MEET THE ZERO TO SCALE HOSTS
JUSTIN MCGILL
Justin McGill got his start in entrepreneurship in 2008 when he
launched a digital marketing agency (Upswing Interactive) that
grew to 7 figures. He is the author of Self Made Marketer, a
roadmap for others who want to grow an agency themselves.
He now serves as an advisor to the agency he founded, while he
grows LeadFuze (a productized b2b lead generation service) and
Workado (a SaaS platform for marketing agencies to manage
their client’s campaigns).
You can find him blogging about startups and entrepreneurship
on his personal blog.
GREG HICKMAN
Greg Hickman is the CEO and Founder of System.ly, a done-for-you
sales funnel and marketing automation service for entrepreneurs
and small businesses.
He's a blogger, podcasters, speaker and his work has been
featured on Copyblogger, Social Media Examiner, Business.com,
Target Marketing Magazine and more.
He is the co-host of the Zero To Scale podcast and blogs about
entrepreneurship and building businesses on his blog. You can
find him on twitter @gjhickman.
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TOOLS WE USE TO SCALE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
JUSTIN MCGILL
FAVORITE TOOLS
4
OTHER TOOLS I RELY ON
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GREG HICKMAN
FAVORITE TOOLS
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OTHER TOOLS I RELY ON
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JUSTIN’S TOOLS
TOOLS I USE DAILY:
LEADFUZE
We use our own product. Not only do we use the tool to
build lists for our customers, but our sales team also uses
the tool to build their lists.
SLACK
This is how our whole team communicates. Given that we
are a remote team, communication is paramount. With all
of the integrations to different tools we use, it just makes
this a must have tool in our arsenal.
GOOGLE APPS
Our business 100% relies on Google Apps. I have about
10 different email addresses and ALL of them feed one
account. I don’t have to spend any time jumping between
accounts. My agency uses Office365, but I still have that
email feed into Gmail. So many handy features (like Canned
Responses) to go along with all the integrations just make
this a no brainer for any entrepreneur.
ASANA
This is what I use for daily task management. The keyboard
shortcut of Tab+Q to quickly create a task really helps. I
usually have this tab as the first one in my browser and all
my tasks are sorted by due date. Any time I have a task to
do, I add it here. Even if the task is something I might not
get to until next month.
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RESCUE TIME
This runs in the background and automatically logs all of
the tools you use and websites you visit. This gives you an
idea of how productive you are being. I will typically review
this over the weekend to see how the week went.
DRIP
All of our marketing automation runs through Drip. We
have sequences setup for our done-for-you customers,
we have campaigns for different blog posts and content
upgrades that we’ve created, and also use it to send oneoff blasts similar to a Mailchimp. It combines the simplicity
of MailChimp with the power of Infusionsoft.
GITHUB
This is where are code base is stored. We have it setup to
feed a Slack channel as well. Pretty much gold standard
when it comes to housing your codebase.
ZENHUB
This sits on top of Github and has a very “Trello” like
interface. It plays perfectly with Github, syncs to our Slack
channel, and allows us to organize our development sprints.
Not only are we using it for development purposes, but our
agile marketing approach relies on Zenhub as well. So this
tool is at the heart of both our development and marketing
work.
STRIPE
All of our payments process through Stripe. Getting setup
is just so simple, no paperwork to sign. You just connect to
a bank account and get going!
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TRELLO
Our operations team is fully setup in Trello. Our Customer
Success Manager assigns workflows and tasks in Trello
and the team moves them to different statuses as they are
working.
INTERCOM
Our team uses Intercom to communicate directly with
customers inside the app, to trigger specific messages
based on how the app is being used (or not used), and to
handle support tickets.
UNROLL.ME
Awesome free tool that helps declutter your inbox by
rounding up all of your email newsletter subscriptions into
one daily email so you can quickly see what you want to
read and move on.
DROPBOX
We use a combination of Dropbox and Google Drive. If my
computer crashed today, I would only need to install a few
certain applications. ALL of my data is stored in folders
within Dropbox.
BUGSNAG
This handy tool automatically discovers bugs as users
experience them. We have it setup to feed right into
our Slack channel and we also get email alerts when this
happens. This way we can react immediately. Given that it
is fully automated and plug and play, I don’t really log into
the site, but it’s value is in our Slack integration.
