Girl Means Business
Welcome to the Girl Means Business podcast, the ultimate destination for creative female entrepreneurs looking to elevate their small businesses to new heights! Join your host Kendra Swalls, a former teacher turned photographer and marketing expert, as she, and her guests, share invaluable insights and actionable strategies every week.
Whether you're just starting out or already on your entrepreneurial journey, this podcast is your go-to resource for inspiration, guidance, and practical tips. Kendra's laid-back and fun approach will make you feel like you're chatting with a close friend over a cup of coffee (or wine...no judgment here).
Get ready to dive into engaging conversations with successful female entrepreneurs, industry experts, and thought leaders who have mastered the art of building and growing businesses. They'll share their stories, triumphs, challenges, and insider secrets, giving you the tools you need to navigate your own entrepreneurial path.
From marketing hacks and social media strategies to productivity tips and personal development, the Girl Means Business podcast covers it all. Each episode is packed with actionable takeaways that you can implement right away, helping you level up your business game while having a blast along the way.
Join the growing community of fierce and fabulous female entrepreneurs who are taking the business world by storm. Tune in to the Girl Means Business podcast every week, and together, let's turn your dreams into reality!
Girl Means Business
How Much Does It Cost To Run a Business: My Must-Have Tools
Send Me A Message or Question About This Episode
Feeling overwhelmed by the multitude of tools required to launch your business? You're not alone! Join me, Kendra Swalls, as I recount my entrepreneurial journey and unveil the essential tools that have been game-changers in maintaining professionalism and staying organized. Ready to turbocharge your business growth? Let’s explore some invaluable tools that have propelled my business forward.
Check out the tool mentioned in this episode:
Google Business >> https://workspace.google.com/products/gmail/
Honeybook >> bit.ly/gmbhoneybook
Flodesk >> https://flodesk.com/c/DSQU1V
Quickbooks >> https://quickbooks.intuit.com/
Metricool >> https://mtr.cool/IYWDZM
Showit >> https://account.showit.co/r/w3wm31yf
BlueHost >> https://www.bluehost.com/
Canva >> partner.canva.com/rnMyvd
Loom >> https://www.loom.com/
Zoom >> https://zoom.us/
Asana >> https://asana.grsm.io/nmuwxurt10ug
Slack >> https://slack.com/
TRY FLODESK
Save 50% OFF you first year when you sign up using this link ⬇️
https://flodesk.com/c/5WCB4U
_______________________________________
Ask Me Anything: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1R0DmOLEQ8xjWf98Xcf7K9YBhhaXRiIkuoOTqirVHlRk/prefill
_______________________________________
Let's Work Together:
The Focused Photographer Lab (marketing membership): www.girlmeansbusiness.com/lab
1:1 Coaching Sessions: www.girlmeansbusiness.com/contact
_______________________________________
Free Resources:
Email Marketing Starter Kit - www.girlmeansbusiness.com/emailkit
Know Your Niche Workbook- https://spring-feather-348.myflodesk.com/
_______________________________________
Let's Be Friends:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/girlmeansbusiness
Facebook: www.facebook.com/girlmeansbusiness
Hey there, and welcome to the Girl Means Business podcast, the show where we're all about helping you feel confident, both as a mom and a business owner. I'm your host, kendra Swalls, mom of two, former teacher and full-time photographer and business coach. Each week, we'll discuss the challenges, success and secrets that make you say I can do this, because you absolutely can. So pop in those earbuds, grab your favorite snack and let's dive in, because this girl means business. Hey guys, and welcome back to the Girl Means Business podcast. Now, starting a business can be intimidating, but when you factor in all the things that you actually have to pay for in order to run a business, it can feel even more overwhelming, especially if you're not actually making money. In the beginning of your business and that's exactly how it was for me. When I started my business, I had no idea, one, what I was doing and, two, what things actually cost my business, but also what I needed in order for my business to run successfully, to run smoothly and to function properly. And as a solopreneur, I didn't have a team of people telling me you need this or you need that, or this is how much things cost. So today I want to break that down for you. I want to show you exactly what tools I'm using in my business, how much things cost. So today I want to break that down for you. I want to show you exactly what tools I'm using in my business, how much they cost, so that you can have an idea of what you need for your business. Now I realize that every business is unique. Every industry is unique, so some of the tools that you're going to need for your specific industry or business are going to be extra on top of what we talked about today. For example, if you are a photographer, obviously you're going to need editing tools such as Lightroom or Photoshop, or you might need presets. Those are not included in the things we're going to be talking about today. Today, I just want to cover the basic tools that you need in order to get your business off the ground and running.
