Tech tools used by a non-tech founder
As a tech company that serves other businesses, one of our goals is to build productive tech that is super simple to use and saves you time.
We all hear about how tech can be used to automate processes and save us precious time we are spending on admin. However, many of the business owners we speak to are still not leveraging technology in any significant way, which we know is costing them hours every week.
From first-hand experience, we know that it can be daunting to implement a new system because not only does it take time to choose the new tool from the hundreds that claim to do the same thing, but also to sign-up, learn and integrate it into your business.
We have been through the same journey, but as our business grows, it becomes more and more important that we transition our processes to tools that create more time to do the things that are most important to us - support our growing community.
We believe that productivity is all about little hacks that work together to save a significant amount of time. Let us help you sort through the hundreds of tools that are out there by sharing with you a list of tools we actually use here at Ugenie.
For a long time, our user agreements were being sent out in paper to each client to review and sign. On average, it would take several weeks for us to receive a signed contract due to logistical issues including printing and posting. Last month, we automated this process and contract turn-around went to just a few days! Further, with Adobe-sign, we can create a template library in order to edit and send similar documents, and it keeps a library of signed contracts all in one place. On another note, we also love the environmental benefit of not printing so much paper!
Calendly - Scheduling Meetings
How much time do you spend scheduling meetings? I certainly used to spend a lot of time going back and forth with existing and potential clients, partners, shareholders, investors and others trying to find time in diaries for meetings and calls. Last week, I started to use the Calendly link I set up recently and three important meetings were scheduled with no back-and-forth. I am sure that I saved at least 10 minutes per exchange! Think about the number of meetings you schedule and how much time it takes to schedule them.
Google Widgets - Scheduling Emails
You may not see a direct time saving benefit from scheduling emails, but I think it can help you be more productive in two ways. First, it enables you to sit down in your own scheduled time chunks (see blog on time management) and get through your emails without worrying about what time your recipient will receive the email. This is important because it is important to send emails when they’re most likely to be opened. (For most users, open rates are highest earlier in the morning, or early in the evening.) This is also important because by scheduling emails during work hours, you are respecting the recipient's time and work-life balance. (It may be worth thinking about this for yourself too!)
There are times when I could be writing a blog, sending an email or writing a report, but my hands are not free. And for those of you who meet me, you know that I can speak a lot faster than I can type! With dictation.io, I can very quickly turn the thoughts in my head into a piece of work by just speaking it out. Last week, I ‘wrote’ an article while I was on the bike! Fitness has definitely been taking a back seat due to the lack of time in my schedule, but this hack just gave me a few hours a week back.
Hootsuite (or any scheduling tools)
Scheduling (and creating) content is one of the biggest challenges that my clients share with me. Although maybe the dictation hack can help with the creation issue, in terms of scheduling, tools like Hootsuite (or Ugenie’s own scheduling tool) enables you to schedule all your content across multiple platforms all in one place. Although it is important to tweak the language for each platform, by using one base to post across platforms, you will save a lot of time going from one to another.
Here's a quick video showing you the Ugenie scheduling feature.
To play this video, view this post from your live site.
Zoom & Appearin - Virtual Meetings
I love meeting people in person so I never want to replace in-person meetings altogether. That being said, virtual meetings not only enable you to meet more people, but they save you time and money spent in travel. Gone are the days when you travel for a longer period of time than the actual meeting.
A bit about Ugenie
Ugenie allows any businesses to efficiently engage and monetise their consumers through a customised and branded mobile smart-hub and at a price they can afford. Bringing together the best of social media and customer management software, our solution combines the functionality of social platforms with the privacy, control and structure of having ones' own tailored app which is crucial for many businesses in today's mobile world.
From a consumer perspective, Ugenie gives the customer one central place to manage all the information from the brand(s) with which he or she wants to engage. It further cuts through the noise by giving the individual hyper-relevant control of the content for which they want to be notified. Our alpha and early beta testing has demonstrated that when users can choose on topical preferences engagement and retention grows.
By using Ugenie, you save the time and money of building your own member's engagement hub.