The product I use for my business that I cannot live without is the one that manages the only thing that I regret not managing from the start.That is my email list.There’s a love-hate relationship with this type of question.Simply because tools or products come and go over time. Either they become obsolete, or other ones come out that is better, whatever the case may be, tools will evolve.With that out of the way, I will say this. Understanding “why” you are in business and finding a product that supports that will result in you finding a product you cannot live without.I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. My email list is the one regret I have in growing my business that I didn’t pay attention to from the start.And to be quite honest, it probably has cost me a ton of revenue in the long term.The reason it’s so important is that I am in business to help other businesses grow. In order to do that, communication is key.If that business is for the services side of my business, I need to stay in touch with them at all stages of the process. Before, during and after we work together.If that business is for folks like yourself who are building a business, I need to do very much the same so that I can share with you what’s working and what’s not working in today’s market.For a long time, I lived out of my inbox and that was enough. But after a few years, I realized that I needed to better serve my leads, clients, and colleagues.To accomplish that, I needed to find myself an email service provider.At the time, that was MailChimp, but I then moved to Drip and ConvertKit.For full disclosure, I am an affiliate for Drip and ConvertKit. Which means that if you choose to go ahead and use Drip or ConvertKit because of what I mention in this podcast, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please though understand that I have experience with all these companies and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the commissions I make.Why did I move away from my inbox?At first, it was because I wanted the pretty newsletters, I’m just kidding, that was just a bonus.I moved simply because I wanted a place where I knew all the contacts I had in my business were in one place where I could reach them effectively.So I went with MailChimp to start because, well it was free. That seemed logical, right?However, I’m a developer, and when a developer finds a tool or product that allows him or her some level of power to leverage by way of programming with…well let’s say that developer becomes like a bee to honey.That’s how I was with Drip.They had an API that few other ESPs at the time had which allowed me to do some interesting things for my business as well as client businesses.Things like:
Lead Scoring based on which page a lead would visit. 
Tagging a subscriber with things versus putting a subscriber into multiple lists.
Being able to set up simple automation without fumbling around with a cumbersome user interface.
Insights into what a subscriber has done, like open emails, clicked on links, visited your website and what events like payments happened and when in a nice Activity Feed.
And the best part was all this was free for up to 100 subscribers.I’ve been a Drip user since early 2015 and still use it to this day.It’s been powerful in the way I’ve been able to help my own business grow, but also my clients too.ConvertKit is newer as a tool that I’ve used.It’s an outstanding platform and where Drip and MailChimp have had difficulties, ConvertKit has picked up the ball and ran with it for me.ConvertKit is great, especially if you:
Want to embed multiple forms of different types on your website and get analytics on them without the need of a 3rd party.
Segment your list based on those forms.
Tagging of your subscribers like Drip.
Want to power to create simple, effective automation for your business.
Drip and ConvertKit no doubt are very similar, but differ in some aspects. Advantage o