0:02
The fourth app on my list is an app called Huntr HUNTR. Huntr, this app will let you find email addresses for any person in any company. I know it sounds a bit stalkerish like a big brother, snooping in, but hey, when in sales, do the things we need to do to make business happen. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. All we’re doing is we’re looking for potential email address matches.
0:37
Hello, hello, hello, very big welcome to the Elevated Entrepreneur Podcast. I am super grateful that you’ve chosen to spend this time with me. If this is your first time here that you’re in for a treat, why? Because I’m going to be sharing all the different apps and systems that I as an entrepreneur use in my business and I hope that you will give them a shot and see how much of a difference it makes in your business. Now, as a tech enthusiast, and as a tech geek, I love exploring new systems. Some of them are really good. Some of them are really bad and I’ve curated this list, and I hope that you will enjoy them as much as I have. So if you want to check out all of these different systems, make sure you also head on over to elevatedentrepreneur.fm/34. So that you can get the full list in a very easy to use format. Now with that said, grab your headphones. If you’re driving, put your eyes on the road, but turn up the volume and help me cue the music. You’re listening to the Elevated Entrepreneur Podcast, a podcast designed to help retailers, restaurant owners and entrepreneurs simplify business operations and use modern technology to elevate their business. here’s your host, Dhiren Bhatia.
1:59
All right, the very first app on my list today is a good to do list. And you’ve heard me talk about this application in the past. It’s basically my life system. Right now, I use this app to make sure that I cram every single thing that I have to do in a day, in a week in a month, and any other project that I’m also running things, three is my go to do list app. But if you’re an iPhone user, there’s also iOS reminders app, which is phenomenal. But both of these apps are really, really good because they help you not only track what you have to do on a day to day basis, but also helps you track repeating tasks or tasks that need to be assigned to various team members. All in all, a really good way to manage your task list.
2:48
The second app that I use on a day to day basis is a mobile scanning application it’s called genius scan. Genius scan is my lifesaver. Pretty much every paper that I have in my business gets scanned into genius scan and gets saved as a PDF and gets exported automatically to any of the different storage systems that I have in place like Google Drive and Dropbox. Genius scan a phenomenal app to be using if you want to get rid of paper in your day to day life and business. What’s even better with Genius scan, it’s absolutely free to use and it can also not only store papers but also recognize the text on those papers. So there is OCR built into genius scan. A good alternative to genius scan is another favorite app of mine called Evernote. Evernote is also got scanning capabilities and I use Evernote for scanning all of my business cards. In fact, pretty much any business card I get. I take a photo with Evernote and it gets scanned into my business card folder within Evernote. This way, if I ever need to look up someone or some service, I just type in the name of the service or the person and Evernote will give me all of this information because Evernote also has OCR or optical character recognition which basically means it understands the information that is being scanned into the system super nice way to get rid of all of the paper that you have in your business.
4:15
The third app is called Loom L double O M now Loom is a phenomenal way to record videos or screen shares and in today’s day and age video is so much more powerful than text or photos. So we typically use videos for almost everything in our business at cloudscape. We use it for proposals. We use it for recording instructions, recording even slps or standard operating procedures in our team. Everything is now done in video through loom and it’s really really easy to get started with Loom. Pretty much all you have to do is download the application onto your pc or your Mac, hit start recording and you can basically talk into the mic and even share your screen so that the person that’s watching the video gets the full benefit. Now Loom is also free to start with five minute videos at absolutely no cost, really, really nice way to bring video in to your business into your systems and processes and also maybe extend that by sending videos to your customers. I mentioned this earlier, just now that we use videos in our sales conversations, here’s how we do it. Every time we send out a proposal, me or my colleague from the sales team will actually record walking the customer through the proposal in a video, this is so much more powerful, because the client is now getting a really, really nice experience from our company and again, so easy to do but it goes such a long way with the customers.
