Marketing tools and software we rely on Them for pretty much everything we do on Our websites but they are confusing the Functionality is overlap their sales Pages are not very clear and they don’t Seem to be doing that one thing that you Need from them that would be an absolute Game changer for you for that reason we Very often swap the tools that we use to Run our business so in this episode Mark And I are going to be sitting down and Talk you through 11 shops that we made To solve the tools that we use and why We change so that you can consider your Own swaps let’s get started hey everyone Welcome back to the podcast the Flamingo Is back and the proper intros and outros Are back as well so let’s get started With that in today’s episode we are Going to be talking about some software Swaps that we’ve made I mean a lot of Questions that we get in natori ICAP row And all our Facebook groups etc How about tools so I think it’s Important to talk about them and we’ll Talk about some mistakes we’ve made Picking some of them how we swapped how Things are going for us and you know What we might regret from the tools that We sweat from but before that I have to Ask mark how it’s going so let’s do that How’s it going Rach it’s going good as Always I’m sure everyone knows this by Now but I just want to add to that that
This isn’t an episodes it kind of like Hate on tools because they necessarily Are gonna make friends did bad things or Whatever like a lot of these tools were Mentioning are really really good They’re just you know specifically what We need for our specific set of Requirements the way we like to do Things and it’s I guess it’s more Discussion about the evolution of Choosing tools and software and how that Changes over time in your business Because whatever you start with even if You follow our advice as your business Grows you will have changing needs and Things will things will transfer you Have to kind of have a bit of Flexibility but I hope that this this Podcast will also give you some insight Into the into how difficult it can be to Migrate from one tool to another Sometimes and also on you know how to Make those decisions as well yeah it’s Like I was actually going through a lot Of these tools and I was like would I Use it again I guess one of the Questions I asked myself I’m like I love Them and honestly for about half of them I said like yep I’ll probably use it Again Like for smaller projects I like like Very often we just upgrade like you take The next level with like more Functionalities except I put on some
Like for example we’ll talk about WP or Okay that’s something right I mean we Have a great something called nitro pack Which is better bites are a lot more Expensive I’m like you know on a basic Site that we’re just starting out for I Don’t think it’s worth the expense and I Don’t forget it’s perfect for that niche I’m really happy with that and I still Use it but like for sites that have like Dozens of marketing pixels and a lot of Kinetic scripts and stuff like that and We generating a good amount of money Then I’m happy to spend more on Something like natural pack so yeah it’s Not like I just want to say that to Especially if there’s some to owners That would be like listening to these Etc we’re not we’re not hating on you Tues it’s just sometimes it’s like we Found a better turnkey then we want to Talk about that because I feel a lot of People never really consider their tools Or like when I really like entrenched in One tool they don’t swap it but very Often swapping a tool can make a massive Difference in your business I’m singing Like shopping cars for example like Adding abilities to do web sales and it Seems like that you can really make a Lot more money Tracking better understanding better was Making sales all these things can really Make you a lot of money and can be a
Leaf forward as much as you know gaining New rankings and and other stuff is Basically improving your technology Except like you just play a third party To take care of that which is quite Important you know business but before Like let’s stop cheating people out one More T’s actually there is a subscribe Button if you’re on YouTube go click on That subscribe as well click on the Smash that like button Yeah you know like a Graham Stephanie Who takes a bomb and it’s like I need to Get as good a scheme at like turning to The like us maybe I’ll practice this on His podcast but anyway like that but Before because we want you to like it Let’s just went into the content and Let’s jump onto the first tool which Actually let’s do it this is thrive Architect first texture how are you I Want to strive architect Oz because it’s Going to concern most people who are Listening to it and there’s a whole Debate about page builders or at strive Architect is a page realize the visual Page builders so you go to drag-and-drop Etc and you’ve got to take into Consideration when these two Like it came out when it was just a Default WordPress editor there was not As many customization option even in Themes on WordPress etc and thrive it Was used to be called strike command
Builder used to be one of the first ways That came out to visually edit your Website and like a lot of people and it Has its problems and we’re gonna get to The second but a lot of people have made Their first bucks online because thrive Exists like when we start our hacker was More or less when strife came out and we Recommended it and we’ve used it for Many years and and and a lot of people Like I’m not very happy with it for some Reasons that we’ll talk about in a Second Well actually a lot of people have made Like their first bucks an hour they are Today because rival existed at the time Because it was the first time we could Actually create proper site that we Wanted and so just for that I’m quite Grateful a lot like we’ve made good Money because of them as well but we’ve Also lost money because so I think we Need to talk about that too to be Perfectly honest but let’s first talk About the swap we swapped thrive Architect with elemental and the thing Is like when we search for a mentor We use it like we used to you strive Architect which is creating every single Page with it but ever since then Gutenberg came out which is essentially The new world first editor and I know a Lot of people hate on it as well but we Actually like it and we pretty much all
The WordPress content for posts and Pages that we try to rank on Google These days is actually put on Gutenberg And we use it a mentor for the team Building abilities of making our headers Making our footers making the post Layout we use out advanced custom fills To create custom layouts for reviews and Stuff like that so we use a Dementor bit Differently than you would use a basic Page you know I’ve seen you said a lot Of people hating on Gutenberg I have not Seen many people hating on Gutenberg Lately I’ve seen a lot of people saying Oh yeah Gutenberg’s amazing you don’t Need elementary all right we don’t hang Out in the same places oh well maybe not But I just remember when Gutenberg came Out everyone like everybody was like This is terrible installing the WordPress classic plugin but now I Really I don’t see people doing that That’s good I’m saying I like it’s kind Of the compromises like it’s still Simple enough so it doesn’t really blow Your coat Obviously if you add you know columns And stuff like that well you have to add This to your code it’s just the way it’s Built even in Custer in normal HTML um So there is a degree of below that People will call if you add custom Formatting which is normal because it Was the same way in HTML but like a lot
