Are You Skimping on the Tools You Need?

Last Tuesday my new client Sarah and I headed off to Saks Fifth Avenue in Boston to have her makeup done before the photo shoot for her new website. I had made the appointment with Emily, the makeup artist at the Trish McEvoy counter, after receiving a referral from my fabulous hair guy, Jon Paul.

I could tell right away that Emily is a pro. No kidding. Not only did she look glamorous herself, but she also took more than an hour with the already beautiful Sarah and did a great job on her makeup. What struck me the most was how many different products Emily used, how many colors she blended and how many brushes and applicators it took to get the final result.

When Emily was finished, she and Sarah talked about which products to purchase so that Sarah could get a similar outcome at home. The products and the colors I understood; it was the brushes, however, that threw me for a loop. 

There was the bronzer brush, the blush brush, the eyeliner brush and three or four others just for applying eye shadow. To tell you the truth, they all kind of looked the same to me.

So Sarah and I asked questions about each brush. As Emily explained the distinctions, I began to realize that, absent the proper tools, and even with the necessary products and colors, Sarah would never get these same results at home. 

And then I thought about how often solo professionals and small business owners are prone to do exactly the same thing. We listen to a professional tell us how to grow and manage our business and then proceed to use scotch tape and paperclips to try and get the same results.

It used to be that the tools you needed to smoothly and efficiently run a small business would cost a small fortune. That’s no longer the case. While working on my financial plan for 2015, I reviewed the cost of the tools I use to run my business. Can you guess how much it costs me to have every tool I need to be efficient? A mere $186.62 a month. 

That’s right. For $186.62 a month I have accounting software that I love (Xero $30.00), the latest version of PhotoShop ($21.24), a Constant Contact account ($42.50), Last Pass (password management $1.00), Contactually (contact management $19.00), Toggl (time tracking software $5.00), Dropbox (file sharing $9.99), Screen sharing (Join.me $23.99),  Audio Acrobat ($19.95),  web hosting (Host Gator $8.95) for several websites, Akismit (spam blocker $5.00) and Square (credit card processing 2.7% of sales).

Sure, I could probably save some money by not using all of these tools, but what I’ve learned as a solopreneur is that you need to jump in with both feet and set up your business with the tools that will support what you’re trying to do.

Every second you spend on a work-around or a cheaper, less effective fix is more than just a second wasted. Working on our own we need to leverage our time, and great tools can do that for us.

So don’t delay. Take the plunge and get the tools you need to make 2015 your best year ever. I’ll be right here if you need me, learning how to use my new brushes!

P.S. For a complete list of the tools I use and recommend for others, visit my resources page here.

Full disclosure: If you click one of these links and sign-up for the service, in some instances I get compensated by the company.