5:41
There are a couple of others that you could find in the same category but Loom is something that we use, really easy to get started. Now keeping with the sales team, the fourth app on my list is an app called Huntr HUNTR Huntr, this app will let you find email addresses for any person in any company. I know it sounds a bit stalkerish like a big brother snooping in but hey, when in sales, do the things we need to do to make business happen and this is not necessarily a bad thing. All we’re doing is we’re looking for potential email address matches. I’ll give an example. If I wanted to reach Bob at Acme I’m not necessarily 100% sure about what email format they use. Is it first name.lastname@acme.com? Or is it b.last name, there are so many different variations .Typing this into Huntr will scan and give me a pretty much definitive list of what the email address could be and so again, easy to do, we’re not breaching any laws here. So head on over to huntr.com. And you will be able to see how easy it is to work with. So if you’re looking for an email address, or for that particular person that you want to connect with, here’s how you’re going to find that email address. The next one moving away from sales is instant communication.
6:58
I know a lot of businesses that run entirely over WhatsApp and WhatsApp is phenomenal but WhatsApp has its own limitations. And also, more importantly, it’s not made for business conversations, we use a tool called Slack, amazing instant communication tool. In fact, we wouldn’t be able to survive without Slack. Because Slack allows my team to communicate anywhere, anyhow, anytime. It’s phenomenal because it’s available on your phone, it’s available on a PC or Mac, and super easy to get started with and what’s even better, it’s completely free to use. So if you’re using WhatsApp in your business today, to run operations, give Slack a shot, you will love it. We can share files with each other, we can have conversations, phone and video and also we can send to do reminders, ask bowls, run gaming sessions, we do so much over Slack. What’s even better with Slack actually, is that you can integrate all of your other services so we have Google Drive integrated with Slack we have website integrated with Slack. So if someone is asking us a question on our website, it brings us directly into Slack. If someone is looking at a proposal that we sent, we will know that in Slack as well. So really extendable, and you could become a power user in a very short amount of time.
8:17
The next one is called Pocket, Pocket P O C K E T is basically an app in the category of Read It Later. As an entrepreneur, we get bombarded with articles, newsletters, things that we need to read to be successful and the best way to handle all of this inflow is to put it into a read it later app like pocket. So Pocket will allow you to basically save anything that you want to read for later and I know it may not sound really important at this point but believe me give it a shot and you’re going to be surprised at how you’ve lasted without using something like Pocket before. Again, Pockets also free, super nice and available on Android and iPhone and also on your PC.
9:00
So if you have a blog article or link that someone sent you or a link that you want to save for later, just send it to Pocket and it will be there for you. It’s super secure. It’s used by millions and millions of people. That means that it’s safe, and it’s well recognized in the world today. The other nice benefit of Pocket is it also curates for you a list of things that you should be reading based on your existing reading list. Really nice way to get exposed to things that you may not necessarily come across in your own searching. But Pocket does a really good job of surfacing those articles and pieces of information for you. And keeping in theme of saving things for later.
9:40
One of the things that I cannot recommend enough is a password manager. The one that we use here at cloudscape is called LastPass. It is basically the repository of every password that we use in our organization and even in our clients spaces, any password that we use, we typically save them in LastPass. Now, don’t get alarmed. LastPass is actually one of the best ways that you can use to save passwords and even share them with your team. It is super secure, heavily encrypted and used by many leading organizations to store their passwords, it beats putting them under a pillow or into a folder that is then put into another folder. LastPass is also free to get started with free to share with your team and one of the most secure ways that you can not only store passwords, but also any other confidential information like credit card information, bank details, anything that using requires to be in a safe place. Think about using LastPass for that exact reason. Now LastPass has a really good alternative if you are not keen to use something like LastPass or if you think that LastPass is not the right one for you.
10:50
There is another alternative. It’s called One Password, the number One and the word Password, very similar, in fact, identical systems but a really good alternative also very popular amongst everybody in the world that uses a password manager, again, also available on PC, Mac or your browser just like LastPass and I can’t recommend it enough. Now changing gears a little bit, we’re going to move away from internal apps to more external apps, and specifically around services and doing things for our businesses.
