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  • Grow Your Business NOW! A How-to-Guide

    Grow Your Business NOW! A How-to-Guide

    Successfully growing your business in a global pandemic is challenging. However, some of the most impressive businesses, inventions and innovations were born in times of distress and hardship. 

    We’ve put together a guide to help you chart a course for customer growth through adhering to strategies and tactics applied to the customer journey to engage with your business. 

    Attracting and retaining new customers is much different today versus the days of taking out an ad in the local newspaper and hoping for the best. Today, business owners of all sizes across all markets need creative marketing strategies to compete in the current, dynamic market.  

    In a time of uncertainty, two things remain the same: 

    1. Consumer expectations remain high:  You must deliver a product or service that is efficient, has timely and courteous customer service, provides transparency, and creates a 1:1 relationship with the customer.
    2. Winning at the “basics” is key to success. 

    Achieving this may sound daunting, but with a healthy appreciation of the five stages of the customer journey and the key marketing actions within each, success is more than achievable. We’ve outlined the five stages and key marketing actions below. 

    Your marketing plan must address each phase of the customer Journey

    1st: Discovery– how consumers discover your product  

    • Achieved through:  Online lists social media & search engine optimization 

    2nd:  Validation: how consumers validate why you are the best choice 

    • Achieved with: Education via blogs, online guides and live chat

    3rd: Conversion- helping consumers make the purchase and gaining the right insights

    • Achieved by: Customer relationship management (CRM)

    4th: Retention- maximizing the post-purchase experience 

    • Tools used: Email marketing and data analysis 

    5th: Loyalty-Retaining customers and turning them into advocates 

    • Key Tactic: Influencer marketing 

    To further define: the customer lifecycle is a term that describes the different steps a customer goes through when they are considering, buying, using, and remaining loyal to a particular product or service. 

    This lifecycle has been broken down into five distinct stages: reach, acquisition, conversion, retention, and loyalty.

    1. Discovery

    This is when a customer begins searching for a product or service.  It is said that discovery most often begins online.  This is when customers compare products across competitor brands, as well as research  customer reviews, ratings and articles. Eventually, the customer will reach out to a certain brand with questions and concerns.  When your marketing materials and content are in the “right places” this will make you more discoverable and help potential consumers become aware of you. 

    Ways to Improve your discoverability: 

    Local Listings
    There are three major online local listings you should be represented on. Firstly, and most importantly, there’s Google Places. You want to show up on Google searches, and you want to be included in online listings, so you need to be registered on Google Places. This is doubly important if your business is a retailer or a restaurant.vThe other online listings are Yahoo! Local and Bing’s online listing. All three of these online listing services are free, and they’re a great way to get your business out there. Consider getting your online presence up and running through these services.

     

    Social Media: If you are not engaging on social media, now is the time. There’s no two ways about this: either your Facebook, Instagram  and Twitter accounts need to be on point or you’re leaving money on the table. Social has replaced many forms of traditional marketing (e.g., newspaper advertising) and helping many companies achieve great success.  If you are debating hiring a social manager or agency, it is worth the investment.  

    • B2B MUST:  Make sure your company LinkedIn profile is professional and clear.  Have all employees update their personal profiles with the same brand message. 

    Search Engine Optimization
    Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a process of making your website’s pages easier to find in search engine results. This involves using specific keywords and repeating the keywords in headers, titles and meta descriptions. A web developer, site designer or some similar type of professional would be ideal to tap in this sort of marketing push.

    Consider hiring a freelance web designer to make sure your business has a webpage that is ideal for search engine optimization. They’ll be able to go in and make your site look great, and make it more searchable on sites like Google.

    2. Education

    This is when and how a brand “responds” to “inquiries” from the potential customer, as well as inquire for more information on the customer’s needs. Following that, the brand will offer the best products or services to satisfy the customer’s needs, as well as educate the customer on the uses of those products or services.   Responding comes in many forms and businesses are smart to offer multiple response styles (e.g., online materials, live chat, easily accessible customer service phone lines or email). 

