We’re going to give you some insider stuff here – little programs and tools we’ve found that make doing business online easier for us. We’re always checking out the latest cutting edge software and it’s really cool to find ones that help us out in a big way. Today we want to give you five of our favorites so you can start using them in your own online business.

The first is Jing. Its purpose is simple – it captures what’s on your screen, whether video or still shots. We’ve found Jing really handy when we’re doing a tutorial or a training piece and we need to insert a screen shot to illustrate what we’re talking about. Jing makes that process very quick and easy. You can also use Jing to capture a short piece of video. For instance, if you’d like to show how your product works in action, this would do the trick. Jing has a free version (we love free!) and a pro version that costs about $15 a year.

One of the biggest questions every internet entrepreneur asks is: How well is my website working? We found a great analytics service called Get Clicky. It not only answers your big question, it can show you what’s happening on your website as it’s happening! How cool is that? It’s like having an actual store and watching customers as they browse the merchandise. There are other analytics services but Get Clicky is one of the most user friendly we’ve found. You can learn how many people are visiting your site, how long they stay, how many actions they take, what they order, even who they are and where they live. This is really great feedback when you’re trying to fine tune your blog to get the best response and the most sales.

Tungle is a great free scheduling tool, that we use because we have a lot of meetings, client calls and appointments. It keeps track of them and connects to our computer calendars so there’s never any double booking. Tungle allows us to offer several available meeting times to someone based on our calendar. When they accept, Tungle automatically updates the calendar. But if they choose a time we have booked, Tungle will show that. So there’s never a double booked time! Cool, huh? We need all the organizing we can get and Tungle really helps.

Mind mapping, if you haven’t gotten into it yet, you should. It’s one of our favorite tools of all. We use it all the time to plan things like our upcoming launch. Sue’s favorite mind mapping tool is iThoughts for the iPad. It’s easy to use and lays out all your steps, plans, options and goals in a clear graphic format. Another one called Mind 42 (mind for two) is very handy if you’re mind mapping with another person participating.

We’re always on the lookout for great programs, software and websites so we can recommend the best ones to our friends. Give these a try if you like and be sure to let us know what you think in the comments section below!

And I just googled the title of our blog post to look for a Mary Poppins picture. Lo and behold, I found a video of my favourite new band…. Pamplamouse, doing a fabulously entertaining and different cover of the same song. Hope you enjoy it!

These are a Few of Our Favorite Things