Airtable
Automation, CRM, Financial, Productivity, Project Management
I’m both ashamed and proud to say that I have just about 100 Airtable databases — and they do everything for me. But my most robust base is the one I build for project management and as a CRM. This handles all my customers, projects, and tasks, and is loaded with all kinds of native automations.
Agency Airtable Pack (product), Creating a Project Management System (video), Building Bases (video)
Price:
Free / $10 – $20mo
Cloudflare
I’ve finally gotten all my sites, plus all my clients site routed through Cloudflare to manage their DNS records. Not only do things propagate nearly instantly, Cloudflare allows me to leave notes in all my records (so I can remember what they are for) — which is a huge help. I also get lots of use out of their email routing to set up various emails.
Price:
Free
Envato Elements
Envato Elements gives you unlimited stock photos, videos, vectors, and more for one flat rate. With nearly 2 million stock photos on hand (and growing by the thousands every week) there is something in there for nearly everyone. While stock photos might be what you come for, you’ll be blown away by all the other goodies included with your subscription.
Price:
$16.50/mo
Fathom Analytics
Fathom is a website analytics software developed to be ethical and private. Their agency’s solution delivers separate accounts for each of your clients so that they can only see their own dashboard, and their weekly or monthly analytics emails are tailored to their own data. Plus, Fathom is way easier to use than GA, so you, your team, and your clients can create insightful strategies from Fathoms’ intuitive presentation of meaningful visits data. No special training course required.
See me interview Fathom co-founders.
Price:
$14/mo
Figma
I spent about 15 years in the design industry working all day in Adobe Illustrator. When I moved to web, I continued to use it… but I’ve realized it’s not the best tool for web design. Thankfully, Figma was built for that and over the past year or so I’ve started designing sites in Figma and using the fantastic components and auto layout features.
Price:
Free / $12 – $45mo
Funnel Packs
Funnel packs are pre-built marketing & sales funnels that are specifically built for web agencies to generate leads and save you time. With over 17 packs currently available, you can choose a pack (or multiple packs) that fit with the products and services your agency offers. This includes: Web Design, Website Audit, Care Plans, SEO, and much, much more.
Price:
$147
Generate Made Easy
Generate Made Easy is a crash course on getting up and running with my personal favorite stack — GeneratePress and GenerateBlocks. With more than 20 individual lessons, this course covers the entire build process from start to finish, including setting up your theme, getting familiar with GeneratePress Premium’s advanced features, global styling controls, an overview of the entire editor, and step-by-step instructions on building out lightning-fast pages.
Price:
297.00
GenerateBlocks
There are plenty of block packages out there, but in my opinion none of them strike the perfect balance of simplicity and customizability quite like GenerateBlocks. Much like it’s sister theme, GeneratePress, GenerateBlocks is deceivingly powerful, allowing me to create just about anything I need with just a handful of blocks. This modular approach works perfectly with my philosophy of not overcomplicating things with too many bells and whistles.
Price:
Free / $39 – $99yr
GeneratePress
GeneratePress has been my go-to theme, even when I was building with other builders (like Elementor or Beaver Builder). It’s extremely lightweight, has very thoughtful features that give you more flexibility than you might initially realize, and has a great team behind them. Of course it pairs perfectly with my block package of choice (GenerateBlocks), but is compatible with any other block package or builder that allows you to pick your theme.
Price:
Free / $59yr – $249 Lifetime
iMovie
Content Creation, Video Production
I had been struggling to wrap my brain around Premiere Pro for years, without much success. When I got my MacBook, I decided to give iMovie a try, and I instantly improved my video production. It’s not fancy, but it can make quick work of the types of video content I create (which is mostly using jump cuts to remove all my mistakes).
Price:
Free
Kiwi for Gmail
Communication, Email, Productivity
I have to constantly manage 4 different inboxes, and while there are a lot of tools that handle this, I just love Kiwi for Gmail. It’s nothing fancy, and doesn’t have any bells and whistles — but it works great and never gives me any problems or slows my computer down.
Price:
$30 – $58.99yr
Loom
Communication, Video Production
Loom is one of those tools that I don’t know how I ever lived without. Explaining technical things via text isn’t easy — but with Loom I can quickly record a video sharing my screen, my webcam or both and instantly have a link to share with anyone.
Price:
Free / $12.50mo
Notion
I’ve just recently added Notion to my tools as a replacement for Google docs, and I’m already enjoying the benefits. Everything is more organized, easier to find, and it’s an absolute joy to write in. I end up doing a lot of writing, so I’m excited to see how much more productive I’ll be with Notion going into 2023.
My Switch to Notion (article)
Price:
Free / $8 – $15mo
Nurture Copy
Communication, Content Creation
Nurture Copy is a monthly service that provides email copy that agencies can send out to their clients as part of their weekly/monthly newsletter. As a subscription, each month you get access to new emails (4, 6, or 8 depending on your subscription) that are professionally written and ready for immediate publication. Of course, you can always tweak and edit the emails to match your tone of voice or writing style.
Price:
$29 – $79/mo
OBS
Content Creation, Video Production
I’ve been using OBS for a couple of years now to record videos and host livestreams. It’s free, open source, and can handle everything I need it to do without a problem — from tutorial videos to live interviews — OBS handles it all.
How We Use OBS for Live Streams (video)
Price:
Free
Perfmatters
The Perfmatters plugin is the secret weapon in my arsenal, making my already speedy GP/GB sites even faster with their easy optimizations. It helps me host fonts locally and reduce WordPress bloat in just a couple of clicks.
How to Configure Perfmatters (video), Perfmatters Founder’s Detailed Setup (video)
Price:
$24.95 – $124.95yr
Termageddon
Termageddon is a dynamic privacy policy generator created by a REAL lawyer (not a robot). Once you sign up, answer a few questions about your site, and install a small snippet of code on your Privacy Policy or Terms of Use page, you have a privacy policy that not only covers your business— but is automatically updated as laws change without ever having to lift a finger.
Price:
$12/mo
TextExpander
TextExpander is another one of my favorite tools. I use it to store things like email addresses, URLs, canned emails, software licenses, and (of course) emojis. With my assigned keyboard shortcuts I insert those snippets anywhere in seconds.
Create Websites Using TextExpander (video), One-on-one TextExpander Training (video)
Price:
$3.33 – $10.83mo
WS Form
I can’t believe how much time I wasted fooling around with other form plugins ???? Though slightly overwhelming at first glance, WS Form is intuitive and capible beyond my wildest dreams. From simple sign ups, to complex integrations, WS Form is the only form plugin you’ll ever need!
Price:
Free – $249/yr
Zoom
I spend, at minimum, 5-hours per week on video calls — and Zoom is my go-to. Meetings rarely have issues, I can record locally or to the cloud, I can livestream directly from the app, and it integrates perfectly with my Google Calendar. I just wish I had bought stock in them before the pandemic!
Price:
Free / $149 – $250yr
