Consulting Resources: What We Use & Recommend

What consulting resources can help you grow your business and save you time and money — enabling you to run a seamless, stress-free business?

Below we’ve curated our top consulting resources based on what we use ourselves and what the most successful consultants in our Clarity Coaching Program use.

Consulting Resources: Our Top Picks

Note that in some cases we have partnered with these companies and the ones we use in our business. This means that if you choose to also use these for your business we may receive a small referral fee from the company.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

HubSpot

What It Is: HubSpot is a CRM platform integrating marketing, sales, and customer service features.
How To Use It: We use HubSpot for tracking sales opportunities and managing our pipeline. Ultimately, it helps us close more business and sign up more Clarity Coaching clients.
Example: Instead of tracking their pipeline in their head, a leadership consultant uses HubSpot for their pipeline, resulting in better tracking, more follow-ups, and more sales.

Capsule

What It Is: Capsule is a user-friendly CRM system that helps you manage relationships, sales opportunities, and client histories. It’s also simpler and cheaper than HubSpot.
How To Use It: Consultants use Capsule to organize client information, manage sales funnels, and keep a detailed record of interactions and calls.
Example: A manufacturing consultant who doesn’t need all of the features of HubSpot uses Capsule instead, helping to build and manage their consulting pipeline.

Pipedrive

What It Is: Pipedrive is a CRM tool focused on sales management and pipeline tracking.
How To Use It: Consultants use Pipedrive to manage their sales pipeline, track leads, and optimize their sales process.
Example: A business consultant uses Pipedrive to track progress on various leads, helping to prioritize follow-ups, resulting in a 20% increase in closed deals.

Salesflare

What It Is: Salesflare is an automated CRM for small businesses, emphasizing data entry automation and client follow-up.
How To Use It: Like other CRMs, consultants use Salesflare to automate their lead tracking and maintain organized client communications.
Example: A software consultant uses Salesflare to automatically log client interactions from emails, providing a clear history of communications and reducing manual data entry.

Financial Management

QuickBooks

What It Is: QuickBooks is an accounting software designed for small to medium-sized businesses. It offers bookkeeping, invoicing, financial reporting, and more — everything a consultant needs to keep track of the financial side of the business.
How We Use It: We use QuickBooks for financial tracking, invoice management, and budget planning.
Example: A branding consultant uses QuickBooks to track project expenses, invoice clients, and manage taxes, saving approximately 10 hours per month in financial administration.

Project & Task Management

Asana

What It Is: Asana is a project management tool that helps businesses organize, track, and manage their work.
How We Use It: We use Asana to manage projects: determining who does what by when. It helps us plan projects, assign tasks, and track progress — helping our team communicate better and get things done on time.
Example: A nonprofit consultant uses Asana to manage multiple client projects, assigning tasks to team members and tracking deadlines to ensure on-time delivery.

ClickUp

What It Is: ClickUp is a collaboration and project management tool that offers various productivity features, including task assignments, document management, and goal tracking.
How To Use It: Consultants use ClickUp for its project management capabilities, enabling them to organize tasks, collaborate with team members, and track project progress.
Example: A fundraising consultant uses ClickUp to streamline project workflows for multiple clients. By setting up dedicated spaces for each client, they can assign tasks, set deadlines, and track progress in real-time, which improves project management efficiency and client satisfaction.

Lead Generation & Prospecting

Apollo

What It Is: Apollo is a sales intelligence and engagement platform that combines lead generation, email outreach, automation, data insights, and more.
How To Use It: Consultants use Apollo for targeted lead generation, automating outreach campaigns, and gaining insights to improve their sales results.
Example: A B2B software consultant uses Apollo to identify SaaS founders, automates initial outreach, and personalizes follow-ups — resulting in a 25% increase in qualified leads.

OptInMonster

What It Is: OptinMonster is a lead generation tool that creates enticing opt-in forms and pop-ups to convert website visitors.
How To Use It: We use OptinMonster on our site to encourage website visitors to sign up for our newsletter and get free resources. We also use it to A/B test different copy and graphics to maximize our website’s conversion rate.
Example: An operations consultant uses OptInMonster to create a pop-up offering an SOP playbook, which increases their email list subscriptions by 75%.

