When I started my business— and up until just recently, my vision was to help walk you through ALL the things you need to know in order to run your business smoothly with tech.

I wanted to be able to give you an idea of how to use a variety of tools and apps, or maybe just choose the ones that you are using and forget the rest.

What I’ve come to realize is that I don’t need to (nor can I) be all things to all people.

Yes… we’ve heard it before… NICHE DOWN!

Master those few tools and use everything they have to offer instead of piecing together a bunch of different ones. If some of the tools below seem intriguing (or maybe you already use them!), then stay tuned-in to future emails that go more in depth on tips and tricks for using these specific tools.

Below is my current tech stack, and this is all I need right now (outside of things I use for podcasting, but those are specialized). I want you to look at my list and reevaluate if you can pare yours down to just a few.

Coda - A modular, cloud-based, document management (think Google docs plus sheets). I use Coda for project management, SOPs, account management, podcast show notes, financial management, metrics, goal tracking, etc. Basically anything you can do with Google Drive.

ActiveCampaign - Email marketing (you can also use the landing pages if you don’t have a website). I use this to send emails, automations, marketing campaigns, and to segment my customer list.

ThriveCart - Shopping cart and course platform. In my opinion, one of the best shopping carts available (I haven’t used them all so I can’t definitely say it’s THE best). I also use their new Learn platform to house my online courses.

ShowIt - Website builder and platform. I recently switched my website from Wordpress to ShowIt to keep things simple and easy (my Wordpress site is still active as I work on making the switch).

So there you have it. My simple tech stack. What does yours look like?

For Full Show Notes: https://www.mirandamerten.com/87

Mentioned In This Episode:

• Coda
• ActiveCampaign
• ThriveCart
• Showit
• Canva
• Plann
• Emma Troy Design (my ShowIt website designer)

Other Helpful Links:

• My Favorite Tools
• Free Productivity Power Pack
• 10-Day Operations Challenge
• Website
• Instagram (@mirandamerten)

Do You Need More Structured Help In Your Business?

Wouldn’t it be nice to: Remember where your accounts are, always know who’s in charge of what areas of your business, effortlessly know how to create lead magnets and landing pages … you know – all the things you think about everyday but don’t really have the time to organize or execute.

Join The Systems Lab if you would like to: Learn how to create systems, to-do lists, and methods to help you stay on top of your work, and beat overwhelm throughout the day, even if you’re the queen of procrastination and avoidance.

What’s included? It’s a FREE collection of templates, workflows, challenges, and planners for complete efficiency and productivity.

The Systems Lab: https://www.mirandamerten.com/systems-lab

Mentioned in this episode:

Coffee Perks Newsletter

Sign up for Coffee Perks: https://mirandamerten.com/coffeeperks

Welcome Coffee Powered Systems equipping women with actionable steps to overcome

overwhelm and streamline business and life.

So grab your favorite drink and come hang out with me.

I'm your host, Miranda Merten.

This is coffee powered systems.

If you're a regular listener, welcome back.

I appreciate you.

I am so happy you're here.

If you are a new listener, I am so glad you found this show.

Today I'm going to talk about Niching Down and give you a little backstory.

When I started my business, and pretty

much just up until recently, my vision was to help you walk through all the things

you needed in order to learn how to run your business smoothly.

Hence the name coffee powered systems.

Basically all the systems, all the things.

So I wanted to be able to give you an idea

of how to use a variety of different tools and apps, or maybe just choose the ones

that you were using in your business and then forget the rest.

Or you can look at a title and use that during a specific season in your life.

What I've come to realize is that I don't

need to, nor can I be all things to all people.

Yeah, we've heard it all before.

Say it with me niche down.

Everyone is right.

Not only did I need to niche down with

what I was learning, but also what I was teaching and selling.

And it was ridiculous of me, really, to

think that I could teach you about every tool out there.

I thought that even if you were using a different project management app, I can

generalize the process and still give you good guidance and service.

But the truth is that's not true.

Not only do you not learn a whole lot, I don't get fulfillment from just teaching

generalities, and I don't feel like I'm teaching you much value.

So after I had this epiphany recently, I

decided to niche down and teach only about my favorite tools, the two or three things

that I use and always recommend when certain situations arise.

So that's what I want to propose to you.

Niche down and stop chasing every tool that comes along.

I want you to focus on the ones that benefit you and serve you the most.

That can be for right now, that can be for

your current business or what you're planning for in the future.

But I do want you to focus on the ones

that are going to benefit and serve you the most.

Let's try an exercise.

