear is stopping you from investing in yourself or in your business. And you not having the resources and needing to start small. So be honest with yourself about where you are and what's holding you back. 

I'm gonna challenge you with one other thing. If this resonates with you, and you know you need to just start. I want you to post your deadline date. Go on social media and tag me. I'm @heybirdwilliams. And say, I'm going to invest in an email service provider by XYZ date. Or I'm going to invest in a project management system by XYZ date. And tag me. I'm @heybirdwilliams. Because I'm telling you, once you put it out there, you're going to be more motivated to see it through. 

Now, like I mentioned, I'm going to be diving much deeper into topics like these with the Prove It Plan community. I'm actually really excited to invest more of my focus in this community. And I'd love for you to join us. If you don't already have a business plan, you need one. And if you have a business plan, but it's not really working for you. You're not updating it every quarter and you know you really need a framework for how it should actually work. Check out Prove It Plan. Go to birdwilliams.com/proveitplan to learn more. 

And as always, thank you so much for tuning into Bird Means Business podcast, For subscribing on Apple Podcasts, and for following us on Spotify. Make sure you tell every entrepreneur you know about this episode so that they can learn about some great tools for their online business as well. 

Talk to you next week.