The tools behind the systems

This is the one. It's where my business lives, where every client project gets built, and the tool I've spent the most time getting genuinely good at. Tasks, docs, SOPs, client communication, and my whole week—all in one place instead of scattered across seven apps and a notebook.

It is also the tool people most often tell me they "tried and gave up on." That's usually not a ClickUp problem. It's flexible enough to let you build something confusing, which is exactly why the setup matters so much.

Already tried clickup and it's a mess? Here's how I can help.

Proposals, contracts, invoices, and client onboarding in one place. The part I appreciate most is that a client can sign and pay in the same step — no chasing a signature one week and an invoice the next.

If you're currently stitching together a contract tool, an invoicing tool, and a lot of follow-up emails, this replaces all three.

This is what I use when I want an email to look good without turning designing the email into its own project. Flodesk makes it easy to build beautiful emails, set up automated sequences, and keep in touch with your list without needing to become an email marketing expert first.

I especially love it for businesses that know they should be emailing their people more consistently, but get stuck somewhere between “I should send something” and actually hitting send. The templates are easy to customize, the automations don't feel overwhelming, and once everything is set up, it can quietly do a lot of the work in the background.

Not exciting, but genuinely foundational. Professional email at your own domain, plus Docs, Sheets, and Drive that everyone already knows how to use — which matters more than people expect when you start handing work to a contractor or VA.

The sharing permissions are also what make a real handoff possible. If your files live in a personal account, nobody else can pick anything up when you're out.