Dr. Jeremy Weisz 6:10
Yeah, I was gonna say sanebox and Power Query are also very big time saving tools. Are there any other time saving tools, whether it’s a phone app or desktop app?
David Melamed 6:22
So I yeah, I mean, I feel like I’m almost being queued up to say, TextExpander because you introduced me to that a month or two ago, which is really awesome. You just write these texts shortcuts for anything, like my Calendly link is really hard to, you know, find remember, I have different ones, I just have a bunch of shortcuts, like short that, you know, my shortcut number, the letter Z, so I just type z 30 space z 15 space z 60 space, and those will just open up my hour long my 15 minute or my 30 minute calendar invite links. So that’s really, really awesome. But I really want to answer the question differently with Integra mat. I think Integramat is the least known most important tool. I don’t understand why it’s not the first integration built into every website, every software every API. It’s like Zapier. Zapier how you pronounce it, but it’s way more versatile, it’s significantly cheaper. And you could just do so much more with it. You can add your calculate metrics, and you can write code on top of it, even basic stuff. But you can build really complex logic really smart apps. And it powers the majority of my of my entire our dashboards and reporting we’re doing it’s piping through Integromat. I need I like I recently had an issue where I needed to stay on top of what’s a budgets for a client. And alerts weren’t so great. It took us like 10 minutes to set up Integromat, I now get an email, you know, every Monday morning with each client, how much budget they have allocated for the month, how much we spent and how much we have available. So it’s really-
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 8:00
Why do you think people don’t use it as much?
David Melamed 8:03
I think they just don’t know about it. You know, it’s maybe a little more technical than Zapier. But it’s also a little more versatile. So it’s probably better for a programmer or someone who’s semi tech savvy, that wants to get much more done quicker. Don’t get me wrong, they probably a millions upon millions of users. It’s just not as known. And this goes as far as my analyst who’s been doing work for me on the site for about three, four years now. He actually got recruited away from his job to go work at Integra mat. Just because he did so many complex things with with it for us. Now, he’s actually internally there. So I’m an even bigger fan.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 8:45
That’s awesome. Any other also time saving tools? Just to mention, you know, you mentioned one thing that comes to my mind, I don’t there’s WordPress plugins as well, but I use Pretty Link a lot. Pretty Link is a free plugin. And you can basically like you were saying, you know, people forget, like, I don’t even know, my Zoom, you know, the zoom link has got like a bunch of numbers on it. So I just set up a Pretty Link. That is from our URL with, you know, Rise25, you know, backslash Zoom, or Jeremy Zoom, and it just redirects to my Zoom link. So I don’t have to try and remember these links. So pretty links. I don’t know if there’s any plugins or apps like that.
David Melamed 9:26
So I mean, I wasn’t familiar with Pretty Links. I probably would have just hard coded that myself, if I knew about it. Um, I’m trying to think in terms of time saving tools. I guess. I mean, I don’t really, I’m like trying to think which like browser plugins, I kind of have, yeah, I use-
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 9:57
Extensions that are, I mean, there’s got to be time saving just things you use regularly.
David Melamed 10:02
So, you know, I have a plugin that some agency built called Redirect Path that I use pretty often. And it just very quickly shows me if there’s a redirect on the path of the URL I just opened. So Yo, if I’m ever diagnosing an issue with the website, like, why is Google rejecting ads on this page or what what’s wrong with it, it’s usually a very quick, easy way to see if there’s a problem with the URL is there like, you know, a redirect loop or something like that going on. I Tag Assistant, which now looks like a legacy tool, but that lets me see, which is like your little analytics tag is firing correctly. And also, if you have Tag Manager, you can actually track the flow of interactions to actually see which events are firing, as you interact with the website, to troubleshoot tracking issues, that’s something I use pretty often BuiltWith is I use it as a Chrome extension, I use that very often, which tells you all the different software’s and codes running on a specific website. So if I want to quickly see, you know, what ad networks might competitors might be using, I’ll open that up and see if I could see which conversion tags are showing up on their website. So that’s a pretty nifty tool. There’s a lot of research tools I use, like SimilarWeb and a troughs, and Semrush and a few others, as the needs come up. But Google is still my favorite tool.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 11:38
Yeah, I love to go on. Like you mentioned Integromat, what I love to go on is Integromat or other companies and click on integrations. And then I can see all the different things I’ve never heard of that actually integrate with it.
