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A lot of people are stepping away from nine to five jobs and investing in their own small businesses. Entrepreneurship is at an all-time high, and according to a recent statistic, 6.02 percent of the US adult population runs their own business.
While being an entrepreneur may be rewarding, it has its own fair share of problems. You have to work smarter not harder. Since running a business is a one-man show, it can get a bit overwhelming at times. From marketing to sales and handling administrative matters to finances- it is not easy to manage everything. But thanks to technology, you now have some software applications and other web tools that can make it easier for you. Technology tools can help you stay organized, increase your productivity and help your business reach new heights.
Must Have Softwares For Small Business Owners
Here are some of the best software applications for entrepreneurs that can help you choose a spam free app and save precious time and money. Keep reading to learn more about them:
1 – Google Analytics
Starting a new business is all about studying the numbers. You can’t be successful without answering certain questions like how much traffic your website is generating, what are the basic demographic characteristics of your target audience and where can you attract maximum traffic from.
Finding out the answers to these questions is not possible without a reliable tool. That’s where Google Analytics comes to your rescue. It is a great platform to track your website and mobile analytics. The fact that it is free makes it even more popular. You can use this statistic tool to view the countries in which your website has been viewed, the percentage of traffic drivers and key numbers according to day, week and month. Plus, the information is displayed in easy graphs and pie charts, so you don’t have to be number savvy to decode it. All in all, it is an awesome business intelligence tool for all business owners.
2- Asana
Asana is one of the most sought-after project management tools in the market today. It helps you to multitask between project management and task organization through a single platform. Asana can help you solve your team collaboration and communication woes easily.
Simply create new projects, assign team members, monitor task progress and collaborate via Asana. No more digging through your inbox to read emails. You can communicate and update task deadlines to suit your preference.
What’s more, it can also be integrated with other popular online tools Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack, Jotana, Github, MailChimp, WordPress, and many more. It’s free for a team of up to 15 members and for larger teams you can look at the paid options.
3- Quickbooks
If you are facing difficulty in managing your finances, then Quickbooks is a great solution that will help you with it. It has a pretty useful user interface, which makes it easy to navigate through your account balances, income, and expenses. You can even highlight regularly updated tasks like Accounting, Banking, Employees, Reports, Sales, and so much more.
QuickBooks also has an inbuilt records and reports option that gives you a clear insight into all your details. You can create weekly or time-based records for customers, vendors and employees to help you stay on track. It also supports integrations with a lot of third-party apps.
You can benefit from the services of QuickBooks for as low as $5.00 per month per user after a free 30-day trial. The software can be used on Cloud, SaaS, Web. Web-based community and phone support are also offered. You can’t go wrong with this accounting software!
4- Salesmate
If you are looking to make your life easier, then invest in a good customer relationship management software. CRM solutions are designed to track and organize your customers’ data and includes all important information such as contact information, past customer service interactions, and history of purchase.
Salesmate is one of the best CRM solutions out there that can help you attain a more organized approach towards the entire sale process. You can track leads effectively, build life-long customer relationships, and win more conversions.
5- MailChimp
MailChimp is a must have for all entrepreneurs who are looking for effective ways to manage their mailing lists. It also allows you create custom email templates and send bulk newsletters to all your customers. You can also view the performance reports about your emails and tweak your marketing strategy accordingly.
Overall, MailChimp can help your customers get more relevant and personalized emails from your brand.
6- X-Cart
If you are a new e-commerce venture that doesn’t want to spend bucketloads of money on designing a complex online shopping cart, then look into X-cart. For $29.95, X-cart offers a powerful solution for a website that has products to sell. It also has a free version which offers great features such as newsletters, social-commerce integration and a decent site builder to tweak basic themes.
X-Cart is not a plug-and-play e-commerce tool, so be sure to get help from an IT person to guide you through the setup process.
7- Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk is a web-based helpdesk software loaded with features. This tool enables you to manage your customer support activities more efficiently. Zoho Desk has great features like assigning tasks to teammates, tracking them and setting up alerts on help desk tickets. You can even customize Zoho Desk to suit the nature of your business. Your customers are going to notice a positive change in your customer care services after you get on board with them.
Try out their free version initially and if your helpdesk needs are even more complex, upgrade to their pro or enterprise version, which has even more added features.
Conclusion:
If you’ve just started your own venture or are thinking to start one soon, don’t be overwhelmed by the fact that you’ll have to wear so many hats at once. Rest assured, you don’t need to be certified in all these areas to run your business smoothly. With a little common sense and all these mobile apps and web-based tools, you can be prepared for anything that comes your way.
Being an entrepreneur, which software do you swear by? Let us know, and we’ll add them to our next list.
