Small business owners (SBOs) fire on all cylinders to put their stamp on the world and push towards the next level, and it often involves playing countless roles. In many cases, there aren’t enough hours in a day to fit into the workload of an SBO, which is why they must leverage several apps to reduce time spent on tasks – here are our top picks.
Vevox
Employee engagement is still important in small businesses, but an SBO’s time may not allow for constant conversations with each employee. Fortunately, Vevox is learning all about employees through the power of live polls. By using the vevox app, you can send questions to your team to learn about feedback and find out what people are feeling. Then, once you’ve got the results, you can implement changes to nurture productivity.
Asana
Collaboration is one of the top ingredients when it comes to productivity in the workplace, and Asana understands this. This platform allows your entire team to communicate, upload files, share progress, and much more. Whether your marketing team needs to work with colleagues in sales or you just need to tick off your daily checklist, this app is the perfect solution. Setting Asana up won’t be difficult as it will easily fit in with your current systems; it integrates with platforms like Dropbox, Slack, and Google Drive.
Nimble
Managing customer interactions across all contact points can be challenging, which is why SBOs leverage CRM (customer relationship management) tools. For example, Nimble has the ability to automatically document customer details and sync them across your entire team, allowing you to build positive relationships. If you’re a travelling SBO, then having an app like Nimble will allow you to access the customer database regardless of where you are, which means you never have to drop the ball.
Expensify
Compiling expense reports isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay because there are suitable apps out there for automating these processes. For example, Expensify will integrate with the likes of HotelTonight and Uber to sync up receipts, which are then put together into an expense report.
Buffer
Social media management is essential for succeeding in 2023, but it can swallow up an enormous chunk of time, especially if you fall into the pit of procrastination. Luckily, with the power of Buffer, you can create and schedule posts for LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram well in advance. The user interface is simple, meaning you can focus on optimising your productivity.
The internet is full of interesting web articles that are thrown in front of you, whether you’re using a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. However, getting stuck into a good article will disrupt your working day, which is why it’s a good idea to save it for later. With the Pocket app on your side, you can easily save web content that you can come back to later. Even if you’re travelling, you can download content that can be read offline.
Todoist
If you tend to store your to-do lists in your brain or on scraps of paper, you’ll find that tasks often get overlooked. Therefore, use Todoist to store every task that needs taking care of, meaning your brain doesn’t have to worry about remembering. With all of your tasks stored within the app, you can assign them to different members of your team, which will help you to achieve those large targets.
HelloSign
The world is almost entirely managed in the digital space these days, which means traditional paper and pen forms have been replaced. Therefore, to make it easy to manage digital forms, you will need an app for signing documents on the go. For example, HelloSign will integrate with Oracle, Salesforce and Google Drive, which allows you to track important documents across all platforms.
Woven
Keeping up with appointments and other commitments is challenging enough, but then you throw in unforeseen business-related chaos and it feels near impossible. This is where Woven, a powerful AI-driven scheduling tool, comes to the rescue. Winner of the 2019 Appy Award for the productivity category, this calendar draws from keywords across emails and creates logical appointments. If you’re looking for free time, Woven will tell you the best availability for the task’s needs.
RescueTime
Everyone has experienced days that have just vanished, but they don’t know where or what they did. Luckily, RescueTime allows you to look back on the day to find out where your time was spent, whether that be social networking or scrolling websites. If you’re spending too much time on non-business-related activities, you can set up alerts to bring your back on task during the day.
Running a small business takes a lot of work, and the lifestyle makes it easy to allow productivity to lapse. By using the apps outlined above, you can boost productivity for yourself and the rest of your team.