Of issues don’t really understand how Things normally walk and then just Complain about it for page speed so yeah It’s like but if you keep a simple page It keeps the code pretty pretty okay I’m Some code that you might see in in the Code editor in Gutenberg actually does Not show up in the source code of the Page so you’ve gotta be a little bit Careful so for example they put some Some tags you know like put like a Guttenberg paragraph and then at the end As well excetera these don’t show up in Source code but people look at that and Like oh it’s bloating the code etc so That’s not too bad it’s not perfect but It’s not too bad and I think I quite Like it we build most of our pages with It and I don’t feel handicapped like I Used to feel handicapped with the Classic WordPress editor which is a Massive step forward and I think if they Progressed it even more it’s like we Will use that for pretty much most of The content that we use let’s talk about Why we switch from style though because When we switched from thrive actually There was no Guttenberg we switched from Strive to elemental and it was still Only the WordPress classic editor which Was not the best to create content and The reason we switched from strive is we Liked the idea behind the plugin it was Probably one of the first tools that
Came out as I said that allow you to do Visual drag-and-drop was revolutionary In that yeah by it wasn’t consistent so Sometimes you would see something in the Intro you would like render the page Which does not look the same I was buggy As well like it like you would like the Options would like you would click on Something you would not trigger it or You would if you trigger an option then It deactivate it the other one for Whatever reason or something one time we Did a lounge for it fro and because of Glitches with it we like the page was Completely white for like some versions Of Safari for example people could Literally not open the page which was Extremely annoying And we’ve had several occasions where we Had bugs etc and so at that point we Didn’t really know where we were going And but we were willing to take the heat Of like not dealing with that Inconsistency anymore and we switched to Elemental that was pretty At the time and that obviously was less Feature heavy than I was at the time I Was lighter which is kind of funny Because now a mentor tends to have more Features and actually let’s be honest Get a little bit heavier than it used to Be again depends on what you put on your Page if you put every element from Elementor it gets heavy if you put a
Simple page together it’s not too bad But it’s like it’s funny to see Elementals Go a little bit in the direction where We didn’t like strike going but well Elemental has all the strivers is a lot More consistent and it doesn’t work Great we’ve done like very important Pages on on elemental sales pages et Cetera and whenever there was an issue Elemental was rarely to blame and we’ve Been able to rely on that and yeah we’ve Been able to build really beautiful Pages with elemental and it just has More options as oh it’s just more In-depth and I’m able to I was actually Like working on the new version of the Site to their own elemental and I Absolutely love working with that tool I Think like it’s quite important for me Like how you like working with the tool Because if you don’t enjoy using it then My god it’s like it’s a it’s a fail yes And you just don’t end up doing the Values it’s really hard to quantify that Sometime as well because it could be That just simple user interface and like How fast it loads and like little you Have to call it colors little things Like that that make it more enjoyable to Use yeah elemental is really nice to use I really like it like the right-click You can copy paste elements etc like It’s amazing I can I can work really
Really fast I walk faster on this then I Would work with a designer to put a page Together like it’s faster than giving Feedback to someone to me to work with This and to the point where I don’t even Use designers that much because it’s Just faster and then if I wanted to get Recorded in something else I could do That but I would almost do a mock-up Under the mentor because it is that fast However there are things that I miss Actually with with a mentor so and and Instead of that we have and I think I Want to talk about that as well because Not everything just gets better when you Saw the first thing I miss is actually Thrive strives angle is being is for Marketers right so they integrate Directly with your life Well beam our platforms an email Marketing platform and all that and then Mentor has some of that but it’s more Their angle is more for designers which Is where you have more options for Design and it’s kind of cool etc and Also the code is cleaner However they are missing Fitting elements for example we didn’t Have star ratings for ages on elemental And we I was unable to do like proper Review templates because of that there Was no table of content which for Bloggers is quite annoying and we had to We built our own third-party plugin but
You some italian actor today is actually A third-party plugin we built ourselves For elemental so that it would actually Work and sorry that was extremely Frustrating when strive had it out of The box because they understand Marketers a lot better they did add it Recently though there was the content Revealed that we did use on some sales Pages as well well you know you had the DSL and then after like five minutes Then he would reveal the rest of the Sales page it’s like the classic old Clickbank tactic so they had these kind Of elements that you don’t find on under Elemental and they they understood Market was better the call to actions Etc yeah I’m some really good thought Behind the design of that right gets it They understand what marketers needed Just unable to always execute it in a Way that we would like it to be basic Which is a little bit annoying but I Know they’re working on it by the way so I haven’t tried in a while actually it’s One of our YouTube videos I want to do At some point I won’t do like trying Strive again two years after quitting it Or something because I’m you know it’s Like you gotta give that chance right I Give him a lot of feedback and and a lot Of people did and I know they’ve been Working on it so I’m I’m gonna try it Again at some point actually here’s my
