9 Small Business Tools Your Growing Teams Need

A small business that invests in technology and uses it to fuel its business decisions and actions is far more likely to succeed long term.

According to research from the Salesforce Small and Medium Business Trends Report, more than three in five SMB leaders (62%) say their business could not have survived the pandemic using technology from a decade ago. But the challenge for many small business owners is applying those technology tools to their business model. Overextended business owners may simply not have the resources to dedicate the time or energy required to learn new technology. However, small business owners can decide how much tech to integrate and when, progressively and methodically adding more technologically driven processes. Here are nine small business tools that can help your company grow.

 
 

1. Marketing tools amplify your voice

 
Marketing tools are specifically designed to help you broaden your reach, manage your social media accounts, run your email marketing campaigns, and keep tabs on your web analytics.

Social media automation can help manage your accounts

Connecting with customers on social media is a must for small businesses. These relationships make it easier to market to customers and prospects, build brand awareness, and deliver responsive customer service.

But managing multiple social media accounts can get stressful: You have to remember when to post, what to post, and what you’ve already posted. That’s where social media management tools can help.

These tools allow you to schedule your social media posts in advance, posting on a certain day at a certain time. Consistency, which is one of the keys to success with social media, is the greatest gain from these tools. By using this small business tool, you are better able to consistently update your content across all of your platforms and improve user engagement.

The learning curve for automation tools isn’t steep since most take a plug-and-play approach and are user-friendly. A great option is Hootsuite.

 

Hootsuite

This small business tool lets users schedule posts across their social media networks. It helps small business owners manage social media easily by mimicking the capabilities of an entire social media team with the efforts of just one person.

Email marketing tools reach more customers

Email marketing should be an integral part of the marketing strategy for every small business because it drives a higher return on investment than any other B2B marketing strategy. When customers give you their email address, they are inviting you to market to them and develop a relationship with them. Take advantage of this opportunity.

Thanks to the available tools for email marketing, you can design and send targeted email campaigns to specific audiences. These programs allow you to set up lists with thousands of email addresses, schedule them to send automatically, and analyze engagement data.

The hardest part is collecting the email addresses, but that’s only because you need to prove to recipients that your messages are valuable to them. To do this, look for opportunities in the sales cycle to capture people’s attention and ask for their email address. Proven methods include using customer feedback surveys and comment cards, implementing loyalty programs, asking at the point of purchase, and instituting lead capture campaigns.

Salesforce Marketing Automation

For small businesses in the B2B space, Salesforce Marketing Automation helps you build personalized campaigns at scale. With Salesforce, you can build automated nurture campaigns that are personalized based on customer data and behavior. As a marketer at a small business, you also want to make sure every marketing dollar counts, and Salesforce marketing automation helps you optimize each campaign and act on insights by tracking marketing analytics.
 

MailChimp

MailChimp also provides an email builder that small businesses can use to reach their audience. It integrates with your CRM platform, as well, so your email marketing data can help drive your leads and customers through the sales funnel.
 

Gmail

For small businesses that use the Google suite of tools, including Gmail, your sales reps can still take advantage of powerful reporting when you connect your Gmail accounts to your CRM platform. While Gmail doesn’t have the advanced email marketing tools other platforms offer, it’s still a strong start for some small businesses.

Web analytics tools bring data to the forefront

Data analytics impacts every aspect of every business, from supply chain to customer experience and everything in between. It provides the knowledge needed to make business decisions that will grow revenue and profitability.
 

Extracting and analyzing data to get the insights you need to improve processes can be a struggle for small business owners. One common pain point for many small businesses is building digital assets, like a website or social media pages, that deliver leads and drive sales:

  • How do you know if your website is working?
  • Where is your traffic coming from?
  • Are customers moving between different digital channels?
  • Are you tracking them accurately?

These are all questions you need to answer when trying to reach more customers with your digital assets.

Web analytics tools, many of which are free, can answer those questions. They show how customers interact with different parts of your site, from the homepage to the “Contact Us” form and more. With these insights, you can better strategize how your digital presence connects with potential customers.

 

Google Analytics

Google claims 92% of the global search engine market share, and with that dominance it also offers a free, powerful platform that helps website owners view in-depth information about their website traffic. With it, small businesses can glean insights that will help them optimize their website. It’s not enough to have a website: Business owners have to proactively manage it to earn internet traffic. Google Analytics makes that possible.
 
