A Peek into our Toolbox (Part 1)
If there’s one thing entrepreneurs have in common, it’s the constant search for ways to become more productive. With the innovative technologies being released each day, we’re swimming in a sea of tools and apps that promise to be the next game changer … but not everyone can live up to that name. So, we’ve done some of the groundwork for you. Let me introduce you to the following Penguin-approved tools. This is the start of a two-part series all about our favs that save us time (and grief!) each week.
Three Wings Up
First of all, all three Penguins agree that pen and paper are the primary and most loved tool in our business. (They've gotta be good quality, though. We have standards.) Whether Sid’s sketching logos, Alisha’s decorating boring notebooks, or Lesley’s furiously scribbling to-do lists, you’ll never find us without these necessities. Alisha says, "I always start every project on paper before using a word processor or step up to the keyboard. There's nothing like your thoughts spilling out of your hand. It's also been proven to help with information retention and improved thought processing!"
The second tool that all three of us love is GSuite. Seriously, what did people do before GSuite?! Share Word files?! Eep… We use this every day to share files, keep things safely tucked away in the cloud, to communicate with each other and clients via email and Hangouts, and more. We won’t ever part with GSuite.
Sid's Top Picks
Wix - When building websites, we recommend Wix to the bulk of our clients, especially those who don’t have oodles of experience with maintaining websites. Wix is fantastic because, unlike Wordpress, what you see is what gets published. It takes the confusion out and empowers our clients to make changes to their site without the frustration of paying an hourly fee to a web designer.
Wave - Yup, Wave rocks. It’s a free accounting and invoicing tool that we won’t be parting with anytime soon. It’s easy to use and understand, and we love how easy invoicing is using it. We can schedule recurring invoices and have them sent out automatically without worrying about them.
Alisha's Top Picks
Spotify - Music fuels my writing and when I'm out walking I'm usually listening to a podcast and learning, so Spotify gives me all that in one package. It's got a great app, sharable playlists, and the weekly discover playlists are always bringing me stuff I actually like, but have never heard before! It's awesome!
Thesaurus.com - It's the site I go to when I just can't think of the right word. Every word has positive or negative connotations, has the possibility to reach into someone's imagination and bring a picture to mind. If you find the right word you can use fewer words in most sentences, making less copy more impactful!
Lesley's Top Picks
Later - Planning Instagram posts is so much fun now! I can ensure the grids look gorgeous, and move posts around if they don’t. Later even has a hashtag suggestion tool which comes in handy.
Trello - I love getting all my thoughts and tasks organized and Trello is a really clean, easy way to do that. I also use this as a sort of CRM to easily get a quick view of our current clients, past clients, and prospectives.
Stay tuned...
Do you use any of these tools? Want to suggest one we should know about? Get in touch! Next week, we'll unveil another set of tools we can't work without.