Question to you though would you use Rive again no okay any any justification I I just fundamentally didn’t like using That tool i I did it didn’t click with Me the user interface it was it was Always what I would see on the design Versus what I’ve seen the finished web Page was always different It seemed to just be like horrendous With you responsiveness there was I mean It got back later on but I think in the Early days like every single site that Used tried kind of start to look the Same after a while and that was true for Most page builders at that time though Like yeah you gotta contextualize so It’s like I wouldn’t blame them for that At some point basically page builders Thought it was just like elements that You can barely customize or change a few Colors and I said And now it’s what we know which is you Can pretty much build anything with that Not everything exactly but like 95% of Sites you could build yeah I think I Think I wouldn’t I mean again I would Like to try it again I haven’t tried in A while but I’m just happy with our Setup right now and and I tend to go for As simple as possible when we build size Now which means that I’m trying to clean Up the code of the site I’m because for Things like the estimate for example the Quality of the code on your page it’s
Quite important and which is why I’m Actually even kicking out elemental from The main content area I’m letting it a Mental handle you know the design of the Site account what’s around but the main Content area I’m knitting I’m still Sticking to WordPress so that we Actually get cleaner code there and Google can scrape it and now we can hear The video synthesis so for that reason I Would probably not do it and but that Would probably not do that for most page Builders in my content area so to be Fair it’s not just them let’s jump onto The next tool let’s talk about and we’re Gonna jump on Strowbridge because we Used to use that as well we’ve got Hundreds of thousands of emails with Drive leads and because we’ve jumped out Of strive basically replace it with Optinmonster for different reasons Honestly Shrivers is the best product That Shrive makes I believe in terms of Quality of how well it’s made because um The alternative which is optinmonster All like some other ones cause so much More money and don’t even have all the Features that strived it has like the A/b testing in strive leads is by far The best like the system is by far the Best there is on any plugin like that The fact that you could put custom links And people clicked on the link and they Wouldn’t see your pop-up or they would
See a different pop up so you could like Flag them etc when you send people Through social medias through email etc And you could like get more opt-ins even The expensive plugins like don’t really Do that really well um so I It’s probably the trifling I miss the Most that was great however it was also Inefficient in the code and like him it Was slowing down the website a lot like Really a lot and like you know if you Try to open the report for the leads Excite right it would literally crash Your site sometimes because it would Like that was pretty bad actually I had The podcast who’s met you what word and We talked about that and he said that When he switched with the same design From Drive these two teen monster he’s opting Away almost doubled just because of the Performance issues so um that is that That that is the main thing because but The thing is like my answer to would I Use this too or not is different because Yeah 100% I would use try play together Exactly it’s like that’s why it’s great It’s a great tool and if you don’t like If you like just starting your new site And you want to build an email list and Like I don’t want to pay monthly like Twenty nine thirty nine forty nine Dollars for that I want to buy a plug-in I think you $67 right this one off um
And it’s like for that it’s great I’d Like to build your list to like you know Ten to fifty thousand twenty ten to Twenty thousand is 50,000 hour chart Before that but ten to twenty thousand Subscribers like when you’re starting up I would take that toll on the on the Resources and I would try to rely on a CDN etc to like help with the page feed And I now would use five this because The a/b testing etc would allow me to Build my list so much faster that I Would accept the cost if I’m on a budget And I’m not willing to spend to pay a Monthly fee which every better Alternative will charge you money so Yeah it’s like no I’m not as hard with Drive leads as I am with strive Architect actually because the the Competitors are not nearly as good um Anything else you want sounds like this Oh by the way the Builder as well like The you know how you create your pop-ups Or your call to actions etcetera is a Million times better on strive lease Than it is on optinmonster it’s pretty Bad on a team monster so it’s like it’s Optimal is something that is less Convenient that you swap for when you’re Like reaching a certain scale because For the end user it’s better and that You like gain like and this page field Etc which is great when you’re big Enough but when you’re not big enough
Then it’s not worth the trade-off you’d Rather just execute fast etc but yeah The builder is way better The only better page pop-up builder that Exists is actually elemental but the Problem is that mental is they have zero Analogy so you can build a pop-up but Like you have no freaking idea where People come from you can just put them In different lists I guess but it Becomes messy because nobody uses this Now we won’t use this tag So elemental is just like you can create Beautiful pubs and you have no freakin Idea of their walking so so yeah I would I would use FRA valise on a new site That focuses on building at least and I Don’t want to pay fourteen monster for That site no I mean I think it’s a Fantastic tool drive leads I would 100% Use it again exactly All right let’s see if we didn’t we Didn’t bash thrive for bashing strive Because I don’t wanna do that as well It’s like they’re actually trying is Just I disagree sometimes they would Implement next is Basecamp Trello So I mean travel was really popular a Couple years ago and people still use it To certain said like a base camp It’s probably a base camp for the most Popular the most widely used like Organization task management thing for Teams
I love the user interface of Basecamp It’s so simple we used to use a lot in Our our agency business for like Organizing stuff organizing projects we Had clients on there and stuff and the Communication it was it was nice we use Trello for a lot of our editorial Processes initially for kind of ordering Content and like scaling up production So yeah when we had like different Writers and editors and publishers and All that kind of stuff it just got to The stage where it was a little bit Cluttered I think it’s the right word it Kind of starts showing its limitations Asana on the other hand which is its I Think it’s actually produced by one of The guys that started Facebook Facebook Yeah yeah Destin most Commerce’s enhancing yeah For the longest time it was absolutely Free and I couldn’t understand what They’re doing like why is this tool free It’s like it’s better than all the other It was much fullest entities now as well They have that good provision that was Pretty cheap actually yeah but oh my god Has it like come on it’s a it’s a it’s Really like a super advanced tool now it Does it’s basically on par with the Likes of JIRA and that in terms of Complexity so you could really do a lot Of stuff there’s like dependencies now Definitely different calendar view like
