Imagine a situation: an entrepreneur opened an online store for flower bouquets. Things went well, the number of orders began to grow, the staff increased. The more orders there were, the more dissatisfied the customers were: they began to complain about the inattention of employees, employees – about too much work, and the entrepreneur himself stopped doing anything.
If such a situation develops in a company, this is a sign that some of the processes should be automated: for example, project management and work with clients. In this article, we will talk about useful tools for automating small business processes.
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Why start a business
If you are thinking of starting your own business, but for some reason you are in doubt, maybe the reasons below will help you finally make the right decision.
You are your own boss
If you are starting a business, the only person you will report to (but also be responsible for) is yourself. Being your own master, you will gain freedom of choice and be able to realize your own plans.
You do what interests you
When you start your own business, you choose what you will do and where your company will be located. So, as long as the market research is done properly, you can turn your hobbies and interests into a profitable venture.
Significant income
One could say that only large corporations with huge capital turnover can make big profits, but that would not be true. There are countless stories of entrepreneurs jumping on the bandwagon and making their first million dollars by the end of the year.
It’s not uncommon in business to put in many hours of non-monetary reward for your efforts, but that’s just the beginning. Put your heart and soul into your business and the rewards must and will indeed be worthy of all your efforts.
Closer to home
While most entrepreneurs work in separate purpose-built offices, many of them find that working from home in the early stages cuts costs dramatically. Having created a pleasant and comfortable working atmosphere in your home, you will not have to deal with busy public transport every day or stand in long traffic jams.
Dreams Come True
You might think that starting with a small firm, you can’t achieve anything more than hiring a couple of extra employees and having your own desk. But in reality, this is not always the case.
Apple was founded in the 1970s when two friends Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak decided to start their own computer manufacturing company, building and selling 175 Apple I computers for $666.66 in ten months. In essence, the Apple I was a motherboard without a case, keyboard, sound, or graphics.
Small Business Tools for Online Entrepreneurs
Automation of work with clients
One of the business automation programs that is usually implemented first is a CRM system. It helps to collect customer data in one place and control customer service.
The CRM system stores customer contacts and transaction information. At the first contact of the client, the system automatically creates a card for him, where the contact information goes.
For example, a client of an online store made an order and left a phone number, name, email. This data will be saved in his card. When the manager finds out the delivery address from the client, he will supplement the card with this information.
Each order or deal is also saved as a card that enters the visualized sales funnel. The stages of the funnel are customized to the needs of the business. For example, for a tour operator it can be like this: “Application”, “Offer from the client”, “Agreement signed”, “Prepayment”, “Full payment”.
Pipedrive is an international CRM used by large companies around the world, but it is also convenient for small and medium businesses. Can be combined with more than 150 services.
Marketing Automation
You can send emails manually, or you can use services that help automate activities related to advertising and marketing. For example, set up mailing lists – and the letters themselves will be sent in the desired sequence to everyone who left an email.
MailChimp is an email platform with a full service even in the free version. Integrates with Google Analytics, Tilda, Facebook, Shopify. Free version – up to 2,000 subscribers or up to 10,000 emails per month.
Project Management Automation
Building teamwork on projects means making the process transparent and convenient for each of its participants. Project management automation will help with this.
Trello is one of the most popular services. Intuitive and functional interface: one task – one card. Work on the task is divided into steps – these are columns along which you can move the card.
Trello has a functional free plan, limited to 250 actions per month. Using Zapier, you can integrate with online services: Google Drive, MailChimp, Slack and others.
Аsana. This service visualizes tasks in five ways: list, calendar, timeline, boards, personal planner.
Everyone chooses a convenient option for themselves. Employees discuss tasks at different levels: in the task itself, in the project, and in the team chat.
Automation of accounting and tax reports
Keeping records in Excel and manually filling out accounting reports is real. But the more manual work in accounting, the higher the risk of errors, penalties, fines, and even courts.
Zoho books
Zoho is perfect for small business owners and entrepreneurs like freelancers who mostly rely on themselves. The beauty of this software is its ease of use, free from the often added complexity of accounting software for large companies.
Use Zoho to efficiently create invoices, keep track of your expenses, and even generate financial reports. Its intuitive navigation bar is one of the main reasons for its user-friendly experience.
Automating the development and creation of sites and applications
It is not necessary to make a site from scratch – design, layout, coding. There are website builders that help save money and time on development.
Such sites can be integrated with the necessary programs and platforms without the participation of developers. Sites assembled in constructors do not require separate hosting.
uCraft is suitable for small companies and freelancers. Only the basic template is available on the free plan: you can make a promotional page or a landing page for collecting contacts. It is possible to connect your own domain and work with tools for SEO promotion.
Wix is a website builder with Drag&Drop technology: just left-click the desired block and drag it to the workspace. Websites are responsive and look great on desktops and smartphones.
Tilda. Tilda has ready-made website templates and 550 more ready-made modules from which you can assemble a landing page, an online store or a news portal. The constructor is intuitive, there is drag & drop to simply drag and drop ready-made blocks into the layout.
It is also possible to build a website from scratch, but this requires knowledge of html layout.
Sites on Tilda are well indexed by search engines, you can add meta descriptions and headings on pages for search engine optimization of the site.
In the free version, you can publish only one site.
So, we told you about the best tools with which you can automate the processes of a small business. Using them, you will get rid of the need to manually perform routine tasks and free up time for more important things. Good luck!