 

2. Sales tools help close deals faster

 

Sales software tools prioritize customer relationships

Closing sales is the foundation of any business’ success. Sales software tools provide insights that help you move through the sales cycle more quickly. In this way, sales intelligence, lead generation, sales prospecting, and sales communication can all benefit from technology.

One of the most powerful sales tools that small businesses can implement is a customer relationship management platform, known as a CRM. This software differentiates stagnant businesses from those that grow and succeed long term. A CRM platform should be a single source of truth that keeps all your customer data organized so you can focus on your customer relationships, view their entire lifecycle, and collate their interactions with your company. With this focus, you can close more sales and grow your business.

 

Salesforce CRM

The platform that started it all, the Salesforce CRM system helps your small business close deals more efficiently, handle customer service proactively and effectively, and send powerful and targeted messages to your audience. It’s designed to scale with your needs, so as your sales grow and your team expands, this powerful CRM platform is there, every step of the way.
 
 

3. Operational tools keep you running

 
Having operational tools in place will make scaling your financial and human resources processes much easier as you grow.

Financial management tools automate redundant money management

Managing the financial aspects of a small business is an important task that must be done accurately. Financial management technology can minimize the time spent in the books, while also helping to ensure you are making smart financial decisions.

There are small business tools that can create efficiencies in areas that are important to your company’s financial success, including accounting, payroll, budgeting, billing, and financial analysis. Payroll software, as an example, tracks your hourly team members’ time and can automatically send payments, at a specified time, to all your hourly and salaried staff.

The best financial management software also handles tasks like benefits and regulatory compliance. If, for example, you have a contract with a government agency that has strict rules regarding what constitutes overtime pay, the payroll automation tool can apply the government’s parameters and ensure everyone who works overtime is paid fairly — no spreadsheets or manual calculations necessary.

How, exactly, do these tools help a small business owner? Take the payroll management example. Payroll is a laborious process prone to mistakes, and by investing in a good payroll system, instead of doing everything manually, you decrease the chance of errors, create efficiencies, and streamline your payroll process.

 

QuickBooks

One financial tool small businesses can use is QuickBooks. This cloud-based tool can integrate with your CRM platform and help with various financial responsibilities, including tracking income and expenses, invoicing, processing payments, creating reports, and other common small businesses tasks. As your company grows, it can scale with your needs, which means once QuickBooks is part of your business tools, you can use it no matter the size of your team or profit margins.

Human resources tools make managing people easier

Hiring is a major process for all businesses. It can be especially difficult for small businesses that face unique challenges, such as the lack of dedicated human resources professionals and processes that aren’t compliant. These problems are exacerbated by the heavy administrative activities necessary in HR management.

Supporting your small business with HR management software will relieve some of the administrative pressure on the people who perform HR duties. In the long run, it can help your business grow from the inside out.

 

These tools can perform a number of administrative tasks to save you time and money on your HR processes, such as:

  • Review resumes for more targeted candidate screening
  • Move new employees through the onboarding process
  • Track employee and project time accurately
  • Automate payroll and meet deductions requirements
  • Capture employee data
In addition to HR-specific tools, small businesses can use additional apps and software that relieve pressure on HR. One option is the employee help desk.

Employee Help Desks

This software helps track employee questions and needs, both for HR and IT, through ticketing systems and other features. Employee help desks can function as both a self-help option and a way to manage requests and responses.
 
 

4. Productivity tools enable teamwork

 
Making sure your employees can communicate and collaborate effectively are the foundations of keeping projects rolling and cross-team connections on track.

Internal communication tools keep team members connected

Solid internal communication helps maintain maximum productivity in a small business. Though there may not be many employees, they all need to be connected to each other and moving in the same direction for a business to succeed.

Effective internal communication ensures that your employees are working collaboratively towards a common goal. It develops a cohesive culture and enables employees to make the right decisions in line with the organization’s goals.

There are different types of internal communication tools that would work with any size business. Some of the more common ones are:

  • Intranets: This is essentially a company’s own private internet that facilitates the use of multiple collaboration tools in a business. Happeo is a popular option, and it integrates with Google Workspace (which includes Google Docs, Google Sheets, and more).
  • Messaging tools: These platforms allow co-workers to chat in real time as opposed to sending emails back and forth.