Smarter automations and you feel External you can like the Kanban build You know you can do Yeah yeah so asana is is it’s just it’s What we use for task management Throughout the team it’s what we use for A building like editorial processes we Have a blueprint NH pro about it showing Exactly how we do it if you’re a member And you want to check that out but it’s Just yeah it’s so much better the custom Fields that they added as well it allows You to do so many different things you Have a newsfeed as many nested tasks Like sub topics subtasks I knew I didn’t Want that is amazing because like Basically like in real life what happens It’s like you give me a test like hey Can you take care of this on the page I’m like well to take care of this I Need the designer to do this I need some Content and I need our tech guy to look At something right and then I can so I Don’t even have to assign the tester Designer just a second attached to the Person who manages the designer as a Subtask and then that person can make a Subtask to the designer that it just Goes back up and so it’s like this in Limited the nicer task it works really Well when you have a bigger team and When you want to really organize this Thing it’s kind of like folders Basically you can just make folders and
Next Athena I walk through basically so I like it a lot but it’s expensive it’s Really expensive now it’s like 15 bucks 15 20 bucks a month per per user and it That’s not like me and Gail and like our Core team that’s every single writer Every single editor every single link Builder person that touches this in any Way shape or form is on there so while We don’t have a big team at all like Single digits numbers not including the Freelance people and stuff we we have Like a really big bill for this just Because we have so many so many people Use I mean the bill for a sauna is much Much higher than the deal because it’s It’s not a cheap tool anymore if you Wanted to use like the advanced features Some of the stuff so some of the good Features like custom fields that are Only in like higher tiers as well so Like don’t you some money why do you Miss your money when you pay to build You feel it wasn’t will sit oh no 100% It’s good it’s great value it’s just you Know for our software tool when you look At how much you And a year it’s probably our second Highest cost yeah right campaign yeah I Mean to be honest it’s also the page That you always have opened et cetera I said I don’t feel bad about it I still A low cost of running business I mean 15 Bucks for employee like when you have an
Office how much you spend per time Exactly so it’s I think this is the best Like the swap for the office cost Because if you had an office then I mean You might still have that system but Like you know what I mean it’s like it’s The infrastructure baby would you still You struggle no I I never like to Trello I just didn’t click with me the user Interface like we use it in the Authority site system to make the to-do List which we have showers but that’s The only reason why we use yeah sure But because people like turtle yeah yeah I’ve never I’ve never liked Trello no That’s why in the blueprint onaka it’s Quite frustrating people have to do it Themselves so I kind of like made the Task copy so they can discover face but I can’t share the same way I’ve made the Project fold them on treble which was Much better but a lot of people who run Sighs do you struggle I think if you run Very simple projects is good enough well As soon as you start having a lot of Tasks and like more than three four People then it becomes quite quite blue If you’re producing like you know ten Like fifty two hundred articles um I Just get a bit bloated yep so that’s why We use let’s talk about site speed Because people love site speed so we’re Going to talk about the VP rocket I Mentioned at the beginning of the
Episode so we’ve been using the we Forget for like two three years which And it’s definitely like you know Compared to when we did not use it it Our page speed got that right and it was Not that however we recently switched Switch to a tool called neutral nitro Pack I talked about this a few times Actually but the truth is despite the Fact like like I’m talking about akka Here we despite the fact that we you Know hired some services that we were Paying for plugins that we were doing All these things the site wasn’t that Fast It wasn’t it’s like it was okay but like You know for big articles sometimes you Take like 10 12 seconds to load etc and I was quite bad like I’m not obsessed With page speed but like wait It’s really long it’s really annoying And an age remember shed nitro back on Metallica and I tried it they have these Tools that you can just put your URL and You will see what the difference is and It just showed me like the site would Load in like two two seconds or Something and the page speed score would Go from like 20 to like 98 and so I I Tried it out there was a free trial and And yeah and I looked so the thing is Like these tools could easily try to be Optimized to fool the tests which a lot Of like the tractors of that tool will
Tell you they block out the petrol back They just optimize for the tape for the Spit test etc which I do think they do To some extent and the thing as well is Like the way they compress your like HTML your CSS etc so it’s sometimes in Line so it’s in the page code so it’s Like not the cleanest wait it’s not the Cleanest to look at but I don’t think Google Minds that much um however what I’ve looked at is I’ve looked at the Average time to load pages on Google Analytics and I think it’s the best Benchmark because it’s not how fast your Server is ultimately it’s how long it Takes for the actual users to load your Page so even if they have slow internet If they’re far from the router if they Have like 2g you know even 3G or Whatever like all of that will be Counted in and you see that graph in Analytics and when I switch to nitro by It just didn’t And it just dropped like there was a Massive drop in these I showed you this Graph actually and it’s like that’s What’s telling me that it’s actually Making a difference for people not just From but for benchmarks and ever since We’ve had one problem actually a recent Launch nitro pack they have basically do Everything they do your image Optimization they resize them for the For the browser they do everything and
The image optimization actually got Buggy that’s the first book I ever had With them and I had to cut that thought So that it Louie proper it was only on Like Safari very well so there was that One book that happened with us and I’m Happy to share that I’ve read a couple People saying that when you have like as Heavy Layouts there’s or certain issues with So you need to exclude the JavaScript From the ad so you need to find sorry to Right-click your eyes inspecting in Chrome see which what is the name of the Javascript file and There’s an exclusion area in the in the In nitrobacter and you can just put the Name of the file that yes and then they Will not catch it and it works so it it Does take to do that but if you do that Then it should work with us and I’ve Made it work mm and it works just fine Actually I’ve run it on the side that Runs azoic and Medianet and it works Just fine So it is possible to make it work it Takes a bit of soap the same way it does Take setup with the review okay don’t be Okay Has the same issues like if you don’t Exclude some JavaScript files it gets Buggy so that is basically what it does It works well first and it’s like you Don’t have to think about anything you
