086: [Soulpreneur 411] Kartra vs Kajabi: Why I switched to Kartra (and love it)

Kate Kordsmeier 0:04

Welcome, welcome, welcome. We are back with the Success with Soul podcast. I'm your host, Kate Kordsmeier. And we are officially in season two of the show now. And I'm excited because we're doing something a little different. We've just released a brand new series called solopreneur 411, where entrepreneurs just like you can send in questions if you want some personalized laser coaching. And I will answer each week. So if you want to leave me a message and be featured on the show and get some free coaching for yourself, which is usually only available inside the incubator, head on over to successwithsoul.co/Ask, and you can be featured and get coached as well. So with that, let's dive in to today's question.

Traci Smith 0:52

Hey, Kate, this is Traci Smith, from TraciNicoleSmith.com. My blog is up and running. Thanks to all of your insights and pointers and your course. Plus, our one on one sessions really helped me. My question is that I started my learning portal on Kajabi. And I noticed that you switch to Kartra. Also, someone else that I respect in the online business world, recently switched to Kartra. And I was just wondering what your reason was for switching. I'm building out on both platforms right now, because I'm using a free trial on Kartra. But I really think that I want to switch over to Karcher right now, if for nothing else, because it's more cost effective. They have a lower tier, a $99 tier. And also I have my own website. So I was wondering if you having your own website, and I know you have multiple websites, but if that played a part in switching to Kartra, or if it was just the tools that Kartra offers are more valuable to you?

Kate Kordsmeier 2:20

Well, hello there, Traci, it is so great to hear from you. And thanks for asking this great question. So yes, there was a time in which I used Kajabi to host my courses. That was just about the only thing I did for Kajabi. Because I felt like Active Campaign was a better email service provider. And I already had my own website, as you mentioned, and WordPress was way better for SEO than Kajabi was. And they just didn't have really any need for their additional services. Besides hosting the course at the time, it was actually quite expensive to host the course there. And even though they build themselves as an all in one platform, and I did like a lot of their features. It was very expensive. And I found their most of their functionality to be pretty beginner level. So if you wanted to do more advanced automations, segmenting, tagging, you know, funnels, it really wasn't a great tool for that. So at the time, I was using a lot of different tools. And I started looking into what I could do that was maybe a better all in one system than Kajabi offered, but still something that would streamline and simplify my business. And that's when I came across Kartra.