11:20
The first one that I want to talk about is not really an app, but it’s more a website. It’s called Fiverr. F I V E R R, Fiverr is like the world’s best kept secret because I don’t think a lot of people know about Fiverr. Fiverr is where you go on to and find people that will do things for you and your business for five bucks or about that much. It is a great way to get everything in your business that needs doing could be a logo design could be a brochure design could be editing a podcast, couldn’t be recording and editing your videos for you voiceovers so many things that you can look for on Fiverr. Again, $5 is pretty much what you’d be paying but there are obviously services and upgrades that you can pay for. To get things faster or to get a variation or to have a look phenomenal system there are so many talented people on Fiverr. That will do pretty much what you need for your business’s success.
12:15
A similar one along the same lines is something called Upwork. U P W O R K. Very handy site to find talented freelancers and contractors to come on board and do the things that you need in your team. Especially today with COVID. It’s not easy to have a full blown team, especially with full timers, which is why contractors and freelancers are a really good option and Upwork does a really good job of showcasing some of the world’s best talent and we use a lot of Upwork talent in our business here in our team, from video designing to audio editing, to creative services, and marketing automation, just so many people that have such amazing talents to offer, and can be part of your team for very little money and also without the headaches of having a full time member on your team. Now keeping in the theme of creativity, I want to introduce you to another website called Unsplash. Now if you’re like me, you’re running your business, you obviously need to prepare marketing material, Instagram stuff, Facebook stuff, and Unsplash is pretty much where you’re going to find every sort of imagery that you need to create those assets. Now, these are royalty free images, they spanned so many different categories you don’t have to pay anything, just attribute the creator qnd that’s all they’re asked for but a really good way to find your next best image for whatever asset that you’re creating, totally free, no strings attached. Very nice way to find royalty free images for absolutely no money.
13:52
Along the same line the next website is called the Noun Project. If you’re looking for icons, and I’ve recently been looking for lots of icons in my business, for something that we’ve been creating, Noun Project N O U N Project allows me to grab any sort of icon for free, whether that’s productivity icons, or system icons or business icons doesn’t matter. Pretty much any icon that you need for your project is absolutely free.
14:18
Again, just attribute the icon to the creator through a link to the creator or to the website and that’s all they ask for and in the same vein, the last system and the last app on my list today is called Canva. Oh my god if you haven’t checked out Canva it is the best thing that has happened since Photoshop. Because Canva makes designing anything so easy whether it’s your Facebook post and Instagram post an Instagram story, LinkedIn post an invitation for your next team event. All of this stuff can be done on Canva. Again, completely free to use you and your team can go in there, start creating whichever asset you need to be created, whether that’s a blog image, or like I said, invitations, we recently did a team event and it took me less than five minutes to create a beautiful invitation for the team, all done on Canva and the nice thing with Canva is once you create an account, it will actually save all of your designs in there. So if you want to go back and reuse the same one again, you can do that or if you pay for membership, you can actually upload your brand kits, all of your brand colors, and logos will stay there and you can get access to so many other paid themes and designs.
15:33
There you have it, folks, a list of the 11 best applications and websites that every entrepreneur should be using in their business. I hope you’ve enjoyed them, give them a check, and tell me what you thought. I’d love to hear your comments. As always, you can head on over to elevatedentrepreneur.fm/34. To grab this list or head on over to elevatedentrepreneur.fm/speak and tell me what you think I missed in my list. I’d love it and I would be so grateful because I would be able to share that with everybody else here on the podcast.
16:09
Thank you so much for staying with me till the very end of the episode, you’ve done it. I’ve got three specific asks for you only if you think that this podcast is worthy of your support. And if you’ve enjoyed the content, my first request is for you to hit the subscribe button. Actually smash that subscribe button so that you can get notified when new episodes come your way or if you haven’t already, head on over to elevatedentrepreneur.fm and subscribe to the podcast on the website so that new episodes are emailed to you right away. My second request is for you to help me spread the word with your friends and families and business owners that would enjoy this podcast and help elevate them to you can do that either by leaving a review on your Apple device or just telling your friends how cool this podcast is and finally, if there’s a question that you’ve been dying to ask me, or this pieces of feedback that you’d like to give me, head on over to elevatedentrepreneur.fm/speak where you will be able to record a voice message that I can listen to and also maybe feature here on the podcast together with my answer. I’d love to hear from you. Thank you much love and I’ll see you in the next one.