Say that and they reorganize your pages All the time which is quite nice the Problem is it’s expensive like and they Get you because if you go nitro plug the I/o you’re like you check their packages I’m not sure on a packet is now and you Like all the cheapest one is $23 per Month you pay early and you’re like okay It’s not that ice 23 euros I guess maybe $25 or something um the problem is they Get you because they only give you one Gigabyte of we saw storage which Includes your images so it works for Really tiny sites but if you if not then You need to upgrade to the next one Which is basically $49 a month for the Unlimited storage of your resources so Most people will need a $49 which is Definitely not cheap So again you know I mentioned at the Beginning the episode I don’t use that On every site that we have if this is Small site like 49 bucks at once I don’t Think it’s worth the money I think Something like the VP rocket when There’s less plugins when it decides not Complicated in the first place then I’m Happy to only it don’t work is like 49 a Year or something um so it makes a much Better value for money but as soon as I Get serious nitro back and then I just Get better page speed and I don’t have To think about it I can focus on content And links instead of focusing on page
Speed and I when I check on myself or Something I beat most sites in PageSpeed So that works pretty well for us yeah Next one Zen caster so we used to use Zen caster to record our podcast it’s Very very nice tool for doing audio Podcasts Especially with guests because anyone Can you can give them a single link Anyone can join they don’t need to Download any tool you have all the audio All the standard all the options and Recording capabilities but what it does Is it recorded record each person at Source so it records them on their own Computer and then at the end it will Upload both the mp3 in the lab to to Xen Caster and there’s some limited Functionality where it can you know if You drop out it will like save some of It sometimes but generally a very very Good tool for for recording an audio Podcast the only reason we switched away From from it over to what we’re now used As a mixture of we’re we have a zoom Call to do this so like a video call so I’m hearing gale right now over zoom but We’re using OBS which is really it’s a Tool for you know streamers mostly but You can you can do it to record any Audio any video source and so we record Through our camera setup so the lighting And stuff and we record our audio on our Expensive Mike’s ass source and like
Really high quality so we can produce This podcast on video but also produce a Very high quality audio version as well So really that’s the only reason to Switch back would I switch would I Switch back to Lancaster yes if I was Doing an audio only podcast in a Heartbeat I would use it that was not Doing only podcast any model I don’t Think it’s wasted like podcast should be Video now it’s like promoting on audio Podcast platforms if you got this one Sheet from video so it’s like for if for Whatever reason you you can only do what You do that but like honestly it like Video is the way to go for podcast now Let’s go in the next one Dropbox we used To use Dropbox awhile ago actually but We switch to Google Drive with file Stream file stream essentially is the Same as Dropbox you get a folder on your On your computer and it just sinks the File Whichever way some files you can see in Sometimes you can not sing so you don’t You stupid hard drive space we switch Mostly because we use G Street in house And so at the fact that everything is Integrated integrated with Google Docs As well which is what we use to Content etc we use it with like oh so Far I cou – and so on it’s only one Place is nice that’s basically it Otherwise they don’t really do anything
Else and would I use Dropbox again yeah It’s a good tool I I still use it for Like backups like when like I save Videos in two places so that lets say my Google drive’s gets hacked and like I Have it somewhere else or something yeah That’s basically the Dropbox it’s an OK Tool but I prefer Google suite it’s Better value for money as well and it’s What I think it’s just super nice having All like cuz we use Google Docs Google Drive G suite just having everything in The Google ecosystem is nice everything Tends to work quite well – with each Other no spam although although it was Was difficult when we did the migration From one G suite together and Accidentally deleted our YouTube account Once which is why we still have Pop the Subscribers we used to have them despite All our efforts to actually YouTube next One next one I’m at I honestly can’t Believe I’m saying this but we used to Use there was for about five years we Use Skype as our primary method of Communicating we have 30 people in our Company using using just their own Skype Accounts and like various group chats And like various like horrendous video Quality audio quality calls it was Impossible to search impossible to find Anything so a lot of people don’t know Skype originally it was kind of Pioneering away it used peer-to-peer
Technology which is great if you both Have amazing video connections but like The more complexity and the more Randomness you can add into that and the More often you use it the more you’ll See that Skype kind of sucks a bit with Video quality and audio quality when Microsoft bought it they took quite a Few years I think to move over to like Their own servers and so like it did Eventually improve video quality but now You know in this pandemic which which We’re in you don’t hear anyone talking About oh let’s Skype is everyone’s like Oh let’s zoom now that’s that’s the new Verb we so when you do you zoom bit but Prime Really you slack for as many company Dues Becky’s a beautiful Nicole’s like It drops off a lot more than soon we we Had yes about six months a year ago we Had real problems with with slack and we Stopped using slack for phone calls it Was fine for me it was just kale and one Other person that just I could not get It to work consistently so but we Actually did our first slot call today Today I worked really well I was like This oh maybe maybe we’ll have to try Again maybe they’ve actually they’ve Actually fixed yeah but we’ve been using The meets that Google Chrome which is Essentially a hangout for Google suite And it works really well for me is the
