In this episode I break down the exact apps & software (7:15), equipment (17:32) and recommended reading (21:00) that will help you efficiently and successfully run your business.
✧ {DOORS OPEN} Enroll in Momentum Mastermind: https://thewanderlover.com/momentum-mastermind/
✧ Online Business Essentials: https://thewanderlover.com/online-business-essentials/
✧ {10% OFF PASSION PLANNER} Use code DANIELLEH868 at checkout: https://bit.ly/3Os49cd
✧ {FREE MASTERCLASS} How to Start a Successful Online Business: https://thewanderlover.com/masterclass-registration/
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Celebrating a new home and new podcast changes!
Dani:
Hello my loves! Welcome back to the Wanderlover podcast. I’m Danielle Hu, your host, recording this episode from my two story beach front loft, right on the ocean. You can hear the waves crashing in the background and full disclosure. This is the first episode I’m recording here. I’m under the stairs. I have a bunch of pillows around me and I’m just trying to make a soundproof recording studio because the whole space is floor to ceiling windows, super open. And this is the best I can do. This is a real life glimpse of digital nomad life. For the past four years, I’ve just been traveling full time, living abroad from the beaches of Brazil, remote islands around the world, Costa Rica, Hawaii.
Dani:
Now you’ve been with me through so many countries. You’ve been with me through my past accommodation in Batukaras. So there are worse problems in life to have. Am I right? This is our 99th episode, which means next week we have changes coming that I cannot wait to share with you guys. The hundredth episode is of such significance in the Wanderlover business journey because it represents a hundred episodes consistently released on every single Monday for the past hundred weeks. And that is something to celebrate because we’ve taken this podcast around the world. So make sure to stay tuned for changes.
Momentum Mastermind Doors Are Open!
Dani:
We also have momentum mastermind DOORS OPEN right now. This is our signature four month group business coaching container, where we take you from having a business idea from having a side hustle, to giving you the opportunity of focusing on your business full time as CEO watching it scale to 5k months to five figure months, and then to six figure years, we’re also giving you the tools you need to run your online business so that you can grow it without having to be in front of your computer all day, to give you the freedom to work from anywhere in the world, we’re getting strategic.
Dani:
We’re focusing on sales, we’re focusing on systems and we’re making the program customized to you and whatever you’re going through in business right now, plus giving you the support of other entrepreneurs on the same exact path. If you want to see or hear success stories, make sure to check out my Instagram, make sure to check out past podcast episodes of graduates who have gone from just a vague idea of what they want their business to be, to landing their first high ticket clients, to booking one way flights and transforming their lives in just four months. If this is something you resonate with, and if this is a life you feel attracted to check out momentum mastermind in the episode description.
Dani:
We start in September and you’re going to feel so clear on your business direction. You’re going to feel fully guided and fully understood. Just a recap, this is for you if you are an online business owner, a coach, an influencer creator, blogger, digital marketer, freelancer, or online service provider who has their business up and running, or at least a business idea, maybe even a few clients and customers, but you know that in business, there are things you know, things you know, you don’t know and things you don’t know, you don’t know.
Dani:
So being receptive and coachable are the keys to getting you to the next level. You are currently making less than 5k a month in your business. And you know, you are capable of more and you are a hundred percent committed to taking action in order to make those 5k months. You’re baseline reality. If this is for you and you’re ready for four months of leveling up with your new group of ambitious, creative travel, loving entrepreneurs, make sure to check out the link in the episode description, and we cannot wait to welcome you in.
The Online Business Essentials You Need For Success
Dani:
So today’s episode is going to be sharing all the Online Business Essentials that you need for success. I grew the Wanderlover from absolute zero with zero experience in the online business world, completely location, independent time, freedom, location, freedom, financial freedom. And these are the apps, software content creation book recommendations that have helped me get to multiple six figures today in just a few short years from corporate America to this dreamy two story loft, right on my favorite surf point break beach situation. And these are all of my recommendations.
Dani:
So If you crave the same freedom, then I recommend you follow this path and integrate all of these systems into your own business so that you can enjoy the same luxuries. And I’m going to be super transparent of how I grow my business on autopilot. And I’ll be sharing all of these in the episode description. So If you want to sign up for any of them, just feel free to click the Online Business Essentials link. So I’m going to break them into three separate categories. So the first is going to be apps and software I use. The second category for content creation is going to be equipment that I use and then recommended reading because I truly believe that in order to get you to the next level, you need to be thinking differently, right?
