QuickBooks helps in keeping the financials simple and straightforward. Bookkeeping and accounting are often very tedious aspects that are almost always a headache for every business owner. Automating these tasks slashes a significant workload for small business owners, who are typically a one-man team as well. It also reduces room for human error. QuickBooks streamlines all expenses, invoices, and payroll to eliminate the need for manual recording. It also has accounting features that are beginner-friendly, so it’s not intimidating for first-time business owners navigating their own financial data.
It's easy to forget to let your team know how good of a job they are doing. By helping them celebrate their small wins you are boosting morale and encouraging them to continue to do a good job. Explaining what they are doing and the positive impact it has when they do their job well, gives them understanding and shows them the importance they have within the business. I have worked at places where you feel like a number, it's important your staff never feel that way.
The single best tool we've used to boost our productivity are Trello Boards and Gantt Charts. One of the most difficult aspects of managing a small business is that there are hundreds of small to-do's. Adding all the to-dos on one giant list actually makes the problem worse because there's no way of prioritizing. We used to spend so much time on small insignificant things that we frequently lost direction on what really mattered. Now we've set up multiple boards in Trello with P1, P2, P3, P4 to signify priority. This also helps our team members visually see if they're spending too much time on their least priority tasks or not. Pair this with the new Gantt chart feature and our teams are absolutely unstoppable!
I think at last count I have at least 50 or 60 different platforms that I use on the regular for my business, and keeping the passwords straight for all of them is borderline impossible if I want to also follow good cyber security principles. Using 1Password was a bit of a gamechanger, as beforehand I would end up wasting an hour or two every so often to reset my various passwords when I couldn't remember which one was used where. Now I just need to remember the one to my password vault, so no more tedious password resets and I'm not tempted to make my password for everything qwerty to make it memorable.
As a small business owner, we are asked to support a wide variety of tasks ranging from finance and sales to customer service and marketing. It's unreasonable to expect a business owner to be excellent in all of these areas, which is why hiring talented team members is so critical for businesses. But, making early hires can be a large financial commitment for business owners. Because of this, we have found it is best to try using freelancers first, to provide a low-cost proof of concept before making a more significant investment. Freelance marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork have given us the ability to instantly get outside help in areas where we don't have existing expertise. And this process has the added benefit of helping us define these role more specifically while giving us insights into what characteristics we will need in that role from a more permanent hire
As a productivity consultant, if there's one tool I'd recommend to small business owners looking to boost productivity, it's definitely Tability. It's a goal tracking platform that helps you stay focused on your most important tasks and objectives. Tability's clean, user-friendly interface lets you easily visualize your progress and stay aligned with your business goals. By regularly checking in on these goals and tasks, you can ensure that you're on the right track and not wasting time on less important matters. It essentially holds everyone in your team accountable, providing that gentle nudge we all sometimes need to stay productive. With Tability, you build a business strategy based on desired outcome and keep seeing continuous progress.
Independent Feedback Platform offers a unique combination of Performance Management & Project Management capabilities. Unlike traditional HRIS solutions that can be cumbersome & expensive for small businesses, these modern feedback applications are designed to be nimble, user-friendly & affordable. By implementing an Independent Feedback Platform, small businesses can foster a culture of regular & candid feedback within their teams, creating a collaborative environment focused on continuous improvement. The key advantage of these platforms is their flexibility. They don't enforce rigid KPIs or structured workflows, making them ideal for agile businesses that value adaptability & freedom from strict SOPs. Instead, they offer features such as AI analysis, attribute rating & real-time feedback, enabling employees to receive immediate insights on their performance & development areas. By creating a culture of real-time feedback, owners can boost productivity & drive continuous impr
One low hanging fruit would be to offer a virtual or in house suggestion box and act on it, Sometime small yet meaningful ways to share where team members can get in the habit of sharing successes or challenges. Also, another low hanging fruit is to start an employee recognition program that spotlights employees who are exceeding and going above and beyond. Don’t forget to tie back to the organizational goals and make sure you add a prize such as: swag, Paid Time Off if applicable, or gift cards (don’t forget about any tax implications). Develop a team to run it and give the ownership to a high performer and allow them to lead and get out of the way. You are doing the following: building a high performance culture, allowing others to lead without a title, building the brand and showcasing talent. Continue to tweak and redefine the process and the program so it always stays relevant. Don’t forget fun too. Who can leave out fun. Said no one!
Our business runs on Airtable. It is one of the best project management tools I've ever come across, as it is incredibly customizable and templatable, and suitable for many automations via Zapier (or natively). While we hire using our own solution, we run everything else on Aitable: our content calendar, our invoicing process, our sprints, product development, even video production. Automations we set up save us so much time on menial tasks, so that we can all focus on things that matter.