Best call it’s pretty much the best core Service out there if you using G Street Use that to call your team you like you Know what it does like you get these Micro drops of connections sometimes Like you just get disconnected for half Seconds only and a tool like Slyke will Just disconnect you and we’re just like You will drop off the coal it’s a nine Or as Google just catches back you up in There and rejoins you pretty much Instantly and so what it does is your Voice gets a bit shitty etc but you stay In a call and you don’t have to rejoin And we fight for it etc works really Well I think Google is actually the Leader in terms of quality for that and Very surprised people use zoom but I Think it’s because they don’t know about It so and you don’t need to download Anything for either it’s in browser all Browser base is amazing But yes lack is I I love slack all the Channels you can have in there we have Like feeds if I cut and use customer Support query and you sale comes in we Have channels for that you can just like Organize your company much much easier Yeah was especially with like guests and Stuff as well so let’s jump on the next Tool though and that’s gonna be Photoshop issues for the top I remember To do a featured images to all that etc Which I mean now we have a designer but
Like I still like occasionally jump on Like some images or whatever just like For quick marketing stuff and kind of Like the the combo we use now is we use Canva for a lot of the marketing stuff Kara is really good now remember how Much we pay per month like we have the Troll which you get you get like more Than 60 million stock images with it as Well so you Pay and you get stock images plus a Really good editor for like if you’re Not if you’re not good with Photoshop You’ve never learned etc canva is what You should use is very easy and the Templates make it really really fast to Do stuff and on the desktop and I use a Mac and I use a tool called Pixelmator Pro which you pay one off on the App Store and it actually is really good It’s like it works even like on the MacBook Air really fast etc and you can Still do things like resize images add Some text to a lot of stuff etc you Don’t end up paying a membership like You would pay on Photoshop so the thing With canva is you go in and like even if You do have any sort of design Experience you kind of know how to use It where you go into Photoshop and it’s Just like what the is going on here What he means is he can do something on Camera you need like a degree in Graphical design in order to use
Photoshop it’s that complicated So even mark can use canvas so you can Do so yeah it’s a basic attack Photoshop Was very complicated it’s expensive I Like the simplicity I’m good I like to Speed it I like I can just go and get Something out really quick I have my Templates we have like for example we Have a I’m gonna plug it now we have a Second of a YouTube channel for this Podcast where we actually put the clips Like the best bits of it we actually Upload them so if you want to check that Out called Auto Eclipse you can just Search that on YouTube and subscribe There and you get just the best clips of This podcast if you don’t have time to Listen to the whole thing and for the Thumbnails for that we have a template In canva and we roll out like you know 20 10 miles an hour or something like It’s really really fast and I like that For like secondary graphics etc it’s Perfect I’m missing absolutely nothing From Photoshop with I use Photoshop Again probably not Pixelmator Pro is Actually quite in-depth if I want to do Some stuff and it’s much cheaper Eyefinity photo is also good if you use Windows and canva is great for site Illustrations honestly you could just Use canva and not be enough for most Cases so that’s what I would recommend Is the next one is member mass so we
Initially when we launched our Authority Hacker Pro it was a membership so we’re Looking for a membership plug-in we find Memoize I’d say it’s more than a membership Plug-in checkout and everything yeah Yeah it’s not it’s kind of like a One-stop-shop for if you if you have a WordPress site And you want to have if you want to sell Info products or have a membership on There this will like kind of do Everything this was the day you know Before teachable and think if ik and He’s kind of like very high profile like Lovely UI ones I’m going back to like 2014-15 when we we first started looking At it and you know to be honest we we Put a lot of business through to Remember mask it worked it helped us get Off the ground it was like a one single Place that like just everything around The customer their their payments what They were doing their access you know And the user control so you stopped like Random people seeing or private content And restrict it and you can do rebuilds And it was you know it was good it was Fit for a purpose The problem is it’s kind of like it’s Kind of like you know an automatic car You know you just get in and it works And for the most part it’s fine but Whenever you want to make like some like
Fine-tuning or you want to like do Something which is like a little bit Different from what the creator had I Had envisaged then it just it was it was Useless a day you couldn’t do it you Couldn’t exercise that fine control so What we use now is um we actually three Things that replace it so learn – which Is an LMS learning management system we Use thrive cart which is our shopping Cart which is nothing to do Drive Stimson yeah nothing not really to Thrive danger I’ve architected and then Member bambi reom which controls access To to users and we to be honest active Campaign also is a big part of this Because we use a lot of like tag based Systems for for controlling access There’s essentially four tools that we Used the membership is active campaign So it’s based on the tax from active Campaign so the tag the shopping cart Puts the tag on the email system the Email system is checked to give access To people from the membership plugin What I like about my mouse though is it Starts at $20 a months so if you want to Start an info product company it’s Really cheap and actually it’s the Shopping cart is surprisingly good it Elementor frozen pose also you can Create like quite nice-looking shopping Carts etc like the the the stock Shopping car is not good or wasn’t good
Three years ago but we you can edit it Quite easily and exactly just short Codes so it’s it’s like you can do Something quite good for 20 bucks a Month and I think again like like Mike I Was always myself with I use this again Yes I would you if I was starting a new Membership and it’s not making any money Or whatever like absolutely so it’s Actually quite decent It takes a it’s a rough around the edges It’s like it reminds me a bit of thrive Themes yes I was gonna say like it’s It’s kind of built with marketers in Mind like teachable and think if ik like There they look nice on the sales page But when you actually get into it I have Never been that impressed with the Actual experience if you want to do any Kind of customization to those you can’t If you want to customize member maps you Can in a way to tunics to an extent at Least so yeah it’s a pretty good company If you’re studying courses it’s actually I would probably do that I like what Price I like doing at what price I would Do that and you can actually use it with A gun – you can use them together it’s Pretty cheap together it’s like compared To paying monster for Sameach Significant interval is much cheaper and You have much more control together with Something a little I meant oh holy You can do pretty much anything okay I’m