Dani:
Because If you wanna be at a different stage or at a different level in your life, you’re going to need to be doing something differently. You’re going to be needing to think differently. Your thoughts influence your feelings, which influence your actions, which influenced your results. So if you’re not getting the results that you want, you need to be changing your thoughts. And the best way to do that is through books, learning from people who are living differently than you and being super receptive and coachable.
Essential Apps And Software
Dani:
The first online business, essential that is crucial for your online business. Success is an email list manager, also known as a client relationship manager.
Dani:
The one I have been using is called active campaign. I have thousands and thousands of contacts on my email list. So every time I launch something, every time I have a new announcement, every time I wanna share something, I’m not sharing to crickets. I have an audience that is fully mine. It’s owned by me. It’s not like Instagram, where if Instagram goes down, I lose my followers. I get complete control over my email list. So If you are an online service provider and you are currently relying on social media to sell, to increase sales, highly recommend you expand further to nurturing, to growing your email list because this is the secret formula to online business success.
Dani:
The money is in the list. Going off of that. Similarly, to having full control over your audience and your email list, you will also want to have full control over your website. This means having your own domain name that’s not part of Blogspot, that’s not part of wordpress.com, that’s not part of Wix. You want to own your website fully and I do this through bluehost.com. They integrate with wordpress.org. And when you host your website on blue host, you also have full control over the rights. So you can sell advertising space.
Dani:
You can offer your own products and services. It’s fully customizable, and you don’t have to rely on a third party in order to customize your own website. You could literally design it however you want and monetize it and not have another company own the rights to your website. The last thing hosting related is If you have a podcast or If you want to start a podcast, you’ll also want a podcast hosting provider that is also completely yours. And what I use for the Wanderlover podcast is Lipsyn. It’s super easy to use you sign up. Once you request that your podcasts be listed on apple, on Spotify, on Stitcher, just once.
Dani:
And once you get approval, every single episode you upload, it will immediately get distributed to every single platform. The interface is super, super easy to catch onto. There’s really no learning curve at all. If you have a message and you want to constantly nurture your audience, podcasting is a great way to do so. And Libsyn makes it super easy for you to be consistent sharing episodes every week or biweekly, or however often you choose, okay, after hosting and having your online business sorted.
The next thing I would recommend is buying a physical organization PLANNER, where you can not only plan out your business tasks day to day, but plan out your life and what you are ultimately trying to achieve in a lifetime.
Dani:
Break it down into different years into different months and then into daily tasks. So you’re always feeling like you’re growing, you’re feeling fulfilled and you’re working towards a bigger goal. And how I do this on a daily basis. You’ve heard me talk about it on Instagram, on previous episodes. But I use a Passion Planner. I have been using this for so many years, even when I was working in corporate and it has completely changed my life. And so If you don’t have a way to organize your daily tasks as an entrepreneur, and you really need that system in your life to really look at what you have to do every day, not only do it, but then realize like, wait, this is contributing to my bigger mission, right?
Dani:
I’m not just going through the motions. If you feel like you need this, then please get a Passion Planner because it is going to change the way you look at your business and you look at your life. You can follow this link to get 10% off with the code DANIELLEH868. The next essential, especially if you’re traveling full time or have plans to travel full time, you’re going to want to look into a VPN. The one I use is called Nord VPN. It’s super affordable for, I believe a three year contract. It’s just like $2 per month. And what it lets you do is no matter what country you’re in, you can set your IP address to be in any other country in the world. And so in my case, I usually set mine to be in America.
Dani:
This is really helpful. When you have to log into your bank accounts, you know, you don’t want them to flag you as like a potential hacker, trying to log in from a different country that they Don don’t recognize. If you log in from your secured accounts in America, it usually goes a lot smoother and you don’t have to enter two-factor authentication. You don’t have to call customer service. This is also super helpful. If you have accounts that favor when you are domestic. So for example, Pinterest, If you have multiple logins from different countries around the world, your stats are going to drop significantly. I learned this after I stayed abroad for a few months and my Pinterest manager brought it up to my attention that my stats like decreased by 75%.