David Melamed 11:54
That’s genius. And I not only do I agree with you about that, and not only do I do that myself, I actually, I don’t know how to do this. And I’m probably not the right person to do it. But I actually think that there is a PPC ad network opportunity for someone to create a like promoted integration link page, because I actually think that, you know, people via the reason why Google works so well is people are telling you what they’re looking for in the moment, when someone’s looking at an integration page on their website. There, you kind of know what they’re looking for in the moment, they want to solve a specific challenge within that specific toolset. So if you have that integration, like in my mind, that’s like, the best tie, it’s contextual. It’s like, you know, it’s relevant. And companies if they were really smart with actually start trying to leverage. So I think I do think there’s a very big opportunity with someone to build some sort of either integrations tool page that is hosted that has, you know, some sort of pay per click ad network built into it for the different partners to promote their links on integration pages. But regardless, it’s a it’s a brilliant strategy. And I do it all the time. Something I’ll also do is I’ll look at the backlinks going to the integration page, and or the API page or the site, and I’ll try to look for other partners and integrations that way. But there’s no question that that’s a great way to discover new tools. And you know, more often than not, you can also go to the feature requests. So it’s safe enough, they’ll have an integration today, there’ll be a feature requests with upvotes. And you can actually see which integrations. It’s interesting because when I go to a lot of sites, especially newer startups, I’ll see like, a bunch of new integrations, but it turns out, it’s not really real integrations. It’s just Zapier across the board, right? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. But but then I’ll go to feature requests. And the number one feature request is Integromat. Because the people who need the feature requests are probably the more technical people, the developers and people like that they’re using the API and and that just makes it and I think they all want Integromat over over Zapier or Zapier haven’t announced it. But that’s But yeah, I love that to integration pages, partner pages, excellent way to discover new tools, lots of fun also.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 14:19
What’s cool about Integromat they’re they’re super fast, like in the apps and services. When I type in like sales, it instantly just shows the search of all this. You know, like you said, it’s a great search engine of like, if you’re looking for sales tools or whatever type of tools, I type in sales, and there’s, you know, 1234 or five, like seven different companies or types of software that show up in Integra mat, you know, so you could probably search Zapier and Integromat and see what are all the types of tools if you’re looking for whatever you’re looking for, I guess.
David Melamed 14:57
Yeah, that’s awesome. And I guess this Yeah, this reminds me of back in the day with with If This, Then That if it was pronounced,
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 15:06
If This Then That, Yeah.
David Melamed 15:08
Exactly. Just looking at those recipes. Honestly, there’s probably going to be a unbundling of Zapier because like, someone or Integromat or these integration pages, because all of these are essentially feature requests of like, we love your tool, but we wish it could do XYZ. Now, I don’t know if people are gonna if things are gonna get unbundled or bundled together. I’m not quite sure how, you know, these things are going to move over time. But for sure, I mean, I’m looking out like you forced me to open Integromat’s. Right? It’s a it’s amazing,
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 15:45
It is amazing. You can see in alphabetical order, like if you’re looking for a calendar software, right. So you mentioned Calendly? Well, it shows you all the calendar software’s that you can do cool things with using Integromat, right? It was called tracking. I mean, there’s all this stuff. It’s pretty cool.
David Melamed 16:02
Yeah, this just idea just popped into my head I this might be actually really interesting, which is taking, like going into a traps or Majestic and taking a backlink analysis of let’s say, every site that leads to Calendly as an example, and then searching through those for how many of those links appear on pages within the integrations in the URL, and then comparing like calendars with backlinks and you might actually discover what the most popular tools are, across different, you know, verticals and industries. So you want to figure out what’s the best project management tool, you could probably figure out which one has the most integrations across the board, you’ll know which one’s the most popular and getting the most requests from other places.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 16:29
We could do an actual podcast episode of doing a real world search for it, of what’s the most common things, because when I search when I click on forums and Integromat, is like, it’s like, what form should I use? Well, I could just see what are but your your situation find the most popular based on number of integrations across. But this is just, you know, just choices like, Oh, I’m considering, you know, a form software. Oh, I didn’t even realize I forgot about Typeform. I forgot about Wufoo. Right. And so it’s it’s just a great research tool.
