Ascend 101
Lessons about building a one-person business, writing, and self-improvement
Last week I asked you to vote on the topic of this week’s email.
The results were equally distributed between the topics.
As to not overwhelm you with only offer creation I’ve decided to switch it up this week.
My goal is to help you build a business while working less than 3 hours a day.
To do so you need a good workflow, and even more important, a good tech stack.
Let me show you what you need to make that goal a reality.
This is an 8-minute read.
My software recommendations
Running a business can feel overwhelming.
But with the right tools everything becomes 10x easier.
The best part? Almost all of these are free to use.
We live in the digital age. The internet has given us so many new opportunities.
Everyone can start their own business for free from home. There’s nothing holding you back anymore.
Let’s see what I use to build mine.
(Some of these will be affiliate links, so if you sign up, I'll get a small referral bonus.)
Tweet Hunter
This is the foundation of my business.
I absolutely cannot live without Tweet Hunter anymore.
Everything I do on Twitter happens via Tweet Hunter.
From tweet scheduling and in-depth analytics to a fully functioning CRM where I can engage with others and reply to all the comments I’ve gotten.
Imagine opening Twitter and you see that you have 247 comments to reply to.
It would take ages to complete. But not with Tweet Hunter. It nicely lines up everything. All you have to do is write a reply and press enter.
Let alone the power of the auto DM feature.
Simply write a tweet mentioning that people have to reply for you to send them something valuable, enable the option, fill in the DM you want to send, and voila.
You get a ton of engagement and you don’t have to send a single DM yourself.
That’s how all those giveaways are done if you were wondering.
All-in-all a wonderful tool that I’d suggest anyone gets from day 1.
» Start Your Free Trial Here «
Beehiiv
Have I told you that email is king yet?
Well it is.
There’s nothing better and more effective than having your own email list.
You should know. You’re reading mine.
For those that hadn’t noticed yet. I use Beehiiv to host my newsletter.
Why do I prefer Beehiiv over something else like ConvertKit?
Scalability.
Beehiiv has the better platform and UI to start with. They also offer web hosting from the get-go. Which is important for content repurposing.
They also offer more growth-focused features that really benefit you as a starting creator.
ConvertKit is nice for established creators who want to play around with more complex funnels. But even then it’s so much more complicated to set up.
On top of all that. Beehiiv is absolutely free for up to 2,500 subscribers while ConvertKit only allows you to go up to 1,000 subscribers.
What about after your 2,500 subscribers? Well then Beehiiv is a measly $42 a month. You’ll be making far more than that every month if you have 2,500 subscribers.
You’d be stupid not to accept such a deal.
» Click Here To Create Your Free Beehiiv Account «
Calendly
This one is self-explanatory.
I need a way for people to book a call with me.
It’d be a nightmare if I had to send messages back and forth in the DMs to decide on a time when both of us were available.
Calendly does this for me.
All I have to do is fill in when I’m available and connect it to both my calendar and my Zoom or Google Meet account.
Now people can choose a timeslot and it automatically schedules everything.
I show up to the call and that’s that.
It’s also free forever. There are upgrade plans, but those aren’t necessary for everyone.
Carrd
You need a landing page (or more).
You might have web design experience. That’s great.
I don’t. But I don’t have to because Carrd is an easy-to-use web builder.
It’s also entirely free. If you’d like to upgrade to more additional functionalities it’s only $19 per year. (That’s not a typo. It is in fact per year)
Carrd focuses on single-page websites (landing pages) so as to not overwhelm both you and the visitor with other pages that might steal their attention.
Perfect for maximizing conversions.
» Start Making Your Landing Pages For Free «
Stripe
Another self-explanatory one.
You want to get paid. Stripe allows you to do so.
You can send invoices, payment links, and integrate with thousands of other tools to automate everything.
It also automatically creates invoices and receipts. Which makes your job a whole lot easier.
If you need anything payment related. Stripe has got you covered.
You only pay a small fee every time you make a sale. So no unpredictable costs.
Gumroad
Gumroad is amazing.
You can host your products, courses, services, or memberships on their site.
Everything you offer can be done through Gumroad.
Again everything is free of charge, they only include a small service fee.
Better yet, you don’t even need your own products to start selling.
Simply create an account and you can start affiliating with other people’s products.
This is a great way to start earning when you have an audience but you don’t have your own product to sell yet.
Zapier
This is one of the most advanced tools on here.
Zapier allows you to connect all of your other tools and create workflows. Zaps they call it.
All with the intention of automating actions you otherwise have to do yourself.
Connect Twitter with Discord or Telegram to automatically share your tweets.
(You can go extra advanced and make a workflow to automatically repurpose your content to other platforms)
Connect Calendly with Slack, email, or even text message anything really, to notify you or others whenever you have a new lead.
Again it’s completely free for basic consumption which is more than enough for most people.
Testimonial
Building social proof is one of the best choices you can make.
One way to do it is by collecting testimonials from people you’ve helped.
This allows you to share it on your landing pages or even on your social media.
Testimonial is a perfect tool to do this with. Simply send someone your link and they can fill in a testimonial of how you helped them. They can choose between text or video.
All of your testimonials get neatly saved together and you can then reuse them to share wherever you want.
The feature that makes this all worth it is that you can integrate your “wall of testimonials” into the landing page you made with Carrd.
Testimonial is entirely free to start with.
They allow you to collect up to 10 testimonials for free. Once again, by the time you’ve collected 10 great testimonials you’ll be making more than enough to upgrade to a paying subscription and start collecting even more testimonials.
» Start Collecting Testimonials Here «
Grammarly
Last but not least we have Grammarly.
Some people have this belief that great writers don’t need a writing tool.
But let me tell you otherwise.
I’m not a native English speaker myself. And chances are you aren’t either.
And even if you are, we all make spelling mistakes once in a while.
So do yourself a favor and get the Grammarly plugin to spellcheck your writing.
Nobody wants to make embarrassing spelling mistakes.
You don’t even need Grammarly premium.
I use the free version myself and that’s more than enough.
Again, it’s to get rid of those embarrassing spelling mistakes (it even corrected ‘embarrassing’ for me just now). Not to improve the style or voice of your writing.
» Never Make Spelling Mistakes Ever Again «
Wrap-up
I hope it hasn’t been overwhelming.
If you have any questions about any of the tools that I mentioned feel free to reply to this mail.
I’ll gladly clear up any questions you might have and help you set everything up.
Next Monday you can once again expect an email about offering creation.
We’ll discuss how to increase the value of your offer up to 10x without changing anything about the offer itself.
We’ll cover all the fun psychological tips & tricks.
Stay tuned!
Cheers,
Alex.
P.S.
If you’d like more help, I’ve got your back:
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Download all my products for FREE: Ranging from every resource I ever read to everything I know about content creation. It’s all waiting for you to claim it. Start your journey to financial freedom the right way.
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Book 1:1 coaching with me: We'll discuss your goals and the obstacles you’re currently facing. Afterwards we’ll build and follow a roadmap so you can reach your goals in the next 3–6 months.
And if you've got a moment, I'd love to hear what you thought of this edition of Ascend 101.
Send me a quick message – I reply to every email!