    Online materials: For example, if a customer is exploring new sneakers a running company would be wise to provide a product comparison chart addressing typical runner demands – tread, ankle support, width, etc. 

    Live chat:  Zendesk offers real-time out reach – reach out and talk to customers before they even ask a question. Innovative clothing rental company Le Tote uses an automated trigger to offer help to customers who are lingering on the checkout page. By proactively engaging customers during the buying process, Le Tote is able to reduce cart abandonment and increase conversions.

    Accessible customer service: Sometimes “picking up the phone” is the easiest way to confirm your questions. Business with clear contact information and smart, well trained customer support ready to help will have better odds at winning the customer, building loyalty and gaining advocates. 

    Services like Ruby help make this possible, even if you are a 1-man show: 

    Ruby is a 100% US – based virtual receptionists business service specializing in making the most out of every customer conversation. They understand that when clients call, it’s important, urgent, or both and offer  daytime and after-hours call support, helping put customers  at ease, taking  down messages and information, and answering questions. Ruby’s got you covered 24 hours a day with live coverage. They can direct calls to you, your staff or take messages at any time everyday of the year. 

    Blogs
    Another great way to support the education phase is a blog, it also helps drive SEO and your google rating.  Things that a blog could cover are quite varied and could depend on your business’s specifics. For instance, if your business is a restaurant, your blog could cover recipes, specials, events and news relating to the restaurant. Whatever makes your business tick, that’s what you should blog about.

    3. Purchase

    Wohoo!!!  You won them over, they have all the information necessary and make the big purchase or commitment.   Congratulations, your marketing efforts to attract them worked!  Now the fun begins, it’s time to keep them, encourage repeat purchases and turn them into brand advocates.   This is more easily achieved when you have the right tools integrated into your purchase platform, so that when they make the purchase you gather the key information from the get-go. Thankfully, many ecommerce and POS systems offer CRM (Customer Relationship Management)  solutions or have an open API system to allow for integration. 

    A great example of a CRM tool provider is bridg.com. Bridg helps gain rich insights into your entire customer base (known and unknown), segment and create optimized audiences, and drive direct revenue generation through targeted personalized marketing with closed loop measurement.  

    4. Post-Purchase Engagement (phase II of your marketing strategy)

    This is when you begin building a lasting relationship with your customer. Great ways to engage are email followup asking for feedback on the customer service experience, their level of happiness with the brand and/or if they would be willing to follow you  on social media. This information can also help you improve your product, service or gain insights on more needs.  You should also plan to follow-up in the next 30-60 days to introduce a new product or additional service. 

    • ENGAGEMENT TIP: Take a look at your customer orders to see if certain products pair well together and create your own “Regularly bought together” or “Customers who purchases, also liked” 

    Email Marketing
    Email marketing allows you to email your customers directly when they’re on a mailing list. You could email them news about new offers and deals, or coupons for hot new items. You could also email them to keep them abreast of news relating to your business, potentially increasing customer engagement with your brand.

    5. Retention & Advocacy 

    Retention begins when the customer is happy with their first purchase or engagement, feels good about their purchase and feels as though that you took care of them or listened to their feedback. The customer feels like an important asset to the brand and makes additional future purchases with the brand.

    From a local popcorn shop to a venture backed technology advocacy is one of the best forms of marketing.  This is the stage of the relationship, where the customer feels fully vested with your product or service and even if there is no need for them to make an immediate secondary purchase, they are happy to recommend your business to their friends, family and colleagues. Spreading awareness amongst social circles is easy to do once a customer is loyal to a brand, and if they continually spread positive recommendations, their extended network is more likely to convert as well.  This was the original form of “influencer” marketing. 

    TIP:  Influencer marketing is a hot topic these days, but it simply bowls down to advocacy, which we know is critical.   In the world of social media, “influencers” those who have a large following or are admired for their style or professional experience (think a successful marathoner or photographer), it often requires a financial investment as well as free product/services. If you are not ready to go down the paid path, you can engage your customers and encourage them to share their experience with shopping with you. This might not have the same impact as someone with a huge following, but it does help your brand get in front of more eyes.  


