With as much as 70% of startups failing to reach the ten-year mark, according to the Entrepreneur, the odds are stacked against these budding businesses. For them, every resource counts, from time to cash flows. If there is any kind of wastage of resources, the consequences can be dire.
Startup struggles
Even worse, startup owners have to compete against already established enterprises with budgets that run deep. However, this will be a non-issue as long as your startup has a great business model and a unique product that customers want. Luckily, today’s startups can rely on a bevy of tools to avoid wastage and increase the efficiency of their business. Other than reducing the cost of running your business, such tools can give you a competitive advantage against established businesses and other startups.
Here are four tools your startup should invest in:
Accounting and Invoicing Software
Filing taxes and bookkeeping are among the most tedious tasks for small business owners. While the tasks can be too vital to assign to a specific employee, outsourcing might be too expensive. Ideally, this leaves the business owners with the burden of having to crunch numbers a few days at the end of every month while entering business data into spreadsheets.
If any mistake is made during this process, it could be detrimental to your clients, employees, and your entire business. Luckily, there is a diversity of cloud-based accounting and invoicing solutions that can take the trouble away. Solutions like Freshbooks, Zoho, and Quickbooks are created with the small business owner in mind.
They make it easy to input data and calculate the necessary parts for each accounting period. If a client is late in settling their invoice, they have in-built systems to remind them, which only requires you pressing a few buttons. If your business’ receipts are largely paper-based, worry not. You can always scan them and use OCR solutions to make them easy to manipulate using the software, according to Tag Gun - https://www.taggun.io/.
Customer Relationship Management
Customers want personalized service. They should feel that your business cares for their every need, and that’s what a customer relationship management platform helps with. It can help you store customer information- everything from their likes to their contact details. Instead of having to ask customers for this information every time you are in contact with them, you can rely on the software to make service delivery seamless.
For instance, if an employee falls sick, other employees can manage to cover up for them without having to learn about the customer from scratch. Remember, customers are the reason why you are in business, and replacing them will always be more expensive than maintaining them. CRM platforms come in many formats, with some being ideal for small businesses. Some of them include Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, HubSpot CRM, Freshsales, and Salesforce CRM.
Productivity and Time Tracking Software
If ten members of your workforce manage to save five minutes of your business’ time per day, you will have saved 17 hours by the end of each month. This is time you can use to earn something extra and grow your business. Sadly, time is wasted in small things within businesses, from spending time on social media to poor communication. In other cases, lacking to prioritize tasks can steal from your productivity too.
Ideally, you should invest in productivity and time tracking tools to optimize every business minute. Some great solutions for planning your day and productivity include Todoist, Trello, and Slack. If you want to focus on time tracking, you can rely on RescueTime, Toggl, and Time Doctor. Assess the different apps to pick the best one for your business.
Marketing Management Tools
Startups need as much marketing as possible to gain traction and have a competitive advantage. While you might have an amazing product, it will be in vain if the word isn’t out there with the customer. However, marketing isn’t always about forcing your brand message down customers’ throats. You need to be smart in how you approach customers and picking the right tools will help.
Ideally, the right tool for your business will greatly depend on your customers, your business, and your budget. For instance, if your customers spend most of their time on social media, leveraging a social media management tool is wise. In case you want to optimize your business for search engines, there is a bevy of SEO tools out there. Luckily, marketing tools come with a diversity of price tags tied to them, from high-end premium tools to free tools. Here is a list of marketing tools you should consider using as a startup.
Conclusion
When choosing the tools for your startup, consider your growth rate. The ideal tool should be scalable enough to keep up with business changes, as well as have reliable support staff. Build your software stack wisely to improve your business’ productivity.