My 5 best business investments of 2019
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What are the best business investments I’ve made?
I’m a firm believer that investing in your business is necessary to see business growth.
While you can figure out things on your own, it ends up taking SO much longer and costing you while you take the time to learn or cobble together systems.
Investing in tools and education is a great way to speed up your progress and take you where you want to go, much faster.
When I started my business I believed that I couldn’t invest in it until I had made a certain amount of money. I was holding myself back. But while you shouldn’t spend money you don’t have, I do believe you need to invest before you feel like you’re ready.
Once I started making investments, my business started growing more quickly and became more profitable–quickly making up and then making more than what I had invested.
But of course, all of that said, some investments are better than others.
Here are my best business investments of 2019 and why I feel they were well worth it.
ConvertKit
It’s no secret I love ConvertKit for my mailing list. I switched from Mailchimp several years ago, and there’s been no looking back.
ConvertKit allows me to not only send out broadcast emails, like when there’s a new podcast episode, but to create automated sequences that can be sent based on a subscriber’s interest.
For selling products, this is really important, and helps me ensure that people on my list aren’t pitched products they’ve already purchased, or get emails about products that aren’t relevant to them.
If you’re a service provider, ConvertKit is great too. You can use it to create funnels for prospective clients, automate your client onboarding, and even follow up with past clients automatically, bringing them back for additional services.
ConvertKit is one of my top tools, and an essential part of my business. So even though I’ve used it for several years, paying to renew it again makes it one of my best investments for 2019.
You can try out ConvertKit free for 14 days by going to erinflynn.com/go/convertkit.
Evergreen Engines
This is one is for you course creators.
I’ve been making courses for several years now, and the constant launch cycle is draining. If you make courses you know exactly what I mean. There’s this audience build up for a few months, then a huge launch with all your hopes and dreams riding on it.
And if you don’t make enough during the launch, it’s full on panic-mode.
That is not the way I like living my life!
And you can’t simply put your program up on your website and hope people will buy it–they won’t. There has to be added urgency for the sales to come in–at least at a pace that lets you pay your bills.
So when Mariah Coz launched her program, Evergreen Engines, earlier this year, I bought it immediately.
All of Mariah’s programs are great. They’re actionable, have templates to follow, and are easy to implement. Evergreen Engines is no different. I had my first funnel set up within a day, and it generated over $5,000 within a week, easily making back the investment and then some.
I still have more funnels to set up, but I’m really excited to follow the Evergreen Engines framework and hop off the launch roller coaster.
If you’re interested in learning more about Evergreen Engines, you can watch a free training with Mariah on automating your online course sales with an evergreen sales funnel at erinflynn.com/go/ee.
Beaver Builder
This is another one I’ve had for a few years, but renewed in 2019 because it’s become essential to my business.
One of the biggest complaints about WordPress is that it’s hard to use. You need a developer to make changes to your site and it’s just too frustrating–so many entrepreneurs use something like Squarespace instead, where they can create beautiful designs without coding.
But coding is no longer needed to create beautiful websites in WordPress. Beaver Builder allows you to drag and drop a beautiful website together, very quickly. And it’s a lot more powerful and customizable than Squarespace.
With Beaver Builder, you get the power of WordPress with the ease of a page builder.
I use Beaver Builder on almost every single website I make, whether it’s for myself or a client. It cuts hours off of my development time, and my clients are thrilled that they can make changes to their websites easily.
If you’re a web designer or developer, Beaver Builder can shave hours and hours off of your process. And make your clients happy because their new website is easy for them to manage.
And if you’re an entrepreneur designing your own site, Beaver Builder allows you all the flexibility and power that WordPress has, without any of the coding stress.
You can learn more and try a demo at erinflynn.com/go/beaverbuilder.
Thunder with Hillary Weiss
You might know Hillary from the great YouTube series Hillary And Margo Yell At Websites–better known as HAMYAW. She’s hilarious, but also completely brilliant.
This past summer she opened a group program called Thunder, and I was quick to jump on it.
During that time I was shifting my business from serving just web designers to serving creative entrepreneurs. I knew I needed some copy and marketing help.
Which is exactly what I got inside the Thunder program.
Each week I was able to bombard Hillary with tons of questions and get her to review my work. She probably should have charged me a lot more.
Getting that outside view on my business was really helpful and gave me motivation to get work done more quickly than if I’d just been working on my own.
The time saved and confidence of making the changes I needed to was well worth the investment. As soon as I get off my butt and launch the program I outlined with Hillary, I’m sure I’ll see the cash payout too.
At the time I’m recording this, Thunder is not open for enrollment, but I encourage you to visit and follow Hillary so you can jump on any future programs, hire her to help with your copy, or just tune into HAMYAW.
You can find Hillary at hillaryweiss.com.
Craft + Commerce
This list wouldn’t be complete without mentioning my favorite conference, Craft + Commerce.
I’ve been attending Craft + Commerce since the first year, and it has been the BEST conference that I’ve been to in terms of making connections.
Before and after the conference, there are attendee-led meetups, and during the conference there’s lots of time to meet and connect with others.
And everyone I’ve met there has been fantastic.
I’ve left each with new friends and business buddies, many of whom I’ve stayed in close contact with. We bounce ideas, give each other feedback, and those connections have been invaluable to my business.
And of course, the conference itself is great. The speakers are always top-notch, the workshops are actionable, and even the venue is fun.
If you can only attend one conference a year, I’d highly recommend checking out Craft + Commerce!
You can learn more about Craft + Commerce at conference.convertkit.com and no, you don’t have to use ConvertKit to go!
tl;dr:
Invest in your business. It’ll move you forward faster.
My best business investments of 2019 include:
What were your best business investments? Take some time and reflect–it’ll help you make purchasing decisions in the future!