So I want you to take out a piece of paper

and write down all the tools that you're using at this moment in your business.

What are you using for email, marketing, organization, project management.

Keep going until you write everything down that you are using daily or weekly.

That includes your free products or paid products.

Even the ones that you dabble in.

Maybe you use canva because you are only

using graphics once a month, but I want you to write that down as well.

After you have all of those written down, determine if you need all of them.

Does each one serve its purpose fully?

Can you consolidate or get rid of something completely?

Now, after you've chosen the tools that you use consistently and that makes sense

for your business, I want you to master those tools and everything that they have

to offer instead of piecing together a bunch of different ones.

For instance, I use Plan for social media planning.

And if you have a social media planner or

scheduler, you might just be using it for, let's say you use it to auto post on

Instagram and that's all you've been using it for.

Once you get into Plan and actually using

it, you'll notice that there are a ton of other different features.

It pretty much posts and schedules to all the other social media apps.

It has a calendar in there that you can

use and schedule out and kind of plan your social media feed.

It has ideas and content starters that you can use in there as well.

And once you master it, you might realize you're using other tools that already are

included in some of the things that you are using.

So I'm going to walk you through my

current tech stack and what I did the last few weeks was really niche down.

I basically dropped my main tools down to

about four or five that I use all the time.

And what I'm going to do from moving

forward on my website, emails, services with

clients, really just focus and hone in on these specific apps.

And then I will still talk about all other tools because I'm a tool junkie.

But me focusing and learning these and

mastering these specific tools is really going to help not only my business, but

also the people that come looking for information about these specific things.

So first off, I've got Koda.

Koda is what I use for document management.

It's a modular, cloud based.

Think of it as like Google Sheets plus

Google Docs and I use it for project management.

SOPs account management, editing, my

podcast, notes, event financial management, metrics, goal tracking,

whatever you can use Coda for so many things.

Basically anything that you can do in

Google Drive except it's a little bit more organized.

My second one is ActiveCampaign.

Obviously you will need an email marketing platform.

This is mine.

With Active Campaign, you can actually also use the landing page option.

They do have landing pages within their platform.

If you don't have a website, think about

if you have something like lead pages and you're already paying for Active Campaign,

you can use Active Campaigns, landing pages, so things like that.

Like I said before, you might be paying for things that you don't necessarily need

because your other tools already have them within it.

So I use ActiveCampaign to send emails,

set up automation marketing campaigns, and to help segment my customer list.

My next tool is thrivecart.

Thrivecart is my shopping cart and now it's also my course platform.

So in my opinion, Thrivecart is one of the best shopping carts available.

Granted, I haven't used all of them, so I can't say it's the best one.

I'm sure there are comparable ones out there, but with the fact that they have

added the course platform as well, it just makes it super easy.

I love the way it looks.

The learning platform now houses my courses, so if you get any one of my

courses or freebies, you will end up in my Thrive cart learn platform.

And lastly, I was using WordPress for a long, long time for my websites.

For all my websites I always use

WordPress, but I recently switched my main website to Show It.

And Show It is a website builder and

platform and I recently switched to basically keep things simple and easy.

Show It also is a hosting provider.

So even though I still recommend SiteGround as a host, if you do have

something like WordPress, still Show It host websites as well.

So I just bundled it and pays for it all in one.

I switched I found a website designer, a Show It website designer and worked with

her to get used one of her templates that she had for Show It.

And I love it. It's beautiful.

I just switched everything over within the last month.

So if you have not been to my website recently, miranda Merten you will now see

a brand new website that is built on Show It.

So your action this week, I want you to examine your business and see if there are

areas in there that you need to niche down.

Don't be afraid to just let go of tools that aren't serving

you that you haven't been using for a while, or maybe they're just a bit

cumbersome and you just use it because you're familiar with it.

But every time you open up this tool, you wonder why you're still using it.

Just because you're familiar with it and

it's easy and you don't want to switch things over, but sometimes just getting

rid of things, starting over or just again niching down to only the tools that you

use is going to actually be more helpful for you in the long run.

Reach out to me. Let me know if you use any of these tools

or if you have some favorites that you are using, or let me know if you niche down in

your business and what you're going to decide to niche down to.

All right, that is all I have for today.

I will see you next time.

Thanks for listening to coffee powered systems.

You can find links to everything mentioned in the episode down in the Show Notes or

on the website at MirandaMerten.com if you enjoyed this episode, load rate and review

it in itunes or where you enjoy listening so others can find it too.

And join me here next time. Bye.