Collaborative Post
Working online I utilise plenty of tools to help me manage my business and keep myself and my clients happy. I thought I’d share with you today what tools I use and what tools other businesses may use to aid them. What tools do you use?
Scheduling Apps
For my virtual assistant clients, scheduling apps are a must. I use a variety of paid tools and free tools – I currently use Facebook scheduler (although this can be a little unreliable sometimes), Buffer (which I paid for) and Socialbee.io which is paid for by a client but I have access to you. I spend a few hours a week getting content scheduled for the week ahead – only adding to the social medias if I have time sensitive content to add.
Password Managers
These are vital for my business. Not only do I have a multitude of different passwords for my own personal use but I also have to access plenty of different sites for my clients. Password managers enable them to share their passwords with me without me actually knowing them – they autofill the login forms. I would be lost without a password manager.
Canva
I am rubbish at sorting out Pinterest images for my site but I am finally getting round to it and have been making them using Canva. I currently use the free one which is good enough for my needs but I may invest in the paid one if I ever need any of those tools.
Yoast SEO
This is a must when it comes to plugins – it helps me to optimise my blog posts to ensure they are perfect for SEO. It takes a while to get used to but I wouldn’t be without it now.
Gleam
As someone who loves a competition myself, I do love to run a competition on here – and as everyone knows, competitions do wonders for increasing traffic and social followings, thus helping me to grow my business. I used to be a Rafflecopter girl but Gleam really has come into its own recently and I wouldn’t be without it.
So these are the tools I use but it isn’t just in my line of work that tools and apps can be used to help a business. Field sales management software such as Skynamo is great for providing insights for sales managers and reducing admin for their team. With a mobile sales app too, work couldn’t be any simpler!
Business proposal templates
If you’re doing B2B sales, and want to provide clients with something that looks a bit more professional (and not just a boring Word document!) Then having a business proposal tool like Qwilr’s comes in super handy. There are others out there, but this one does the job and at time of writing comes with a 14 day free trial.
I know that other businesses use apps and sites such as Trello and Slack to help keep track of the jobs that need doing too! There are all sorts of tools and apps out there that can help you grow and manage your business – are there any ones you use effectively?