Do you also own or run a small business and need to keep the productivity of your employees in check and obviously increasing? While you may think that just the Google docs and Google sheets would work, you should know that they are not just enough for this ever-expanding global ecosystem.
So, let’s discuss the must-have productivity tools for small business owners that would also not erode your budget. Why should you use them? Obviously, because they increase productivity.
1. An application for internal collaboration
Why would anyone use Slack? Yes, all hail to Microsoft Teams, but we’ve included Slack on the list for a big reason. Not just can one create their own Slack workspace for their business and take advantage of all the usual collaboration features, but you can also use it to connect with other communities and businesses. This ever-growing ecosystem of Slack channel communities is an incredible resource, which means you can not only control your business communication with Slack, but you can also learn, network, and grow with Slack.
As trust radius suggests, the collaboration software market showed a 233% growth by the end of March 2020.
2. An accounting software
While you may think that it is easy to hire an accountant and get the job done, you should know that one worthwhile online accounting software for small business can make the accountant’s tasks at least 10 times easier. It also ensures that all reports are duly generated whenever needed, minimizes errors, and also helps prevent fraud.
Not only does it lets the accountants do their own job with precision, but it also helps the accountants provide consultancy and advisory services when required. There are many different cloud-based accounting software that can simplify the accounting tasks significantly and are available on budget-friendly monthly payment programs. Market.us predicts, by 2028, the market share for global cloud accounting would increase up to $5.65 billion.
3. Grammarly
Well, we do not put it under any heading because we believe all texts need to be error-free, and Grammarly is the best for that. What if you send out an email and turns out that it has typos? How would that make your organization look? The basic features of Grammarly come free of cost, and you can use it to produce error-free emails and messages. The Grammarly add-in can also be integrated with Microsoft, WhatsApp, and teamwork; thus, regardless of wherever you send a message to your client, know that it can be error-free.
Grammarly has active user traffic of approximately 20 million. There are many who use the same account; thus, the number of accounts would always be less than the users. (Source: Hello Leads)
Obviously, it must be worth it.
4. A tool to manage timetables
How would you keep all your meeting schedules in your mind and expect to make it to all of them? Well, you cannot. Thus, a must-have for small businesses would be a software calendar tool that can help manage and schedule all important meetings, follow-ups, and necessary tasks. Tools like calendly can help optimize this setup. One can even schedule via Google meet; however, that is only helpful when it comes to meeting people virtually.
Anyone who wants to get a meeting scheduled can request or reserve a time via email or direct link to a client’s calendly. This eliminates hassles and makes the processes streamlined.
5. An employee development program
An employee development program or software can facilitate the training of less experienced but highly potential employees. Companies often plan to hire less experienced employees and look forward to training them to develop their internal talent pool. Most often, this plan never happens. Employees are left at their facilities, worried, and waste hundreds of hours a year on tasks they don’t know how to solve. Tools like Grovo serves as a lifeline. In the process, they develop their skills better and become even more valuable to your business.
6. CRM – Customer Relationship Management Software
Well, all businesses have customers, and you would need customer relationship management software to maintain and manage all customers. With a CRM, you can integrate multiple staff members working for a project on a single platform which helps in maintaining quality, meeting deadlines, having proper customer support, and being able to keep track of sales. While a lot of CRMs may be available online, teamgate and teamwork are often used by many organizations to help streamline the tasks for staff members as well as the customers who can keep track of how the assignment is progressing.
Did you know that the use of CRMs increased from 56% to 74% post-world health pandemic?
What if your college did not have a portal? How would that have been?
7. Social Media Scheduling tool
Instead of playing all day on Facebook to make sure your business is visible to your followers all day, and attracts the intended audience, get your small business a social media scheduling tool. Maybe, create a Hoot suite account. The basic package is free, and you can schedule posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and most recently on Instagram. Share your content from one dashboard that will also help you track and schedule posts across all your social media management accounts simultaneously. Hoot suite can aid you in deciding when the best time to post is.
You would not have to guess which time would be the best to put a post. Social media has the command to change how your revenue figures look like. As Oberlo quotes, on average, a person spends 2 hours and 25 minutes on social media.
Bottom line
Why should we employ these tools? Well, it increases productivity, saves time, and aids effectiveness. As they say, when tech innovations are meant to make our lives easier, why not benefit from those. While a few of the above-mentioned are paid tools, the rest of them are available for free and can make a whole lot of a difference even when your firm is a small or medium enterprise.
Author Bio
Audrey Throne has an ongoing affair with the words that capture readers’ attention. Her passion for writing dates back to her pre-blogging days. She loves to share her thoughts related to business, technology, health and fashion.
Find her on Twitter: @audrey_throne
