Your favorite tool in business

[Bronze_Palms]

What is your favorite tool in business that you never knew you needed until you had it?

Mine is Zapier. I love how my client messages are automatically sent out, it autodrafts emails for me, it logs payments from multiple apps into my square report so I can see earnings all in one place.

And "do not disturb" & "schedule send" on my phone... for obvious reasons lol

[Sammie_C]

I can see why Zapier is your favorite, @Bronze_Palms! I have heard a lot of great things about it. It sounds super handy.

I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone else's favorites are too!

[LukeNieuw]

I really liked Zapier too until I had multiple zaps break causing me massive headaches so I abandoned it! That was quite some time ago so I should give it another chance. Sounds like you have it dialed in!

Outside of Square, My favorite tool has probably been using AI ie. Grok or ChatGPT to analyze data and run scenarios to help iterate on ideas and execution plans. 

[indianathomas · Accepted solution]

I use two.... 

Zapier which does the following:

1. Updates my Google Ads with customer data every time a customer comes into one of my 10 locations.
2. When a customer leaves a Google review Zapier will:
   1. Call the store and let them know they just received a review.
   2. Send and SMS to all managers and executives on the review.
   3. Using ChatGPT generate a response for the review.
   4. Send to the Square Printer a copy of the review with instructions.
   5. Post the review on Facebook if it is 4-5 stars with image.
   6. Allow for a two hour delay for us to edit the review.
3. Send Messages to Square Printer.  Used to send urgent notifications to stores.
4. Send a message to the Square Printer every time a team member misses a phone call.

Manus.AI

We use Manus to optimize our Square Weebly site for SEO optimization.  This generates the code needed to override the Weekly system and increase SEO.  See www.keva.com for details.  

[Bronze_Palms]

When you say customer data is added to Google Ads, does this train your algorithm on specific campaigns or all campaigns within the ad platform? Can I ask what your service/product is? I am in a service-based business and would love to run ads that target my similar clientelle.

[Chaoswave]

I had a similar issue getting my brand to show up in AI answers, and what helped was working with Lavio AI because they focus on how LLMs actually pull and rank sources. Their audits and visibility tracking made it easier for me to see why my pages weren’t appearing and fix it without guessing. It felt a lot simpler once I started treating AI visibility separately from classic SEO.

[Doran]

Email automations!  I used to write every single thing now it is all automated into a funnel system and life-changing!

[VanKalkerFarms]

As simple as the answer is I would say my iPhone.  So much can be done and found at any given moment.  Access to all the spreadsheets on the go, email, texting, apps like Square.  Data everywhere vs only at the computer you had to go to and sit down at vs in your pocket is so different.  I know it isn't new and I have had an iPhone since the second one, but it still is an outage invaluable tool.

Youtube another simple one but there is so much tutorials and how to videos on basically any topic.