Get Your Business Organized With These 10 Tools
One of the most important things in business is to be organized. Whether it is online collaboration or an efficient email marketing campaign, all of us need a few quirky tools which will make life easier for us. Below I have gathered some of the most wonderful applications that you can use to run your business in a hassle-free manner while saving yourself your valuable time.
1) File Storage
Almost always sharing of files like documents, pictures, videos and any other type of media is a pain .Most of the times email does the job when we need to transfer a document or two but when it comes to sharing folders and updating files we have to look for something else:Dropbox is your answer.
Dropbox comes in both forms -free and paid. It is the best way to easily store, sync and share files online. Keeping a backup of small as large files and sharing has never been easier. All it takes is to create a folder where you can share folders and save it in your email address. Dropbox gives you 2GB of free space initially, but it also gives you an extra 250MB for each referral. You get 2GB of free memory to start, but for every referral you get 250MB extra. Also, if you sign up using this referral link you get 250MB extra. Dropbox makes it easy to keep your files in order and synced in order to have access to them at all times. They even have mobile apps!
2) Save Time And Money!
While Skype is the cheapest way to interact with your customers and online staff, its use just doesn’t end there. It can save you a lot of time and trouble through many of its other features. Remember having scratched your head for hours and having not been able to get a point across to your customer or anyone else…ughhh. Let the Skype file-sharing system do the magic for you. Through this system you can share your screen with another person and you can also see his screen, too. This makes it easy for both of you to understand each others’ point more easily. Moreover, you can share files: documents, pictures, videos etc on Skype and the good news is that there is no limit to the number or size of files.
3) Need a Screenshot or Video of Your Desktop?
Jing allows you to capture images or record video on your computer-after that, you can share them with anyone. This tool can prove more productive to your online conversations by adding to them pictures and videos and making them easier to follow. The “Jing Camera” can capture a window or any region on your computer instantly. After you have saved the image or video you are able to share it all over the Web within o time. You can also highlight a tricky point with different tools like a text box, arrow, highlight, or picture caption. You can instantly share the screenshot or video by simply pasting the link into email, IM or forum post and when a person clicks, he will be able to see it.
4) Want to Get Rid of Paperwork?
So there is that pile of paper lying on the table threatening to take your life? Well, it can’t thanks to Shoeboxed.com. The website enables you to categorize and organize your receipts in a trouble free manner. In the free version you have to scan in or direct your online order receipts into your account and organize them yourself. The company offers different types of paid accounts: Basic, Classic and Express. The Basic account type costs $9.95 per month and is for small businesses having a relatively small volume of receipts.
Shoeboxed.com is an organization that provides a service that categorizes and organizes your receipts in a hassle-free manner. There are several levels of service that the company provides. One is the free version, in which you must scan in or direct your online order receipts into the account and organize them yourself. They also offer Basic, Classic or Express accounts.
The Basic account offers international service for customers with a relatively small volume of receipts to process for a price of $9.95 per month. In this type of account Shoeboxed saves and organizes your receipts for you and also protects your privacy. The price of the Classic account-the most commonly used one- is $19.95 per month. Here in this type of subscription Shoeboxed processes and organizes your receipts as well as sends them back to you in an envelope.
Express account type is their multiple choices and the fastest one. With a price of $59.95 per month, the client is provided with a very efficient service in which entries of receipts are processed in a single day.
Whatever type of business you are running and whatever type of account you subscribe to with, Shoeboxed will certainly save you a lot of time.
5) Better Email?
Gmail is the leader in the new age emailing. Gmail offers lots of free space of over 10000 MB and you can purchase even more storage space. It is more secure as it blocks spam before it can reach your inbox. Moreover, you can automatically separate important emails from the other ones, and just focus on the ones which really matter. Apart from this, Gmail makes it very easy for you to see your messages in context. It has also a built-in chat feature in which you can directly chat with your contacts. Not only chat, you can call any phone in Canada and the USA for free and other countries in very low rates. By encrypting your mail through HTTPS encryption, it is more secure. And all this you can do by using your phone-it doesn’t matter what device it is.
6) Need More Efficient Email Marketing?
