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Main » 2012 » March » 28 » 5 Online Tools to Help Run Your Small Business
9:37 AM
5 Online Tools to Help Run Your Small Business
There are myriad of business tools out there that can help businesses do
everything from acquire customers and prospect leads, to collaborate
and share documents, provide billing and even customer service and
retention, re-marketing and more. So how do you determine what services
can help your specific situation and which are better left alone? By
looking at your business needs you can find specific solutions that can
meet those needs. Here are five tools that are useful for different
reasons, and a great place to start if you are exploring solutions.
Definitely do your own research and leave any additional tips in the
comments below.
Freshbooks:
Freshbooks is a great tool for those looking for a simple online
billing solution. It offers the kind of simplicity that makes it easy to
integrate in your current business processes, and is perfect for
companies that bill less than 300k a year, as it acts as an accounting
system as well. Set-up time tracking, recurring billing, track payments
and integrate with PayPal from an intuitive clean interface. Freelancers
will also enjoy the simple hour-tracking features and is well worth the
monthly fee starting at $29.99. They do offer 30-days free and also
offer a free version of the software if you have under 3 clients. As an
added benefit, Freshbooks has an API and there are several 3rd party
plugins available that allow Freshbooks integration.
SohoOS:
SohoOS is a fairly new online business management platform that
performs multiple functions including contact management, inventory
management, invoicing and billing, document sharing, project management
and numerous management reporting options. SohoOS also has the added
benefit of aspiring to let small businesses and freelancers easily find
each other and collaborate globally to take advantage of economies of
scale and form business partnerships and offerings easier than through
traditional channels. The lofty goals of SohoOS make sense to small
businesses who have been at a historic disadvantage when it comes to
economies of scale, until now says SohoOS, who aim to, "leverage the
power of many small-businesses to achieve a combined strength that
bridges the gap in your favor." SohoOS has a free version and a paid
version at $9.95/month which includes among other enhancements, a
customizable leads widget for your website, easily integrated in to a
WordPress, Drupal or other CMS that funnels leads directly in to your
SohoOS account.
Google Apps for Business:
Google Apps is designed to allow small businesses to reduce IT costs by
using Google's array of business solutions as opposed to hosting their
own email and other communication servers. Focused more on email and
messaging solutions, Google Apps does have the advantage of a
no-contract, flexible $5/month per user plan that lets small businesses
and even freelancers the benefits of online collaboration, Outlook,
Blackberry Enterprise interoperability and advanced communication tools
hosted by Google. This is perfect for small businesses that want to
start small, avoid up front setup and costly IT services. There is also
the advantage of being a Google product, of which many small businesses
recognize the tools and interface so there is ease of use and no
learning curves and enhanced services layer in with existing products
currently being used, like Google Doc's.
Box: Box or Box.net as it was known, it among a growing group of cloud collaboration providers including SugarSync, Dropbox
and others. I am covering Box here because in my opinion it has
features better suited for businesses than personal users. But SugarSync
and Dropbox are both other online collaboration alternatives to Box.
Business friendly features include the ability to not only sync with
Google Doc's, but your customers don't have to log in to Google to view
the documents you share is one standout feature. They offer premium
accounts starting at $9.95/month and have additional business friendly
options including the ability to brand your interface. Customizing the
look and feel, including your company logo allow small businesses to
collaborate with prospects, customers and vendors with a professional
image that would otherwise be achieved through costly technology
investments. There is also a document viewer and even editor for those
who wish to operate completely in the cloud.
DemandBase:
This customer intelligence company offers a real-time ticker that
companies can place on their websites to see when sought after
prospects, or individuals from target companies visit the website. It
allows you to find out when a blue-chip prospect is looking at your site
and then offers to sell you this contact information. The database
compares the IP address of visitors with information from Dunn &
Bradstreet, Lexis-Nexis and other sources to match the visitors to the
companies they likely work for. The average price of a lead from
DemandBase is $1.80 according to an article in INC. , which also dubbed the service, "the iTunes of CRM".
So, whether you are looking for customer retention tools, lead
prospecting or just collaboration or simple messaging there is likely a
solution that can fit your small business needs out there. With a little
bit of research and knowing what areas of your business can use
improvement, technology and some of these free tools could end up saving
you more than time and money, it could save your sanity as well.
Running a small business is a challenge, especially in this environment,
and keeping up with technology sometimes seems like a job within
itself.