Speaker 1:So let's start with some of the most simple things my two things that I always suggest, that I think, if you were to have nothing else in your business, these two things would be the most important. The first one is a Google business account. Google business account does a couple of things for you. One it allows you to have an email address using your own domain. So instead of Kendra Swalls at gmailcom, I can have Kendra at girlmeansbusinesscom, so it looks a little more professional. It's tied to your actual domain, your website, as opposed to just Gmail. That is going to help you to look a little more professional to your clients, but it's also going to help you to feel like you have this dedicated email account that is for your business. On top of that, your Google Suite, your Google Business account, allows you to have things like Google Docs, google Sheets and Google Drive, which is a great place to store some of your things inside your business that you want to have access to or you'd like to share with your clients. I use this often for my coaching clients to share recaps of our calls or to share notes or give feedback back and forth. It's a really great tool to help not only organize your items within your business, but also to help you share content with your clients or other team members you might have. In order to have a Google business account, you are going to have to pay about $12 a month, so Google and Gmail itself are free, but if you want to have access to the business tools, then you're going to need to pay the $12 a month, which really is not a huge expense in the big scheme of things.
Speaker 1:Now, the next thing that I highly suggest you have is a client management system. For me, my go-to client management system is HoneyBook. I cannot do my business without HoneyBook. It is my co-pilot, it is my team member, it is all the things, and I absolutely love it. I have used HoneyBook since about 2014, 2015, and they've added so many features to their system that it's just like everything you need in one place. You wouldn't have to go out and have 12 different programs. It's all built into HoneyBook. There are plenty of other client management programs out there similar to HoneyBook, like DevSado, 17 Hats. They all have very similar features, but I want to tell you why I personally love HoneyBook.
Speaker 1:So for HoneyBook, I can do everything within there that I need for my clients. I can create client projects and within those client projects, I can have contracts, questionnaires, invoices, I can send out proposals, I can communicate with the client and have everything in one place. If I do have other contract employees for example, on several of my photo shoots, I do hire a hair and makeup artist I can include that hair and makeup artist on that project and they can see the notes that I've taken or that I've sent for them. They can see the questionnaire that I want them to have access to so they know what the client wants when it comes to their hair and their makeup look. There's tons of things I can do within that client project.
Speaker 1:They also have a calendar booking system. They have tons of places for templates, so you don't have to recreate all of your content every time. Your email templates are saved there. Your contract templates are saved there. Your proposal templates are saved. Everything is saved within there. They've also added some really cool features where you can group all of your things into one proposal, one document. So, instead of sending a client questionnaire and then sending a link to an invoice, then sending a link to a contract, it's all in one file and they have these beautiful templates that make it look really, really professional. On top of that, they also have tons of ways to track your money, track your time, work with other team members. It's just everything you need in one place and, like I said, I know that Dubsado and 17 Hats these other programs will do the same things.