In the digital age you need powerful marketing tools – let Aweber do the magic for you. This powerful internet marketing software offers the best solution for your online marketing needs. Its use-friendly interface makes it possible for complete newbie’s to make full use of it. Hundreds of web form templates give you the choice of using a specially designed web form for your particular niche.
The software gives you the freedom of creating an endless number of lists which some of the autoresponders don’t offer. So, you can easily make email lists for your different campaigns in different niches, and later you can create follow-up messages and broadcast emails for all of your lists.
Unlike some of the autoresponder, you are allowed to create unlimited lists. So, no matter how many niches you are in or how many traffic campaigns you are currently running, you create as many lists as you like to collect leads for your business. You will be able to create unlimited follow up messages and broadcast emails for each of your lists.
Aweber also enables you to separate your buyer list from the free email list so that you can treat your buyers with a different special service. Besides this, through its campaign sharing feature you can create the same follow-up messages for different campaigns in different niches.
They offer phone, chat and email support as well as conduct webinars so that all the queries of the customers are answered and their problems are solved.
7) Mind-mapping
Mindmeister.com –the online mind-mapping application is for all those who want to organize their ideas online. The users can play around with simple or complex mind-maps complete with text, images, tasks etc. The application is entirely browser-based. The site also allows you to download a desktop application so you can work on your mind-maps online. You can not only share your mind-maps with others but also collaborate with others on them. Moreover, you can add ideas can to mind-maps from your desktop, from within a browser, via text-message or email. Apart from this, the application gives you the freedom to export as a Word file, a PDF or an image file. The site offers a special business version which features team collaboration and user management.
8) Web Conferencing
GoToMeeting is a flexible web conferencing service that provides good quality as well as performance. The service offers many features like VoIP, multi-browser support and can also be used in different platforms. While offering such features as VoIP, multi-browser support as well as being able to support several different platforms this service remains simple to use. You can simply join a conference by the click of a mouse.
The company offers a number of great features GoToMeeting web conferencing does not offer user-polling capabilities, however they do offer a wealth of other great features: You can use PowerPoint slides, give tutorials about software programs and hold real-time class sessions. The service offers a number of real-time delay-free media and multimedia. GoToMeeting makes sure that people interact with one another as if in real-time by enabling them to screen-share rapidly.
Though the service’s video and webcam efficiency is limited but its strong audio feature makes up for that. Your meetings are as secure in GoToMeeting as in your sound-proof conference room, thanks to its use of standard 128-bit AES encryption.
Considering all the goodies, its pricing is very suitable: you can purchase monthly or annual subscriptions. A subscription allows up to 15 attendees per meeting requiring no charges for the any of the users. There is no limit as to the number of meetings you hold.
A flexible pricing formula together with almost all the features you need for an online meeting, GoToMeeting is worth a try!
9) Documentation
For people who don’t use Word or any other word-processing software frequently, Google Docs is the best solution. It is best suited for people who travel a lot or who have to work in collaboration. Google Docs allows you to write and edit word processing documents as long as you have access to the internet. Not only that you can also store your documents online so that you can access them easily when you want to. Therefore, you no longer have to worry about moving about data in movable media.
Google Docs allows you to upload and download documents easily. It supports both Microsoft Word and OpenOffice. Y you can work on a document with others by making it public, or alternatively you can send them a link in email.
10) Online Project Management
Though there are a number of organizing systems like Google Calendar, Stickies etc but the best choice is
HiTask. It is a clean and tidy organizing web application, its drag-and-drop functionality making it very easy and user-friendly.
Unlike other such applications, the tasks can be grouped into separate projects you can easily take care of them. Moreover, you can easily assign tasks to friends and colleagues by dragging and dropping them into their respective icons. Compared to others, its calendaring system is very useful and easy.
The free Basic account is for individual use which gives you a storage space of 50MB and allows you a limit of 10 projects. The Premium type is $4 per month which gives you storage of 1GB and unlimited number of projects. The Business type subscription is $23 per month which is aimed for team use. This account type offers 2.5GB of space and unlimited number of projects. Moreover, in it you can share tasks and projects while in the first two you can only assign tasks. The company also offers 24-hour support for Premium and Business account types.
Summary
These 10 Business Tools will help your business run smoothly on a day to day business. What Tools do you find invaluable to your business organization?
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