Dripify

What It Is: Dripify is an advanced automation tool for streamlined lead generation through LinkedIn.
How To Use It: Consultants use Dripify to automate LinkedIn outreach, manage prospects, and nurture leads in a personalized way.
Example: An eCommerce consultant uses Dripify to automate connection requests and follow-up messages on LinkedIn, doubling their audience in three months.

Email Marketing & Conversion Optimization

Keap (formerly Infusionsoft)

What It Is: Keap is an email marketing automation software designed for small and medium-sized businesses — but it also integrates client management and sales automation.
How To Use It: We primarily use Keap to send and automate emails to our list. We also use it to deliver email drip campaigns for our books and courses. In addition, we build landing pages with Keap which encourage people to sign up for our various offers.
Example: A sales consultant uses Keap to send their weekly newsletter email, allowing them to nurture and follow up with their audience at scale.

MailChimp

What It Is: MailChimp is a simple email marketing platform that enables you to create, send, and analyze email campaigns.
How To Use It: In the past, we’ve used MailChimp to create email campaigns, manage our list, send email blasts, and track campaign effectiveness. If you’re a consultant looking to get started with email marketing, MailChimp is an excellent choice.
Example: A marketing consultant uses MailChimp to send a weekly newsletter with marketing tips, serving as their #1 source of new client inquiries.

VWO

What It Is: VWO is an A/B testing and conversion optimization platform used for analyzing user behavior and improving website experiences.
How To Use It: We use VWO to A/B test different pages on our website. It allows us to test different languages, graphics, and layouts to determine which variation leads to the most conversions.
Example: A PR consultant uses VWO to test different landing page designs, leading to a 20% increase in free consultations from their contact page.

Communication & Collaboration

Zoom

What It Is: Zoom is a video conferencing tool that facilitates online meetings, webinars, sales calls, and collaborative sessions.
How To Use It: We use Zoom for team meetings, coaching calls, and virtual masterminds. It’s a must-have if you run a remote company like ours.
Example: A construction consultant conducts weekly networking meet-ups on Zoom, helping create new warm connections and getting introduced to new potential clients.

Loom

What It Is: Loom is a video messaging tool that allows for quick creation and sharing of video messages, cutting down the need for meetings.
How To Use It: Our team uses Loom to send personalized video messages to each other and clients. From project updates to explaining concepts visually, it’s a tool we use every day to communicate with each other.
Example: An ERP consultant uses Loom to create tutorial videos for clients, reducing the time spent on one-on-one training sessions by half.

Riverside

What It Is: Riverside is a platform for high-quality podcast and video recording, offering studio-like recording capabilities.
How We Use It: We use Riverside to host the Consulting Success Podcast. We also use it to edit the podcast and create podcast clips to share on Consulting Success TV.
Example: A co-packing consultant uses Riverside to record podcast episodes with industry experts, providing valuable content to increase the size of their audience and increase leads.

Canva

What It Is: Canva is a user-friendly graphic design tool that helps you create better-looking graphics: from presentations to social media assets.
How To Use It: We use Canva to design various graphics for our website and social media. It helps us to create easy-to-edit templates that non-graphics designers can use to create attractive and professional creative assets.
Example: An HR consultant uses Canva to create visually appealing content for their firm’s social media campaigns, enhancing brand presence and audience engagement.

HypeFury

What It Is: HypeFury is a social media management tool designed to automate post scheduling for various platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
How To Use It: We use Hypefury to schedule consistent content weeks in advance. It allows our administrative team to schedule the content on behalf of the authors, saving the author time.
Example: A research consultant uses HypeFury to daily posts on LinkedIn, growing their follower base by 35% in six months.

Whiteboarding

Miro

What It Is: Miro is an online collaborative whiteboarding platform that facilitates brainstorming, planning, and project visualization.
How To Use It: Consultants use Miro for remote team collaboration, ideation sessions, and project planning, making brainstorming and strategy sessions more interactive.
Example: A medical research consultant uses Miro to conduct remote planning workshops with clients, improving project clarity and team alignment.

Lucid Chart

What It Is: Lucid Chart is a visual workspace that offers diagramming and data visualization to simplify complex ideas and processes.
How To Use It: Consultants use Lucid Chart to create flowcharts, process diagrams, and organizational charts, aiding in clear communication of ideas.
Example: A restaurant consultant uses Lucid Chart to map out a client’s network infrastructure, aiding in identifying inefficiencies and planning upgrades.