Dani:
And I lost so much traffic because I didn’t have a VPN. And they saw that I was logging in from a different country. This really hurt my stats. This hurt my traffic. And to prevent that from ever happening, I signed up for a VPN. So every time I log into Pinterest, it’s always an IP address that is in America. So If you have any plans to go international, sign up for Nord VPN, okay. The next two are related to content creation, editing software apps. The first one is Adobe suite. So this includes Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe PDF.
Dani:
And this suite I use to not only edit my photos and videos for Instagram, for my website for content, but also Adobe PDF gives you the ability to collect signatures, to send PDFs out for signatures. And it is super secure. So for all my client contracts, it goes through Adobe for all of my Lightroom editing. It goes through Adobe. If I ever need to edit videos, it goes through Adobe and it is one subscription per month. I use it every single month. I’ve been using it since day one. So If you want like a one size fits all content creation, editing, and also for client contracts look into the Adobe suite.
Dani:
Next I use Canva for everything that I had previously used on Adobe InDesign, but I found that with Canva, being able to create templates, being able to resize super easily, it’s just a lot easier for graphic design. I believe it’s more user friendly and you can sign up for free. So If you wanna try out Canva, use it for your Facebook ads, use it for your social posts for your stories. Like literally they have templates for everything. And If you are an online business owner, this is just something you need to know how to use, or at least you need to know that this is a resource that you can use because it offers so much value at such a low price per month.
Dani:
So with Canva pro you get access to all templates to all features. And there are so much, many Canva creators. So I truly believe this is just the one graphic design software or web based app that you need in order to create a perfectly cohesive brand easily. The last business essential I recommend is for lead generation. And what I mean by that is evergreen content. So If you are able to create a webinar that directs people automatically to a paid program, whether that be an online course, whether that be an online product or even a private coaching program, having consistent leads, driving them to a webinar is so effective and having recurring revenue that is also passive.
Dani:
So what I use for my webinars is stealth seminar. It is also just really easy to set up, and it is so effective in driving people who are interested in your content into your paid offers. Webinars are not dead. If you have one, they are so powerful. And If you have any type of online product or service, think about webinars as a means of traffic generation and nurturing and conversion. If you need help doing this, please message me. We cover this in momentum mastermind.
Dani:
One of the things that we teach you is how to set up these systems. So you don’t have to be in front of your computer working every day in order to be making money. We’re going to be having these running on autopilot so people can sign up while you are sleeping. This is how I’m able to serve every single day. This is how I’m able to work less than I did at my nine to five and more than double, triple my income. So If you believe that this is truly a possibility for you, I’m here to tell you that it is, and you just need to learn more about it and invest in yourself until you make it your reality.
Essential Equipment for Content Creation
Dani:
All right, next is for those of you who are content creators, and this is the equipment I use to produce all of my amazing content for you guys. What I am currently recording this podcast on is a hyper X quad cast microphone. I’ve brought this to so many different countries. It’s super portable. It’s usually, I think it’s like a gaming microphone. So it picks up like a lot of noise, but it’s just super clear. Like I’ve gotten so many compliments on my audio quality, even when I’m recording, you know, under the stairs. And it’s just so good.
Dani:
If you are traveling, you can fit it in your luggage and you pull it out every time you are ready to record. So I recommend the hyper X podcast. I’ve done a lot of research and this is truly the, the best microphone at a very affordable price as well for photography, for media production. When we’re shooting at luxury hotels, we use the Sony a seven, three really good quality, every single brand that we’ve worked with, they’ve literally loved all of our work. So the combination of having a really good camera plus a lot of presets that we use on Lightroom, the combination of that produces amazing quality.
Dani:
That brands take you really seriously for, you know, they want to work with you again, they’re going to recommend you to other people. So if you want to be a content creator and you don’t have good equipment, make sure you’re also investing into the gear that you use for aerial photography and videography. We have dji Mavic Air 2. This is also super portable. I think that’s like a trend you guys can notice because we’re constantly traveling. And so we just want to make sure we can bring all of our gear with us. So with the Mavic Air, really good quality and just really good balance between what we can, what content we can produce versus how portable it is as we’re going from country to country.
Dani:
And then for underwater videography action, sports surfing, we have the GoPro hero eight. Right now they’re on the hero 10. So anything I think like newer than the past few heroes, they all have really great quality. They have amazing stabilization. So even when you’re like on a skateboard or on a surfboard, it produces really good quality videos and photos. And last but not least, If you have all of this content and you’re not sure how to post or how to share it on your different platforms, I recommend downloading my content calendar, where I personally share with you my strategy of how I organize all of my content weeks in advance and how I decide where to post it and when to post it.