Speaker 1:I just personally have been incredibly impressed with HoneyBook. I am part of the HoneyBook educator team, so I get access to a lot of the information behind the scenes of what they have coming up, what they're working on. They work really well with creators to help, to provide you with resources and tools and a community space to help you grow your business and support your business, and for that reason, I absolutely love them. Of course, everything I talk about today I'm going to have a link down in the show notes, so if you want to check it out, you can and I do have a 30% off link with HoneyBook so you can try it for your first year for 30% off. It is an affiliate link, just for clarification purposes. But I highly suggest that the two things you need to start your business would be a Google business account and then absolutely have some kind of client management system, whether it's HoneyBook or something else.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk about cost. So HoneyBook, like I mentioned, you can get 30% off your first year, but on average, HoneyBook is going to run you about $32 to maybe $35 a month, depending on if you do monthly or a yearly payment plan. So so far, you have Google business account, which is $12 a month, and then your client management system. We're going to say averages around $35 a month. Obviously, some are going to be higher, some are going to be maybe a little bit lower, depending on all the features that they have available.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk a little bit about some of the tools that I would say are necessary, but are things you can kind of add in as your business grows and evolves. So the first one I would suggest is QuickBooks. So I know that I mentioned HoneyBook has the built-in kind of financial tools, but they will also link to a QuickBooks account because QuickBooks is just more robust. It has a little more of the bells and whistles you might need and I know that personally, my accountant prefers when I use QuickBooks versus the HoneyBook accounting. The nice thing is they communicate with each other. So when I send an invoice in HoneyBook it is tracked right into my QuickBooks account. But QuickBooks makes it super easy to organize everything for taxes. I can send them off to my accountant and he takes care of them every single year. Now the cost of QuickBooks you're looking at around $17 a month. But again, for the peace of mind of knowing that your finances are taken care of, I feel like QuickBooks is a no-brainer.
Speaker 1:Up next is email marketing. Now, email marketing. You've heard me talk about it. I absolutely live by the idea that email marketing is a must for any business owner. However, I understand that it's not something people necessarily start off with immediately when they start their business, so it could be something you add into your business later on.
Speaker 1:My personal email platform of choice is Flowdesk for multiple reasons, but one of the main reasons I love it is that you pay one flat fee per month, no matter how many subscribers you have, whereas with you go with MailChimp or ConvertKit, they're going to charge you based on how many subscribers you had. And I fell into this trap when I was using email marketing platforms before, because I would sign up for MailChimp and it would be free for the first, however many subscribers I had. But then I was always hesitant to grow my list because I didn't wanna start paying for the next level up. Once I grew my list to enough of a size, I moved it over to ConvertKit, and then I ended up paying close to $100 a month because my list kept growing, which was a great thing, but it was not such a great thing for my pocketbook, because I was then paying more to have these subscribers on my list.
Speaker 1:With Flowdesk, you pay one fee, no matter what your subscriber list size is, which is fabulous. They also have the option to add on checkouts. So checkouts allows you to actually sell digital products or services through your Flowdesk account and connect it to your Stripe account and make money off of it. That is a little bit of an additional fee, but again, it's a one-time monthly fee. There are no price changes based on how many items you sell or things like that. So on average, your Flowdesk account is going to run you about $34 a month, and then a little bit more if you add on the checkout feature from there.
Speaker 1:Okay, up next is social media planning. This is absolutely not a you need to have in your business. It's a nice to have in your business, but if you are someone who is utilizing social media to grow your business, it is super beneficial to plan out your content in advance, have it scheduled so that you're not having to be on the platforms every single day creating content, sharing content, all the things. So I've used several different social media planners in the past. I've used. Later I've used Hootsuite. My favorite to date is Metricool. So Metricool a couple of the reasons that I like it so much. One it is an approved scheduling platform, so you're not going to get punished for using it on Instagram or Facebook or any of those places. So you're not going to get punished for using it on Instagram or Facebook or any of those places.
Speaker 1:But you can publish across multiple platforms. So you can publish to Facebook, instagram, pinterest, linkedin, all the things. And what's nice about it is that you can customize the content for each platform. So I can go in and create a post and create all the core content the caption, the image, whatever the hashtags. But then I can go in and I can customize it for Facebook. If I know that I have a direct link I want people to click on, I can add that link into the Facebook post and when it goes live on Facebook, it will have that link, but it won't have it on Instagram, where the link's not clickable. So, instead of having these posts that look like they were meant for a different platform, you can personalize it. You can also schedule the post per platform based on the best time for that platform. So if I know that afternoons are better for Facebook but mornings are better for Instagram, I can have that same post go out at different times without having to create a whole new post within the platform.