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CLOSE.IO
This is the CRM we are using currently. It is very pricey, but
the workflow views, call recording, and automatic email
logging really make this a pretty sweet system as you start
to build a sales team. Only reason I would switch at this
point, is the plan we need (due to call logging) is $165/user
per month.
OTHER TOOLS I RELY ON
OPTIN MONSTER
This helps you create beautiful pop-ups. Some of you may hate pop-ups, but
the simple fact is they work. We use an exit intent pop-up. I’ve heard people
say they will not use a service simply because of that, but honestly...they
were leaving anyway so who cares. The list building value this has brought is
tremendous. It’s seamless integration into Drip made this a no brainer for us.
We were using www.Picreel.com before, but not only was it more expensive,
it also didn’t have a direct Drip integration.
JUNGLE SCOUT
My wife and I recently started looking into launching an Amazon business and
this helped speed up our research efforts tremendously. It’s a one-time cost,
which is great because as you start having success with your first product,
you’ll want to research more.
ZAPIER
It connects so many different tools you won’t be able to avoid it. The automation
level that it brings is pretty sweet and can really save you a ton of time when
used properly. For example, you could set up a zap to create a task in Asana
any time you star in email in Gmail.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS
I check on this at least weekly to see how things are going.
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GUSTO
Changed their name from ZenPayroll to Gusto when they moved beyond just
payroll. They make it so simple I would never NOT use them for payroll. As we
start looking at providing health benefits and what not, my plan is to use them
(instead of Zenefits) for that too just because I know the experience will be
easy and amazing.
BENCH.CO
Complete life saver as I no longer spend any time doing reconciliation and
matching for LeadFuze.
WAVE ACCOUNTING
Completely free and MUCH easier than QuickBooks or even Xero. I do this for
Workado’s matching/reconciliation.
TRAK.IO
Pretty nice analytics tracking in the mold of KISSmetrics or Mixpanel. I use this
for user tracking within Workado (my first SaaS app for marketers).
PROFIT WELL
Free SaaS metrics for Stripe users. This is the SaaS offering from the company
behind PriceIntelligently.com. Others charge for these sort of metrics. I don’t
log in very much, I just love the daily recap email that shows me everything I
need to know.
CYFE
Cool dashboarding software that pulls in all of our different key metrics and
gives me one dashboard to use.
SIGNUP LAB
Nice new CRM software which I am a big fan of. It caters specifically to SaaS
companies. I am already subscribed, but we don’t yet have a full process in
place since we don’t have sales people dedicated to just the software. The
plan is to build out our customer success team to handle the software signups.
The metrics dashboard is pretty sweet also.
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LINKEDIN'S SALES NAVIGATOR
Our team couldn’t function without this for the amount of prospecting we do
both for clients as well as for our sales team. If you do any level of prospecting,
you’ll want this subscription.
BUFFER
All of our Zero to Scale posts get scheduled through Buffer. Very easy to use
and just works as expected.
FEEDLY
I have about 50 to 60 different blogs I subscribe to and throughout the week I
always skim through new postings and mark to save for later. Then on weekends
I read through all the articles I saved throughout the week.
SOCEDO
Automates lead generation on Twitter. We are having some success with
this currently. Pricing starts at $300/mo, but we chose to use their managed
service for an additional $100 to follow up to 250 targeted prospects per day.
It favorites a recent tweet, then an hour later follows them. When you get
followed back (which currently is happening about 25% of the time) it then
sends them a DM (which you can test multiple variations).
SKYPE
Though we use Slack, Skype still comes in handy for one-to-one video calls.
Greg and I also use Skype when recording the podcast.
EVERNOTE
I always make note of things I’ve worked on throughout the week in Evernote.
This is what I use to prepare for our weekly update podcast episode.
SKITCH
I am constantly using this tool for quick screenshots and annotations. It is also
an Evernote product.
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CO SCHEDULE
Our blog posts get scheduled through this WordPress plugin. You can also
schedule future posts right from the WP interface.
SPRINTLY
If you don’t use Zenhub, then I’d recommend Sprint.ly for managing your
development tasks. It uses user stories to log your issues and is a pretty
interface to look at.