    In short, there are a number of ways you can leverage the internet to make your business more recognizable and to increase your business’s performance. Really, the biggest mistake you could make is ignoring your online presence. 

    There’s money to be made: you only need to capitalize on online marketing so you can make it!


  • Smarter Business Solutions: Best Employee Time Tracking Software

    Smarter Business Solutions: Best Employee Time Tracking Software

    Every business needs the right tools in order to succeed. Chief among these tools are employee management tools. When your employees clock in, when they leave: these are critical data points you have to have great tracking of. Time tracking software is how you generate payroll, and how you accurately keep up with billable hours, time management and project durations.

    When you get employee time tracking software, you need the best. It needs to be reliable, easy to use and easier to read. No one wants to have to decipher crazy tables and illegible data points in order to try to generate payroll. Today we’re looking at a few of the best employee tracking software solutions on the market to help you narrow it down to the best options. Run your business like a pro with these smart time tracking solutions.

    Beebole

    Don’t let the odd name fool you: Beebole is a great app for businesses of any size. Whether you have only 10 employees or 1,000, Beebole can help you to manage your team’s time. Of course, it can track basic time sheets, but it’s also great for coordinating project time management as well as budget monitoring.

    Beebole offers budget tracking, configurable time reports, one-click timers and a lot more. It’s incredibly simple and easy-to-use, but it’s also highly modular and can be configured to do pretty much whatever you need it to. To add to how easy it is to use, it’s also got a mobile app that works on all mobile devices, and can even be used when offline. Beebole only costs $6 per month, and there are even discounts for large groups.

    Scoro

    Scoro is a very popular time sheet program capable of handling tons of functions for your business. The basic time-tracking is there, of course, keeping up with billable hours employee in and out times and project durations. This information is presented in a clear and easy-to-read format, and can be used to help coordinate team efforts on project. This is a stellar tool for people who need their teams to work consistently on time-sensitive projects.

    Scoro is a lot more than just time-tracking, though. It also offers billing automation, quoting and invoicing, time and work reports, CRM and a lot more. It can probably replace three or four different tools you’re already using for these tasks, likely saving you a ton of money. Scoro costs only $26 per month per user, and you can try it out for 14 days for free.

    Harvest

    Harvest is a favorite time-tracking app of hundreds of businesses. It’s one of the best-known time tracking software solutions, and for good reason: it’s a very focused time tracker for businesses of small or medium size. It’s not like the other software suites on this list, though: it’s not a team collaboration tool, it’s primary function is as a time tracker. This single-mindedness makes it incredibly straightforward: it has one job, and it does that job quite well.

    Harvest is available in both free and paid plans. The paid version starts at $12 per month per user. The app supports real-time tracking of time spent on the job, generates estimates of invoices based on collected data, and can even integrate data from across a wide variety of time-tracking tools. In short, there’s a lot of very useful features under the hood of this deceptively simple time-tracking app. Whether you’re running a small business and just need an inexpensive solution for your time-tracking or you’re running a medium-sized business and need an efficient and focused time-tracker, Harvest can fill these roles for you.


  • Smarter Business Solutions: Best Employee Time Tracking Software

    Smarter Business Solutions: Best Employee Time Tracking Software

    Every business needs the right tools in order to succeed. Chief among these tools are employee management tools. When your employees clock in, when they leave: these are critical data points you have to have great tracking of. Time tracking software is how you generate payroll, and how you accurately keep up with billable hours, time management and project durations.

    When you get employee time tracking software, you need the best. It needs to be reliable, easy to use and easier to read. No one wants to have to decipher crazy tables and illegible data points in order to try to generate payroll. Today we’re looking at a few of the best employee tracking software solutions on the market to help you narrow it down to the best options. Run your business like a pro with these smart time tracking solutions.