Speaker 1:Metricool also has tons of great analytics so you can see how your platforms are doing, how your content's performing, and adjust accordingly. There's a lot more sort of bells and whistles they have, but those are the basic things. So if you are at a point where you're like I need to start scheduling my content on social media, adding in a scheduler like Metricool could be really incredibly helpful for your business. Metricool is going to run you about $18 a month if you are planning to post a lot of content. Now here's the cool part If you only post like one item a day on your platforms, then you can actually use their free plan and probably get by with just that for a while. If you start posting to a lot of different platforms, a lot of different content, you're going to start paying the monthly fee, but again, it's $18 a month. It's not a huge investment to have the peace of mind of knowing that you can schedule out your content and it's going to be going out to the world without you having to worry about it every single day.
Speaker 1:Speaking of social media, you're probably going to want to have some tool that's going to help you create some really gorgeous graphics for your social media account. Obviously, if you are a videographer or a photographer, then you're going to have your images, but it's also nice to go into Canva, maybe add a little bit of text on top of them or create some kind of branded graphic that you include in your schedule of content. Or if you are just another creative or business owner, canva is your go-to tool for so many things. I use Canva on pretty much a daily basis and it has been a lifesaver. I actually don't know what I did in my business before Canva. I probably did a lot of yelling at my computer and my Photoshop account for not doing what I wanted it to do, but Canva has solved all that problems for us by making designing graphics super, super easy.
Speaker 1:Now this is one place where I typically say free accounts will get you as far as you can. You know we will get you pretty far in your business, which is great, but Canva is one of the places where I think, if you can swing the $12 a month for the pro account, it is 1 million percent worth the $12 a month, and here's why there are so many aspects of that, the Canva platform, that they want you to pay for that are pro. There's templates, there's images, there's graphics, there's video clips, there's audio things. There's all these pieces of it. Instead of having to pick and choose based on the free versus pro, because you're worried that you're not going to be able to use the pro without the little Canva you know watermark on it Just pay the $12 a month, have the Canva Pro and be able to have access to everything on their platform. I can't tell you how many times I have gone to design something and realized that every aspect of my design is a Canva Pro design and it's a design that's going to help me make money in my business, because it's helping me to create a website that looks more appealing, or to put something on social media that's going to draw more clients in, or it's going to sell a new product or service that I have. So that $12 a month pays for itself over and over and over again, because I'm using it to create content that sells my products and my services to my clients.
Speaker 1:Up next, let's talk about websites. Now you're probably wondering why I didn't put websites at the very beginning with the things that I think every business owner should start with. That's because there are a lot of ways to design a website for free, and so when you're starting out, I don't see any problem with creating just a free website to get your information out there. But once your business starts growing, once you start taking it a little more seriously, you start adding in all these other things. You really want to have a robust website platform that is going to give you all the bells and whistles that you need to make your website really, really stand out, but also to ensure you have all those SEO features.
Speaker 1:Now there's tons of website platforms out there. Again, I'm sharing with you the ones that I personally love today, and that is ShowIt. I have gone through, I think, three or four different website platforms over the years, and once I landed on ShowIt, I was like, oh, this is where I should have been the whole time. Not only do they have great templates there are so many people who design on ShowIt that can help you create templates or design your website for you, or you can purchase templates and do it yourself but they really ensure that your website is going to be the most SEO friendly possible. Obviously, you can have your WordPress blog on there, which is super friendly with SEO. There's lots of ways you can customize your blog to make sure that you're getting noticed on Google searches, but it's just a really intuitive website platform that is built for creatives, which is really nice because they have us in mind and they know that we're not web designers, so they make it super easy to design your website.
Speaker 1:One of the things I really liked when I started designing my show at website was that I could literally just drag and drop things onto my site and I could put them wherever I wanted. There weren't parameters of like oh it has to go within this box or it has to stay within this you know section. I can move my items around. I can decide that this graphic looks better if it's overlapping these two things. I can move them in front or behind of other things, I can change up where my text is. It's completely, completely customizable to whatever I want it to look like, which is so, so nice, because a lot of the other platforms kind of put you into this box of like this has to go here and there's. You're limited on the ways you can make your website look the way that you want it to, and, as someone who is very visually driven, I want my website to look a very specific way, and so show it allowed me to do that.