Data Analysis & SEO

Ahrefs

What It Is: Ahrefs is an SEO tool that provides keyword research, content analysis, and competitor tracking capabilities.
How To Use It: As a business that focuses on content and inbound marketing, we use Ahrefs to plan our editorial calendar, track our keyword rankings, and analyze what competitors are doing. We also use it to help our clients with their SEO in our Clarity Coaching Program.
Example: An operations consultant uses Ahrefs to identify high-potential keywords for their consulting website, resulting in a 50% increase in organic traffic within three months.

Google Analytics

What It Is: Google Analytics is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic, providing insights into user behavior and website performance.
How To Use It: We use Google Analytics to understand who is visiting our website, where they are coming from, and what they are doing on it. It helps us make data-driven decisions on what to test or how we can improve the website and blog.
Example: A digital transformation consultant uses Google Analytics to analyze customer purchase behavior, helping clients optimize their sales funnel and increase conversion rates by 30%.

Website Domains & Hosting

Consulting Website Template Kit

What It Is: Consulting Website Template Kit is our kit and course to help you write, design, and market your lead-generating website.
How To Use It: The course will walk you through how to research your ideal clients, write copy that speaks to their needs, design a website that funnels them toward booking a call with you, and how to build marketing habits to bring ideal clients to your website.
Example: HR consultants Kristen Ireland and Erin Mies use their consulting website to get their clients to know them, like them, and trust them — helping facilitate more sales.

WordPress.org

What It Is: WordPress.org is an open-source content management system that allows users to build and manage websites with flexibility and a wide range of plugins.
How To Use It: We use WordPress to power our blog and various membership websites for our programs. We also recommend that our clients use WordPress for their consulting websites because it’s the best platform for managing content.
Example: A WordPress consultant designs a custom WordPress site for a local retailer, developing e-commerce capabilities that lead to a 40% growth in online sales.

LiquidWeb

What It Is: LiquidWeb is a hosting company known for its high-performance managed hosting solutions, including dedicated servers, VPS hosting, and cloud services.
How To Use It: We’ve been using LiquidWeb for many years to host our blog and membership websites for our programs.
Example: A financial software systems consultant migrates a client’s resource-heavy application to LiquidWeb’s dedicated server hosting, resulting in improved site speed and a 20% reduction in downtime.

NameCheap

What It Is: NameCheap is a domain registrar and web hosting company offering affordable domain registration, hosting services, and privacy protection.
How To Use It: Use Namecheap if you need to buy a domain name for your consulting website.
Example: A life sciences consultant uses NameCheap to secure their domain name, ensuring a professional web presence at a minimal cost — and allowing them to get started on building their consulting website.

Freelancers

Fiverr

What It Is: Fiverr is an online marketplace that connects businesses with freelancers offering a wide range of services like graphic design, digital marketing, writing, and programming.
How We Use It: We’ve used Fiverr to outsource many different graphic design tasks like book covers and PDF designs. Instead of hiring a full-time graphic designer, we simply hire them when we need them.
Example: A data consultant collaborates with freelance graphic designers on Fiverr to create visually appealing marketing materials and data for a campaign, resulting in a more professional brand and higher impressions.

Learn To Use These Consulting Resources To Grow Your Business

Consultant, remember this: the value of these consulting resources and tools lies in the skill of who uses them.

Owning the right tools is only half the battle.

The real challenge is using these tools to create the growth you desire in your consulting business.

So if you’re looking to learn how to use these resources to build a more strategic, profitable, and scalable consulting business, we can help.

In our Clarity Coaching program, we’ve helped over 1000 consultants to build a more strategic, profitable, and scalable, consulting business.

Learn More About Clarity Coaching

We’ll work hands-on with you to develop a strategic plan and then dive deep and work through your ideal client clarity, strategic messaging, consulting offers, fees and pricing, business model optimization, and help you to set up your marketing engine and lead generation system to consistently attract ideal clients.

You’ll learn how to generate more profit with every project you take on — and how to land more clients than ever before. Learn more about Clarity Coaching and get in touch to talk about your situation and goals.

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