Recommended Products & Services
I wanted to share a list of all of the tools we are currently using within our businesses. A lot of our members have been asking about this for a while, but we just haven't been able to find the time! Luckily, I decided to give it a try this Sunday, and I know it will be an ongoing project as we continue on as early adopters in the age of information.
We do a lot of Web Design, SEO, PPC Advertising, Social Media Marketing, Direct Mail Marketing, and various forms of Internet Marketing, so a lot of the tools we cover relate to those topics.
*Note: Some of these links are affiliate links and if you decide to pickup something through our link and recommendation, we will earn a commission and we are super grateful!
Websites & Landing Pages • Payments, Bookkeeping & Finances • Social Media • Prospecting & Customer Service • Productivity • Service Fulfillment • Miscellaneous
Websites & Landing Pages
Web Hosting – This is a big one and most people overcomplicate it. For a lot of local businesses you don't need a super fancy hosting provider. What we look for is one that is reliable, meaning that it is always running and never goes down, and great 24/7 support. Liquid Web and Server Pilot is what we've been running and they both offer a great service.
Landing Pages – ClickFunnels Gives You EVERYTHING You Need To Market, Sell, and Deliver Your Products and Services Online! Without having to hire or rely on a tech team. Receive a 14 day free trial of Click Funnels by clicking here.
Payments, Bookkeeping & Finances
Invoicing – All of our client invoicing is done primarily through Square. Square has a lot of great marketing functions that you can take advantage of to keep your business in the minds of your clients. I also really like the recurring billing function for those monthly recurring clients like SEO and Paid Ad's.
Bookkeeping & Organized Financials – Whether you're just getting started or a seasoned Shark, you're going to be collecting MONEY. Having said that, an important practice, one which I cannot stress enough, is to have your bookkeeping in order! Back in the day I would document all of my transactions on an excel spreadsheet which was very time consuming! The only reason I did this, is because I didn't that know there was better more cost effective solution out there. Enter Quickbooks Online. There are so many awesome features of QO but to name my favorite; being able to share access with future bookkeepers to take over when you're too busy, get paid fast with easy to use invoicing to send and collect $ from clients directly, saving craploads of time with automation. For more info check out there site at the link below, and as a Shark you'll also get a 50% discount when you sign up through this link.
Shopping Cart – Are you looking to have other people promote your products and services. Cool! Thrive Cart has got you covered and our link gets you a special discount. Usual public price approx: $97/mo – $800–$1200/yr, but Thrive Cart allows us to promote a special offer.
Credit Card – By far the best credit card I've ever had in terms of rewards and points. Right now with Chase Saphire Preferred you can earn 50,000 Bonus Points (miles) after you spend $4k on purchases in the first 3 months. Ever wonder how those digital nomads travel so much? Well, I literally signed up for this, booked a trip to Spain with my points and have been wracking up double and additional points ever since. Being a business owner and entrepreneur, you'll quickly discover that spending money by debit card or cash is literally the dumbest thing you can do. Make sure to double down on your spending by hooking this baby up to all of your automated payments and watch your free vacations stack up! Dont pass this one up, at least check out all of the easy ways to get 2x points on all your spending.
Credit Card (Secured) – When I first started marketing, I was running what most would call a “Lean Startup” or better to say, I had no money. I needed a credit card to make purchases online and no one would give me one but these guys. Discover offers what's called a secure credit card where you send in a deposit if $300, and they send you back a credit card with a $300 limit. Eventually, they give you the money back and raise your limit AND you also build your credit in the process.
Ridge Wallet – This isn't really related to software, but I reallllly love this Ridge Wallet. I've bought 2 for myself (lost one), and a few as gifts! They are super sleek and cool and I figured I'd share it with you all 😛
Social Media
Instagram Automation (Bot) – So I've been testing a new IG growth tool over the past few months and have been able to grow one of my accounts to 5000 followers with practically zero work. I've tested a ton of bot's and NONE of them work as simple and well as this one. We actually worked out a special deal where you can try it for FREE without the need for a credit card if you use our link: https://offlinesharks.com/socialcaptain
Prospecting & Customer Service
E-mail tracking – I use Mac Mail or Apple mail as my email manager so Mail Butler is the service I use to track all of my emails as well as a handful of other awesome functions. Tom uses Google Chrome, so he achieves email tracking through Mix Max.
Testimonial Management – We LOVE Boast.io. It makes collecting, managing, and displaying video and written testimonials SUPER easy.
Productivity
Password Manager – Try LastPass, the best password manager, password generator, and vault for free today! LastPass makes and remembers your passwords, so you don't have to!
Time Tracking Software – Time Doctor is an employee time tracking software that helps you and your team get a lot more done each day. Try it for free – no credit card required. Remote teams average 22% more productivity using software like this and we highly recommend it.
Note Taking – I swear I probably take at least 5 pages of notes every day. A huge part of doing what we do is consuming information and being able to retain it. I do this by taking a TON of notes with Evernote, it just makes things SO easy to keep organized, and more importantly— find whenever you need it!
Focus Music –We live in a very BUSY and distracting age so its super easy to get distracted. Especially, if you stay at home working from a computer all day. Netflix is always just 1 click away! One thing that I have found to be extremely helpful is to have some background noise going while I work. Focus@Will is a neuroscience based subscription service that uses phase sequenced playlists of instrumental music designed to improve users’ productivity. It's Awesome! (Thanks Bob Ross for the recommendation!)
Service Fulfillment
Outsourced SEO | Web 20 Ranker – As of late our absolute favorite SEO outsourcing company is Web 20 Ranker. They provide Private Label SEO, Google My Business SEO, GMB Optimization, Link Building, Press Releases and White Label SEO for Agency owners. We use these guys to fulfill all of our off page SEO Signals. They've got an incredible smorgasbord of SEO products. Turn around time is extremely fast, communication is there, and the quality is excellent. As a member of our Sharks Tribe you have an EXCLUSIVE coupon to all WEB 20 products. The Coupon is for 10% off site-wide, but you need to click through our link https://offlinesharks.com/web20 and use the code at checkout: offlinesharkbonus
Outsourcing – Outsource to the Philippines through the largest online marketplace for finding and hiring Filipino virtual assistants and employees. We've hired a lot of great people to work with through Onlinejobs.ph as well as Upwork.com
Miscellaneous
Newsletters – Join Tom & I and start your day reading Morning Brew. It’s an awesome daily newsletter that delivers the top business news in a way that’s informative and witty. Best of all, it’s free, and only takes 5 minutes to read each morning! Give it a try and subscribe using our link.
23andMe – Totally unrelated to marketing but probably one of the coolest things ive ever bought. Sign up, they send you a tube, you spit in it and send it back. A few weeks later you discover insights on your genetic health risks, carrier status, traits, wellness and ancestry. They analyze, compile and distill the information extracted from your DNA into 90+ reports you can access online and share with family and friends. This was spooky accurate even down to hereditary stuff.. They knew my ring toe is just slightly larger then my big toe, wtf!? Anyway, super cool, my whole family did it and we found out exactly what our nationalities are down to the % and where our ancestors are from. Up until this point we just guessed that we were from Portugal and Europe. Click this link to receive a special discount 23andme.com