10 Tools to Maximize Your Productivity

Danielle Cobo  0:05  
The dream job with Danielle Cobo podcast is designed to empower women to turn life's biggest challenges into their greatest strength. To address the confidence gap and why women often struggle with visibility. Guests, I talk about how to find your voice, create your seat at the table, and how to be an amazing ally to other women in the workplace. I am a career coach, keynote speaker, corporate trainer, military spouse, and mom to young twin boys. I have experienced as a fortune 500 company leader who guided a team to number one in the nation, having a thriving career and a balanced life is within every woman's reach. And the time is now.

In today's episode, we're going to be talking about the productivity tools for high performing business owners, leaders and sales professionals. Sometimes some of the biggest challenges are when you're continuously growing your business, often that can affect your personal life because you're being pulled in a lot of different directions. And I'm a big advocate of working smarter and not harder. So we all know that being productive is key to a thriving career, but it's hard to know where to start. Most people try to increase their productivity by working harder, but this is usually just leads to burnout. As a business owner and a mom to four year old twins, I know firsthand, that a thriving career and a balanced life is essential. You manage your time by managing time effectively and efficiently. I'm going to share my favorite productivity tools with you that have helped me and my clients achieve more success with less stress. And the first one is unroll me, it is a app that you can download. It's also one that you can look at on the internet as well. So email inboxes are constantly overflowing and it's hard to know where to start. You're subscribed to way too many things and you don't have time to unsubscribe, sometimes from each one manually. So not only is it hard to keep up with the never ending influx of emails, but it's also tough to determine where which ones are worth keeping. It feels like you're losing valuable time just trying to manage your inbox. So unroll me is the solution for a more organized and efficient life. Unroll me will shows you a list of all your subscription emails so that you can unsubscribe from what you don't want with just one swipe. So consolidate the emails you want to keep into one daily digest. So you can easily stay on top of your subscriptions without feeling overwhelmed. This is among one of my favorite tools because sometimes you don't realize how many programs you are subscribed to, and often it can just inundate your email box. So I would be curious to hear from my listeners, how many of these subscriptions you're subscribed to and where did you start from and where did you end up going? 

The second productivity tool is Grammarly. So you know that good writing is essential for any successful business, but it's hard to produce high quality content when you're not a professional writer. It's not easy to produce error free writing, especially when you're under pressure to get things done quickly. Even the most experienced writers make mistakes sometimes and Grammarly is the answer. With their artificial intelligence powered grammar checking tool, you'll never have to worry about making a mistake in your writing again. Their suggestions help identify and replace complicated sentences with more efficient ones. So you're able to refresh competitor repetitive language and uphold accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar. This is among one of my favorite tools, and I use it every single day. And the nice thing is, is you're able to add an extension not only in Outlook, but also in your chrome or Google extension, as well as on your phone. So when it comes to writing text messages, you can do that as well. 

My third productivity tool is Jasper. So it's hard to know where to start when you're trying to write new content, and it can be even harder to come up with new ideas when you You don't have the time or energy. You're not alone. It's tough to keep up with the latest blogs, social media updates and sales emails. And as a business owner, I know firsthand because I am personally writing all of my blogs, all my email campaigns, all my social media posts, while also being published in magazines, and writing a book. So I understand firsthand where this can be challenging when you're constantly writing. So you feel like you're always playing catch up. And Jasper is an artificial intelligence powered, copywriting assistant that can help you speed up your content creation process. So by automatically writing 80% of your content, you'll have more time to focus on the 20% that needs to be edited by humans. And I will include a link in the show notes, of course, to all of these programs. But also when you click on my affiliate link, you will receive 10,000 free words. So this program is very affordable, especially when it comes to time efficiency. But why not set yourself up with 10,000 free words and just get going and started and see why this is among one of my favorite tools.

The next one is my signature. So you're busy, you're busy professional, who doesn't have time to create an email signature from scratch, you've probably seen all sorts of crazy signatures with graphics and animations and fonts that are hard to read. Not only do these signatures look unprofessional, they can also be a security risk. So my signature is the perfect solution for you. They're an online email signature generator that makes it easy to create professionals and branded email signatures in minutes. So plus, they offer free templates and designs that are tailored to your personal brand and company voice. So I will include the link to my signature as well. 

