Tech overwhelm comes quickly when you don't actually know what you really need for your business to operate smoothly. To help, I'm going to walk you through the five essential tools you need in your online business.
The first tool you need in your online business is your website. You need a home base, a place online where you can point people to when they express interest in your products or services. So for example, my home base is Briandixon.com. That is my website. You can build your website on a lot of platforms. For example: WordPress, Squarespace, or Kajabi - but you can't get around the fact that you need one, so make it a priority.
Tip: Make your first and last name your domain name, it's the easiest way to let people know where to go!
How do you send follow-up messages to people that want to hear from you? How do you create sequences to nurture people who do business with you? How do you offer something for them to download in order to get on your email list? You use an email marketing platform.
Tip: Some of the most popular and user-friendly email platforms are ConvertKit, Kajabi, and MailChimp.
Imagine this with me: Somebody goes to your website and they decide to download your free lead magnet. They're now on your email list, and in an email you tell them about a new course you are launching or about your coaching services. They want to hire you, so they need a way to pay you. They need a way to be able to go through a checkout process and send money through PayPal or fill out a credit card form. You need a checkout process in order to accept payments for your products/services.
Many people use their website as a landing page, but I highly recommend that you see landing pages as different from your website.
So what's the difference?
Your website might include your blog, contact page, and your company information - but landing pages are much more specific. Landing pages are specific pages that people are led to when they click on an ad or click on the link you include in a social media post or the podcast notes.
The landing page typically has one goal: Get an opt-in or a sale.
A landing page would include your sales pages for your courses, your opt-in pages for your lead magnets, and your webinar registration pages for your webinar. People should have direct access to your products and check out process here!
The funnel builder brings the first four tools I told you about together. It starts with the landing page, then leads to a thank you page, then an upsell and downsell, and then then the checkout page. It helps you build the whole process out to make sure you're not missing anything.
If that sounds like a lot, I have some good news for you: if you have a good funnel builder, you usually won't need to worry about the first four, because they'll be included in it. The funnel building tool I recommend is Kajabi. It includes everything I've mentioned in this post: your website, your email program (it even helps you set up follow-up sequences, nurture sequences, and automations), your check-out process (and payment integration), and includes all your landing pages as well.
So here's the gist of it: you could get five different tools and learn to work them all, or you could use a tool like Kajabi that will include all of them in one tool. I use Kajabi, and I love it.
I know you will too!
Those are the five essential tools you need in your online business. If there's anything that I can do to support you, go ahead and check out briandixon.com or send me a message on Instagram (@brianjdixon). I would love to hear from you and support you to help you grow your impact and your income online.
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