Gonna talk about hosting here we used to Host outsides on digital ocean it was Cheap very cheap like you can rent Service for not a lot and they have Really beefy specs the problem is these Servers are not really made to run for WordPress so you cannot need to Customize everything yourself I need to Do it through the console and stuff is Very high key and there’s basically zero Customer service and I remember when Chiangmai and like our sites were like As I started going down and didn’t know Why and I had to like reboot the servers Myself – for these things to actually go Back up and it woke me up like 4 times At night as I’m sick and I had to like Go and like turn my computer on and like Reboot and everything and I was like that not was the nut was the hassle I need something else Honestly it was me also not being a Prophecy said me and therefore if so if You see something like digitalocean is Great danes great value but if you’re Not I can attack with then I would Recommended for these reasons because When you take a normal host I like Something that essentially managed host They do that for you and we switch to Key star which is quite expensive However the support has been freakin Amazing I’ll tell you the story from Literally yesterday right so yesterday
We closed the lodge from age 4 so we’re Recording this today after and the site Started going down like someone was Walking in sighs okay I can’t use this Idea I gotta say it’s like down and I’m Like oh god it was happening and I had To go for a meeting and I go to I’m like Guys I got to Chatham kissed my guys can You please do Katie’s have absolutely no Time to die to get out please take care Of this do whatever it takes to bring This side up to which they did and then When I came back they literally the site Was back up and I realized it was a DDoS Attack because I guess we have friends That I really love us and decide to DDoS Our website and they blocked all the IPS That did that and the site was back up And running and everything was fine So um that’s the song saga we get Whiskey’s that it’s not cheap we spend Several hundred dollars per month just For like a few sites so it’s quite Expensive but is hosted on Google Services also it’s quite fast you get a CDN built-in and the could you get the Staging that works really well as well You can one-click push it to live which We do a lot of like site changes that Way and so on what what you’re paying For with Kinta Is the support and it is like one of if Not the best support of any tool I’ve Ever seen like remember when you were
Doing that webinar and the site went Down oh yeah and you’re you like on one Hand like typing please fix our site and They did while you were still doing Performing a live webinar they’re able To like turn off a tool a plug-in which Was like doing your scheduled Maintenance or updaters know that yeah So it’s like you essentially pay for Service like a real service and that’s Why it’s really expensive and together With the hosting on Google so Google Cloud service which are really quite Expensive to rent and you can check our Host Service like cloud ways for example Which doesn’t have the same level of Support but they allow you to host on a Google cloud it’s so much more expensive Than everything else which is probably What you pay for that however there’s a Few things that annoy me with skin style The first one is the number of PHP Walker’s you get for your site since The number of threat that the mission Can run at the same time so you need Quite a few of them if your site is Complicated basically and they don’t Give you a lot we actually realized that We didn’t have enough yesterday and the Storage space as well like you don’t get A lot of storage space we actually we Actually pay extra for storage space Because we have like large media
Libraries and so on and it’s a bit Annoying but actually it’s not really Their fault is Google really charging an Absolute ton for storage space on Google Cloud but if you’re gonna be on Google Cloud is gonna cost you a lot for Storage base because it’s kind of what’s Annoying it’s expensive but again it’s Kind of like it’s kind of like nitro Pack right it’s like a pudding set Together with nitro back yeah it’s Expensive Basically together it’s like quite a bit Of money but honestly I don’t focus on This at all I can focus on content Marketing links and that kind of stuff And actually moving the little I make The money that cost basically rather Than fight with the tech so that’s why I Quite like it and I have no regrets Without use digital soon no I would not However if I wanted to run something on The cheap on the high-performance Servers I would probably use something Like cloud weighs it doesn’t have the Same level of support as a skin stab It’s much cheaper so maybe you can start There and then when you are doing a lot Of money then you can switch to Something a bit more expensive like Kidstar the next one is crisp as crisp Adult chat is the URL and this was a Support tool which we use for maybe one To two years it was an absolute more
Deal which we picked up so I think we Got like a really cheap it might even Have been on like a lifetime offer Primarily it’s a live chat tool but Essentially it works you it gets Messages in from from anyway from email From Facebook and you can have multiple People sort of respond and it’s just Basically not a very good tool they Built like a really nice chat so you can Like take over people’s screen and like Help them out and all sorts of stuff so That part is great but the rest of it as Is the case with unfortunately many Tools which you find on on appSumo Not all of them but but many is it’s Just not very well executed and there Was just ridiculous things like You would if I went in and viewed not Reacted but like viewed a ticket that Came in I would I would open it and it would let Mark it as read and I move it to the Bottom of the pile so like it’s the next Support person on a different account Logging in would would wouldn’t see it Like near the top and just like little Things like that it was it was not a Good tool we looked around quite a lot At the other options and we migrated Over to help Scout which is it’s been an Absolute game changer for us in terms of Support used to take us you know days Together
To get back to respond to queries and Your loads would get lost and like all These kind of stuff is horrendous but if You if you’re a customer of authority Hacker and you email our support you’ll You will get an answer on average within About four hours during during business Business time business hours which is Which is pretty good for such small Companies such as us how ya help Scout Absolutely amazing really happy with all The data and analytics it gives you just It’s one of those things like the user Interface it’s just absolutely on point There’s really cool automations you can Build in there integrates really nicely With zapier and a bunch of other things And yeah just all in all if you’re if You have any kind of customer support to Do I would HIGHLY highly recommend it There was one other tool which is Begging support I forget what’s called Like support Zendesk yeah it’s much help Helps gets much cheaper than Zendesk so That’s why that’s why we chose it yeah I Think it’s good for liking for products If you’re like setting in for products Of course it’s something that I will say Well actually and no I would never use Crisp again okay do you wanna do peer Books yeah yeah so we used to use a Cloud accounting tool called clear books First of all if you’re not if you’re not Using any kind of cloud accounting if
