The Tools I Actually Use to Run My Business Every Day

One of the questions I get asked most often is, “What tools do you actually use?” Not what I recommend for clients, not what I think is best in theory, but what I genuinely open on my laptop every single day to run Jennie Stones Marketing.

I love this question because it keeps me honest. If I’m going to help other people build clean, simple business systems, my own setup should reflect that. And for the most part, it does. My tech stack is deliberately small, intentionally connected, and designed to let me spend as much time as possible on the work I actually enjoy.

So here’s the full, transparent breakdown of what I use, why I use it, and what role each tool plays in my business.

GoHighLevel (The Foundation of Everything)

GoHighLevel is the center of my entire business. My website lives there. My blog lives there. My CRM, my email marketing, my funnels, my automations, my calendar, my social media scheduling, my forms, my invoicing, and my client communication all live there. If I could only keep one tool, this would be it.

I wrote a full plain-English guide to what GoHighLevel actually does if you want the detailed breakdown, but the short version is that it replaces about six or seven separate subscriptions and puts everything under one login. For someone like me who builds systems for clients all day, having my own business run on the same platform means I’m constantly learning, testing, and improving inside the tool I recommend.

Marketing Studio (My Built-In Marketing Partner)

Marketing Studio is the AI-powered marketing tool I built into the JLM Growth System, and yes, I use it on my own business every day. It generates my monthly content strategy, breaks it into weekly plans, and gives me daily tasks for social media, blog content, and email. I shared the full story of how I built it in my post about building my first AI tool as a non-developer.

The reason I include it here is because it genuinely changed how I show up in my marketing. Before Marketing Studio, I was the cobbler with no shoes, always helping clients with their content while ignoring my own. Now I open it up, see what’s on my task list for the day, and create content that’s aligned with my brand and my goals without having to think about the strategy behind it every time.

Canva (For Design)

Canva handles all of my graphic design, from social media graphics to blog images to presentation slides. I have a brand kit set up with my fonts, colors, and logos, which means everything I create looks consistent without me having to think about it.

For someone who isn’t a designer, Canva makes it surprisingly easy to create professional-looking visuals. I use the Pro plan, and it’s one of the few extra subscriptions I’m happy to pay for because the time it saves me is significant.

Google Workspace (For the Everyday Stuff)

Google Workspace handles my business email, documents, spreadsheets, and file storage. It’s simple, reliable, and works across all my devices. My business email runs through it, and I use Google Drive to organize client files, templates, and internal documents.

There’s nothing glamorous about it, but that’s sort of the point. It does what it needs to do without getting in the way.

AI Tools (For Thinking and Building)

I use AI tools daily as part of how I think, plan, write, and build. They help me brainstorm content ideas, draft copy, troubleshoot technical problems, create automations, and develop new features for Marketing Studio. I think of AI as a thinking partner rather than a replacement for my own brain, and used well, it makes me significantly faster and more effective at what I do.

For my clients, Marketing Studio is the AI tool they interact with most. But behind the scenes, AI is woven into almost every part of how I run and grow my business.

n8n and Make.com (For Advanced Automations)

For automations that go beyond what GoHighLevel can do natively, I use n8n and Make.com. These handle things like generating personalized AI reports for my lead magnets, connecting different systems behind the scenes, and triggering complex workflows that involve multiple platforms.

Most of my clients will never need these tools, and that’s fine. GoHighLevel’s built-in automations handle 90% of what a typical coaching or service business needs. But for me, having the ability to build more advanced systems means I can create things like the Marketing Strategy Snapshot and the Business Systems Scorecard, which would be impossible without this extra layer.

What I Don’t Use (And Why)

I think it’s just as useful to share what I’ve deliberately removed from my stack. I don’t use a separate email marketing platform anymore, because GoHighLevel handles it. I don’t use Calendly, because GoHighLevel has built-in bookings. I don’t use a standalone CRM or a separate website builder or a project management tool for client work. All of that lives inside one system.

The fewer tools you use, the less time you spend managing them and the more time you spend doing the work that actually matters. My entire business runs on a small, intentional stack, and that’s exactly what I help my clients build for themselves.

The Goal Is Fewer Tools Doing More

I’m not sharing this list to convince you to use exactly what I use. Every business is different, and the right setup depends on what you need, where you are, and how you like to work. But if there’s a principle behind my tool choices, it’s this: fewer tools, deeper integration, less time on admin, more time on the work that grows your business.

If your current setup feels bloated, disconnected, or like it’s working against you instead of for you, it might be worth looking at what you could consolidate. You might be surprised by how much lighter your business feels when everything is finally in one place.

Want a system that simplifies your tech the way mine simplified mine?

The JLM Growth System gives you GoHighLevel plus Marketing Studio, templates, training, and support, all in one place. → Explore the System

Or if you just want to talk through your current setup and see what could be simpler, book a Quick Tech Chat and I’m happy to take a look.