    Beebole

    Don’t let the odd name fool you: Beebole is a great app for businesses of any size. Whether you have only 10 employees or 1,000, Beebole can help you to manage your team’s time. Of course, it can track basic time sheets, but it’s also great for coordinating project time management as well as budget monitoring.

    Beebole offers budget tracking, configurable time reports, one-click timers and a lot more. It’s incredibly simple and easy-to-use, but it’s also highly modular and can be configured to do pretty much whatever you need it to. To add to how easy it is to use, it’s also got a mobile app that works on all mobile devices, and can even be used when offline. Beebole only costs $6 per month, and there are even discounts for large groups.

    Scoro

    Scoro is a very popular time sheet program capable of handling tons of functions for your business. The basic time-tracking is there, of course, keeping up with billable hours employee in and out times and project durations. This information is presented in a clear and easy-to-read format, and can be used to help coordinate team efforts on project. This is a stellar tool for people who need their teams to work consistently on time-sensitive projects.

    Scoro is a lot more than just time-tracking, though. It also offers billing automation, quoting and invoicing, time and work reports, CRM and a lot more. It can probably replace three or four different tools you’re already using for these tasks, likely saving you a ton of money. Scoro costs only $26 per month per user, and you can try it out for 14 days for free.

    Harvest

    Harvest is a favorite time-tracking app of hundreds of businesses. It’s one of the best-known time tracking software solutions, and for good reason: it’s a very focused time tracker for businesses of small or medium size. It’s not like the other software suites on this list, though: it’s not a team collaboration tool, it’s primary function is as a time tracker. This single-mindedness makes it incredibly straightforward: it has one job, and it does that job quite well.

    Harvest is available in both free and paid plans. The paid version starts at $12 per month per user. The app supports real-time tracking of time spent on the job, generates estimates of invoices based on collected data, and can even integrate data from across a wide variety of time-tracking tools. In short, there’s a lot of very useful features under the hood of this deceptively simple time-tracking app. Whether you’re running a small business and just need an inexpensive solution for your time-tracking or you’re running a medium-sized business and need an efficient and focused time-tracker, Harvest can fill these roles for you.


  • Which Franchise is the Best to Own?

    Which Franchise is the Best to Own?

    If you’re an entrepreneur considering getting into your own business, you might not know what exactly you want to get into selling. The market in your area may be crowded, and you’re looking for a sure-thing investment that will return your money consistently. In this case, you should consider buying a franchise.

    Franchises give you the benefit of an existing brand you can market, a supply chain you can take advantage of and a legal overhead you can rely on for staying within local and state laws. Of course, when you get into a franchise, you’ve got some up-front costs to consider. Let’s look at some popular franchises that are considered some of the best to own right now.

    Considerations

    Before you get into a franchise, know that you’re signing up for some up-front expenses. These include franchise fees, which you pay to become a franchisee, up-front inventory stocking costs, royalties and real estate fees. As such, you could be looking at a rather heft up-front investment out of your own pocket. While you may be able to get a business loan for the expenses, this is a lot of money to owe.

    As such, make sure you do your research on any franchise you’re considering buying. Make sure they have good brand recognition, a strong financial standing and a good presence to help back up your investment. Otherwise you might be throwing a lot of money away.

    Seven-Eleven

    This highly popular convenience store is one of the best franchises to own at the moment, thanks in part to its recognizable name and potentially low franchise fee. The franchise fee could be as low as $10,000, but could be as a bit higher for certain regions.

    The strengths of Seven-Eleven include its name-recognition and its position as a convenience store with gas pumps. Everyone needs to stop in and get gas from time to time, so you’re guaranteed to make snack and beverage sales when people drop by. This is a surefire way to get some revenue coming in.

    McDonald’s

    Everyone knows the name McDonald’s, and everyone has been into one to grab some food. While McDonald’s might have a very high franchise fee, it’s for good reason. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more recognizable name, or a product that is easier to sell, than McDonald’s burgers. If you can get together the $45,000 franchise fee, you’re likely to have a great investment on your hands.