Speaker 1:Now, the cost of show it you're going to run about $24 a month on average. They have different plans, so I kind of priced it at the middle tier, and again, that's if you're paying yearly versus per month. It might be a little bit higher if you're paying like a month to month fee. I think closer to like $45 is what I pay, because I have my blog set up in a way that it's not WordPress is kind of wonky, but I'm not going to get into all of that but basically I'm set up in a way that I have more control over my WordPress blog, whereas if I was paying $24 a month which I was for a while I was kind of just in sort of the here's what you have work with them, what you have of WordPress, so you can decide how you want it. They will customize a package for you If you don't have, if you don't see what you need on their website, which is really great as well. Their customer service is impeccable and, of course, you're also going to need to have a hosting company, which is where your domain is hosted. So I use Bluehost. In the past, I've used a company called A Small Orange. They were great as well. On average, you're paying about $15 a month to have your website hosted, which just basically means that that is where your domain lives. So your domain of girlmeansbusinesscom or yourbusinesscom has to be hosted somewhere. That's how that works, to the best of my knowledge. I am not by all like tech savvy, so that's how my understanding of it works.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk a little bit about video. We all know that video is key these days when it comes to connecting with our audience, whether it's YouTube videos or creating shorts on Instagram or YouTube or Facebook or TikTok, or even putting video content onto our websites or our sales pages. People want video. So how do we create these videos? Well, I have two tools that I feel like are incredibly helpful in our businesses. The first one is one we all know and either love or hate, and that is Zoom. Zoom is an incredible video tool that we use to video chat, but you can also use it to record screen recordings or to record yourself teaching something or doing webinars, trainings, things like that, within your business and for the most part, you can use Zoom for completely free. However, if you decide you're going to host trainings and you need to have longer recording times, I think they're up to 40 minutes on the free plan. If you need more than 40 minutes of recording time, then you can upgrade and the cost for that is around $12 to $13 a month, so not a huge investment if you are planning to host a lot of live trainings or trainings where you're going to need to record something for a lot longer.
Speaker 1:The other tool that I use and absolutely love is Loom. So Loom is a screen recording program built into your computer. So it is. You download it onto your computer, you sign into it online. It hosts all your videos there, but then you can just click a little button and start recording your screen. I use this all the time for my clients inside of the Focus Photographer Lab when we're doing coaching sessions. If I say something like, hey, I'm going to show you how to do X, y or Z, once we get off the call I will go and record a video for them of my screen showing them how I edit a photo, or showing them how I set up this thing in HoneyBook or showing them how I scheduled my post in Metricool, and then they can go back and they can watch it, and they can download it or save it or whatever, and then we can talk about it later on. Loom is such a cool tool, but again, it's one of those ones like Zoom, where it is free, but when you, when you're on the free plan, you only can record five minutes at a time and you can only have 25 videos in your library. So if you plan to use Zoom or to use Loom a lot to record videos for clients or for your own SOPs within your business, then you're probably going to want to upgrade and the cost per month is about $12.50 per month, so not a huge expense, but it's definitely worth it if you do a lot of screen recording or video conferencing or wanting to share content video wise within your business.
Speaker 1:Okay, last but not least, let's talk about some kind of team tools or project management tools that could be really helpful. These are not going to be tools that everybody needs to use, but they are some that I personally like to use and use often. The first one is Asana. So Asana is similar to Trello or ClickUp, depending on you kind of have these teams. You have Team ClickUp, team Asana, team Trello. I'm personally Team Asana. It is the first kind of project management tool I use and now that I'm comfortable with it, it's just the one I like to use the best. So within Asana you can create different projects and different boards. So I'll tell you a little quickly how I use it for my podcast.
Speaker 1:So for the podcast I have, each year has its own project within Asana and then it's broken down by month. So January through December. They're each a column and under each column I have the episodes for that month on like little cards. So imagine like a bulletin board and you've got like your headers and you're pinning these little things underneath it. It's similar to that and then within each card I have that episode's title, description, links, graphics, audio information about who I'm interviewing or what the topic is. Anything I would need for that episode is saved within that card.
