Running a small business isn’t an easy task by any means. You have a lot of different pieces of the puzzle to juggle at once, so how do you make sure you have the right tools at your disposal to make the process a bit smoother? While in the past, managing your finances might have been limited to your pen and pencil, today the options are endless.
Not all businesses will need the same tools. Like most parts of running a small business, you need to decide on your goals and how your tools will help you reach the target. From managing your invoices to keeping up with marketing strategies, this tool stack will grow with your company.
- Freshbooks for Invoicing: When it comes to keeping track of your business finances, you want to keep everything in one place. While many small businesses make the mistake of thinking they have to continuously fight for payment, it’s actually possible to optimize your invoicing so the money comes automatically. Not all businesses have a full-time team of accountants on their side to make sure the money flows smoothly and on time.
Think of Freshbooks as your all-in-one invoicing and accounting solutions. It’s easy to use, secure, and it helps you optimize the money side of your small business without the hassle. With automated invoicing, scheduling, and more, you don’t have to worry about tracking down your paying clients anymore. - Market Your Business with Infusionsoft: It’s hard to find an all-in-one marketing solution today. Most marketing software does one type of marketing or automates a single line of your sales funnels. Infusionsoft does it all and more. It can track up to 10,000 contacts for you so you never lose a lead again. It also has comprehensive, smart email campaign builders so you can target the right customers at the right time.
One of the biggest challenges with Infusionsoft, if you can call it a challenge, is that it does have a learning curve. You’ll need to enroll in a training program when you first get started so you can make sure you’re familiar with all of its features. However, depending on your needs, it might be worth the extra effort. - Google Drive for Collaboration: We all know how great Google Drive is for daily tasks, but have you tried using it for your small business? It’s an affordable solution for businesses, and it’s fully customizable. Use only what you need, from spreadsheets to slideshow presentations. Google Drive is also great for teams that are always on the go or business owners who like to work from home.
You can’t beat how collaborative and easy to use Google Drive is. There’s virtually no learning curve, it’s easy to use in any browser, and you can even download the mobile app of your favorite extensions. Cloud storage is undoubtedly the future, so what are you waiting for? - Salesforce for Boosting Your Revenue: Salesforce is a program that helps you sell more with less effort. It’s all about working smarter, not harder, and that’s something all business owners could use. With this CRM software, your leads are all in one easy dashboard. See the details of your latest sales, track your calls, and plan your meetings with ease.
Because you don’t have to spend as much time on busy work like data entry, you’re able to focus on more important areas of your business. Salesforce does the automation for you, and you can easily allocate work to the right member of your team. Finally, there’s software that will grow with you and help you better meet customer needs. - Solarwinds for IT Infrastructure Security: Your directories need to be monitored at all times to keep your company’s data secure. Only when you have the overview of your team’s access rights to your IT infrastructure. Also, access rights don’t have to be hard to audit and report on.
With the SolarWinds access rights manager, you never have to worry about your monitoring suspicious account activity and creating custom permission reports. Automate access rights management, analysis, and enforcement through identification of insecure accounts while providing audit trails. It helps to enhance productivity by reducing IT workload through self-service portal and delegation of access rights management to data owners. Managing access rights is one part of a successful app management structure. To learn more, check out this great article from Stackify on 10 APM Features. - Monday for Project Management: You already have enough on your plate. It’s hard to keep deadlines, important details, and meetings under control when you’re already doing so much. Monday is a new way to manage your work all in one place. With the visual dashboard, you can keep all of your client or customer projects in a single place.
Monday also has messaging features for keeping your comments and questions within your projects. Say goodbye to endlessly going back and forth in emails and meetings. Now, you never have to second guess where your valuable information is stored. Monday is the closest you’ll get to finding more time in the day for the things that matter most in your business.
As a small business owner, you should take your choice of software seriously. As the right software will make your day easier, while the wrong ones will get in the way and add up to the complexity. The above tools cover all aspects of running a small business without breaking the bank.
However you choose to optimize your business in 2019, you'll need to find time to do more with these options. In this day and age, you sure need all the tools you can get to take your business farther.
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