My 5 top essential tools for running my business

As a business owner, I get questions A LOT about the tools I use to run my business.

So, I thought I would share a few that have REALLY helped me a lot in case they might help you as well.

Gusto for Payroll

I have been with multiple payroll companies over the years, and honestly, they have all just made my life difficult.

Most of them seem to be stuck in the 90s with the paperwork and systems they have in place that just require so much more from the business owner than is necessary.

Gusto has been a wonderful breath of fresh air that has saved me so much time and simplified all the payroll and tax stuff for me in a way I didn’t realize was possible.

I literally now only spend a few MINUTES per month on payroll.

Even my accountant (who has worked with tons of payroll companies) is blown away by the simplicity of working with Gusto as well.

And yes, you can use it even if you only run payroll for yourself. And yes, you can pay contractors with it as well.

Oh, and they have a $100 signup bonus right now.

Like payroll, we have also tried MANY business bank accounts over the years. And again, so much of the banking industry is just a decade (or more) behind in meeting the needs of today’s business owners.

And it has been nearly impossible to find a business checking account that is FREE.

But most important for us was that Relay is hands-down the best bank for the “Profit First” method (which is basically the business version of our Real Money Method).

Once we started using the “Profit First” method, we quickly realized that Relay was the only bank that made sense. They are literally designed to work with it, and they have all of the benefits that I need to run our business better than any of the old banks out there.

Some of my favorite features:

• FREE business checking
• You can create up to 20 accounts
• Savings accounts that pay interest
• You can create virtual debit cards or use regular ones
• Integrates with all the key software
• Role-based access for team members
• 24/7 customer support

Bottom line, they are just doing great things and innovating when most banks are just settling for being the same as they always have been.

And they have a $50 signup bonus right now.

Asana is our project management tool and, therefore, our to-do list for our entire team.

Pretty much everything we work on as a team goes through Asana. And we would be so lost and disorganized without it.

I have written and talked extensively about Medi-Share, so I won’t go too deep here.

But we don’t have traditional health insurance and instead have used Medi-Share as our alternative for the last 14 years. And it has saved us a ton of money over what we would have been paying for regular health insurance.

When I first heard about Slack 5 or so years ago, I didn’t understand why I would need it. Now, I can’t imagine our team without it.

It is our primary source of communication.

Not just with quick DMs, but we have pretty much eliminated Zoom meetings, and instead, we all opt for their built-in “huddle” feature where we can quickly jump on a video call to discuss whatever we need to.

Honorable mentions

WP Engine

The premium web host that we have used for SeedTime.com for the last 10 years at this point.

What I love about them is that they ONLY host WordPress sites, and as a result, they UNDERSTAND WordPress sites.

When I was on other hosts in the past, the tech support never really understood the ins and outs of a WordPress site, but this is all these guys do, so they are just so much better at it.

They aren’t the cheapest, but I have happily paid the premium over the years and will continue to.

Canva

This has become our team’s go-to source for all things design. I view it as the 80/20 of design. The best designers are still creating with Adobe products, but Canva is so much better for simplicity, speed, collaboration, and organization than Adobe is.

It has become an essential tool for our business, and I can’t imagine life without it.

Later

This is our favorite social media scheduler. It lets us schedule content for Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Facebook, and TikTok.

Not much else to say but we use it and enjoy it!

What about you?

What are your essential tools that I should know about?

Your friend and coach,