I also signed up for the free trial, which anyone listening can do, we've got a 30 day free trial for you at successwithsoul.co/Kartra. So I signed up for a free trial. And I started messing around with the system, seeing what it could do. And you know what its capabilities were and how I liked the user interface. And I was blown away. So like I mentioned, I was using nearly a dozen different tools and trying to get them to all talk to each other. And it was time consuming and expensive and just really hard and frustrating to keep track of everything. So that was in November of 2020. I still use Kartra today. And now I'm able to manage everything in one place with Kartra. And it saves me so much time every week. Plus, it saves me over $12,000 a year when I switched at the time and now they've even launched other features that I wasn't using or paying for services before but I now need at this stage of my business. And I don't have to pay any additional fees for it. Because I'm not paying for all of these services separately. I was able to let go of a lot of platforms. So as you mentioned, I used to use Kajabi I now host all of my programs on Kartra. I used to use Active Campaign I now use Kartra for my email service provider. I used to use deadline funnel I have now use Kartra's tagging and timers to create that authentic scarcity and urgency in any evergreen funnels if needed. I used to use SAM cart to process all my payments and run my internal affiliate partner program, I can do all of that inside of Kartra. I used to use sorted which was sort of like, like a help desk or team email system. And now I use Kartra native Help Desk to process all customer service emails. And this could also replace tools like Zendesk or drift or Scout if you've looked into any of those. And Kartra's Help Desk is amazing. For many reasons, one of my favorite features being that when you're inside of it, and somebody sends a support request, you can click into their profile, and you can see everything they've done inside of your system, what have they purchased? What are the dates? How much have they spent? Are they opening the emails, are they going through the memberships if their clients you know, like, you have all of that information right there. And it makes it so much easier to assist them with the logistical questions that are make up most of the customer service emails, because we can see everything right in one place. So I love Kartra's help desk, I used to use Demio. And now I no longer need fancy webinar software. And I host all my videos inside of Kartra. I used to use lead pages, I now host all landing pages and lead magnets and opt in forms directly within Kartra. So sometimes all in one platform sacrifice quality for quantity. But I've had the opposite experience with Kartra. Not only does it do everything well, but there are plenty of advanced features, including functionality I didn't even have before when I had all of those separate platforms. So I'll say it again, there is so much you can do when you have your tech together. And when you have everything in one place, it can really save you so much time and energy and effort and money and just that emotional kind of invisible labor that we all do in our business. Having everything in one place has been a game changer for me. So if you're ready to take the technology leap, you can go to successwithsoul.co/Kartra and get your free trial today. And if you need an extra nudge, there's another perk because if you use Kartra, you can actually import my exact evergreen funnel into your own account if you are an incubator client. So you don't have to start from scratch or reinvent the wheel. You can literally just plug and play your own copy into the emails, and everything is already set up for you. So the technophobes out there really love this or even just anyone who's short on time and just wants a built for you funnel that you can install right into your account with one click. So it is amazing and definitely a big perk for our incubator clients. Now, one question I often get is like, Oh, I don't know, I've just switched over to such and such platform. And now I you know, should I migrate migrating is a big deal, you know, I'm not sure when I should do it. Or I'm just starting out, I don't need all of those features that Kartra offers. And to that, I would say start with something that you can grow into. Because if you start with something that is really basic and doesn't have a lot of features and functionality, eventually when your business is successful, you're going to need something better. And migrating is a bitch, the longer you wait to do it, the harder it is, the more moving pieces you have to migrate, the more you know more of a headache it's going to be. And so even if you don't need all of the features today, it will be better off in the long run for you to start with something that you can grow into. And like you mentioned, Traci, in your question. Kartra is actually incredibly affordable. And especially when you consider everything that it offers. It's one of the lesser expensive email service providers on the market. So we have actually inside of the incubator, an entire spreadsheet for 2022, analyzing about a dozen email service providers out there and looking at everything from cost to features and functionality and things we like and dislike about it and customer service and templates and all of that. And so incubator clients can get access to that to determine which is the best tool for them. I mostly am tool agnostic, you don't have to use any particular tool in order to get the same results. But a lot of times it's the how, how does it work for you? How does it feel? How complicated or simple is it? How many different places are you having to go to check for certain things? How much money are you spending? So all those how pieces, you can figure out which one you know which things are most important for you inside of that spreadsheet. But my basically rule of thumb answer these days is Kartra all the way. So I hope that helps Traci I loved working with you as well and hope to do so again. We'll see the rest of you guys next week.

All right. Thanks for tuning in y'all. If you liked this episode and want to get coached by me and my amazing team, then come join us inside the Success with Soul incubator where we have live q&a coaching calls every single week. Plus, you can even submit your work for feedback every week to. That's right, you literally can submit everything you're working on and get personalized laser coaching feedback on your actual work every single week. I don't know many programs offering this and it is one of my favorite features. And I think our students were great. In addition to our self paced curriculum, we have frequent live trainings with leading industry experts on topics like leadership and Enneagram, and metrics and finance and SEO and funnels. And because your business won't thrive if you aren't thriving, we also do monthly soul sessions with spiritual healers and wellness pros to ensure you get that self care in. So if you're ready to transform your business in life and holistic, sustainable and soulful way, head on over to Kate kordsmeier.com/apply To see if we're a good fit to work together. We're accepting businesses of all sizes, including those that are just dreams in your head and those who are making all the money but feeling totally empty and depleted by the process. Here's what one of our clients Molly Cahill from holistic marketing hub had to say about it. I had my first $10,000 month and now I'm having consistent $18,000 months. Thanks to Kate in the strategies I learned inside the Success with Soul incubator. It is by far the best money I've ever invested into my business it has paid off for sure not to mention the time that it saved me being able to just copy paste import Kate's funnel. And I love that you get a lot of one on one time with Kate on the weekly group calls and that you get direct feedback and direct critiques on your specific questions that are unique to your business. And I also love that she doesn't give you this one size fits all business in a box approach. She recognizes and appreciates that every business is unique. And she helps you walk through those unique challenges for your specific business. And on top of that, I love that she's just a real human who walks the talk. So highly recommend Success with Soul incubator. Thank you so much Kate. So if you want results in transformation like Molly, come join us inside this intimate mastermind style program at successwithsoul.co/apply. And remember if you want to be featured on the podcast to get coached in the solopreneur 411 series. You can leave your voicemail over at successwithsoul.co/ask and be featured on the show. We'll see you next week.

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