Tools

There’s a dumb question people always throw around.

“What’s your superpower?”

There’s a chance that I think this question is dumb simply because I got given a crappy superpower.

Mine is: 

The willingness to put in a lot of research + an oversensitive BS detector that helps discover the best tools and products for the price.

I told you it was a crappy superpower.

This list below are the products I use, and why I chose them over others. They aren’t the cheapest, nor are they the most expensive. They are awesome products that are priced well.

Of course some of these are referral links.

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Automation

I can’t not start with automation.

  • Zapier. Loads of apps. Simple to use.
  • Integromat. Incredibly powerful. Compared to Zapier it’s harder to learn, but cheaper. Watch my Zapier vs Integromat video.
  • AirTable. A place to store information that’s better than Google Sheets in many ways

Productivity

  • TextExpander for spending less time typing
  • AirTable for content planning, link building and other things you’d normally do in a spreadsheet
  • Calendly for bookings. The UI for the person booking is still second to none.
  • 1Password for password management
  • Superhuman for email. I love that everything is keyboard-based and it’s way faster than native Gmail.
  • FollowUpThen for automatic reminders if people don’t reply to your emails
  • Loom for recording videos for my team, students and anyone really
  • Notion for note taking, lists and storing all the things I write.
  • ClickUp for task management, although I’m looking to switch away
  • Miro for diagramming. It does the job but I’m not married to it.
  • Online storage with Google Drive. It’s included with our email and it does the job.
  • Slack for communication. I still like it better than alternatives
  • Xero for bookkeeping
  • Content Snare – our own tool that can be used to request files from clients or as a client portal

Marketing & Sales

  • Active Campaign for email marketing & CRM. It has the best automation capability out of any of them, and if it isn’t obvious, I’m big on automation. The email editor is trash though. Really hoping they fix it soon.
  • ConvertBox is the best opt in tool I’ve ever used and it’s a one time fee! Watch my review
  • Revue for weekly curated newsletters. The workflow is ace compared with all others I’ve tried. It’s free now too. Video
  • Intercom for support of our SaaS. It’s just nicer and cleaner than other options. It’s also expensive and not without issues.
  • Buffer for social scheduling. It’s so, so simple. I like that.
  • Better Proposals for…….. proposals. It’s simple and works.
  • Ahrefs for SEO & research. Mangools if you don’t have the budget for ahrefs
  • Rebrandly for link redirects. Most links on this page go through Rebrandly

Learning and coaching

  • GrowthMentor for jumping on calls with amazing mentors
  • Feedly for finding and curating posts for social and newsletters

Website (this one)

  • Built on WordPress (duh)
  • GeneratePress as a base theme. It’s lightweight and does the job.
  • Elementor as the page builder. I prefer Beaver Builder. Elementor likes to break things and I find it less intuitive
  • Hosted with Cloudways. Their support is meh, but bang for buck is good
  • Opt-in forms by ConvertBox. Amazing lifetime deal yet still an amazing product. Watch my review
  • Checkout system by ThriveCart. Another awesome lifetime deal, converts well, integrates with Zapier, has a ton of features

Membership site

The inside of my Zapier Mastery course is built with:

  • LMS by LearnDash. It’s on a separate WordPress site. It has issues, but for my needs it does the job.
  • Access control by WP Fusion. One of the most amazing plugins I’ve used. Controls who gets access to which course using tags in my CRM (Active Campaign)
  • Theme by BuddyBoss. It looks great with LearnDash out of the box

Recording & podcasting

  • Mic is a Rode NT-USB. After compression on most podcasts I can’t even tell beyond the quality of this mic.
  • Rode boom arm and shock mount
  • Sony a6100 with the Sigma 16mm lens, and Elgato Camlink for video. There’s no need to upgrade to the a6400 unless you’re planning on shooting RAW video. Watch this video to see the full setup.
  • Logitech c920 when I don’t feel like turning the full camera on
  • Viltrox L116T lights. Half the price of the Elgato Keylight and does the same thing.
  • Recording with Zoom or Camtasia, but Camtasia pisses me off a lot. There really isn’t a better option for Windows though. 
  • Podcast hosting with Castos. They have a great plugin that makes the process super simple.
  • Audio processing with Auphonic

Hardware

  • Laptop is a Dell XPS 13. Consistently one of the highest rated laptops in its weight class
  • Desktop is a custom built PC. You should have a beefy machine at home.
  • Phone is a Pixel 5. I love getting Android updates first.
  • NAS is a Synology DS415. Stores all my extra large files and a backup of all photos.
  • APC Back UPS 550. Protects the Synology if the power drops

Fun

  • Transport is an Evolve Bamboo GTR and Evolve Stoke, because public transport or car commuting sucks.
  • Automated lighting by Philips Hue, because it’s faster, more reliable and has more apps etc than others.