Small Business Tools that help Maximize Productivity
As a full-time entrepreneur and mother, I am constantly on the go with plenty of tasks to tackle in a day. It’s so crucial to create a routine and use tools that help you be as productive as you can be. Here are a few tools that help me get through my busy days.
project management
Asana and Click Up are project management tools that have contributed to my success. In order to keep tasks organized and ensure execution can run smoothly, you want to make sure you have a tool like these two. If you have multiple clients or businesses to manage, you can keep the entities separate and keep all of your areas of focus in one place. Project management tools are also great for team environments. You can assign tasks to specific people with due dates which allows you the security of accountability and promote a well-organized work culture. It helps to keep all business-related tasks in a central location to avoid preventable moments that a task can’t be completed without complications.
Social media posting
I currently use HeyOrca! for my social media posts. This is a collaborative social media scheduler that allows you to publish your social media posts in a simpler way. As a collaborative space, you can add members of your team and give them access to the calendar(s) so that they can contribute to posting. HeyOrca! has an efficient system set up that allows you, as the owner, to approve posts and ensure that the items going out are correct and have been double-checked. You can also import directly from Canva (another tool that we will talk about later in this blog) to make the process quicker than it would be to download every piece of content that you may create. Overall, this tool is beneficial for posting to your social media accounts, especially if you post in multiple different places.
Email Marketing
I am currently using Mailchimp and Mailerlite for all of my email marketing deeds. Mailchimp is the platform that I use for my blogs and Mailerlite is used for my social media channels. Both of these are free up to a certain number of contacts, and are very user-friendly. Because they are very straightforward tools to use, it makes it easy to create newsletters for my audience and keep them updated every month.
Administrative tasks
I use Google Docs, Microsoft Word and Google Sheets to help with administrative duties. Using Google Docs and Microsoft word to create agendas for my meetings has been a game-changer for productivity and organization. It’s important to show up and communicate with your team, and having and agenda is a huge priority to ensure you stay on tasks. I also use it to take notes and create action items for the team to work on. I use Google Sheets and other spreadsheets to hold data. I handle influencer marketing and spreadsheets are a true game-changer to keeping that data safe and organized, it was also easy to sort through and understand.
WhatsApp is a communication tool that has helped me so much as a business owner. This tool helps me keep client and team conversations separate from that of personal conversations. This allows my team and I to communicate efficiently and helps me to stay caught up with their latest updates. While we could communicate through the project management tools and any of the other collaborative apps I mentioned previously, sometimes we need to get in contact with one another quickly and WhatsApp allows me to do that. You can download the app on your cellphone, iPad, laptop, and more.
COntent creation
Canva is where the magic happens. I use Canva to create graphics and other materials that I’ll need to post. It is a user-friendly tool that you can use on an app or on your desktop, so it does not bind you to one option. They have plenty of pre-made templates that you can choose from depending on what you’re looking to create. They have a free option, which is really good, and they also have an option that you have to pay extra for in order to access things like more fonts or more images that you might not have had access to prior.
These are a few of my main tools that I use on a daily basis as an entrepreneur that have helped me grow in my business. It has kept me organized and has elevated my expertise as a business owner. I hope you were able to receive some good tips that you can apply to your own business.
Content Provided by Vanessa Luna | Written by Malia Boyd