You're listening to the online marketing made easy podcast episode number 141.

Welcome to the online marketing made easy podcast business advice so easy you'll feel like you're cheating and now your host Amy Porterfield.

Well, hey there Amy Porterfield here and welcome to another episode of the online marketing made easy podcast.

Thanks so much for tuning in and today's episode we are talking about tools software resources to help you build your business.

Now as entrepreneurs one major area we have to pay close attention to as we grow our businesses is this area of tools and software.

Now we all have to ask ourselves which specific resources do we need to invest in to stay consistent, get momentum, increase engagement and ultimately increase revenue.

Now here's where there's slightly a trap for most of us we're so eager to grow quickly especially in those early years that we tend to invest in too many tools too many pieces of software too many gadgets.

The other day I opened up one of my drawers and one of my little secrets is that I'm insanely organized probably to a fault.

And so when things are out of order I catch them really quickly like whoa this is kind of messy and I had a drawer in my office and it had all these little gadgets so a little tripod for my iPhone to make video and this microphone that I've never used in this other piece that I've never used to make video.

And I noticed that I'm collecting a lot of random gadgets for video but I'm not using them and this is precisely what I'm talking about because we're so eager to make something work and if you guys follow along in my podcast you know I'm so eager to make video work in the sense of getting more comfortable and confident on video doing it more often.

So added this little bit of desperation to kind of jump on the video bandwagon and do it regularly because I'm not comfortable with it i'm getting better but I wasn't at the beginning of this year.

I guess I started to hoard some gadgets to make it easier and then I never even use these gadgets I bet some of you can relate to this the area where we might be struggling or we're trying to get better we start to kind of grasp at everything we can in hopes that it will make it easier.

And make the transition more smooth or whatever it might be for you so if you can relate keep on listening because we're going to get into the tools and software and overall resources that you genuinely need versus that you just think that you need to have and you start to kind of hoard all of them.

So this episode is for all online marketers who are creating content and selling their knowledge skill insight either via online courses or services like coaching and consulting now i'm specifically going to drill down into my top recommended tools and resources for three different stages of your business so there's something for everyone here if you're just getting started if you're starting to get things going you're starting to see a little momentum or even if you're ready to kick the game.

So if you're ready to kick things into high gear and scale your business again something for everyone now to keep things really simple and manageable today we're talking about what you really need without blowing your budget now I've created a freebie so you've got a resource for this episode and I've listed all the tools i'm going to recommend in this episode plus some extra that i'm actually not going to get into but I think are really good contenders now.

Now the way I did the handout is a little bit different than i'm doing this episode the way i put together the cheat sheet for you is in categories like the tools to keep you organized the tools to create content the tools to do webinars the tools to create courses so i've broken them up a little bit differently in case you are in a place right now that you think okay I really need to create a webinar so what are amies top recommended tools you can go straight to that that's not how I'm doing this.

So that's why I thought this was an extra special giveaway because now you can get the content in two different ways if you listen throughout this episode and you grab the freebie so in order to grab the freebie all you need to do is go to amie porterfield dot com forward slash one for one download amie porterfield dot com forward slash one for one download or you can just text the phrase one for one download to the number three three four four four.

So if you text that phrase one for one download to three three four four four you can get it text to you right away.

Okay so I recently picked up the book lean startup by Eric Reese I know I know I'm a little late to the party because lean startup has become a must read for many entrepreneurs but I wanted to bring it up here for today's episode because Reese talks about a few concepts that I think are relevant to this conversation.

First of all his definition of startup he says a startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.

This in a nutshell is so true for those that are especially in their first few years of growing their business.

Now what I love about this definition is that Reese doesn't mention how much revenue you're making or how many employees that you have that's not what he defines a startup instead he's really focused on this extreme uncertainty and at some point in growing your business I'm sure you've experienced it.

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