You’re just sending your invoices to Your bookkeeper accounting once a Quarter or once a year then you’re Making a mistake you need to know your Numbers as a business if you don’t know Your numbers you don’t know you Business and there is nothing better Than a cloud accounting cloud Bookkeeping tool to do this clear books It’s a UK company so it’s very much UK Focused we used it for like maybe your Year and a half and we’re completely Sold on the concept of this however it Didn’t really integrate with some things There was some issues like PayPal Payoneer transferwise accounts came out And what at what I saw when transferwise Borderless accounts started integrating With other things the first integration They built was zero and that’s really Important because all of these other Tools revolutes another one the first Integration they usually build is zero Because it’s just the most popular one It seems so yeah that’s really the Reason we we switched over to using it Also shout-out to our bookkeepers be Ninjas calm I think most of their or all Their clients are on or around zero and I can see why it’s just globally such a Such an amazing tool it takes us takes Me probably five minutes a week to do Bookkeeping now with this tool with all The automations that have been ninja is
A built in there all the rules and stuff And yeah just complete game changer in Terms of visibility over how our Businesses are doing yeah and I’m gonna Do the last tool actually so actually You put MailChimp into this but we Didn’t really use MailChimp before that We used ontraport we use entre vote Before we use the active campaign so we Switch this is for email marketing which Is not outreach it’s email marketing and We switch because ontraport had pretty Bad deliverability and was extremely Complex and maybe even too complex for Us at the time so I think there was a Part of us not being really hold the Tool as well as much but I never looked Back since I switched to active campaign I teach campaign is my favorite email Tool I’ve using fusion soft I’ve used Pretty much everything and I think that You can face the best the automations That you can do now with Facebook ads And Facebook audiences and all that you Can a be test you can track conversions Visit etc I absolutely love it however When we signed up for it if campaign it Was pretty much on par with The it was pretty much on par with the Other tools on the market and what Happens is that they slowly increase Their prices and now it’s a pretty Expensive – it’s probably one of the Most expensive tools on the market
Our activecampaign deal if you only Compare it to our Senate deal it’s a lot Higher it’s like ten thousand dollars a Year yeah and I were about to upgrade to The next packages oh yeah yeah we’re Looking at like a small full-time salary At this point but at the same time it’s The only tool of all of this that we Actually pay for yearly yeah because Because it’s so expensive we save money Basically like usually we pay most of For most not not only that but like we We are very very limited committed to it We really like it and we see ourselves Staying with active campaign for a very Long time so we’re comfortable paying Yeah it makes us money like it works Well it makes this money the a/b testing Etc is just excellent the reports are Not the best of ways but that’s the one Thing that is a little bit weak however Yeah if I start a new site would they Use active campaign no I think it’s too Expensive especially if we all love Running just a basic I was running a Product based sites yes I would use Active campaign if I was like running Cell sequences and stuff like that if I’m just like a an affiliate I will be Using mailer light maila light is much Cheaper still has some automations still Has quite a few integrations as well as Cetera is really like half the price so Actually like I plan on like talking
More about email marketing and things Like age for Excel I will use mail light For the examples just because like Active campaign now is becoming almost Like a semi enterprise tool so I don’t Think most site builders need to invest This much money unless they’re running Heavy product based businesses if your Affiliate then I would say mail alight Is a is a better option so yeah we die We die but otherwise I’m yeah I love Active campaign I think it’s probably One of the best put together tools that We have that’s it for the list anything Else time yeah there’s one more as we Were doing this I thought I put an honor Mentioned in there for Yoast SEO yeah so Yoast SEO is a SEO plug-in helps you do A bunch of like on-page SEO stuff meta Descriptions all that kind of fun stuff We used to use it we switched away from It there was a huge there’s a number of Problems actually with it a while back I Can’t remember exactly what the issue Was though it was a like cause they they Indexed media pages so like pages and it Just created like thousands of pages on Your site and made your site looks too Pristine and other people lost their Rankings yeah so pretty catastrophic and I’ve also just saw today on Facebook Someone posting something about Something else they apparently just did Recently as well so it seems like that
Move was a was it was good yeah no Regrets we moved to SEO press I Severance is good but rag mass is also Really good and free for now so I would Say like we use this your press now but If I start a brand new site then that Would probably use rank method these Pointers because it does almost the same Thing not exactly it’s not as good I Still prefer a CEO press but for the Price I think big mass is better value So I it’s just like I don’t want to Change on existing sites at this point Any we have a lifetime license for a Surprise so that’s why but yeah if we Should stuffed and I’m gonna use a Ranked message so that’s basically for Those guys I hope you enjoyed it I hope That will make you consider your tool Swaps and you enjoyed this episode if You did don’t forget to like this video To subscribe below and you can also Subscribe to the audio podcast if you Want to listen to it and not be on YouTube it is going to be on Spotify on Google plot cast on Apple podcast and on Soundcloud and also a message earlier But you can search a Treehugger clips on Youtube and you will find the best Moments of the podcast if you don’t have Time to watch like I really don’t get Busy which is another place where you Can find this content so we hope you Enjoyed it we will see you next week
Have a good week be safe and Cerreta [Music]