    Every town in America has a McDonald’s. This gives you a huge edge: everyone already loves the products you’ll be selling. You’ll find it easy to market yourself to people, and you’ll likely find customers just coming to you. It’s every franchisee’s dream.

    Dunkin Donuts

    Okay, they’re just called “Dunkin” now, but they still sell doughnuts, so let’s not mince words. This popular donut shop sells a ton of coffee and a ton of pastries, and is a regional favorite in areas like New England and parts of the Southeast. It’s also got locations all over the world, in 32 countries, and has a very recognizable name.

    As a franchisee, you only need an up-front fee of $40,000 to $90,000 in order to get started. From there, you’re in business selling coffee and donuts to people who have been fans of the long-running brand for years. The company also supports franchisees with help marketing, managing and even selecting and constructing sites! There’s a lot to love about Dunkin, and they make sure to take care of their franchisees. After all, the better the franchise does, the better they do!


  • Best Billing and Invoice Software for Small Businesses

    Best Billing and Invoice Software for Small Businesses

    Whether your business has ten employees or a hundred, you need invoicing and billing software. After all, keeping up with who gets money, and how much, is critical to operating your business daily. As such, you need the best billing and invoice software you can get. Today we’re taking a look at some of the best software on the market for your small business so you can get down to business.

    While there’s no one right answer for your business, these are some of the most popular and highly-rated software solutions out there. Your business deserves to succeed, so give it the best chance to by getting the best invoicing software!

    What is Billing and Invoice Software?

    For those who are just starting a small business and might not know, invoicing software is incredibly important to the daily operations of your business. Primarily, this software is for accounting and other financial operations. It can be as simple as something that allows single-entries of data points to more advanced, double-entry applications with more robust features.

    Depending on your business, you might be better served by a simpler software solution that allows you to quickly input and organize data and information. However, your business might be complex enough that it’s more important you have a more thorough and robust software suite available, with functionality such as double-checking your numbers and automating tasks.

    Quickbooks

    One of the most well-known and easily-recognized names in the realm of accounting software, you’ve likely seen commercials from or heard about Quickbooks. That name recognition comes honest: Quickbooks is one of the best software suites for accounting tasks, offering ample features for businesses without overwhelming users with options.

    The user interface is clean, easy-to-navigate and impressive. Task automation is easy and resources to help you find ways to solve problems with Quickbooks are plentiful. One of the best things about choosing a major name like Quickbooks is that most people are already familiar with the software, so your accounting employees will likely have no trouble using it or figuring out how to troubleshoot the software.

    Freshbooks

    Freshbooks, the similarly-named competition to Quickbooks, is another great option for small businesses. While not as recognizable or well-known as Quickbooks, Freshbooks offers a great platform for your accounting needs and is a bit less expensive than Quickbooks. The trade-off, however, is that less people will be familiar with the software, so your accounting employees may need more in-depth training with it.

    Freshbooks is a cloud-based accounting solution, so you can rest assured knowing your books are backed up offsite. Even if your computers go down or somehow you lose your hard drives, you won’t lose all of your accounting information. Automation solutions are as robust as Quickbooks; the only real step down from the competition is that Freshbooks is a bit more complex to learn and use.

    Sage 50cloud

    Another excellent accounting suite you can use for billing and invoicing is Sage 50cloud. Sage’s software solution is, as the name suggests, another cloud-based accounting option. This means that your books will be backed up in the cloud and can be recovered in case you lose your files or hard drive. This keeps incidents like fires or burglaries from being total wipeouts of your data.

    Sage 50cloud is also notable for its user interface. It’s a breeze to set up automated tasks, like payroll or recurring bills and invoices. Organizing invoices and expenditures is easy, and information is presented in a readable and easy-to-parse context. Exporting and importing data is a snap, and you don’t have to worry about minor clerical errors: the software double-checks behind you to make sure everything adds up.


