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elcome to Talking Shop Wrap and Review!
In case you are new here, this is a monthly series where I will briefly delve into our latest Talking Shop show and the points that were especially smart, surprising, and useful (there are always so many).
If you are new to my little corner of the web or new to Talking Shop let me give you the lowdown: Talking Shop is a podcast now in its 5th year. It is hosted by Theresa Reed aka The Tarot Lady and moi. You can access every episode right here for free, and yes, you are welcome.Last week on Talking Shop we had the pleasure of chatting with two super fabulous guys, Forest Linden and Chris Bleill of Clarity Lab.
Now last month on Talking Shop we started our tech theme by exploring the ins and outs of SEO. This month we decided to broaden out a bit and talk to these two gentlemen about some of their favorite tech tools and tech rules. Theresa and I are both big fans of Forest and Chris – among the many things they do is review and vet various platforms and software choices (there are so many!) so that us busy entrepreneurs don’t have to sort through everything ourselves.
We knew that these were the guys to cover our A-Z tech needs.
Forest and Chris led out the gate with two really strong observations: the first, from Forest, is that technology is really a language. Viewing technology as a language allows us to do some pretty common sense things: for instance, we can choose the best way to learn the language for us. Some people like to hire a language teacher and learn step by step. Others (like me) function best with a full immersion experience (I learned about technology by building from hand my first website).The second point (made by Chris) is that technology does not equal perfection. As he put it, “this stuff breaks all of the time”. When working with technology – whether it is hardware or software, it is essential to understand (and schedule in) downtime when you, or someone on your team, is learning why – and fixing – the stuff that isn’t working the way it should. In my experience this is really essential to understand, technology can save us time and make things easier in the long run, but there is a learning curve with technology just like anything else and patience does pay off.
Finally, both Chris and Forest went through the big categories that we need to be aware of as we are setting up our online businesses. And while Talking Shop focuses on sacred arts businesses, this information is golden for any online business. Are you ready? Here is the information, straight from the guys themselves:
Category: Website – how and where to create your website.
- WordPress: https://wordpress.org/
- We like (and use) Elegant Themes for design themes: www.elegantthemes.com or our link http://tools.claritylab.co/elgantthemes
Category: Hosting – your hosting company is the home your website lives in, there are many and these were some of the faves.
- Bluehost: www.bluehost.com or our link http://tools.claritylab.co/getbluehost
- WP-Engine: www.wpengine.com or our link: http://tools.claritylab.co/wpengine
I am adding in a third option here…I love, love, love, having Nathan Briggs handle all of my hosting needs – he also totally protects my site from ne’er do wells! - Detailed Review of Bluehost: http://claritylab.co/bluehost-review-best-webhost/
Category: Email Marketing – Email marketing services allow you to create and send out newsletters to your fan base.
- Mailchimp: www.mailchimp.com
- Active Campaign: www.activecampaign.com
- ConvertKit: www.convertkit.com or our link: http://tools.claritylab.co/convertkit
Category: All In One Marketing Apps / Membership – These are robust applications for those of you who teach classes or have membership required access areas or programs.
- Rainmaker: www.rainmakerplatform.com or our link http://tools.claritylab.co/rainmaker
- Detailed Review of Rainmaker: http://claritylab.co/the-ultimate-review-of-the-rainmaker-platform/
- Kajabi: www.kajabi.com or our link: http://tools.claritylab.co/kajabi — Detailed review coming soon!
- We also like Ontraport: www.ontraport.com or our link http://tools.claritylab.co/ontraport
Category: E-Commerce Platforms – E-commerce is a fancy way of saying “how you send and receive money, online” and also how and where you can sell you stuff, whatever that happens to be.
- Shopify: www.shopify.com or our link http://tools.claritylab.co/shopify
- Detailed review of Shopify: http://claritylab.co/ultimate-shopify-review/
- BigCommerce: www.bigcommerce.com or our link http://tools.claritylab.co/big-commerce
- Detailed review or BigCommerce http://claritylab.co/ultimate-bigcommerce-review/
- Comparison between Shopify and BigCommerce: http://claritylab.co/shopify-vs-bigcommerce/
Category: Customer Support – this was new to me but I think it is brilliant, even small businesses can benefit from a dedicated customer support application.
- HelpScout: www.helpscout.com or our link http://tools.claritylab.co/help-scout
BIG, HUGE, thanks to Forest and Chris for sharing their tech smarts with us! Next month we will take a break from the tech heavy stuff and chat with the one and only Danielle Cohen who will teach us about Creative Photography for Your Business! Yay!