The #1 MUST-USE Tool Every Small Business Needs

I Like Pretty Things

Look, if you're not using Canva Pro yet for your small business you're missing out.

I could end this blog here, but I won't.

Let me go back in time and share the story of my love affair with Canva.

My Canva Origin Story

I can't design crap! Yes, I'm 100% design-challenged. Don't even get me started on the bougie tools "real designers" use. I am not bougie and I ain't a designer. One day in 2013, I was searching something like "online alternatives to photoshop" or "photoshop alternatives" and discovered this website, Canva, a few clicks later. I thought, wow, this is cool, and it's free? Yes, basic Canva was, and still is free.

Being the consummate Googler (that's a professional term) I am, I searched for some more info about Canva and discovered that the 22-year-old founder, Melanie Perkins, was stunning.

So, being a guy, that's all it took. (What can I say, guys are pigs!)

If someone this good-looking built something so rad, I am going to try it. Hey, I'm a guy, I am attracted to pretty women. Sorry, not sorry.

I quickly discovered that Canva was more than a free replacement for Photoshop created by a beautiful woman in Australia. It was a game-changing platform that allowed pigs like me — people who have no design skills — to actually design something half-decent. And after 40+ years writing and producing ads, including 9 Super Bowl spots, I can tell you the biggest bottleneck for most small businesses isn't the idea, it's execution. Canva killed that bottleneck for me.

I started playing with the app and soon found myself creating design after design for my business… then for my clients. Soon I was designing invites to my kids' birthday parties and friends' gatherings! It was pretty addictive, and it was all free.

Then, free became not free. Actually, It was still free. But it became better when they launched a paid version, Canva Pro.

Suddenly I had access to brand templates and color palettes, the ability to resize things on the fly and organize designs and elements into folders and build a team that could collaborate in the platform with me. Now you can design and schedule your posts in Canva.

When Free Wasn't Enough Anymore

Canva Pro Is The Way To Go

Oh my god, this unicorn app became my favorite tool.

Fast forward years and years later, and my company is a power user of the tool. Canva Pro is our go-to app for designing, tons of graphics, client ads, GIFs, short videos, etc. You don't need ANY design skills to use Canva Pro, you simply start playing with it and you'll find how easy it is to use. My team has used it to knock out social ads for clients in industries I know nothing about, from HVAC to hot yoga, because the templates do the heavy lifting so we can focus on the part that actually matters: the message. If you want your posts to stop getting scrolled past, the design is only half the battle. The headline is doing 80% of the work, and no tool, Canva included, will save copy that doesn't earn the read.

I don't care if you make pizzas for a living, run a funeral home, or are an MLM. Canva Pro is for you. Stop trying to learn Photoshop and all of the other apps out there and spend time experimenting with Canva. Soon you will be telling everyone, this is the 1 must-use tool every small business needs! And if you're wondering whether AI tools should replace Canva in your workflow, they shouldn't -- AI is a decent research assistant and a terrible creative director, Canva is still where the actual design work gets done.

Proof It Works

Here's a sampling of the stuff my team has done using Canva Pro, I hope it inspires you: social ad templates we've resized and reused across a dozen client accounts in a single afternoon, GIFs and short-form videos we used to have to send out to freelance motion designers, and full brand kits we built in a day for clients who came to us with nothing but a logo. None of it required a design degree. All of it shipped.