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The Top 20 Tools For Running Your Own Six Figure Home Studio
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Section 1. Build your Brand
This is your chance to make a great first impression. The goal here is to brand yourself as a high-end service… NOT a cheap, dime-a-dozen, basic home studio. Think through how you want to be perceived by your potential customers, and make sure your branding reflects that. Do you want to be a $1,000 Ford Pinto, or do you want to be a $2,500,000 Bugatti Veyron?
99 Designs
Get A New Logo
The #1 reason I recommend this site over hiring a random designer is because you get to see dozens of design ideas before you ever pay. The way this site works is you pay a flat fee, set the design guidelines, then designers submit their logo designs for your approval. If you hate them all, you get a full refund. If you see one you like, the fee goes to that designer.
Moo
Print Your Business Cards
While business cards don't make sense for all businesses, they're a necessary evil if you're ever physically near your ideal customers. This is a quick, easy way to exchange contact info in a professional way.
Section 2: Build Your Website
This is an extension of your branding. A terrible-looking website screams “I'm an amateur looking to make a quick buck,” wile a professional-looking website will build confidence with your clients. This is your chance to show off your portfolio, give everyone the info they need before they hire you, and give them a way to contact you when they're ready.
Wix
Build A New Website
There are a million different ways you can build your website. This is the tool I recommend, and the tool I used in my free website creation course. The reason you NEED a website is because people are going to google you any time someone recommends you. The #2 source of traffic for my own studio is Google, and 99% of that traffic is from people searching for me or my studio specifically.
Google Analytics
Study Your Website Visitor's Behavior
This sounds creepier than it actually is, so here's a non-creepy way to think about this. If you had a brick-and-mortar men's clothing store, wouldn't you want some data on what happens when someone enters your store? Do they enter, then immediately leave? How long do they stay inside your store? How many times do each section of your store get visited? Which section is the most popular? ALL of these things matter to your income, and all of these thing can be tracked on your website. Google Analytics is the solution.
Section 3. Get More Clients
When it comes to getting more clients, there are three things you can do to increase the likelihood that you'll be the one they hire.
1. Stand out from your competitors by doing things they aren't willing or able to do. The most-effective form of this is something I call The High-Class Proposal.
2. Follow up relentlessly for at least 60 days. To start, be sure to check out my 60-day follow-up guide, where I show you the process I use with every client. After you've read that, the two CRM tools below will make that entire process a breeze.
3. Be available to answer questions as quickly as possible. The final tool in this section will allow you you to live chat with anyone who's on your website.
Better Proposals
Impress Your Customers
A proposal is a great way to outline every single aspect of a project, from pricing, to what's included, to what's NOT included, what the timeline will be, and what the next steps are.
Instead of simply sending an ugly copy/paste email to your client, the High-Class Proposal is a much more effective method. If you want a dead-simple way to “wow” your customers, this is it.
Pipedrive CRM
Manage Your Customer Relationships
When you start sending out 10+ quotes/proposals per month, a CRM (customer relationship management software) becomes a necessity. There is no easier way to track follow-up reminders, set up email templates (for follow ups, NOT proposals), see when/if they've opened your emails, and keep track of which stage the client is in.
The best part about Pipedrive, specifically, is that they have a 30-day free trial with no credit card required. This is the CRM I use in my own business.
Close CRM
Manage Your Customer Relationships: Option 2
This is another option for CRM. I used it years ago and loved it. I still recommend it to people all the time, which is why it's on this list.
If phone/video calls are an important part of your sales process, this will be a much better CRM for you since it integrates with Zoom video chat and a business phone number.
Tawk To
Live chat with your website visitors
Let's say someone visits your website, but they have a question you failed to answer on the site? In most cases, you just lost a customer. This is why offering “live chat” on your website is just table stakes these days.
Now someone can ask a question directly on this live chat widget, and it will go straight to your phone for a real-time conversation. The best part? It's 100% free.
Section 4: Get Your Finances In Order
This is the boring-but-necessary part of being a business owner. Once you start making over ~$1,000 per year (or your local currency's equivalent), then you'll be needing some sort of bookkeeping software. Here are two great options:
USA and UK Only
Godaddy Bookeeping
This is what I've used for 6+ years (before Godaddy acquired it). I personally hate Godaddy as a company, but this project is fantastic. It integrates with your bank, you PayPal account, your Stripe.com account, and offers a solid invoicing tool. It also makes taxes a breeze for your accountant.
USA, EU, UK, CA, AU
Quickbooks Online
This is the industry standard when it comes to online boookkeeping software. I've never used it, but it's an option for all of the non-US/UK people.
Section 5. Get Paid
Up to this point, you've put SO much work into getting a client, this is NOT the time to screw things up. You'll want to make this as simple for them as possible. The less friction, the better.
That's why I've always believed you should be more concerned about getting paid than you should be about avoiding processing fees. Here are 3 tools that will help you collect payments no matter where your customers are located.
Stripe
Credit Card Payments
Stripe.com is the poster child of small business credit card processing. The make it super easy for apps to integrate with them, so most apps that accept payments will integrate with Stipe (including several tools from this list). The only thing you need to do is create a free account. From there, you can link it to any of the other apps that offer Stripe support. This makes it incredibly easy for your customers to pay their invoices via credit card.
Paypal
PayPal Payments
Chances are, you already have a PayPal account. Love them or hate them, they're the standard for payments in our industry. Very few people seem to know about this, but PayPal also has a free invoicing tool that allows your customers to pay via PayPal OR via credit/debit card.