Starting and running a business is no joke. Let’s not even talk about posting on Instagram every day with the right hashtags, doing email marketing once or twice a week (some even more), writing blog posts, creating digital products and posting stuff to your Instagram stories!

 

All of that sounds hectic in itself. But a smart business owner knows that it’s efficient to have the right tools to do the most in the shortest amount of time. Because let’s face it, time is precious and time is money. Plus a lot of us are parents and need to have some time for our little ones.

 

SOOOOOOO. Yeah, I’ve compiled a list of the 7 tools I use to create my digital products that make the process MUCH simpler!

 

1. Adobe Photoshop – So this takes a loooong time to learn and master. I’ve been using it for like 7 years and I still learn new things about it every time I use it. Adobe Photoshop is like my go to for creating the covers for my digital products. You can add lots of different fonts (and fonts are life!) and it’s easier to use (for me) than Adobe illustrator.

 

2. Adobe InDesign – Adobe InDesign is Photoshop’s sister to me. This program is how I created my 2018 Visionary Planner. It’s used by designers to design things like magazine covers, newspapers, flyers, brochures, presentations and books. Yeah, I know that’s a lot! But I use it for creating my digital products like eBooks and workbooks.

 

3. Small PDF – So I have an Etsy store that I sell most of my digital products on: https://www.etsy.com/shop/IAMVISIONARYSHOPSo you can see what kind of digital products I’m referring to. Now, after I create my digital products in Adobe InDesign and export them to PDF, then I have to merge that PDF file with the PDF Cover I created in Adobe Photoshop. Small PDF allows you to merge PDFs, Compress PDFs, Extract pages from a PDF and lots of other cool things.

 

4. Canva – I use Canva to create things like content for my Instagram page, memes and other things of that nature. Canva also has templates for Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube and lots of other things like logos, presentations, eBooks. Go check them out. You’re welcome. J

 

5. Create Her Stock – Every business needs stock photography for websites, blog posts, and other things. Create Her Stock is a saving grace when it comes to finding stock photos featuring African American women, business owners and entrepreneurs. If you were looking for them, you’d notice there was a major shortage! Create Her Stock to the rescue!

 

6. DA Fonts.com– This font resource offer TONS of fonts for you to use for your projects. But you have to be careful which ones you’re using. Some of the fonts specifically state that they’re for personal use only, so make sure you check!

 

7. Keynote – If you want to create eCourses, Keynote allows you to record audio while going through a slide presentation. What I do is I like to create the slide presentation in Canva first and drag and drop it into keynote. You can do this in Microsoft PowerPoint as well if you don’t have an Apple Laptop.

 

So there you have it! I’ve given you the tools to create your digital content! So get to creating! J