Most small business owners often manage all the emailing on behalf of the company, which can be hectic and time-consuming. So to cut some slack there, they can use Superhuman, which is a paid tool filled with features that make emailing more efficient. Some of the key features that I enjoy the most is the Split option, where one can categorize their inbox. So for clients and prospects, you can make separate categories and never miss any of their emails. The ‘remind me’ feature is also a live savior as it helps by reminding with follow-ups or snoozes emails for set periods. The ‘send later’ option is great if you have overseas clients with different time zones. You just use the command, add the time and name of the place, and it will automatically select the correct timezone and schedule accordingly. Overall the tool can reduce the time you waste on emails by 10X and save time for other essential tasks.
As the owner of a marketing agency, I speak from that perspective. The tool I recommend to boost productivity within your marketing team would definitely have to be HubSpot's CRM and Hub platform. Honestly, it's revolutionised our business over the years from when it was a handful of copywriters to now, where it has grown to a 20-person multi-service agency. It does everything you could possibly need for marketing from scheduling blog posts and social media posts to hosting your website. The main productivity benefit, in my book, is the ability to set up automations, which means a lot of those manual tasks of qualifying and handing leads from marketing to sales can be done by the software, leaving your team free to pursue those leads that are most likely to turn into deals.
Small business owners should implement "Flow Time" and leverage technology tools to boost productivity. So what's Flow Time? It's a concept inspired by the psychology of optimal performance and focuses on creating uninterrupted blocks of time for employees to engage deeply in their work without distractions. By allowing employees to have dedicated periods of uninterrupted focus, free from meetings, emails, and other interruptions, they can enter a state of flow where productivity and creativity thrive. This can be achieved by setting aside specific hours or days each week where employees are encouraged to minimize distractions, turn off notifications, and fully immerse themselves in their most critical tasks or projects. In short, Flow Time creates uninterrupted blocks for deep work, enabling optimal performance. If they combine it with additional technology tools, small businesses can unlock their workforce's potential and achieve sustainable growth.
Google Calendar is a useful productivity tool for business owners and teams alike to manage their workdays more effectively. For example, while Google Calendar is widely used for booking meetings, it's very useful to book tasks to plan out your day and hold yourself accountable for specific timeframes. Instead of having an 'open schedule,' you know what you're going to work on, for how long, and at what time – this is the heart of productivity.
Utilize your team. Us small business owners can be somewhat of control freaks who want to do everything ourselves, but that's not the key to success. You may think that by doing everything yourself you'll get everything done right, but in reality you'll probably end up making a lot of errors and slowing yourself down. You've hired a team, and it's important that you use their strengths and skills to help you operate at maximum capacity.
Effective communication and collaboration are vital for small businesses. Tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Workspace facilitate seamless teamwork. These platforms offer instant messaging, video conferencing, file sharing, and collaborative document editing. They break down geographical barriers, allowing real-time communication and face-to-face interactions. File sharing becomes effortless, ensuring easy access to essential documents. Collaborative document editing enables concurrent work on projects, harnessing collective knowledge. These tools accelerate decision-making and minimize delays. Digital archives serve as repositories of knowledge, promoting organizational learning. Small businesses can unleash their potential by embracing these technologies, paving the way for enhanced productivity and sustained growth in an interconnected world.
One tool that small business owners can use is RescueTime, which is a time-tracking app that allows users to monitor the time they spend on various activities on their computer or mobile device. It also provides detailed reports on how much time is spent on each task, which can help users identify areas where they can improve their productivity.
One tool that I recommend is Asana. Asana is another project management tool that offers a wide range of features, including task management, project tracking, team collaboration, and file sharing. Asana allows users to create tasks, assign them to team members, and track progress. Users can also communicate with team members, attach files, and set deadlines. This tool also offers a mobile app that allows users to access their tasks from anywhere.
I would highly recommend using a time tracking tool like Toggl, which will allow you to track employee time spent on a per-task basis as specifically as you require. Most time tracking software is cumbersome and can have a steep learning curve, however I've found Toggl to be intuitive not only for myself, but for internal staff and contractors to utilise on a daily basis too.
Woopra is one of the premiere analytics tools for analyzing the customer journey. This solution allows you to efficiently think from the perspective of your target audience to pinpoint high-intent keywords that they’re likely to use during their search. Woopra is perfect for using customer mapping to boost customer experience. The tool has many features that track customer experience metrics that a small business owner can use to monitor and better relate to their audience through marketing, branding, and even customer service, ultimately increasing productivity on multiple levels.
Trello is the best tool for small business owners to boost productivity. With many exclusive features for project management Trello helps promote healthy collaboration and therefore is a game changer to enhance productivity in the organization. The best thing about Trello is that it makes it easy to delegate tasks and manage their progress on a single platform. These four features of Trello are helpful to boost productivity: · Focused collaboration and teamwork based on a task management scheme · Workflow automation and tracking system · Cross-platform accessibility · Ease of use