David Melamed 17:24
Yeah, the truth is, I’m thinking about this. Now, I don’t know if anybody has a tool for this. And maybe it’s a really easy thing to do. But as much as I like discovering new integrations may also be useful for me to have like, just like a browser plugin with a list of the software’s I’m currently using, and technologies I’m currently using. And then as I’m browsing websites, it will basically show me Yes, it has integrations with all these or not, or something like that, because like, you know, I like the discovery side, I’m looking at the forum stuff. And I’m thinking about forums, if I have some sort of form system I’m using, I probably just want to know if that form has an integration and nothing else. versus trying to switch. So I think there’s some interesting opportunities. I think I wrote a LinkedIn post about a month ago called integrations are the new is the new marketing or something like that. And I really think that I think there’s a massive, massive large scale opportunity. I also think there’s an opportunity for freelancer networks to go vertical into tools, where you can actually, you know, live hire support, where freelancers to help you with like setup, implementation integrations, etc. As you sign up and use different software’s. But these kind of like in the moment that someone actually has the need. And yeah, I think that’s where you want to be. So I love that recommendation. I’m using the integrations pages to discover new tools.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 18:57
Oh, yeah, I’m looking at the time tracking and I always wondered like, oh, what time tracking should people use and you can see there’s Clockify there’s Harvest, there’s Time Doctor, actually one point interview. So this could be good people like Who should I that you find interesting, that you should interview in? Oh, I’m looking for time, you know, whatever, interviewing companies and time tracking, and you can actually look to see Oh, time to I know the, you know, Liam, from Time Doctor, Liam Martin. So there’s a bunch of really cool, I never really until you pointed out Integromat. I’d heard it before, but I’d never really looked into it. This is really cool, though. I love this in any final software tools to mention, before we end your phone like I don’t know if there’s anything interesting on your phone that you use, like his apps or something like that.
David Melamed 19:51
Let’s find out. The apps I use most often on my phone so I use the Google Ads app. pretty regularly. So that’s definitely useful for my specific use case. I use Workflowy on my phone. Now, obviously people love tools like Notion and Guru and things like that. But I don’t use it very often on my phone, I use my banking app, Oh, I got it perfect Camscanner this app has been just like, a lifesaver for me for probably six, seven years now. But anytime I need to scan anything, I mean, nowadays, I guess, technically just use the camera on your phone. But Camscanner just is a brain scanner, you can pay for premium and have built in OCR that recognizes what you’re scanning. But you know, I just, you know, I, my accountant sends me over some tax documents, I need to sign in some back over to him. And I just printed out, sign it snap picture with my phone. And I could very easily just send it to him via email, and then it saves it also backs up, either, you know, in their cloud or on my device. So I Camscanner is by far one of the longest lasting apps I’ve been using. And obviously I use all the, the fundamentals, like, you know, Slack or you know, Skype or WhatsApp. I’m in WhatsApp a lot. Trying to see some I use my YouTube app, Podcast Addict is a podcast player, I use a lot. Although like six podcast players, I’m trying to think if there’s any other apps that I really love and really use.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 21:51
For me, LastPass is a big one, I use LastPass a lot, obviously.
David Melamed 21:56
So I use I have LastPass account, I use it a lot. I haven’t used it a ton lately. Because I’ve been scaling back, you know, my, the amount of clients and software’s I’ve been using. So I haven’t had to you know, share logins as often lately. But that Yeah, no question. LastPass is excellent. Otter is another I mean, it’s an app or desktop thing that I use, which it’s it’s a really great UI for editing and transcription recordings. What I specifically use it for is every Zoom call on that I record, it automatically uploads it to Otter and Otter automatically recognizes the speakers transcribes it. And it’s just, you know, there’s lots of tools that do this today, some summarize on this, I tried a bunch, I find others, like, editor to be the most like intuitive and functional for me, so that I just, it’s just great. And then it also backs it up and saves the transcription in Dropbox for me. And so I love that I use that, you know, for everything. You know, Workflowy on my phone a lot. My Starbucks app I use probably every other day every day. And that’s really, really do a ton more.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 23:23
That’s a great list, you know, so a couple of big ones Workflowy SaneBox TextExpander and Power Query for Excel and Integromat. Check it out check more episodes of the podcast out David. Thanks. As always.
David Melamed 23:38
Thanks so much.
Outro 23:40
Thanks for listening to the Fixing Incentives podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
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