Speaker 1:I do the same thing for my coaching clients I have all their information within there. Or my done for you email marketing clients. I have all their information within their cards so that if I need to go back and look at, okay, who is their ideal client or what's their login information for this platform I need to access. It's all right there and it's super easy to access. Now, this is a little bit different than like HoneyBook, because this is more just for myself or if I have team members to access that content within my own company not necessarily client facing. So Asana is completely free to use.
Speaker 1:There obviously are paid options as well, but I use the free version and it works beautifully for my business. The only reason I would maybe upgrade to the paid version is if I wanted the capability to include forms. They do have the option to share links to forms for people to fill out, and then their answers on those forms are populated back into your project as parts of your project. So that is helpful if you need that information and you don't want to have to manually input it or have someone else manually input it. However, I don't really need that in my business right now. I use HoneyBook for that, and so I just use the free version. Now I use HoneyBook for that, and so I just use the free version.
Speaker 1:Last but not least is a tool that I didn't think I was actually going to like, but now that I've been using it for a couple different reasons I actually really love it, and that is Slack, and I know a lot of people. If you work in a corporate office where you have Google Teams or Slack a lot, you may be rolling your eyes going why I hate it. But for the aspect of being able to communicate with a team or other people within a group, it is incredibly helpful. I love that you can use it for audio. You can send video clips, you can send links, you can send texts, you can send images all the things. You can have different groupings. I'm currently using Slack for a coaching program that I am actually a part of. I'm a client of with our high level coaching program, which has been amazing. I love that. I can video or voice message with my coach and we can respond when we're available to respond.
Speaker 1:And I've used it for teams. I've used it when I've had a couple of contract team members and we've been working on a project together. We can all go into Slack, we can have our information, we can share, we can kind of chit, chat and talk, but it's kind of on your own terms. It's not like hopping on a Zoom call where we all have to be available at 10 am. We can get to it when we have time and we can respond to each other when we have our availability. Now Slack is $15 a month. If you are using it as a member of somebody else's Slack channel, I believe it's free. But if you were starting a Slack channel for your business, it's going to be around $15 a month. And again, this is a tool that I really don't use a whole lot in my own business because I don't have a huge team that I need to communicate with. But if you do have team members or if you have a lot of contractors that you need to stay in touch with on a certain project, then it would be a great tool for that. So use that kind of at your own discretion.
Speaker 1:So if I were to go through and look at all the tools that we've talked about today that I use in my business, my average monthly expenses for those tools that I use is around $220 a month. So that gives you a pretty idea of like when you are planning out your cost of doing business. Now, obviously, that doesn't account for a lot of other things I do in my business that cost money, but just those programs alone are around $220. So if I'm planning out how much to price my services at, that number is going to be a part of that, because I need to know that I need to make at least $220 a month just to like barely break even. So I'm going to need to charge more in order to not only break even but to actually profit in my business. So knowing those numbers, knowing what tools you actually need for your business, how much they cost, and then what your total monthly expenses are, can have a huge impact on knowing what you need to price your products and services at, which I know is something a lot of people really struggle with when they're starting out is what should I price out my products and services on? This right here is going to be a starting point for you to know. This is how much it cost me to run my business. So I need to be charging at least that amount, if not more, preferably more, in order to make a profit. All right, guys, that is going to do it for today's episode.
Speaker 1:As I mentioned earlier, all of the platforms, the programs that I talked about in this episode, are going to be linked down in the show notes. Some of them are affiliate links, but some of them are not. This is just me sharing you literally these are the things I'm using in my business. This is not me just pitching you platforms or things that I earn affiliate commission on. They are the things that run my business. So if you have any questions about these platforms, how to use them or want to go more into depth of them, please let me know. I'd be happy to send you a loom video walking you through how I use any particular platform. I will also be sharing some of those walkthroughs over on my YouTube channel so you can grab that link down the show notes as well and go check that out.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for being here this week. I hope you have an amazing week and I will see you back here next week. Same time, same place. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to take a screenshot, share it to social media and don't forget to tag. Girl means business and, as always, we greatly appreciate any reviews you leave for this podcast. Thank you so much for being here and we'll see you next week.
