Raise your hand if you have a drawer in your kitchen, so jammed with gadgets and tools that you can barely open it, let alone find anything useful inside.

*Sheepishly raises hand*

You know exactly what I’m talking about. There’s that fancy potato masher from Williams Sonoma and the cherry pitter from 8 summers ago when you went through a brief obsession with cherries.

You have so many tools in the drawer that you don’t actually know which one to use when, so you end up using exactly none of them and defer to a good old fashioned fork for mashing those potatoes.

I was recently thinking about business in the same way.

If you spend more than three seconds online, you will be bombarded with tools, software, PDFs, templates, checklists, and workbooks all promising you clarity and confidence in some facet of your business. 

You may use that checklist once, or partially implement one of the software programs you purchased, but your laptop and inbox soon becomes the kitchen utensil repository of unused tools. The back end of your business remains in chaos because you haven’t committed to one quality system or process. 

Especially in the early stages of our businesses, when we’re trying to protect our margins and be as resourceful as possible, we grab the free stuff and hope for the best.

It’s time to clean out that toolbox, my friends!

In our business, we have a few key tools that fill up our toolbox and that’s it. The tools have evolved and upgraded over the years, as they should, but we keep our toolbox neat and tidy. If it doesn’t work or it’s half-used, it’s canceled. Everyone knows which systems are for what and everything has its place (and a coordinating Standard Operating Procedure). 

Here are our tried-and-true tools that keep the business running smoothly, without cluttering up the toolbox!

Finance

1. Quickbooks Online – The best accounting software out there, in my opinion. User-friendly, affordable, and talks to lots of other software.
2. Profit Playbook – This free template will help you see into the future of your business with clarity to make smarter decisions, grow your income, and increase your impact.
3. Gusto – This is my go-to payroll company. They handle all of your tax filings and make running payroll SO easy.

Project and Client Management

1. Asana – We use Asana to organize all of our client work, membership stuff, and internal projects. It has been a game changer to keep us organized and ensure not a single ball gets dropped.
2. Dubsado – Client onboarding was always a super manual process done entirely by me and Dubsado has helped us automate 90% of the process (and remove me from the other 10%).

Other

1. Slack – We love Slack for internal team communication (and are thinking of moving our membership communication here too!)
2. Acuity Scheduling – I haven’t had a back-and-forth email exchange about meeting times in years now. Love just sending people a specific link to schedule time to meet.
3. ConvertKit – We moved to ConvertKit a year ago and love being able to track our emails, create automated sequences, and take advantage of their analytics to better reach our audience.

What are your favorite tools? Which tools of yours are jamming up the drawer and need to go?