How To Pick The Right Software For Your Online Business

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You’ve probably asked it—or seen it asked in every online group: 

“What’s the best software for an online business?” 

What’s my response? 

❌ There is no one right software for everyone.
✅ But there is a right one for you—and that’s what we’re breaking down today. 

In this episode, I’ll walk you through how to stop chasing the latest tools and start choosing the right-fit tech for your business goals, personality, and growth stage. 

Whether you're building a course, running a service, or selling products—this episode will help you get unstuck and finally move forward. 

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Episode Transcript

Carrie Saunders (00:43):
You probably asked it or seen it asked in
about every online group.
What's the best software for anonline business?
Wanna know what my response is?
There's no one right piece ofsoftware.
We are very vendor agnostic.
But there's usually a right onefor you.
And that's what we're going tobreak down to in today's
episode.

(01:03):
I will walk you through how tostop chasing the latest tools
and start choosing the right fittech for your business goals,
personality, and growth stage.
When we keep switching tools,we end up being stuck and not
moving our business forward.
So whether you're building acourse, running a service, or
selling products, this episodewill help you get unstuck and

(01:25):
finally move forward.
And I'll even share one commontrap that keeps business owners
stuck in software test modeinstead of actually launching
it.
And you might even recognizeit.
Let's dive in.
Struggling to turn websitetraffic into real sales, you're
not alone and you don't have tofigure it out all yourself.
Welcome to Smarter OnlineBusiness, the podcast for course

(01:47):
creators, coaches, ande-commerce entrepreneurs who
want their websites to convertvisitors into buyers without the
tech overwhelm.
I'm your host, Carrie Saunders,a website strategist and
conversion expert with over 20years of experience.
Each episode delivers simple,proven strategies to help you
generate more revenue and makeyour website your smartest sales
tool.

(02:07):
Welcome back to the show.
Today we're talking about whatis that right software tool?
And as I alluded to in theintro, there's no one right
software tool.
What we need to do is find theright software tool for you and
your business and what you needin your business.
So every business has differentgoals.
You could be selling courses,you could be selling products,

(02:30):
you could be booking calls.
What are your main goals thatyou need to do for your
customers?
And what works for aseven-figure influencer may not
be right for a scrappy soloentrepreneur.
So don't choose based onpopularity.
Choose based on fit.
This is where this question inonline social media can drive me
a little bit crazy becauseobviously people are going to

(02:51):
respond with what tool they lovebecause they use it.
Now there's a few people likemyself, and I know there's a few
other tech people that I loveon the online space.
We try to give you, you know,make you think about what you
need your tool to use to makeyou critically think through it
so that you're thinking aboutthe best software for you, not

(03:14):
what's popular.
What's popular is notnecessarily the best software
for you.
So you don't need the best, youneed the best for you.
I want to reiterate that again.
Um, so there are some questionsthat you can ask before you
pick a platform.
So, what's the main thing thatyou want this software to do?

(03:35):
And does that software do thatwell?
So that's the first question.
What's the main thing do youneed this software to do?
And does it do it well?
And how tech comfortable areyou or your team?
You need to look at tech debt,is what I like to call it.
And Mac agrees, he's over heretalking to us too.
So you need to look at techdebt.

(03:55):
What is the tech um hurdle intrying to learn this software?
And if it is a great piece ofsoftware and a great fit, but
the tech is a little bit harderon it, will the company provide
the support you need to get overthat tech hurdle?
Because sometimes greatsoftware out there has a little
bit learning more learning curvefor tech.

(04:16):
And if you find the rightperson to help you with that
tech, or if the company itselfhelps you with that and get you
through it, then that's actuallynot a big problem.
And do you want everything inone place or do you prefer best
in class tools?
So, do you prefer the bestemail service provider, the best
shopping cart, the best courseservice, or do you want them all

(04:38):
in one place to make the techdebt lower?
Apparently, Mac has a lot ofopinions on this one.
And then this last question Ifeel is very important, and this
is what I work with clients alot with when I'm doing
consultations with them, istrying to figure out where
they're going in their business,where is their future?
Because this next question iswill this grow with me over time

(05:01):
or become a limitation?
So sometimes we want to take ona piece of software that might
be a little bit higher techdebt, but we know it's going to
make things easier when we growand as we go along with our
business.
So maybe there's a little minorum, you know, disadvantage
because it has a little bithigher tech debt, but in the

(05:22):
long run, it's going to be thebest choice because then we
won't have to move software.
So let me read those questionsagain in case you're
multitasking or driving orsomething.
And I know I did someexplanations in there.
So let me read those again.
What's the main thing I need todo with this software?
How comfortable am I or my teamwith technology?

(05:43):
Do I want everything in oneplace or do I prefer best in
class tools?
And will this grow with me overtime or become a limitation?
One of the biggest traps I seeis people endlessly switching
platforms, thinking this nextone will finally fix it all.
I actually had an e-commerceclient come to me.

