5 Top Tools To Grow Your Online Business
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Is this you? You’re dabbling in starting your small business from home, and the whole process feels confusing and overwhelming. There are so many decisions to make, and what if you make the wrong decision? The list goes on and goes on. Do you blog, start a podcast, or create a YouTube Channel? Do you need an email list, and how does that even work? How do people post all that social media content? You have zero clue about what you're doing or the online tools to help you grow your small business from home. Hallelujah, you finally decide what tech to use only to get suede to a shiny new app after watching a YouTube video. Spending hours of your time comparing all the different tools for months and trying new thing after new thing, only to find yourself full circle and return to what you originally started. Instead of growing your business, you’re stuck, never really moving forward in your business. You’re lacking the confidence to make a decision and go with it. Does this sound like you? I get it, fear of making the wrong decision regarding the best business tools for growing your online business. Here’s the big secret, I just decided and picked one. Here is a list of online tech tools I use daily to run a small business.
Tech Tools
Do you need to know which tools will help you grow your business? We've compiled a list of the most popular tools that we use in our business.
Top Tool Number One: WordPress
Top Tool Number Two: Clickup
When I started my small business in 2016, I decided to be in it for the long haul. Therefore, I focused my marketing energy on long-game strategies.
WordPress is the popular choice for bloggers, making it the best tool for growing an online small business focused on long-game marketing.
Since I made this one decision, my marketing strategy guided my decision on what tech tools to implement in my business.
WordPress for my website was the first online tool I invested in to grow a small business from home.
Clickup for Project & Task Management
I quickly discovered that I had to find a way to manage all the projects and tasks to grow a small business from home.
I did not start with Clickup as my project management software. Actually, it wasn’t my second either. It was the third. I spend so much time and energy trying to get the perfect project management software.
I can honestly say that the fear of missing out was a massive factor in hopping from one app to the other. As a service provider, I was constantly getting swayed to try the shiny project management software my peers were raving about on social media. I finally had to draw a line in the sand, make a decision, and commit to the decision.
It boils down to this; I had to commit to my decision if I wanted my business to succeed.
Why does this matter to me? It is because the success of my business allows me to be at home and put my family first and foremost.
I had to stop wasting valuable time and energy comparing project management software. Do I miss flying unicorns? Yes, unicorn makes me happy. The bottom line, as a business owner, I need to trust my decision-making.
Check the box and move on.
Here is the link for my Clickup Referral Code: https://clickup.com?fp_ref=0r07t
Quickbooks
Quickbooks is what I use for my accounting.
Tailwind
Tailwind is the software I use for Pinterest and Instagram scheduling.
Google Workspace
Google Workspace is for all my team documents.
Top Tool Number Three: FloDesk
What else do you need for tech tools in long-game marketing and to grow a small business from home? An email list. An email service provider like FloDesk allows you to create and send beautiful emails to your list. Since FloDesk did not pop on to the email service provider scene until 2018, I began with MailChimp.
MailChimp is a great free email service provider to start email marketing. If I had to do it over again, I would have invested in an email service provider right away. Why is that? It sucks to move all your free opts, workflows, and email lists.
With all the regulations around email marketing, it is essential to have an excellent email provider to follow all the rules.
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Here is the link: https://flodesk.com/c/Y1C389
Bonus Tool!
Apps I Use Every Day in my small business:
Honeybook is an app I use for all my client paperwork. Inquiry forms to send the monthly recurring invoices. This software keeps me organized and streamlined.
– Take 50% off the first year of Honeybooks using my referral code! Honeybook http://share.honeybook.com/misstask
Top Tool Number Four: Grammarly
Despite what you think, selecting blogging as my core content marketing strategy was not because I loved writing or was brilliant at writing. Nope, not at all. Hence Grammarly was a tech tool I quickly invested in to grow a small business from home.
Grammarly is a top online tool to run your small business if you do not love writing and struggle with it.
Top Tool Number Five: Canva
Graphics, images, design, yadda, yadda, yadda. In any case, all the design creation can be very time-consuming and frustrating. Canva makes this so simple.
While you can use this online tool for free, I encourage you to budget yearly for the pro subscription to grow a small business from home.
Let me elaborate; I resisted investing in the paid version of Canva because, in my mind, it was too expensive. Guess what happened? Instead of money, I invested time. Let’s see what I could have been doing with my time instead of recreating images manually. Hmm, what else could I have done with my time? You guessed it, getting paid from clients!
Oh, this is a trap that I fell into and often find many new online entrepreneurs, heck, even six-figure business owners, falling into as well. They put more value on money than their time! Stay with me now; please do not make this same mistake I did! I did not step back to look at the big picture; I only saw dollars go out of my business. What I didn’t get was if I said no to investing in online tools that would make the job easier and quicker, I was saying yes to working longer and harder.
Here’s what I mean: if I had invested the hundred dollars in Canva immediately, it would have opened up my time to bring on another client.
What is necessary?
Friend, many options exist when deciding what apps to use in your business. Wherever you turn, you’re reading about this shiny and sometimes high-priced tech that YOU MUST have to grow your business. What is the right tech to grow a small business from home?
Now, this may not be the popular opinion; there is no right or wrong. You have to figure it out for yourself. Believe whatever you decide to implement is the best tool to grow your business. Once I figured out that the most essential tool of all in my business was simpling, trusting my gut if it was the right app for me or not.
Here is a list of online tech tools I use daily to run a small business.
I am recapping the list of tools I use daily for running an online business. Use this information and trust yourself to make the best decision for your business.
WordPress
Clickup
FloDesk
Grammarly
Canva