TOOLS WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT!
TRELLO
Adored by Evolution members globally, this program is used to coordinate all operational details of your studio – from tracking inquiries to organising marketing to team communications. With Trello you can eliminate email and embrace organisation.
COST: The free version is fine for most Studio Owners
SLACK
Used for team communication without clogging up your inbox. Set channels of conversations to keep threads all in one place with ease!
COST: The free version is fine.
ZOOM
Used for live meetings with team and to record trainings. You can also host webinars and group calls whilst sharing your screen and allowing other participants to take control.
COST: FREE and next step is $14.99 per month for PRO version
FAVRO
Trello’s big sister. For 500+ students or multi location studio owners who have outgrown Trello.
COST:
$6.80 USD per month, per user (minimum of 5 users) https://www.favro.com/pricing
VOXER
Mobile app used to leave voicemails/text message to any team member instantly.
COST: Free!
SCREENFLOW
Professional screencasting studio. Screencasts, which are videos of your computer screen and often used in tutorials, are a useful way to illustrate a point or program. ScreenFlow is a very polished screencasting application, which records just about anything and gives you a huge amount of editing options afterwards. (for MAC users)
COST: $99 USD (might be able to find cheaper online).
TEXTEXPANDER
TextExpander is an App/Program lets you instantly insert snippets of text from a repository of emails, boilerplate and other content, as you type – using a quick search or abbreviation. So instead of copy and pasting from documents you simply copy the text into the App and all you need to do is allocate it a code or abbreviation. Think speed dial for all of your regular used emails, copy, credit card numbers and URL links.
COST: $3.33 USD per month.
CANVA
Canva makes design easy for any studio size. You can upload your brand colours, logo and font then starting designing your own r Web or print resources such as blog graphics, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers, posters, invitations, newsletters and facebook ads.
COST: $9.95 USD per month.
POMODORO APP
A brilliant way to become more productive by working in short 25 minute sprints. Simply set your timer in the app and decide on what you want to achieve in that time. Pomodoro keeps you focused and working smarter, not longer.
COST: $1.99USD!
MEET EDGAR
Another absolute WINNER of a time saver – this program allows you to schedule all of your studio’s social media months at a time. Instead of scheduling posts based on a specific date, Edgar allows you to bulk upload by category making your social media consistency a breeze!
COST: $49.95 USD per month.
COSCHEDULE
Another wonderful social media scheduling software. Easy to use with great tutorials. Also enables you to schedules posts in Instagram but note these have to manually posted in the CoSchedule App, which will still save you time.
COST: $30USD per month for one user.
FIVERR
Warning: Fiverr is ADDICTIVE. Essentially, it’s an outsourcing site where you can have freelancers do jobs for you for $5. Yep, just $5. Everything from designing a flyer to editing a video. You name it, someone on Fiverr can do it for you. This is one of my personal favourite websites of all time.
COST: From $5.
UPWORK
Is a hub to source High Quality Freelancers. Think of the more technical tasks which you need done like web development and Facebook Ads. Upwork have quality contractors, you will pay more but worth the money.
COST: From $50.
SURVEY MONKEY
When you are seeking some feedback from your students, Survey Monkey is a great and easy-to-use tool to collect everyone’s data all in one place. It takes just minutes to create a survey and then send it out to your students.
COST: Free for 100 responses or $24 per month for unlimited responses.
TYPEFORM
Typeform is similar to Survey Monkey in the sense that it’s a way of collecting responses to questions, but it just looks a whole lot prettier! You can also embed Typeform surveys onto your website and they look very professional. This would be a great tool to use if you wanted all your current students to provide an end-of-year reflection survey.
COST: Free for 100 responses or $30 per month for unlimited responses.
CALENDLY
If you’ve been struggling with how to be consistent in mentoring your teachers, this scheduling tool will make it easy for your teachers to choose a time for a 1:1 catch-up with you! Calendly is simple to use by allowing you to set your availability and then send the link to your teachers for them to choose a session time that suits them! Takes all the to-ing and fro-ing out of the equation!
COST: Free or $8 for premium account.
ANIMOTO
If you’ve seen those gorgeous looking videos on Facebook but have never been able to work out how to create one yourself, Animoto makes it easy to make short little videos for you to share on your studio’s Facebook page. These videos are super-quick to put together. Animoto takes all the stress out of video editing.
COST: From $8 per month.
5 LOVE LANGUAGES
Mentoring your teachers is a large part of your role as a studio owner. It’s important to know how to best connect and support your teachers and when you know their love language, you know how to ‘speak their language’ so to say. Ask your teachers to take this short test. It will make giving them the support they need a lot easier!
COST: Free!
MILANOTE
Milanote is something of a combination of tools like Trello, MindNote, Pinterest, and Google Keep. Collect notes, which can include text, images, or links, onto cards, and place those cards anywhere on a board. You can then link those notes together with lines or just leave them on their own. Possible uses: For creating a visual of your processes, for mapping out big new ideas, and more. Milanote boards can be exported to PDF, Word, and other formats.
COST: Free; paid version starts at $10 per month
TEAM APP
Team App is a platform that allows teams and social groups to improve communication by creating their own smartphone app. Easily create and design your own custom app for your studio! Choose from a huge range of features and have a fully functional Team App created in less than 10 minutes.
COST: Free!
BITLY
Bitly allows you to easily shorten, share, manage, and analyze your favorite links from around the web. After you sign up for a free account, you will see the option to “Create Bitlink” at the top of the page. Once you shorten a link, you can customize and share your link across social channels, email, SMS, print, or anywhere else you can think to put a link.
COST: From $8 per month.
DO ONE THING
You will LOVE this new free iPhone App that will kickstart your productivity. It’ll help you stay on track on the task you set-out to achieve each day.
COST: Free!
LEGALCONTRACTS.COM
Great online resource for subcontractor and admin contracts. Simple enter your details and Award to have this set up.
COST: Free!
LEGAL 123
Wonderful resource to have a solid subcontractor agreement in place (for your teachers).
COST: From $199 but can be repurposed for teachers.
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