You’ve got a great idea, a big dream, and the chance to turn all that into a new company. But managing a startup business can be difficult when you have to play so many roles at once, especially considering that your funds are probably sparse. Recognize that you can’t do everything yourself; getting the right programs will free up your time so you can focus on management instead of all the small details.
Project Management
Your startup probably consists of a few employees who have to tackle giant project lists. You may be relatively organized, but you’re probably not adequately using your resources, including employee time and creativity. That’s where project management software comes in. Use it to plan projects, track resources, estimate costs, and assign jobs to your people.
There are many variations in project management software types, so make sure you’re getting one that fits your startup. If your business focuses on a product, you’ll want software that can track your orders and shipments. When you focus on providing a service, people management is going to be your primary priority. You might even decide you just want a virtual to-do board for your employees that they can access and interact with online.
Online Accounting
When companies begin, the few employees who started it all end up wearing a bunch of hats and doing essentially everything. Your startup may not have enough money to hire an in-house accountant for quite a while; most small businesses don’t have one, and you may not, either, until your company grows. But doing accounting yourself can be time-consuming, and you may end up making errors. There are, however, a few easy-to-use programs that can make handling finances a much simpler task.
Look to online bookkeeping software instead. Most of these programs don’t just keep your books; they also offer features such as easier tax filing and invoice management. For example, Sage One’s online accounting software gives you business insights to help you see areas where you could be saving money, as well as areas you could exploit to make more money.
Customer Relations
The most reputable businesses always seem to provide excellent customer service, and customer relations management (CRM) software may be the reason. Some CRM software helps you up-sell products to specific customers, analyze customer data, and automate certain services. But make sure you’re not forgetting about customer service itself. Knowing where your sales are happening is great, and knowing who’s likely to buy is awesome, but you want to keep your current customers coming back, too.
Website Analysis
As a startup, you can’t afford to waste money on ads that don’t bring you business, so when you pay for an ad on social media, you need to know immediately whether it’s working. Everything you post online has to be as effective as possible to save yourself time and resources while continuing to generate more traffic to and buzz about your business. Don’t just cross your fingers and hope for the best — or try to work out where your traffic is coming from by yourself.
Use tools like the free Google Analytics to figure out where people are clicking on your site, as well as how long they spend interacting with it. Understanding how people use your website is as important as understanding how they arrived. You may also want to try online marketing software Moz to analyze and work with your search engine optimization (SEO).
Cloud Computing
The days of file cabinets and on-site servers are gone. Cloud computing has become an important factor in businesses’ data storage over the past several years, and this trend will only continue. Get cloud software to help you save, share, and analyze your documents. Your entire team will have access to the same documents, meaning that you can get a lot of work done in real time even if everyone is working from home. Just make sure you invest in good security, like data encryption, and that you back up your files in a different location.
Don’t Forget Reliable Backup Internet Connection
Having internet connection is essential for every company, whether startup or not. Connectivity powers online transactions, customer support, and allow employees to access information to help run your business operations seamlessly. A sudden network outage could easily cripple your startup company, cause a great loss of revenue, and give you a bad reputation – just within hours.
However, no matter how we prepare for it, service interruptions are inevitable. This is why you should definitely consider an internet failover option. Data2Go Wireless offers a failover Internet connection plan called DataPro2Go EXTREME LTE which is low cost data only plans for startup businesses. Ultimately, having backup internet connection is a must-have for all kinds of businesses who use online transactions.
You don’t have to invest in the large, complicated programs that big businesses use to analyze everything they do. A few essential programs can help you run your business more efficiently.
