Most micro-businesses cost $3,000 to start. And on average, it costs $40,000 in the first year to keep it running.
If you want to start a business, then it’s going to take some serious cash. Not to mention, it can swallow up a lot of your time if you don’t utilize the right tools.
The good news is, there are many tools and services that help entrepreneurs save both time and money. Here are some key ones you should use.
Domain and Web Hosting Services
We live in a highly digital society nowadays, so having a company website is a must. This is true even if you run a brick-and-mortar store since consumers almost always research online before continuing on their customer journey. If they don’t find your business online, they won’t find you at all.
Invest a little money into solid domain and web hosting, and it’ll pay off. You’ll save time and money in the long run since there will be lower chances of your site going down.
Project Management Tools
Whether you’re working on your own or with a team of partners and employees, it can be difficult to coordinate projects. Teamwork is like a relay race; if one person doesn’t take care of their responsibilities, then the entire team fails.
As the business owner, you already have enough on your plate, especially if you’re in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Japan. You shouldn’t have to breathe down people’s necks to get them to work. The professionals at EIRE Systems in Tokyo believe in utilizing methodologies that’ll hold every person accountable. And with project management tools, this is possible.
You can create individual projects, show the timelines, assign shareholders to them, and they can take care of the rest.
These are the perfect tools to save you tons of time, especially if you have remote teams. You’ll get projects rolling with minimal effort.
Time Management Tools
Being your own boss means you need to keep yourself on track. If you find yourself getting distracted by various random things and can’t get your work tasks done, then time management tools will work fantastically.
There are several ones out there, but there are two main concepts:
- Locking your computer from certain websites for a specified period of time.
- Counting down on a timer for a longer period of time and rewarding you with a small break.
When you can focus on your work, you won’t be wasting countless hours watching cat videos.
You can also get time-tracking tools for your employee. Not only do these enable them to be more productive, but they save on administrative work too. The tracked hours are automatically uploaded to your payroll system, which saves you time.
Your workers can clock in and out with these tools. In addition, the programs can take random screenshots and track mouse clicks and movements to ensure they’re actually working.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools
CRM tools are invaluable for businesses. It’s up to you what information you want to input about your customers; however, the more, the better.
These programs will connect all data about each client so you can follow them along the customer journey. You can then use this info to segment your marketing efforts to send relevant messages.
They also keep track of all communications, so your teams don’t end up being redundant and alienating your prospects.
As you can imagine, this saves you a lot of time in various aspects since no actions will be repeated.
Social Media Management Tools
Marketing and advertising a new brand can be hard, especially if you don’t have a big workforce and budget. Thankfully, there are many low-cost or even free tools that can help.
Social media marketing is an affordable way to spread the word about your business; account signups are free on most of them. However, it can take lots of hard work to run all of them.
Social media management tools give you a huge leg up. These allow you to schedule posts ahead of time, so it looks like you’re always online.
Plus, these tools can perform social listening. You won’t have to scour the news every day to see if your brand’s been noticed; these programs will do it for you!
Human Resources Tools
You can’t build a strong foundation for your business and scale it unless you have a competent team. It’s understandable that you might not have the budget to build a big HR department or hire recruiters, but consider using a tool for behavioral assessment.
You should learn what is a predictive index and how it can help ensure you only hire candidates who are hardwired to be a great fit.
Don’t have the budget to hire a proper human resources department yet? Then rely on human resources tools first.
It’s much easier to onboard employees since you’ll find all the documents in one spot. You’ll automate mundane tasks and enable workers to perform self-service tasks, such as changing personal information.
As a result, you won’t have to spend chunks of time handling HR tasks. Other benefits of this software are:
- Workers can request time off
- You can monitor all working hours
- There’s a built-in employee feedback system
This all shaves off precious minutes and even eliminates the need for meetings.
Accounting and Invoicing Tools
Business accounting is vital to your success. Without knowing exactly what you’re spending money on and what revenue you’re generating, you’ll be taking shots in the dark. Before you know it, you’re in the red.
Sitting and going through every invoice and receipt on your own can be challenging. You’ll never stop working if you have to generate invoices yourself too.
With accounting and invoicing tools, it’ll take a fraction of the time you’d spend doing everything by hand.
Use These Tools and Services for Success
Starting a company can take blood, sweat, and tears. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to suffer, just for the sake of it.
If you get the right collection of tools and services, then you can work smarter and not harder. Consequently, you’ll have a more positive experience bringing your passion to life. Plus, you’ll improve your work-life balance and your loved ones won’t complain about never seeing you anymore.
Need more business tips? Then check out our other posts now.
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