  • Best Employee Time Tracking Software: Smarter Business Solutions

    Best Employee Time Tracking Software: Smarter Business Solutions

    Every business needs the right tools in order to succeed. Chief among these tools are employee management tools. When your employees clock in, when they leave: these are critical data points you have to have great tracking of. Time tracking software is how you generate payroll, and how you accurately keep up with billable hours, time management and project durations.

    When you get employee time tracking software, you need the best. It needs to be reliable, easy to use and easier to read. No one wants to have to decipher crazy tables and illegible data points in order to try to generate payroll. Today we’re looking at a few of the best employee tracking software solutions on the market to help you narrow it down to the best options. Run your business like a pro with these smart time tracking solutions.

    Beebole

    Don’t let the odd name fool you: Beebole is a great app for businesses of any size. Whether you have only 10 employees or 1,000, Beebole can help you to manage your team’s time. Of course, it can track basic time sheets, but it’s also great for coordinating project time management as well as budget monitoring.

    Beebole offers budget tracking, configurable time reports, one-click timers and a lot more. It’s incredibly simple and easy-to-use, but it’s also highly modular and can be configured to do pretty much whatever you need it to. To add to how easy it is to use, it’s also got a mobile app that works on all mobile devices, and can even be used when offline. Beebole only costs $6 per month, and there are even discounts for large groups.

    Scoro

    Scoro is a very popular time sheet program capable of handling tons of functions for your business. The basic time-tracking is there, of course, keeping up with billable hours employee in and out times and project durations. This information is presented in a clear and easy-to-read format, and can be used to help coordinate team efforts on project. This is a stellar tool for people who need their teams to work consistently on time-sensitive projects.

    Scoro is a lot more than just time-tracking, though. It also offers billing automation, quoting and invoicing, time and work reports, CRM and a lot more. It can probably replace three or four different tools you’re already using for these tasks, likely saving you a ton of money. Scoro costs only $26 per month per user, and you can try it out for 14 days for free.

    Harvest

    Harvest is a favorite time-tracking app of hundreds of businesses. It’s one of the best-known time tracking software solutions, and for good reason: it’s a very focused time tracker for businesses of small or medium size. It’s not like the other software suites on this list, though: it’s not a team collaboration tool, it’s primary function is as a time tracker. This single-mindedness makes it incredibly straightforward: it has one job, and it does that job quite well.

    Harvest is available in both free and paid plans. The paid version starts at $12 per month per user. The app supports real-time tracking of time spent on the job, generates estimates of invoices based on collected data, and can even integrate data from across a wide variety of time-tracking tools. In short, there’s a lot of very useful features under the hood of this deceptively simple time-tracking app. Whether you’re running a small business and just need an inexpensive solution for your time-tracking or you’re running a medium-sized business and need an efficient and focused time-tracker, Harvest can fill these roles for you.


  • Top Ten Tools Every Small Business Needs

    You’re looking to start a small business, huh? Well, you’ve definitely got a lot on your plate. What are some tools and software suites that can help lighten that load and make things easier? We’ve got a list of the top ten things that every small business needs to succeed. From invoicing software to analytics, we’ve tried to think of everything you may have missed. With these tools and some business know-how, you’re bound to do great! 

    Project Management Software 

    OmniFocus, Jira and a few other platforms are great examples of project management software. Tools to help keep projects organized and on-time are a must for any small business. If you’re concerned with meeting deadlines and efficiently finishing projects, having access to oversight tools is important. Those working on the project can log their progress through the project software, allowing you to keep up-to-date on its status. That way, if issues arise, you’ll be kept up to speed with the project. Checking back through logs to see what worked, and what didn’t, will help ensure future projects go even better.  

    Invoicing Software 

    While your project management is important for internal operations, in order for things to keep operating, you have to get paid. As such, picking an invoicing software to familiarize yourself with is important. Many businesses prefer the easy-to-use Microsoft Excel, pictured above. You’ve probably used it before and making invoices in it is a breeze. In fact, Microsoft’s Office Suite of programs is so universally useful, you’d be hard-pressed to find a reason to not have it. Other programs do exist for those who prefer them, though. FreshBooks and QuickBooks are two popular examples, both of which are perfectly serviceable. The important thing, of course, is being comfortable and famliar with your chosen invoicing software.  

