The past six months have been a fantastic experience. One of the most significant parts is all the new learning experiences. I am talking about a flood of tools. I wanted to share some of these resources for anyone looking to start a new adventure or who loves excellent tools (or hacks).
Lucidpress – lucidpress.com
Lucidpress has been a marketing lifesaver. They advertise themselves as a platform that supports content when you need it, how you want it. Suppose you need on-brand, personalized content that gets results. Lucidpress’s brand templating solution empowers everyone to do just that, all through lockable brand templates.
Pexels – pexels.com
The best free stock photos, royalty-free images & videos shared by creators. That is right, FREE! Great content and you can tip creators.
Zenbusiness – zenbusiness.com/
They advertise that they are fast & Simple Business Formation, Guaranteed. It is true. Get the worry-free services and expert support you need to get filed quickly and accurately — guaranteed! I had my LLC and DBA in a day.
Small PDF – https://smallpdf.com/
Small PDF saves me hours!! Made in Switzerland in 2013, with a single tool to compress PDFs, Smallpdf provides a simple, secure, and reliable answer to the world’s PDF challenges with over 20 PDF tools—for work, home, and life. I appreciate the pdf to jpeg feature. Instead of emailing a pdf via email, I convert it to jpeg, text, and done!
HiHello – https://www.hihello.me/
HiHello is a free digital business card and contact manager app designed to help you grow your network. Check me out; https://hihello.me/p/61eb1398-4a5e-4152-9e08-c7e7b0e06ffa
Free Online OCR – https://www.onlineocr.net/
Free Online OCR is a fantastic tool to turn a pdf into text. I use the text option quite often.
Veed – veed.io/
Upload a video, and it will insert a closed caption. Great for adding text to videos. Careful, don’t forget to go back and edit.
ScreenshooterScreenshot – Full Page Screen Capture -Chrome Extension
Full page screenshot captures visible tab content, save screenshots in PDF, PNG or copy to the clipboard.
Calendly – calendly.com
Need to schedule a meeting? Visit- https://calendly.com/jalstadt Calendly is your hub for scheduling meetings professionally and efficiently, eliminating the hassle of back-and-forth emails so you can get back to work.
Getting Started
Contact me to see if you qualify
I work with a low volume, high intensity client base.
Tools to avoid
Titan Email – Email add-on with WordPress. It reminded me of Hotmail…you remember! Horrible, twenty years to catch up with other email platforms.
Animaker – animaker.com/
Download times are painful. They are working on it. Until this is fixed, work with another platform. Too bad because it is web-based, and you can add contributors to make quick edits.
WordPress – wordpress.com
You better have a website and coding background if you will use WordPress the platform. I spent many hours reading articles and researching plugins. New to building websites? Stick with Weebly.
ClickFunnel Courses & Pay Client Leads – clickfunnels.com /
Marketing plans are grassroots. It is like riding a bike. Start small and scale from what is successful. Careful with emailing previous colleagues. There is a fine line between wanting to help and turning into spam.
Old Professional Network Organizations
My old professional networks were surprisingly unsupportive. One of my favorite organizations went as far as to become condescending and rude. After stepping out and back, I saw the organization was not doing the work they claimed. No more games and kiss the ring culture for me!
Networking Events
Skip them for now. Most people are pushing services and products. You know someone who runs their own business or side hustle. Reach out to them. Good luck!