The next is Canva. So Canva you have you want to create beautiful designs, but you don't have the time or the money to hire a professional. Even if you're not a graphic designer, you can still create stunning visuals with Canva. With their easy to use tools and templates, you can produce high quality graphics with for your social media posts, websites, resumes, and more. One call out with the resume is in order to set yourself up for success for the artificial tracking system. I want to be very mindful, mindful on this particular advice where there are specifics to I say beat the algorithms so that your resume is among the 25% is viewed by human eyes, everything from format and font and layout, it is so detailed even down to every single word that you use. So I like Canva when it comes to aesthetically pleasing resumes, when you're sending it directly to hiring managers. However, there are different tools that I would suggest and strategies around beating that artificial tracking system. So Canva makes design simple and affordable with millions of images, icons, illustrations at your fingertips. So you can create any kind of design you need. Plus their library of templates is constantly being updated with fresh ideas. If you look on my social media, all of my images and social media content is created with Canva. And one of the features that I like to take it a step further is you can actually schedule it out to post. So you can schedule it to post on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram which saves time and kind of takes one less thing off of your plate. 

The next is strategy and meeting planner workbooks. So being an account manager in sales is like owning your own business. And the more you put in, the more you get out. So let's get you thinking like a business owner. When you build a strategic plan to approach your business you can say goodbye to being mediocre and say hello to President circle and maxing out your comp plan and finishing number one. Here is my promise to you. These exercises work if you do the work. I can show you the way but it's up to you to execute. And I know firsthand and have taught again 1000s of salespeople how to do the same and these are workbooks that I have personally created  and used throughout my career to help set me up for success. And my clients have also had similar results using these. So everything from strategy workbooks when it comes to goal setting and business planning and tracking your quota, there's also a workbook for meeting planners. So when you're going into a meeting with a physician, and you're going to be talking about business planning and tiers, if you're in medical esthetics, maybe you're gonna be talking about how to maintain tier levels or upgrade tiers, and you're planning events and you're putting together promotional poll through strategies. This meeting planner is perfect for you. 

We will be right back to today's episode, there is one thing you can count on in sales, and that your quota will continue to increase as your business grows. Sales is tough, and salespeople are constantly looking for ways to be more successful. And it's no secret that having a well thought out business plan is key to success in sales. But it can be hard to know where to start, or how to quantify your results. Without a clear plan of action, you're likely to spin your wheels and not make much progress. To be successful, it's essential to have a process to help you focus on what's important and get measurable results. I've experienced success firsthand, learning for back to back President circle, and lead a team to number one in the nation. Now my clients are achieving same success maxing out their comp plan and finishing at the top. With the support of a sales performance coach, you can achieve the same success too. We work together to transform self doubt, to confidence, analyze and quantify what has worked well in the past to accelerate those results. Set Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and time bound goals, then build a business strategy to exceed your goals. How would you feel if you were empowered with the tools to thrive and sales without sacrificing your personal life, I invite you to go to my website, Daniellecobo.com, that COBO Daniellecobo.com and schedule your free career discovery session with me today. Now back to today's episode.

And then I also have a a notebook. So this is a notebook with daily inspirational quotes. I also provide tools and tips on work life balance. And it's 100 pages with plenty of room majority of these pages being areas where you can write your notes. So it's my one of my favorite notebooks that I use and just writing my daily notes, but I like how it's got that daily boost of motivation with inspirational quotes. And I will include a workbook for that as well, or a link to that as well.