CALENDLY
My sales team and I use Calendly to eliminate the back and forth of appointment
scheduling. Just send a link (I have events and links setup for 15 minutes, 30
minutes, or 60 minutes) and the recipient can review their schedule and pick a
time that works for them.
CONTENT UPGRADES
A wordpress plugin from our good buddy Brian Casel that allows you to easily
integrate awesome content upgrades within your blog posts. This can have a
dramatic impact on your conversion rates.
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GREG’S TOOLS
TOOLS I USE DAILY:
INFUSIONSOFT
This is the sales & marketing automation tool we use in
our business. It is a CRM, email marketing and automation
tool as well as e-commerce tool where we accept all of our
payments from our customers. As an Infusionsoft Certified
Partner, we are in love with this tool and it’s one of the main
tools our clients use. We’re in Infusionsoft most of the day
building marketing funnels and setting up automation that
can essentially multiply our customers efforts. If you want
to get setup just shoot us an email at support@system.ly,
we’d be happy to help.
GOOGLE APPS
Our business heavily relies on Google Apps. I have about 4
different email addresses - all powered by gmail. I don’t have
to spend any time jumping between accounts. I frequently
use canned responses and some of the other tools I use
(mentioned below) enhance them. All of our company's
standard operating procedures are stored in Google Drive
and we’re in there throughout the day, everyday.
TRELLO
Our go to project management tool for managing internal
projects and our customers support tasks. It integrates
with many of the other tools we use which take it to
the next level. We have a board for our onboarding and
customer support, content calendar, and hiring processes.
I’ve used Asana and Teamwork before as well. I used to use
Teamwork but for the nature of business right now, Trello
is perfect.
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HELPSCOUT
All incoming client requests come to us through our support
email address which is connected to HelpScout. It’s super
easy to use and we’ve connected it with Infusionsoft and
Trello for even more flexibility. I haven’t used too many
help desk tools before but I love what they’ve built and
highly recommend it.
SNAGIT
We’re constantly recording screencasts and taking
screenshots for our customers to walk them through the
sales funnels we’re building. Snagit lets me quickly record
my screen and audio and upload to either screencast.com
(which we use for clients) and Google Drive which we use
for internal procedure videos.
SCREENFLOW
When recording videos or content that will be used for a
training course or digital product, I always use ScreenFlow.
It lets me edit videos, and merge multiple files with ease.
it’s easier to use than iMovie and super affordable.
SLACK
I don’t know where I’d be without slack. This is our primary
communication tool internally. We have channels setup
that coordinate with the key areas of business and we’ve
connected it to tools like HelpScout and Trello using Zapier
making it the hub for all company communication on a daily
basis. It keeps us out of email which is super helpful and
we can track and search any conversation for something if
needed.
SKYPE
Whether it’s mastermind calls, client calls or recording
podcast episodes, Skype is the go to. It’s simple and lets
me see my team on our weekly 1-on-1 calls.
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SCREEN HERO
This is a great screen sharing/communication tool that lets
both you and your team control the mouse at the same time.
It’s great for working through a problem together that may
be a bit more technical and also good for training when
you want to see if a team member knows how to navigate.
Recently purchased by Slack, I’m waiting for the day it’s
more seamlessly integrated. right now it’s sometimes a bit
buggy but still does the trick.
CHROME
My go to browser for pretty much all things internet.
TOGGL
I use Toggl for time tracking and so does my team. It gives
me a glimpse into what tasks are taking the most time
for my team. It’s chrome extension places a “start timer”
button within Trello and HelpScout making it really easy to
start tracking time for current task.
WUNDERLIST
I mostly use Wunderlist for personal lists and grocery lists
with my Wife but I’ve recently started using it as my own
personal to do list. The mobile app is great and it reinforces
my notebook on a daily basis.
SEGMETRICS
Infusionsoft doesn’t offer the greatest reporting dashboards
out of the box and Segmetrics solves that problem. It gives
great insights into revenue generated by lead source and
lets me identify trends around customer lifetime value.
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RESCUE TIME
I track my time based on distractions, neutral time,
productive time and very productive time. I look at how
my time is spent each day to monitor and work towards
spending my time only on productive and very productive
areas of my business.
ZAPIER
Infusionsoft doesn’t offer the greatest reporting dashboards
out of the box and Segmetrics solves that problem. It gives
great insights into revenue generated by lead source and
lets me identify trends around customer lifetime value.
