Did you know most business owners work over 50 hours a week, with a quarter spending over 60 hours on their business?
From marketing yourself to doing accounting and communicating with staff, you put in hard work wearing many hats. But many of these routine tasks also take time away from more valuable business activities like expanding your customer base or developing new offerings.
Luckily, you have many apps, systems, and services that can make your job easier. Read on to learn about the top 10 business management tools you should use.
1. Evernote for Information Organization
Whether you need to keep track of to-do lists, documents, or media, Evernote gives you a single place to store all this information.
You can use this app to take notes, collaborate on files with your team, and easily search for important items. You can even use it to capture images of receipt and physical documents and save them in digital form.
2. Phone.com for Call Management
If you’re looking for a digital phone system with a host of call management features, Phone.com offers options with per-minute and unlimited calling plans that can fit your needs.
This service allows you to make calls and send texts through an internet connection. Even better, it’s easy to configure so you can get your small business’s phone system running as soon as possible.
You can simply schedule a consultation to find the best solution for your business. You’ll then order your phone equipment and pick a suitable plan through the company’s website.
3. Slack for Team Communication
Whether you have one team or manage several, Slack can help you collaborate and hold meetings online more easily.
It lets you create channels focused on a project, team type, or other characteristic. You can then have text and video chats and even share files through the website and apps. You can easily connect Slack with other services like Dropbox and Salesforce for more functionality.
4. Skype for Video Meetings
Known primarily as a chat and video messaging app, Skype can help you hold business meetings regardless of location as well as stay connected with your team and clients.
The app has additional functionality to make domestic and international phone calls as well as share your screen during calls. It also has an option to have private conversations when you need to share sensitive business information.
5. G Suite for Productivity
If you’re looking for an all-in-one solution to email, document collaboration, and file storage, G Suite can help your business become more productive and communicate better.
This cloud-based suite features Google’s email, calendar, virtual drive, and file creation and editing tools. You also get access to security features that let you control who at your company can access specific documents such as spreadsheets and presentations.
You can also use the Hangouts tool to hold video meetings and text chats.
6. Trello for Workflow Management
Whether you need to plan a project or organize feature requests, Trello is one of the best tools for small business owners who need to manage teams and projects.
The app and website let you organize to-do items and project deliverables into cards. These cards go on a project board for easy organization. You can then easily move items around, leave comments, schedule deadlines, and collaborate with your team.
7. Salesforce for Customer Relationship Management
Known as one of the top business tools for managing customer relationships, Salesforce can help boost your sales and improve your marketing.
You can use the tool to track communications with customers, monitor your sales, and make custom marketing strategies. You can use the online dashboard to see real-time results of your marketing campaigns. This tool can also integrate with online commerce.
8. Wave for Accounting
When you run a small business and don’t need an expensive, complex accounting program, you can consider Wave as a free option to try.
This simple software helps you monitor your income, scan receipts, track expenses, and handle tasks like payroll and invoicing. It supports numerous payment options with low transaction fees.
If you want more support, you can pay a fee and have a personal advisor help you with your business’s accounting.
9. ScheduleOnce for Calendar Management
When you need help with scheduling appointments beyond just using calendar software, then ScheduleOnce can make your life easier as a business owner.
It makes handling your meetings schedule easier with tools that help you set your initial availability and automate scheduling. You can also set rules for what to do when someone cancels or reschedules, enable automatic booking, and require approval for certain appointment types. You can even integrate the calendar into your company’s website.
10. Asana for Project Management
If you want to find a tool that makes project management more efficient and less of a hassle, Asana provides an all-in-one solution for your team. Even better, its capabilities go beyond just helping you breakdown projects into smaller tasks to assign team members.
Asana can help your small business handle marketing campaigns and project launches associated with your projects. It includes tools to help you hire new project staff and onboard them to the company. There are also features that help you track your company’s accomplishment of key milestones.
Try Some of These Top 10 Business Management Tools
If you feel overwhelmed sorting through these top 10 business tools for small businesses, don’t panic. You don’t need to use all of them to save time and run your business better.
It helps to take a look at where you spend most of your time on business tasks.
If you struggle to manage all your appointments, then start trying some of the calendar management tools mentioned. If you find managing your team the biggest challenge, look into the collaboration and project management tools. You can then try out other business tools as needed.
Be sure to check out our other entrepreneurship posts to improve your business.
