Digitally Managing your In-Person Business: Utilizing Digital Tools to Increase Productivity March 12, 2019

Digitally Managing your In-Person Business: Utilizing Digital Tools to Increase Productivity

From Nothing to Something

 

You are highly capable with your hands, everyone knows that. Your clients, your friends, heck, even your girlfriend (or boyfriend). You have been fixing things (or breaking things) for the better half of your life, and you are so good at it (not the breaking part) that you have made a career out of it. Like many others found out before you, running your business requires more than being handy. You need a whole new set of skills, including but not limited to schedule management, invoicing, pricing, and the whole nine yards.

 

It can be overwhelming sometimes to have to handle every part of your business yourself, and service providers without either a plan or a support system are vulnerable to losing business and patience. Although I can’t help you build a support system in this article (see another one for that), I can point you in the direction of some tools that can help you navigate all of the opportunities that are coming your way. Master some of these digital features and you will see your business transform overnight.

 

Here are some high-tech, easy-to-use apps that can help you take your one-man business productivity to the next level.

 

Tools to Help You Tread Water: Don’t get bogged down doing the mundane tasks!

 

Calendly:

When development began in 2013, Nigerian-born CEO Tope Awotona knew he was on to something. The platform’s purpose is to make it easier to email people and schedule time to talk, and it integrates with just about every current calendar on the market, and it is so. easy. to. use. The best feature? Being able to send someone a link that they can easily use to schedule any length of meeting, whether that is online or in person.

 

Hubspot:

Now, there are a lot of website & platforms that I could substitute in for Hubspot, because what they provide is super important. Customer Relationship Management, or CRM systems are far and away the best method for keeping track of current/past clients and valuable leads. This tool will take some getting used to, but once you get the hang of this deep, forever-free web app. (There are simpler tools out there though)

 

QuiGig:

Surprise, surprise – we included ourselves on the list! It’s only because we really can be a essential tool for anyone trying to either find more business or manage the business that you currently have. Our free-to-download app has the features of Calendly and Hubspot, and then some. You will also be able to send & request invoicing, meaning you will be paid on time. One more feature that is unique to our platform is the personal webpage feature, that integrates everything I have mentioned earlier with the ability to get branded exposure online!

 

Wave:

When you have an accurate picture of your cash flow, you can make better business decisions. Connect your account to other Wave products such as payroll, payments, and invoicing. You’ll spend less time on daily tasks, so you can focus on growing your business. Wave is currently free, but with their extensive suite of high-use products, don’t bank on being able to rely on this without a hole in your pocket for long. Freshbooks is also a alternative here.

 

Tools for Busy Beavers: Let these do the work for you

 

Slack:

Chances are you have heard of this billion dollar company. Although there are many messaging platforms, discord, teamspeak, and even facebook messenger to name a few, Slack is the one of many with the most complete list of features. Ample keyboard commands are built into the multi-roomed messaging platform, allowing you to easily toggle between conversations, quickly attach documents, and way more.(Note: QuiGig also has shortcuts that allow you to effectively shorten time you spend communicating with your team.

 

Trello:

This is a project management app where you and your team can track the progress of certain tasks / assignments and visualize how the relate to one another. This tool is especially good if you work on projects that require a team’s effort or if you with with people outside of your local area. Before we developed our own tools for this, we used this for our own project management. We have since switched over to our internal tools because they are much easier to use. These tools are just forus – for now. We will be releasing them to the public very shortly.

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