Running a business in today’s world can seem to some like an endless battle to keep things afloat. Markets change, customer habits evolve, and goalposts shift regularly.
It is worth seeking every bit of help you can get, and the good news is, it’s all out there, just waiting to make life a little easier and save you precious time, resources, and money.
Finance software
A common issue for small to medium enterprises is the occasional need for specialised financial know-how. Accounting software packages, such as Quickbooks or Xero, can solve that problem. They allow you to customise invoices, accept payments, manage tax, and run payroll through a simple interface.
Users can also file VAT directly to HMRC in the UK, saving around 8 hours per month and a lot of stress.
Customer Relationship Management
CRM software can handle sales and marketing with a level of efficiency that a small business might struggle to match otherwise. CRM automation helps a business manage interaction with potential customers, plan and manage marketing, and maximise sales opportunities.
CRM can give businesses a new level of automation and a real advantage over their competitors.
Microsoft Office
It is much more than Word, Outlook, and Excel. Throw in calendars for diary management, Teams for remote working, and lesser-known apps such as MileIQ for tracking expenses, To Do for comprehensive task management, and Bookings for any business relying on appointments, to name just a few.
Office is full of potential for every business; getting the most out of it takes time.
Social media
An engaging, authoritative presence on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram can do so much to earn authority and drive people to a company’s site or services, but how many do it when things get busy elsewhere?
Automation is one possible answer. Social media management tools such as SocialBee and PromoRepublic let users plan content and publish it when they choose.
Blogs
A website can benefit massively from a blog. It can be a place to showcase new products and services, identify an audience’s problems and provide solutions. Baudience’slso the perfect tool to drive people to your e-commerce pages and help you climb the search engine rankings.
Many SMEs rely on freelance writers and virtual assistants to keep their websites full of engaging and meaningful content. Then, they use tools such as Missinglettr to create up to a year’s worth of social posts from a single piece.
An easy and effective way to direct traffic to your site while you might be busy doing other things.
Planning software
When looking at planning software, we need to think of a few things
- It’s usability
- The interface
- IntegratiIt’sCost and value for money
The key features you are looking for are
- planning and scheduling
- task dependencies
- Project timelines, calendar views and roadmaps
- Task management
- Collaborations and communication features
- Budget planning and tracking (by project)
- Client Portal
It really depends on the business’s needs. Do you want an all-in-one business tool or just a planning/task tool?
The list is endless in this section. Some big names have used the planning software as the base for their collaboration and ‘all-on platforms’. These include Avaz ‘, Click-up, Flow’u, Monday.com, and Plutio.
But if you are looking just for a planning tool, then you also have Microsoft Planner, Asana, and Trello. Microsoft Planner can be used on its own or included in Teams to be a collaborative tool.
Instant chat
We are now all familiar with tools such as Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, and Zoom, which have gone from occasional use to vital business tools in under a year. It is also worth noting that tools such as WhatsApp have an engaged user base in the region of 1.5 billion users; that is quite a bit of potential for any business.
But there are the chat/pop-ups on your website, such as Birdseed.io
Websites and Graphic design
Every business with an online presence relies on the quality of its website to match the quality of its products and services. Still, is it necessary to invest (often heavily) in a specialist web designer?
Sites like Wix and WordPress give users all the templates, tools and simple interfaces they need to create eye-catching, quality-hosted websites for a much more modest annual investment.
They also offer to work with their teams to build better sites and maximise the SEO tools.
Summary
There is no list or set of tools that will fit every business. The tools we use and how we use them can be as individual as the business.
But as a business evolves, so do the tools. It is essential to audit the business to see what is being used. It is common to find individual departments using different providers for the same tool, e.g., Mailerlite and Mailchimp. This risks duplication of data and an increased risk of data breaches, but it also increases costs.
If you are thinking about tools to improve your business or want to learn more about the right tools, why not book a free discussion with me here?
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