    Point of Sale System

    In the same vein as invoicing, your money has to come in somehow. If you’re operating a storefront, you’ll need a point of sale system. A favorite of small business owners is the excellent and business-friendly Square platform. You can use an iPad with a stand and card reader, if you’d like, allowing a rather inexpensive and elegant way to handle transactions. Those looking for more traditional software have a wealth of options available to them, as well, though they are often much more expensive. Solutions like EPOS Now and Merchant Account Solutions are quite popular, though they are a bit more difficult to set-up than Square. 

    Communication Apps 

    Staying in touch with your employees and clients is important. The best ways to keep in touch? Apps like Skype and Slack. Using Skype for Business is a great way to integrate your Skype contacts into your everyday business. Video conferences with clients and business partners are easy with Skype. Rather than having to hop on a plane across country, you can simply video chat in! On the other end of the spectrum, the Slack app is great for keeping in touch with employees. Slack is designed for business and is great for workplace productivity and communication. 

    Ride-Sharing Platforms

    It’s quite likely your small business doesn’t have a driver on-site. For all the times you need to jet across town for a meeting but won’t have time to find parking, consider a ride-sharing service like Uber or Lyft. These apps offer relatively inexpensive rides and help you get where you’re going on time and without having to worry about the drive time. Until you can afford your own driver, a ride-sharing app is a pretty close approximation!  

    E-Signing Apps

    Echo Sign, DocuSign and other services are great to consider for your business. Offering digital uploading and signing of documents, digital singing apps are great for streamlining your business. If you have distant clients that need to sign documents but no fax machine, these are a life-saver! They’re also great for employees who are off-site to sign tax documents and releases. Strongly consider use of these applications when you need documents signed!  

    Drop Box

    It’s hard to overstate how important the cloud will be to your business if you implement it well. Drop Box is an app built around cloud storage. If you have files you want to share, Drop Box is how you do it. Connecting all of your devices is easy, and you can access your Drop Box from anywhere. Instead of having to remember to bring thumb drives or laptops with you, just upload relevant files to the cloud and pull them up on any device with your login information. Streamlining all your files in one place is a great way to appear organized and professional! 

    Social Media Presence

    You probably guessed this would be on the list. Having a strong social media presence is very important, even if it doesn’t seem that way. Being on Facebook and Twitter is a must, as many potential customers will encounter your business through there first. For businesses aimed at younger people, Instagram is another social media platform worth being on. Managing your social media platforms isn’t terribly hard or time-consuming, but it makes a huge difference. Younger demographics are much more likely to recognize and engage with your brand if you have a strong social media presence. That said, social media is no substitute for a true web presence via your own website. 

    A Great Website

    Not every startup can afford to pay a professional web designer to help set up their website. If you’re looking for a resource to create a website, there are some great options out there. Go Daddy is a popular tool, offering great beginner resources for creating an aesthetically pleasing, informative site. The site offers a great deal of support via live troubleshooting and advice from professionals. Go Daddy even incorporates WordPress support for blogging. Another popular choice is Wix, a “no-programming” website builder. Wix uses a drag-and-drop interface so you can make a site that you like the look of on the fly. Whichever one you choose, make sure to create a site that matches your brand and vision. Most customers’ first experience with your business will be through your site, so make sure to make that first impression count!  

    The Most Critical Small Business Tool: Google Analytics

    Analytics are what your business will live or die by. Your web presence is everything in the modern era, and every startup needs to ensure their image is right. Using Google’s analytics software will help you see traffic to your site broken down into readable, informative graphs. The information gleaned is concise and you can act on it confidently, knowing you understand the meaning behind the raw data. Without use of analytics, you’re shooting in the dark. With analytics, you know your target and how to hit. Breakdowns by demographic, country and traffic types are all available, helping you hone your web marketing. With these tools and the right execution, you’ll be setting yourself up for success.