SCHEDULE ONCE
When it comes to booking discovery calls, sales calls and
our strategy sessions with clients I turn to ScheduleOnce. It
integrates with Infusionsoft making it a great tool that ties
into our other automated campaigns to make sure we
follow up with leads and prospects. I can set my calendar
availability each week and month so prospects can only
book meetings in time slots I’ve pre-determined are right
for that type of meeting.
OTHER TOOLS I RELY ON
BUFFER
I love being able to quickly add tweets/retweets to a schedule without having
to send things right away. Buffer lets me schedule tweets across multiple
accounts for sharing with my audience.
TWEETDECK
I mostly use Twitter from my phone on the Twitter app, but I go into TweetDeck
about once a day and engage with people and see if anyone is sharing something
relevant that I’d like to put in my reading queue.
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SOCIAL OOMPH
I was using Edgar but switched to Social Oomph because most of what I
schedule in advance is on Twitter. Social Oomph lets me create categories that
automatically are shared on a schedule. So even a blog post from a year ago
is getting shared now from time to time.
ADOBE AUDITION
When recording our podcasts we use Skype and record into Adobe Audition.
I used to use Garageband but Audition is literally the best of the best when it
comes to this stuff. Our editor uses it as well so can quickly produce and edit
the podcast episodes for reach week.
EVERNOTE
I’ve actually been using this less and less but I save important notes and things
that I’m thinking about within certain notebooks. I actually think i’ll be phasing
this tool out in the near future as I don’t really need it with everything else I’m
using.
LIBSYN
You have to host your podcast somewhere. This is it! :)
KEYNOTE
I frequently create presentations for customers and speaking gigs. Keynote
lets me create engaging presentations with some great animation for when I’m
hopping on stage or hosting a webinar.
MOBIT
This is a go to tool for us for Mobile Marketing Engine so that customers can
build a database of mobile numbers and capture more customer data. It lets us
setup automated drip campaigns all through SMS text messaging.
UNROLL.ME
I'm constantly trying to unsubscribe from newsletters to decultter my inbox.
This tool makes it super simple and even will roll up certain emails into one
digest.
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LEADPAGES
There really isn’t an easier tool for setting up landing pages, webinar registration
pages and adding opt-in boxes to your site than LeadPages. I use this tool
for all of my websites and our clients use it on a daily basis to collect leads. It
integrates with most of the top email service providers and automation tools
making it super versatile.
SUMOME
If you want to capture emails on your website this tool has a lot of cool features.
From timed popovers, to welcome mats to scrolling email opt-ins, you can
really pick from a variety of ways to capture emails on your site. I use this on
multiple sites and it’s a great resource.
CONVERTKIT
If you’re a professional blogger looking for a great automation tool, this is it.
Our customers at System.ly don’t all use Infusionsoft. We support Convertkit
users as well and I even use it on my personal blog. it’s lighter automation for
people that focus on selling digital products. If you want to get setup just
shoot us an email at support@system.ly.
DRIP
As they say, it’s lighter automation that doesn’t suck. At System.ly we support
Drip users as well and it’s sometimes the right tool for people that want
Infusionsoft but not the price of Infusionsoft. We use it for the Zero To Scale
podcast list and I use it for some of our clients at System.ly. If you want to get
setup just shoot us an email at support@system.ly.
GUSTO
Previously, ZenPayroll, Gusto lets me manage payroll for me and my team. It’s
super simple to manage and really affordable.
XERO
As a business owner you have to be on top of your accounting and Xero makes
it really easy for me to track expenses and revenues so everything is accounted
for when it comes time to file for taxes each quarter.
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YESWARE
Want to track who is opening your emails? This tool integrates with Gmail and
allows you to track opens on your outbound emails from right within Gmail.
It’s great for cold emails to prospects or making sure you follow up with leads
at just the right time.
BOOMERANG & FOLLOWUP.CC
I put these together because they are very similar and I actually use both
as there are some sligh differences. Ultimately, these tools allow me to send
emails at a future date and time as well as send me back a reminder if the
recipient hasn’t responded in a certain amount of time. The biggest value for
me is sending emails in the future while i’m batch processing email. OFten
times if you respond, the recipient turns the email into a conversation which
is a time suck. So I send emails at a future date and time so it won't turn to a
conversation.
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