Hey there, it’s Meighan! Welcome to ⚙️Ops+Bots, a newsletter where I share insight into technology, creating better systems, and running a business online.
Some quick housekeeping!
Tomorrow kicks off our BTS Insights Interview series! Meagan Williamson, a seasoned Pinterest marketing expert will be joining us to chat about Pinterest and the state of social media among other things. If you’re a member you can join us live or watch later. Reserve your spot here.
Then Marie Poulin of Notion Mastery, will join us in 2 weeks, to chat about Notion and working with ADHD!
In April Dama Jue, Funnels + Automations expert comes to discuss creating digital products and using lead magnets to increase sales!
If you’re not a supporting subscriber you can sign up below to join us and have access to these folks plus member only workshops and office hours.
This post has affiliate links, if you choose to purchase something using my link, I may get a small commission or kickback.
I love software. It’s why I do what I do; I play with tech so I can recommend it to you. But cost can really start to sneak up on you if you aren’t careful. In 2023 I made a lot of cutbacks in my business so I could go super lean. It was surprisingly easy to invest in some software and say goodbye to others.
I use technology to save time. Maybe it’s a combination of getting older and recovering from long Covid, but I’ve noticed a real change in me over the past few years. I just don’t have the patience (or drive) to waste time tool hopping or learning about new tools that don’t wow me immediately or fix a problem I have.
My goal for 2024 was to strip everything way back and only use tools that truly supported the business and helped me save time.
Tech I left behind and tech I started using instead
Mailerlite to ConvertKit
Mailerlite worked for me until it didn’t. They made a big change to their free tier, which felt like a bait and switch to be totally honest. I opted to pay for it because it was reasonable and I needed the features that were no longer available on the free plan.
I started to lose confidence in the tool when my account was frozen 3 different times during a launch. They thought I was spam. 🥴 This has never happened to me in over a decade of sending marketing emails. They were responsive and helpful but unfortunately, it left a sour taste in my mouth. I finally decided to leave the platform when I realized that any kind of affiliate marketing was against their TOS.
I went back to ConvertKit, which I had used previously for years. I opted for their highest tier, Creator Pro. They had a sale at the end of the year, and the features just made sense to me.
I love ConvertKit because it’s visual and easy to set up. They’re support staff is incredibly helpful and responsive. They’ve done a lot of work to position themselves as the creator’s ESP (email service provider). Plus their founder Nathan Barry really is immersed in the Creator world, and it shows in the features they’ve built.
I’m still trying to figure out how ConvertKit figures into my marketing. Right now it powers all of my courses and digital products communication, but I need to figure out how Substack and CK can coexist in my marketing. TBD!
ClickUp to Notion
Since 2019 I’ve gone back and forth between ClickUp and Notion. They both have great selling points for me: customization, a variety of views, the ability to create an ecosystem with relations and rollups, forms, and more.
Ultimately, since I no longer had a team, I just didn’t need the power ClickUp has. While I think it’s a great tool and continue to recommend it, it’s incredibly visually noisy to me. I find it hard to WANT to be in there. This is where Notion always wins for me. The white space and ability to build a workspace is continually soothing to me. You’ll hear this often from neurodivergent folks!
I’ve used Notion since 2017, and I’ve had my qualms with the software, but overall I love the flexibility it gives me. Their databases are so powerful, and the ability to create a dashboard that pulls in every part of my business makes me extremely happy.
One downside with Notion is you can get lost building and building. I’ve finally found a happy medium where I have a core set up, but I’m able to play with and create new systems to support me and the clients I help.
A surprising upside for me this year, is I’ve started to only focus on Notion! If you need help, I’ve extended a special offer until next week.
Cobbled software + Teachable to ThriveCart
For years I’ve created an automated shopping cart system with Zapier, Stripe/PayPal, and whatever ESP I was using at the time. In the spring of 2023 I finally bought ThriveCart to make it easy.
