As I know many of you know, being an entrepreneur is not an easy job. Running a business means juggling a million balls at once, wearing a dozen different hats, and trying to be as efficient and effective as possible–all while keeping your head above water.
And if there’s one thing I’ve realized since we opened The Post, it’s that tools, programs, and systems are absolutely vital to being successful.
So, I thought I’d share some of the business management necessities that have proven essential in running The Post like a well oiled machine.
Time Management and Scheduling Tools
Something you realize very quickly as a business owner is that time is a finite resource and you often find yourself without enough of it. So, maximizing the hours in your day is an important skill–one that needs to be backed up with tools and systems.
Here are my favorite time management tools.
Trello
Hands down, Trello is one of the most critical tools in helping me stay sane and organized.
Essentially, Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards and tells you what you’re working on, where something is in a process, when things are due, and let’s you include notes and attachments like images and Google Docs.
I have all kinds of boards, including one for marketing tasks.
Microsoft To-Do List
I’m also a huge fan of Microsoft To Do. This basic, easy-to-use to-do list lets me access my lists from my computer or my phone, even if I’m on the go.
Calendly
As the owner of a coworking space, time management doesn’t just apply to my own tasks. It also applies to managing tour bookings for new members. So, rather than Savannah and I having to manually book all of our tours, we use Calendly so that people can find a time slot that works and book their own. Then, it’s added to our calendar.
If you work in a business that requires you to take a lot of calls with customers or colleagues, you’ll love Calendly. It’ll save you a ton of time going back and forth with people finding meeting times that work. You can share the link with people and you can also embed it in your website like we do.
Marketing Tools
We do a lot in terms of marketing for The Post. It’s an invaluable tool in introducing ourselves to new members, but it also requires a lot of work and has a ton of moving parts.
Here are some of the key marketing tools we use.
Buffer
We use Buffer to schedule all of our social media posts across all of our platforms. The great thing about Buffer is that it lets us tee up social media posts way in advance so that we don’t have to think about it every day.
MailChimp
Keeping in touch with our members and prospective members is important, so we use MailChimp to send emails and newsletters to them. This is a great tactic because it lets us talk directly to people, and we can segment our audiences so we’re only sending correspondence to people when it’s pertinent to them.
AirTable
We use AirTable to create an in-depth database of all our key marketing information. Having a full archive of important data, including competitor information, industry trends, resources, and more makes it easy for us to have a full view of everything we need to know for our business.
Google Analytics
Being able to track our website’s performance is a key part of understanding how successful our marketing and advertising efforts are.
We use Google Analytics to track all kinds of key metrics, from website traffic to how many times people come back to visit our website, which pages they’re looking at most, how they’re arriving on our site, and how many times people book tours or get in touch with us.
If you don’t use Google Analytics yet, I’d strongly recommend it! It can be a bit complicated to figure out at first, but once you get a grasp on it, it’s a powerful tool.
Canva
When it comes to creating visuals for our social media channels and our marketing communications, Canva is amazing. It’s inexpensive, easy to use, and comes with a ton of templates and customizability options.
Adobe
The Adobe Suite is also a great tool when it comes to everything from designing marketing collateral to simply creating, editing, and signing PDFs–which is especially helpful when it comes to membership agreements and other important documents.
Administrative Tools
Running The Post comes with a lot of administrative tasks to manage so we need a ton of fundamental tools to help us keep on top of it all.
Pipedrive
Every business that works with customers needs a way to manage all of their leads, and that’s where a Customer Relationship Management platform is vital. We use Pipedrive as our CRM. It helps us track and organize calls and emails and synchronize schedules. It also lets us automate a number of important customer interactions.
QuickBooks
Having strong accounting software is critical when it comes to managing all of our monthly memberships. We use QuickBooks to take care of it all, and then we work with an accountant who’s able to access all of our records and files when the time comes.
1Password
With so many accounts, tools, and software at our disposal, it can be tough to keep up with all the variations of passwords that we use across them all. 1Password remembers all of our passwords for every individual account, all managed under one master password. It’s a serious lifesaver.
Communication Tools
Staying in touch with our members, prospective members, and our internal team members is a big part of our typical workday. So, we use a couple of different communication tools for that job.
Slack
For quick chit-chat and messages, we use Slack, the popular direct messaging platform. It also offers a less intrusive option for things that don’t require a full email.
Outlook
For email, we use Microsoft Outlook. I’ve found it’s the most functional of all the email platforms and also the most user-friendly.
Honorable Mention: MailChimp
I know I already mentioned MailChimp, but it’s an important tool for keeping in touch with our members and letting them know about news and events happening at The Post.
Having these tools makes my life a million times easier. What tools do you use to manage your business and your workday? I’d love to learn about anything else I might be able to use to streamline my work life!
If you’d like to learn more about The Post and how a flexible office space can help make your workdays simpler and more successful, get in touch with us today. Our team is available to speak with you.