8 Tools I Use Daily to Make my Life Easier
We all need a little help sometimes. When you’re an entrepreneur, sometimes that help comes in the form of online tools for business.
There are so many online business tools out there that can help with productivity, creativity, organization, and design. No matter what kind of support you need in your business, there’s an online tool that can help - from online branding tools and online design tools to software that assists with marketing, scheduling and project management.
Trying to decide which online tools for business are right for you? Here are a few of the tools my team and I use daily. I hope this helps you to take your work to the next level and thrive!
My Favorite 8 Online Tools for Business
Canva
Canva is one of the most well known online design tools available today. For easy DIY design templates I recommend that my clients use their branding assets on Canva! You can whip up social media content, or email marketing graphics in a snap - especially if you have clear branding style guidelines for your business.
With a paid Canva account, you can even set up your branding details - including brand colors, fonts and logo files - so they’re easily accessible whenever you’re ready to create a design.
With hundreds of templates available for designs of all shapes and sizes - and the ability to make your own custom branded templates - Canva is one of the best time-saving online tools for business.
Creative Market
If you’re on the hunt for a fun new template, font, or design content head over to Creative Market. They keep it fresh with current design trends from independent designers around the world.
Creative Market is one of the best online tools for business if you like to get creative with your branding designs - or help clients with their design work - but don’t have the time or expertise to do it all yourself.
You can find everything from custom Canva templates and web design templates to product mock-ups, business cards and email templates.
Google Drive + Dropbox
We use these cloud-based storage systems daily to collaborate from across the country and to share assets with clients.
Whether you’re sharing files with your own team or need to easily share files for your clients to review, Google Drive and Dropbox are some of the best online tools for business.
Upload graphic design files for clients to review or work live together on a blog post or other piece of copywriting with a member of your team. Both Google Drive and Dropbox allow for easy commenting on files shared, so you can get feedback quickly - without having to send a bunch of emails back and forth.
Dubsado
We take client management to the next level with this CRM - one of the best online tools for business owners who are sending proposals, contracts and other onboarding documents to clients regularly.
With Dubsado, you can streamline your lead generation and client onboarding processes, with templates for proposals, easy-to-share and sign contracts and other tools like client questionnaires, project check-in emails and more.
Even better? Everything can be designed to meet your branding style guidelines, so even your client communication is on brand (you KNOW I love that!).
Flodesk
All of our emails are designed and sent through Flodesk. It is designed for creatives, and it’s so easy to use!
Whether you’re just getting started with email marketing or you have a growing and thriving email list, Flodesk can help you easily create beautiful - and on-brand! - email campaigns that help attract and engage your dreamy clients.
One of my favorite things about Flodesk - and the main reason it’s one of my favorite online tools for business - is just how flexible this email marketing platform is.
You can segment your list, create automated email campaigns and even design landing pages that connect with your email marketing. It’s a great all-in-one tool that can grow as your business does.
Adobe
No designer should be without the Adobe Creative Suite. It’s the gold standard for graphic design work. And today it’s easy to get the full suite of Adobe design tools online via Creative Cloud.
Choose just a few programs - such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe IIllustrator and Adobe InDesign - or get the entire collection of Adobe software and download them straight to your computer (with automatic updates!).
Pexels
For gorgeous free stock photos, check out Pexels. There are a lot of online tools for business out there where you can get stock photos. Canva, for example, has stock photos available right in their program. Creative Market can also be a good source for stock photos.
But Pexels is definitely my favorite for free photos on a broad range of subjects. Search the Pexels platform by keyword (think: “woman sitting in front of a laptop”) to find exactly what you need.
You can even filter stock photos by image size and orientation and the colors used in the photographs - so you always find images that work well with your branding color palette.
Find Your Ideal Online Tools for Business
These are the online business tools that work best for me and my team, but you may find other tools that align better with your business and your workflows.
The key to finding the best tools to boost your productivity and creativity is to focus on the kind of help you need and your own personal work style.
Do you enjoy doing some aspects of your business more manually? Or do you want all the automation? Are you a solopreneur, or do you need to be collaborating with a large (or growing) team?
Consider your needs when exploring online tools for business and you’ll find the systems and softwares that are right for you!
Some of the links above are affiliate links, but we would’t recommend them if we didn’t absolutely love them.