The internal communication tools you choose for your business depend on your processes and goals.

 

Slack

On your computer or from your phone, you can use Slack to chat with individuals or groups both within and outside of your company. But it’s much more than that — Slack’s intuitive interface makes real-time conversations for sales, service, and marketing easy through integrations, apps, and automated workflows. Whether it’s collaborating on a big project or sending a funny GIF, Slack makes it fun to communicate.
 

Zoom

Sometimes email or chat isn’t the right medium for a conversation. Zoom is a popular audio and video calling app that allows users to share their screens, schedule calls, and meet instantly online. It works for a variety of situations, but its application really excels in the workplace.

Workflow management tools create new efficiencies

Whether it’s product fulfillment and shipping or accounting, each piece of your business has some sort of workflow that can be improved with a workflow management tool.

If you have an ecommerce shop, you’re already familiar with the workflow of fulfillment and shipping: You receive an order, retrieve the product, package it, then ship it. It’s a to-do list with four steps. If you get one order per day, you can easily handle that to-do list. If you get a hundred orders per day, you need to track the progress of each order.

Software like Jira or Trello can help you keep track of orders and works well for anyone running a digital storefront. These tools act like enhanced to-do lists, with tasks you can check off as you complete them. They can also send reminders and alerts, so you never miss a step in the process, even if you have additional orders in different stages of fulfillment.

In adopting workflow management software, you will spend less of your limited resources on administrative tasks, such as monitoring deadlines, and more time perfecting your craft, working on projects, and growing your business.

 
 

Jira

Small businesses that create software can use Jira to plan, track, release, and report on projects. It’s ideal for agile teams.
 

Trello

Trello can be used by anyone in your company to collaborate, manage projects, and stay productive.
 

Wrike

Wrike is a cloud-based project management platform that helps teams collaborate on multiple projects simultaneously and has tools to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
 
 

5. Remote tools support work anywhere

 
Equipping your employees to thrive whenever and wherever they are is made possible with remote tools like document management and cloud-based software.

Document management tools reduce the chaos of paperwork

Much of today’s economy is functioning in a paperless environment. This can be a dramatic shift for small businesses as they outgrow their paper processes and transition to a paperless business. Still, it’s a move that can have positive results: Going paperless streamlines processes and centralizes information for easier access.

With the transition comes the need for tech tools to manage electronic documents. Document management systems (DMS) help companies digitize, store, manage, and track documents, data objects, and images electronically. The greatest benefit of these tools is that they allow you to centralize your documents while providing security to protect them from digital privacy invasions.

Then, you can use software like DocuSign or SignX to electronically sign documents, which makes it easier to conduct business, and even hire people, remotely.

 

Google Drive

Small businesses that want to store files, from documents to photos, securely online can use Google Drive, which is a cloud-based electronic filing system. Users can set security levels and share files with anyone, and small businesses can upgrade their storage capacity as they need it.
 

Dropbox

Another online storage option, Dropbox, securely hosts files and lets small businesses choose the amount of storage space that works best for their current needs.

Cloud tools free up space and enable remote work

Most of these small business tools are based in the cloud or have cloud-based options, since most businesses use cloud-based software for website analytics, non-website analytics, marketing automation, file sharing, and Salesforce automation tools.

What is cloud computing? When people talk about information being stored on the cloud or being connected through the cloud, they are referring to software and services that run on the internet instead of on your computer.

The biggest advantage of using the cloud is that you can access your information from any device, at any time, from anywhere. You don’t have to be logged in to a particular device. The cloud also frees up storage on your devices, including servers, and gives you more flexibility in your workspace. The only downside is that if you can’t connect to the internet, you won’t have access to the cloud or your cloud-based programs.

Using the cloud is especially useful for small-business owners who work from home, for employees who work remotely, and for people who work while traveling. Harnessing the cloud allows everyone to stay connected and grow the business even when they are on the move.

Small business owners who embrace the power of technology and its tools can get ahead of their competitors. These tools are the key to future-proofing small businesses. That’s why small business owners must take the time to learn about these tools and understand what role each one can play in growing their company.

 

More Resources

 

Guide

The Transformation Playbook

Research

Article

Ultimate Guide to Small Business Marketing