Finding the right set of tools to help you run your small business is essential. It doesn’t matter if you are a solopreneur or a micro/small business owner; just because there is only you in your business, doesn’t mean you don’t need the right tools on your belt.
As a small business owner, you can spend significant times and energy, especially if you are just starting out, thinking about what systems you need in your business to help with your day-to-day business operations. Wouldn’t it be great if somebody just told you what you need and gave you the details of how to get started?
The following list is the first in a series to help a typical solopreneur, small or micro business owner with precisely that problem.
We start with the most common system, communications. Every small business owner knows they need an email account and a phone of some sort, right? Depending on your client base, and size, you may also benefit from a live chat feature on your website or a ticketing system, especially if you are required to provide customer or technical support.
Most people have heard of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions, and as a small business owner, you think that a CRM is way too over-the-top for your needs, too expensive, and will take a lot of your time and effort to implement it correctly. You’d be right! A Contact Manager solution, which is like a cut-down version of a CRM system (but much more straightforward and small business owner friendly) is what you need. Contact Manager systems usually include features such as storing contact details, tracking interactions with contacts in the form of notes and tasks, along with some deal tracking as well. Some also include features such as email and social media integration and advanced features such as web forms to allow you to collect contact details via your website.
This doesn’t always have to be a full blown project management system, however. A Contact Manager system as mentioned above with a task or case feature that allows a status and multiple notes can work well for smaller businesses.
Most businesses have some kind of after-sales service that customers will want to use to get in touch. This can be as simple as a ticketing system as stated above, but could also include something via your website such as a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section with the most common questions customers ask, which reduces the time you and your team needs to spend on the phone or email explaining the same things over and over again.
However brave (or not) you are when it comes to embracing a paper-free world in your business, the reality is even the biggest paper-hugging business owner will have to process some paperwork online in the current online/cloud-based world we live. So you might as well start using solutions to store it online!
The above list is designed to be a high-level overview of the types of solutions you may need in your small business to help with your daily business operations. Future articles will be on specific systems within each of the headings, along with details of how to use them in real-world situations. My hope is the series will take some of the guesswork out of the finding the right solutions you need for your small business.
I hope you found the information useful; it is based on my personal experience and, except for the Order Management heading, details what I use in my own business. I am a service business and therefore have a project management solution.