7 Money-saving Tools to Use to Bootstrap Your Business

7 Tools to Use to Bootstrap Your Business

When you’re just starting out it can be scary to invest in a lot of new tools to run your business, especially when you’re just figuring out what platforms you really need and what strategies are most effective for those just getting started!

Thankfully, I’ve searched high and low to find the best free tools for those of you who are not ready to make a big investment (after all – I want your business to be profitable and sustainable!!) I’ve seen too many new coaches sink money into tools they don’t need or are more complicated than what they really need.

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Episode Transcript

Welcome, everyone. In this episode, we’re going to be talking about the seven tools that you can use to bootstrap your business.

Trust me, I get it. When you’re first starting out, it can be really scary to invest a lot in new tools to run your business, especially if you’re just figuring out what platforms you really need and what strategies are really most effective for where you are in that stage, which is just getting started. So thankfully, I’ve searched high and low to find the best free tools or low cost for those of you who are not ready to make a big investment because after all, I want your business to be profitable and sustainable.

And I’ve seen way too many coaches sink money into tools that they don’t need or are way more complicated for what they actually need them for. So let’s just get right to it. Here are the seven free or low cost tools to help you get leads, book clients, and make money in your business.

Now, the number one tool is Calendly. This is an appointment scheduler that has a free version. And what you do with this is you sync it to your Google Calendar or your Apple Calendar, and you can set your availability for scheduling your discovery calls and client calls.

If you are using the free version, you only get one type of call. And by type, I mean one time setting. So it’s 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes.

If you pay to upgrade, you can integrate a payment processor so that you can take payment when people book calls, or you can create multiple types of appointments or multiple lengths of appointments. But the free version is plenty to get you started. And like I mentioned, it syncs with your Google Calendar and your Apple Calendar so that you can set your availability and block off time so that you won’t be double booked.

Now, the second tool is Google Forms. And what this is a form creation tool that you can use to create applications for new clients. So before you even get on a discovery call with a potential client, you’ll be able to collect some information from them and determine if they are a good fit for your coaching practice.

It has a drag and drop interface. It’s very easy to use and multiple question types. So you can get really creative creating these questionnaires.

Also, the form submission. So once somebody submits their information, it’s stored in a Google sheet, which is also free. You just need a Google account so that you can go back and review the information that they’ve sent you.

Now, the third tool is Stripe. This is a payment processor that is free to sign up for. You will pay for processing fees on the money that you make while you’re using it.

But this is going to be the case with any processor. And it’s considered just a basic cost of doing business. I have been using Stripe for years and I’m very happy with it.

Now, the number four tool is MailerLite. And what MailerLite is, is an email marketing platform and a lead magnet creation tool. So when you’re first starting out and you’re capturing the contact information of potential clients and building your email list, you want a place to collect these emails and to be able to send these newsletters to your subscribers regularly.

Now, MailerLite offers the most functionality in their free version compared to other email platforms that have a free option. ConvertKit has a free version that’s also very good. ConvertKit free version has a payment processor integration, which is great if you’re selling digital products, but it does not have the automation.

MailerLite has automation in their free level. So it all depends in what it is that you want in your email platform. And just a quick note, if you are just getting started and you’re not really sure what an email service provider is or why you need one and you’re wondering, hey, can’t I just use my personal Gmail to send out emails? The answer is no.

And for two major reasons, mostly because it’s illegal to send mass marketing emails using a personal email. What you need to be doing is if you’re going to be sending mass marketing emails to a group of subscribers, you need to be using a service that does at least two things. One is it offers subscribers a way to unsubscribe from your list.

So there needs to be an unsubscribe button or a link at the bottom of your email. You also need to display a valid street address in your emails. And this is per can spam laws.

So both the unsubscribe function and the address display are legal requirements of marketing emails. So when you sign up for mailer light or ConvertKit, it’s going to have that unsubscribe feature. And you’re also going to be providing them with a street address of your business.

And this doesn’t have to be your home address. This could be an office. This can be a PO box, but it does have to be a valid address.

So what I don’t recommend is leaving it blank because that will be a can spam violation. And you can be fined based on how many emails you send, not just how many instances of emails, but how many actual emails go out to subscribers that are in violation. So don’t leave it blank and don’t put in a dummy address.

It needs to be somewhere that you can receive mail. The fifth tool is an app that I really like. It’s called Your Coach, and it’s an all in one client management tool that you can use to take payments as it integrates with Stripe that I mentioned earlier.

You can send fillable client forms. You can take health histories. You can schedule calls.

You can track habit development. You can send messages. You can provide your clients with coaching program documents like PDFs, ebooks, and video links.

And it’s free to use for one group program and for two individual clients. It also has a desktop version if you’d rather not work on your mobile device. The best part of this app is that the more you coach using it, the more affordable it is.

And using the platform can also qualify you to be matched with prospective new clients through the app. The sixth free tool that I’m gonna recommend is Zoom. Now at this point, everybody knows what Zoom is, right? Thank you, COVID.

But it’s a great tool for hosting your video coaching calls and for your discovery calls for your clients anywhere around the world. And although you do have to pay if you wanna use it for group calls for more than two people over 40 minutes, it’s free to use for one-on-one client calls. And the seventh tool that is free I’m gonna recommend is social media.

And the reason that I recommend this is social media has billions of worldwide users and gives you access to this enormous pool of potential clients. And you can use any number of platforms and its tools to boost your business’s visibility, develop relationships and create and connect with a network of potential clients and referral and collaboration partners. So I get it, starting a business and not wanting to invest a lot of money in the beginning makes it hard to know what to use.

But I’m telling you, you can get started running your online coaching business using these seven tools to help you get leads, book clients and make money in your business. Because I want your business to be profitable and sustainable and I hope this information is really helpful. Thanks for listening and if you liked this episode go ahead and leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to subscribe so you’ll be notified when the next episode is live.