The next is Pruvit ketones. So as a working mom, wife and mother to these thrill, these twin thrill seeking boys, I know firsthand what it feels like to be burnt out and feel overwhelmed. And I had a hard time shutting down my brain at night. I am working on my TEDx, my TED Talk. And my coach is talking about that like I am a, a an overflowing brain of creativity and content. So which is great, I definitely enjoy writing every single day, but sometimes I have a hard time shutting my brain off during the in the evening, and as a result I'm often exhausted during the day. So that's why I shifted my lifestyle to a better and started utilizing ketones in my daily routine. And what I love most is that this is a drink versus a diet. So being a working mom, I wanted to find a solution that was simple to follow, yet very effective. And some of the benefits that I have found in experience is an increased level of energy, improved focus and helping me with minimizing the distractions throughout the day and being very clear and focused and enhanced mental clarity. Also a better mood. I don't know about you, but sometimes with my little two balls of energy kids, I can sometimes lose patience and so and that stress can have an effect as well. So having this to help boost my mood is always great. Interrupted sleep, eliminating the cravings for carbs and sugars. I'm always been a chocolate chocolate lover and so sometimes my biggest challenges is when I'm stressed or irritable I will constantly grow for sugar and this helps eliminate the cravings for sugar. And then I've also noticed benefits with fat loss. So I know that some people, when I talk about losing weight, they say, Oh, you don't know you don't need to lose weight. But the reality is what most people don't know is my weight fluctuates 15 pounds throughout the year. And in fact, I have three different sets of jeans for three different sizes. So I've got a lot of jeans. And what happens when I start to put on a little bit of weight I have because I've been in a couple car accidents, and I've had knee surgery from snowboarding, I have a lot of lower back pain, and I have pain in my knee. And so any additional even if it's just a few pounds, can create that pain. I also have an autoimmune disorder, and so I have some inflammation challenges. And really, it's it's essential for me to have a great lifestyle where I am maintaining a certain weight to not have experienced these pains. So as a listener, I will say there is this 10 Day Challenge, where you actually will get $31 off when you use this special link in the shownotes as well.

And the next is video editing tools. So if you have ever been in a situation where you are creating videos and you're trying to put together captions, this is a tool for you, it's called mix captions. So you know that those amazing videos that you see on social media that just leave you in awe, chances are they have captions. That's because adding captions to your videos is the key to getting more views, more followers and higher engagement. And with MCs captions, it's easier than ever before, just upload your video and automatically it can transcribe it and create beautiful captions in any language. So with mixed captions, you can easily translate your captions into Chinese and French and German and Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. So you can reach a wider wider audience than ever before with mixed captions and they're accurate transcriptions means that your viewers will never miss a word. It's interesting because 87% of people that are on social media watch look at social media without sound. And so it's essential for you to capture your audience by incorporating transcripts or to transcribe it with captions. 

The next tool is splice. So you don't have time to be a professional filmmaker to make great videos for social media. And I get it because I create a lot of videos for social media, so a couple of these tools have really set me up for success. And with splice you can easily create beautiful videos with just a few tabs. So splice is an easy to use video editor that makes it simple to add music and transitions and effects to your clips. So your friends and followers will be amazed at the high quality of your videos, all without expensive software and hardware, and stand out from the crowd with splice unique features and tools. 

Now if you're a podcaster, then Buzzsprout is the way to go. Buzzsprout is among one of my favorite tools. Podcasting is a great way to share your voice and ideas with the world. Podcasting makes Buzzsprout makes podcasting easy and accessible for everyone. You can use your tools to create hosts and share your episodes with the world. And the platform provides powerful audience analytics so you can see how well your podcast is doing and make adjustments and improve it. I often will follow this the stats on Buzzsprout so that I'm seeing what you as the listeners are the content that you're enjoying the most so that I can ensure that I'm continuing to deliver on adding value so that every time you tune in, you're feeling like you're walking away with that growth mindset and learning something new. So they provide features and tools to succeed. Also a supportive community and I included a link in the show notes to earn a $25 gift card if you use this particular link when you sign in. And then also I do have some recommendations for podcasting. So if for example, you are looking to be a podcaster there's some tools that I've learned over the year over this past year when it comes to mic and improving the sound quality. You'll probably notice if you listen to my first couple of episodes of my podcast in comparison to now there's definitely some tools that I've incorporated to improve the quality already, so I invite you, these are some of my favorite tools to be productive and to work smarter and not harder. And then I also invite you in one of the episodes previously, I had an episode on the six tips to being productive at work. So I invite you to tune in to that episode will where we really dive in deeper into productivity in the workplace. 

So thanks for tuning in. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. To receive your free career accelerator and crush your quota workbooks with actionable steps on how to accelerate your career. Go to Daniellecobo.com to learn more about my services, including keynote speaking, corporate workshops and one on one coaching. I invite you to go to my website, Danielle cobo.com and schedule a call with me. And one last favor to ask. The best compliment is a review. Please take a quick minute to share on iTunes or Spotify why you enjoy tuning into the dream job within your Kobo podcast. Thanks for tuning in and create an intentional day