ThriveCart truly makes it so easy to sell digital products and courses. It has a bit of a learning curve and is incredibly buggy, but the upside is the ability to add bumps and upsells to your offers.
I’ve bought a bunch of Dama Jue’s trainings (Unleashing Upsells and Freebie to Flash Sale saved me literal HOURS of trying to figure things out) and her templates to get me quickly up to speed with the tool and selling with it. I recommend her stuff without hesitation. She is brilliant and is very ethical around marketing. (AND she’s coming to chat with us next month!!)
ThriveCart+ comes with a course platform. This made it an easy sell for me. I’d been using Teachable since 2015, and my goal was to go as lean as possible with tech in 2023 and into 2024. This made it very simple to buy the plus tier so I could cut out one more very expensive tool.
ThriveCart has definitely made things MUCH easier for me to sell and house my courses and digital products, but it has its problems. I keep it because it’s cost effective for me right now. I do really hope they iron out some of their ish because as a shopping cart, for the price, it’s the best option out there.
Miro to Whimsical
Visual workflows are something I create for my business and my clients. I’ve used and paid for Miro for a few years and it is extremely robust for making visual processes and workflows. But like many of the other tools I left behind, I just didn’t need it like I once did. This is where Whimsical comes in. It is so simple to use and it’s free. There’s not much else to say!
Cobbled software + Acuity Scheduling to HoneyBook
When you are a consultant/service provider there’s a lot of moving parts for onboarding a client:
Scheduling
Proposals
Contracts
Invoicing
For years I used Acuity for scheduling > HelloSign for contracts > Google Docs for proposals > Stripe or PayPal for invoicing. There was no real software that did it all.
Luckily, I have had a free HoneyBook account since 2018 because they truly upped their game in the past few years. They now offer all of the above and it’s a pretty seamless experience. Acuity has added invoicing/payments to the scheduling platform, but contracts are a must for me.
Honeybook is my one stop shop for signing and onboarding a client. It does everything I need and they offer email. This by far is the biggest saver of money for me. There’s a learning curve to setting it up, but once you have it done getting clients onboarded is a breeze!
New tech I added
Vimeo: I needed to create higher quality videos for my products, Loom was not cutting it anymore (although I still use it for client support). Vimeo has been around forever, their support staff is incredibly responsive, and the tool is so easy to use. I’m on the lowest tier, and it’s a true bargain.
Lu.ma: I needed an easy way to automate my live online events. I literally just started using Lu.ma this week for our members only BTS Insight interview series. It has been so easy to get started. If you have free events and/or want to offer paid events Lu.ma is your ticket (no pun intended!), it’s easy to set up, accepts payments, and it’s free!
Convertbox: I have had my eye on Convertbox foreverrrrrr. It’s pop-up software that is very powerful and allows you to create funnels, segment visitors, and create special offers.
They’re offering $100 off today and tomorrow (Feb 29th/March 1st, 2024). If you have been eyeing it, I recommend buying it with Dama Jue’s affiliate link (this leads to her very quick training, you can find the affiliate link here) because you get her course Convertbox Jumpstart for free!
Tech I left behind, but still recommend
Muse.ai: I love Muse.ai! If you need video storage, Muse may be a great option for you. It’s reasonably priced, and it creates a nice little portal to share with clients.
Capacities: Ugh. This was the hardest software to stop using. IT IS AMAZING. Capacities is very similar to Notion, but it’s much more out of the box - you won’t get lost building and building. It’s Daily Notes feature is phenomenal and it drove me to create something similar in Notion. What makes Capacities so incredible is its ability to connect everything you save in there automatically. Everyone I’ve turned onto it has not looked back. If you need a powerful notetaker, check it out.
If you’d like to see everything I use in in business, I have a Notion database that’s public that I update often. Access the database here (no email required).
How about you? What have you left behind or are sticking with? What technology continues to save you time?