It takes more than a village to build and run a successful Nashville advertising company. It takes a lot of really smart, dedicated people and reliable productivity tools and web-based services to streamline processes and keep a business running smoothly.
The majority of the listed tools are online services but I’ve also included a few offline gadgets and resources that, now that I’ve used them, I couldn’t live without.
You can click on the linked headings for more information about the tool and/or service.
Domain Names
I now own over 350 domain names. And each one is registered with Domain-Blaster.com. Why? Low price and awesome 24/7 support. They also offer web hosting and many other services. (More info).
Business Website Templates
When I need to get a website up fast, a pre-designed and coded Web site template makes it really easy. (More info).
Media Temple Hosting
Before moving our sites to our own server, we used hosting services from Media Temple. They’re decently priced (meaning they’re a bit higher priced than most other hosting providers) but they also provide better service. Essentially you’re getting what you pay for. And that’s a really good thing. (More info).
LayeredTech Dedicated Servers
Once we decided we need more resources and control over our website hosting, moving to LayeredTech was pretty much a no-brainer. (More info).
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
From Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) to hosting apps in the cloud, our bases are covered and our site run smooth as butter! In fact, all the heavy lifting for this site is handled by AWS. (More info).
E-junkie Shopping Cart
If you sell digital, down-loadable products like eBooks, e-junkie provides a great shopping cart service to make the process and cart integration (which is included) pretty darn quick. (More info).
AWeber Email List Management
Have you signed up for our email newsletter? Well, the sha-bang is handled through AWeber. (More info).
Freshbooks Invoicing
Freshbooks truly is painless billing. A great interface, seamless merchant account integration, account tracking — the works. Can’t begin to tell you how much time I’ve saved using this invoicing service and many of our clients have told us they like it too. Two thumbs up. (More info).
Setster Appointment Scheduling
See that big red button over there on the left? That’s Setser — our new appointment scheduling service. Although the user interface could be a bit more user-friendly, it’s a really smart idea and has streamline scheduling consulting appointments. (More info).
WuFoo for Easy Website Forms
With very few exceptions, every form on our site was built and integrated using WuFoo forms. No programming knowledge is required to create a form and submissions are tracked with some great reporting features. The service now also offers seamless integration with PayPal and Freshbooks. (More info).
DropBox File Backups
If you need to sync files across computers, easily share file with others (no matter where they are) DropBox is a snap to use. Their free account gives you 2 GB storage and you can upgrade to a paid account when you need more space (An invaluable service when working with developers). (More info).
YouSendIt File Delivery
A great way to send files to anyone. Couple big benefits; files are uploaded to the YouSendIt server so you don’t have to worry about clogging up your recipients email software and the service tracks when files are accessed and downloaded. It’s like having a return receipt. You can use the service for free or get a paid account. (More info).
TweetMiner
A great Twitter based tool for quickly finding and tweeting news and articles found through keyword based RSS feeds. A real time-saver! (More info).
Brand Monitoring with TweetReports
The best Advanced Twitter Search, Brand Monitoring, Sentiment Analysis and Reporting tools around. A must-have for any business concerned about reputation management. (More info).
PPC Keyword Research Tool
Like the name says, it does keyword research for PPC campaigns. Too many cool features to list here, I’d recommend clicking the link and reading about it. (More info).
Teaching Sells
Knowledge is power and the TeachingSells training course shows you how you can build your own membership site using what you know. Everything is covered from start to finish. A great course for anyone looking to make some money by teaching others what they know. (More info).
Freelance Copywriting Course
Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Lucrative Freelance Writing Business with Social Media Marketing. (More info).
ScanSnap S300M
Going paperless has never been easier. This little scanner has a small footprint and zips through paper scanning in a flash. Everything from documents to sales receipts, ScanSnap scans it into a nice PDF I can then tag and organize. The two software apps I use with this are YEP and Paperless to organize, archive and track expenses. It’s a beautiful trio you will love. (More info).
Apple Computers
Don’t be fooled that being this far down on the list devalues the importance my Mac Pro Tower and Mac Pro laptop, a second Apple laptop and iPhone play into a successful work-flow because this site wouldn’t have been created without them. Sure, I could have used a PC, but that would have meant tripling the time to get anything done. Not to mention the extra lost time dealing with system crashes. But that’s just been my experience. Your mileage may differ. (More info).
