Tools Every Entrepreneur Needs
Entrepreneurs are people who set up businesses, taking on the financial risk to make profits. These people can have very busy lives. Setting up a business alone is work but run it is even more work.
To run a business one needs to be organized to avoid wasting time and energy. When starting most entrepreneurs have other jobs they do. Therefore they need to use certain tools to assist them to work.
Tools For Entrepreneurs
The tools we are listing here are just some among many others out there. Make sure you check out their pricing and features before using them. This will help to determine which ones would best be suited for your business.
- Accounting and Payment Tools
- Planning and Calendars
- Bulk email tools
- Project Management Tools
- Social Media Management Tools
- Other Tools
Accounting and Payment Tools
When running a business it is vital to have and keep track of your performance. A great measure of performance is the finances of the business.
Here are some tools you can use, that can generate reports, invoices, and receipts. You can send receipts and invoices to your clients via email using some of these apps. The others are payment apps commonly used in Kenya.
- Wave Accounting
- Zoho Books
- QuickBooks Desktop
- AccountingEdge Pro
- Mpesa /Airtel Money / T-Kash
- PayPal
- Payoneer
- Mobile banking apps
Planning and Calendars
When it comes to planning there are different levels to it. Long-term planning that is done, this is would be 1 year to 5 years plans.
Short-term plans look at month to day to day events. To achieve your goals it is important to ensure that your planning is seamless.
You need to have your tasks and work well arranged. Therefore helping you and your team to work in coordination. This is where planning tools and calendars come into play.
The following are some amazing calendars and other planning tools that help you schedule activities.
- Calendly
- Google Calendar
- 30boxes
- My Memorizer
- Zoho Calendar
- X.AI
- Coshedule
- Doodle
Bulk email tools
Sometimes you need to send out bulk emails. This can be hectic when doing. You may have a challenge when it comes to sending out emails to your clients and personalizing them. Here are tools that can help you with that.
- Mailchimp
- Reply
- Gmail gmass (Allows sending bulk emails with personalized attachments)
Useful Plug-ins
- Boomerang- This allows you to send emails later and archives emails temporarily for a set time.
- Sidekick- helps you see if the emails you sent were open and at what time and how many times it was opened.
Bulk emailing can be a nightmare. But, if you have a client excel sheet, you can merge that to your emails. Then you can send it out personalized emails with attachments!
Project Management Tools
Having a business sometimes means you are coordinating employees and projects. Then it is vital to be able to manage all the tasks they are doing. Here are some tools to help you manage projects even remotely.
- Trello
- Asana
- Focus To-Do
Social Media Management Tools
If you are running a business then you must be online these days. It has become normal for businesses to have social media pages. In a new business, one may have to manage social media platforms alongside other tasks.
It can be tough considering how many platforms your business may be on. However, some tools will allow you to keep ahead of the posting game, auto post for you. All you have to do is check the engagement when you can and respond to your following.
The following are tools that will help you to schedule your posts and stay ahead of time.
- Buffer
- Hootsuite
- Buzzsumo
Other Tools
Many other things happen when running your business. The following are other tools that you may find helpful and what they do.
- Google Analytics- keep track of statistics of your websites
- Google trends- keep yourself informed of trends in your industry
- HelloSign- Sign documents online
- Vesper – Admin assistant app for your business
- Dropbox- Share files with ease
- Zapier- Makes your work easier with project management and file sharing. Integrates to several platforms
- Canva – Design logos for free and other business graphics
- Google slides and Pitchdeck- Help with presentations
We hope this article has been helpful to you. Give us your feedback on which tools you use to make your work easier. Remember to share with your friends and family. If you would like to read on preparing yourself mentally for business click here and if you would like to know how to navigate your business in lockdown click here.