Dani:
So every day I hope it doesn’t come as a surprise. Like I know what I’m supposed to be posting on my platforms. I share it with my team and rarely does it come to a point where I’m like, oh my God, I need a post on Instagram. And I don’t have any idea what to post. If you need an organization system for your online business around your content, make sure to check out the content calendar.
Essential Reading
Dani:
All right. The last section is recommended reading. This is what I recommend all of my private clients, all of my mastermind members to read because these books changed. My life changed my perspective on life. And I really encourage you all to read the same books.
Dani:
The first is the four hour work week by Tim Ferris. I first read this when I was in corporate and I was so conditioned to living a corporate lifestyle. I thought that was the only possibility for my life until I read this book and held everything. He said as truth. He basically explains how, If you have an online business, and If you can outsource your work, then you can enjoy so much freedom. You can enjoy geo arbitrage where the dollar, If you make it online, you can go so far with $1. Then you can, let’s say living in Manhattan, which is where I was living and having lived that life and also being where I am now, I can vouch for everything he said in the book as truth, 1000 in New York city gets you almost nothing, but $1,000 in Buenos Aires,Argentina or Bali, Indonesia, or Lisbon, Portugal.
Dani:
So many places, if not most places around the world, your dollar will go so so much further. And your lifestyle is going to be enhanced by that much more. And you’re just going to enjoy life that much more and be a happier person. So four hour work week, If you haven’t read it already, make sure to download it, make sure to grab it. Just click on the link in the episode. Description. Next is secrets of the millionaire mind by T Harve Ecker coming from an immigrant family. I had lots of limiting beliefs around money and secrets of the millionaire mind, completely reframed how I thought about money and what I thought about money.
Dani:
So If you want to think like the millionaire, think, make sure to read this book. The next book I’d recommend is the Alchemist bipolar Kello. This is just a really feel good, easy read it’s fiction, but it is so transformational. You feel so good after you feel like anything is possible. And there are so many life lessons that you can take away. I have the quote, when you want something, the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it on every single page of my website in all of my digital products, all of my services, I repeat this quote. And If you need a kick of inspiration, read the Alchemist.
Dani:
All right. The last two books are my personal books that I recommend because I get questions all the time. How do you get paid to travel and how do you get your audience to pay you on Instagram? So to answer the first question, how do you get paid to travel? Download the travel influencer handbook. This is, I believe our fifth edition, the first edition came out in 2018 when the whole influencer industry was still relatively new and I’ve just grown and learned so much from the industry. I’ve updated it every single year. And it has A to Z how to become a travel influencer, how to grow your brand online and get paid by hotels, by tourism boards and travel brands.
Dani:
If you are a coach or creator looking to get paid using Instagram, make sure to download Instagram For Business, the ultimate branding and client attraction guide. I wrote this book because I saw so many different people use Instagram as like a personal account. And there is such a huge difference between people who use Instagram, just for their personal, you know, hobbies, their personal pleasure, or they want to share their personal photos versus the people who treat it as a business who treat their personal brand as a business. And If you want to be making money on Instagram, you need that reframe and you need to learn how to use it properly so that not only do people see your content, but you get paid for your content.
Dani:
So If you are unsure how to monetize your following right now, download Instagram for business. So these are all of the Online Business Essentials that I’ve curated that I use in my business on a daily basis. And I hope it gives you some inspiration on how you can implement new ways to grow, to structure your business so that you can scale even higher. I want all of my clients, I want every single person in my community to be making so much money, that they live a life of abundance of freedom and giving back with no strings attached when we are all operating from that upper level than the world becomes a better place because we’re no longer operating from scarcity.
Dani:
If this resonates with you and you want to fully commit to taking action until the end of the year, focus on your online business and make a lot of money with other entrepreneurs on the same path. Join us in momentum mastermind next month, If you have any questions, just DM me, my DMs are always open and I’m also really happy to set up a coffee date, just to learn more about you, about your business ideas and discuss if this is the right fit for you at this time. I hope this episode was helpful. If you really liked it, don’t forget to screenshot and tag me @thewanderlover and @thewanderloverpodcast. So we can spread this message to even more people who need to hear it for their businesses. I will see you guys in the next episode, have a fantastic week.
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