(06:05):
They have been with us for, I'dlost track, over 15 years, and
they told me years later,they're like, we were about to
give up on this shopping cartsoftware till we found you.
And you're the one that made itwork, that made it do what we
needed it to do.
And you're the one that helpedsupport it and helped keep us in

(06:26):
this platform.
We were about to replatform.
So sometimes you need the righttech partner behind you and the
person that can help strategizewith you.
And if you don't get clear onthese first four questions
first, you'll stay in tinkeringmode instead of taking action,
which holds our businesses back.
So since they didn't stay intinkering mode and they came to

(06:49):
us and they had us start helpingthem, they have blown up their
business and it has justastronomically grown in the past
15 years on the online businessspace, especially.
They're actually a retail storetoo.
They have a brick and mortarbusiness.
So finding that right softwarefor you, as well as sometimes

(07:09):
the right tech partner, can bethe great perfect scenario
there.
So let's talk now about someexamples of some right fit
tools.
And you know, many of thesetools we help help clients with
and use ourselves.
So we have you know a prettygood sense of what they can and
cannot do.
So if you want to DIY itquickly, Squarespace or Wix

(07:31):
might be a good fit.
However, it you know, I cautionyou it may be one that won't
grow as well with you.
So that's something toconsider.
Now, if you want full control,you may want WordPress that lets
you do all kinds of add-ons andthings like that.
However, it has a bit more of asecurity implication behind it.

(07:52):
Because as we talk about onsome of our really early podcast
episodes, if you're not keepingthe plugins up to date and
you're not keeping WordPress upto date, then that can create a
vulnerability in your website.
So that's a tech minus onWordPress.
But if you know how to manageit or you have a tech person to
help you manage it, then it's agreat solution.
Now, if you're selling digitalcourses and you want it all in

(08:16):
one place, the two most popularplatforms are GoHi Level and
Kajabi.
We have used both softwarebefore.
We used to be on Kajabi and nowwe're on Go High Level.
We're actually an agency forit, and we have our own package
called Course Creator Suite.
Now, they are both greatsoftware tools.
We have we've seen successfulpeople running on both of them,

(08:39):
but they do have some pluses andminuses on what they can do for
people and how they do them.
Now, Course Creator, ourversion of course creator suite
slash go high level is a littlebit more of a tech learning
curve.
So it takes a little bit moreto learn it, but has a lot more
features built all in one, builtall into it versus Kajabi.

(09:01):
Kajabi is a little bit easierto figure out, although I still
found some tech hurdles in iteven for myself and trying to
use it.
So it really depends upon thefeatures that you need there.
And you're always welcome toreach out to us on any of these
comparisons to see what's theright fit for you.
And then let's go toe-commerce.
Some popular ones that we workwith are Magento, Xcart,

(09:24):
Shopify, WooCommerce, andBigCommerce.
Now that's five e-commercesoftwares we work for with.
So which one's right for youthere?
Well, if you don't need a wholelot of flexibility, then
Shopify and BigCommerce areprobably fine.
If you're just starting out,Shopify and Big Commerce might
still be fine.

(09:44):
If you're somewhere in between,that um WooCommerce or Xcart
might be a really good fit.
Both of those let you fullytouch the code and be able to
change it if you wanted to.
And then the third option ofthat style of e-commerce would
be Magento, where you cancompletely customize it.

(10:04):
Well, it's a bit more on the umtowards the enterprise level,
in our opinion, of a shoppingcart software.
So we have basically twobuckets for shopping cart.
We have Shopify andBigCommerce, which are software
as a service type.
You cannot edit the code.
You can obviously change thelook and feel, but you can't
really edit the code.
You can, you know, purchaseplugins to go into it to make it

(10:27):
do other things, but you can'tdo anything else really with it.
And then we have theWooCommerce, Xcart, and Magento,
which you can completelycustomize the code or have a
developer like us completelycustomize the code, and that
helps you stand out from thecrowd.
So that's great for the bitmore established e-commerce
businesses to help you um beable to market to your clients

(10:49):
and be able to speak theirlanguage versus being stuck in
something that can't you can'tchange very much.
So you can see that there'squite a few different things
that you need to be thinkingabout, whether you sell
e-commerce or whether you sellcourses or um coaching.
It just kind of depends, like Isaid in the beginning of this
episode, as to which software isbest for you.

(11:11):
And the tools don't create themomentum.
You do picking the rightsoftware and running with it and
building from it and you know,refining it really is what gets
you somewhere.
And your confidence will growwhen your tech stack stops being
the bottleneck.
So if you feel stuck in techdecision fatigue, this is so, so

(11:33):
common, and you don't need tobe sitting there googling it out
because you probably aren'tgoing to find the right best
answer for you when you do that.
That's one of the things wecover in the converting website
my course.
We guide you step by stepthrough building a site that's
not just functional butprofitable, and it's very vendor
agnostic.
It does not depend upon whatsoftware you're using because

(11:56):
the software is not as importantas the implementation of the
website.
We just need to make sure thesoftware is growing for us.
And in there, we many times getquestions about which tool is
right for them, and we help youchoose the right tool that is
right for you, not foreverybody.
You can always join us atbcsolutions.com forward slash

(12:20):
TCW.
Or you can hop into our freeFacebook group to get help
choosing the right platform foryour next move.
And that link is smarteronlinebusiness.com forward slash
Facebook.
We'll have that in our shownotes.
And then I want to talk aboutour bonus tip today.
If you've been testingplatforms for weeks or months,

(12:40):
we see this a lot.
Here's my challenge for you.
I want you to pick one tool bythe end of next week.
Commit to it for 90 days.
Build something with it, notjust on it.
Build something with it, buildsomething that works for you,
build something that's going tocreate you momentum.
Because clarity comes fromdoing, not just researching.

(13:03):
So I challenge you to do ratherthan finegling and trying these
other new things.
Get get something done andyou're gonna see momentum in
your business.