Essential tech for small business
It's over a month late but our next LinkedIn newsletter is finally here! We also missed our October official Siarp email Newsletter too, so maybe "Stoptober" was all about newsletters, who knew?
Anyway, what matters is that we're here now and what we're going to talk about this time around is "Essential tech for Small business".
It's tough starting out, so many things to buy, so much to do, but if you don't get those tech foundations right, you could easily find yourself struggling unnecessarily later on.
Lets not even get started on talking about whether or not you should waste your precious time doing it all yourself.
Instead, lets stick to the tech itself.
Productivity Platform
What's a productivity platform you might ask! Well, it's just what I decided to call it, but what I am referring to is Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace.
Choose your favourite flavour, by all means, but I'll say now, I'm a huge fan of Microsoft's platform over Google's any day of the week. For the money you spend it's got so much going for it, but I know the creative types in the room often prefer Google, for reasons I can't really explain. Maybe some of them can get in the comments and tell us all about it. ??♂?
These platforms bring so much of the essentials you need for your business.
?? Email, of course, get your professional email address, using your domain on a platform that's much more likely to get your messages delivered to the inbox, rather than the spam folder. It's vital stuff, but you need to get your system set up right or the emails could still get blocked.
The main point to consider here is, let's not use @gmail.com / @hotmail.com / @yahoo.com or any other free mailboxes for your business, it looks shite and it really will harm your credibility. Just no.
Other benefits you get from these platforms include:
The list goes on. Hands down, getting yourself on one of these platforms will be the single best value for your spend and will potentially allow you to do away with countless disjointed tools like Trello, Dropbox, Evernote and more.
Password Manager
These days, there are so many websites, sooo many applications and client systems and who knows what else. Every single one of them should have a unique password and frankly, unless you're some kind of megamind freak, your brain is not designed to remember them all.
I personally have several hundred passwords stored in my password manager and all of them are unique and I know just a handful of them.
Getting a password manager, once you get over the initial hump, the uncomfortable habit changing phase, will be something that will make your life considerably easier and safer.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Sure, you could manage all of your contacts and leads in a spreadsheet, but, in the words of Sweet Brown... "ain't nobody got time for that"!
A good CRM doesn't have to break the bank, you can get some very good ones for around ￡15 per month per person.
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I'd avoid using any free products, other than during testing, pretty much without fail, they will need you to pay to access features that you're bound to want.
Accountancy Software
Again, you could do it in Excel, but surely you want an easier life than that, right? Get proper visibility over your business and your finances by using a tool like Xero or Quickbooks.
Better still, these kinds of tools can integrate with your CRM and many other tools to help you automate processes, and minimise the duplication of effort.
Why would you do anything else?
WhatsApp Business?
What's that doing in here? Well, if you must use WhatsApp, wouldn't you prefer to keep your messages separate from your personal WhatsApp?
It was driving me insane, so I split them off, with WhatsApp Business banished to silence... notifications NOT allowed.
I reclaimed my sanity by only checking on it when I want to check on it. It's really worth a look.
Graphic Design Tools
Canva or Adobe Express, those tend to be the main ones. I've used both, but now, generally use Canva Pro.
It's superb, it really is. And whilst there's no substitute for getting the help of a professional graphic designer or illustrator, these tools can make it so easy to knock up custom images and designs for all your social media or business merch needs.
We've used it to put together our social images, website pics, t-shirt designs as well as things like pens, cup mats, tins of mints, notepads and whole loads more.
Admittedly, we are lucky enough to have had a library of custom illustrations made for us, so we've imported the lot into a "Brand" library in Canva so we can quickly pull them together when needed.
Highly recommended!
Summary
Yep, we always need a summary, just to finish things off. You might already have a lot of these tools, well done if you have. If you don't, really do consider getting paid versions, it's much better than relying on free tools and compromising on features.
What would you add to the list?