Running a small business is no joke. Only about 50% of small business will make it past the 5 year mark. I see businesses coaches saying things like that all the time on instagram. While kind of morbid, it’s true! It’s really hard to be your own boss and do all of the things. Today I want to give you some of my favorite small business resources and tools that save time, make my life easier, and keep the gears of my business running smoothly. These are the best business tools I have found to date.
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase or join I will earn a small commission. Please know I only share about companies that I use and truly believe in. Supporting me in small ways like this helps me keep this business going! Thank you!
Idea Organization: Air Table
I used to keep like 9,000 random notes in my notes app every time I had an idea or thought or caption or anything. Enter: genius social media manager sister (who works for another company). She made me create an Airtable account, then went in and made all my workspaces and bases and tables so I could start filling them in. If you’re looking for the best business tools to get your life together, this is it. You can really use it for anything, what I use it for is writing down ideas then cross-checking that those ideas are linked to actual relevant blog posts or services and then fleshing them out into social media posts, emails, youtube videos, etc. It has totally changed the game for me. I feel WAY less overwhelmed and whenever I have time or don’t know what to post I can jump into airtable and look at my running list of ideas. The best part? I am using the free version, lol.
Email marketing: FloDesk
I switched from mailchimp to FloDesk when I started to get serious about my email list. My sister–who runs her own business–was nagging at me to make the switch forever and I definitely regret not doing it sooner! Put simply, FloDesk makes sending emails simple and fun. Their templates are beautiful and totally customizable to your brand. You can create gorgeous lead forms as both full-pages and pop-ups as well as triggered email flows. If I had to keep one tool and get rid of the rest, I would keep FloDesk forever. For 50% your FloDesk subscription, use this link!
Client management system: 17hats
Ever heard of 17hats? I use it as my client management system and to organize and automate my small business. 17hats saves me time and money, and lets me focus on what I do best. My friend Kate–a successful photographer–introduced me to them a few years ago and it is literally the best. You can create automatic workflows for anything from client intake to contract and invoice sending and more. Plus they have a great resource called 17hats University full of hand-holding tutorials to help you get it all set-up! It makes signing contracts and taking money super easy for someone like me who cringes at that part of my business. I recommend this to anyone whose business relies on client services.
Save 50% off a 17hats plan by using my referral link.
Pinterest: Tailwind App
I was late to the tailwind wagon. I noticed on my Google Analytics that the #1 source of traffic to my website were pins from emme’s nursery plan and reveal. Tailwind helps me schedule pins as well as join “tribes” to help other pinners drive traffic to their content (and vice versa). I have seen a huge increase in engagement, following, and website traffic thanks to tailwind.
For a free 1 month trial and $15 off a yearly plan, use this link!
Organization: Google Workspace: Calendar, Drive, and Analytics
Google calendar is what I use to time block my schedule because I am hopeless with a paper planner. I like to be able to open the calendar app and see what my day will look like at a glance. Drive is what I use to save important copies of quarterly goals, finances, and course information. That way I can access it at anytime and know it is safe and sound.
Editing: Lightroom App
I use the lightroom app on my phone to edit photos on the go. I recommend it for anyone who takes their own business photos because you can get by with the free features. Even photos from my “big-girl” camera if we are traveling get edited on the LR app. To see a lightning speed tutorial on how I edit my photos, click here.
Graphics: Canva
I have the entire Adobe Suite on my computer, and am capable of creating graphics from scratch. It took me a long time to learn just because I can do something, doesn’t mean I always should! I am now always looking for things I can outsource so I can spend more time on the parts of my business that bring me joy. Canva has tons of templates to adapt, and using Canva also saves my harddrive from being full of illustrator and PSD files! It is great!
Advertising: Spouse-ly
Spouse-ly is a great resource for an of my fellow military spouse entrepreneurs! Spouse-ly is a digital marketplace just for for military and first responders and families. It’s an entire community of like-minded entrepreneurs and I have gained so much perspective and community connecting with other spouses on there. It is the only paid advertising I do and it costs me $35/year which is so inexpensive. Product based businesses can list their products and sell them much like an Etsy shop. Click here to check it out and shop around to support the military family community!
Instagram Bio Link: Campsite bio
Campsite Bio is what I previously used for my instagram profile link! It allows you to create any sort of link that appears in a list for my followers when they click the link in my bio. I used the free version and I loved it. It is very customizable to your brand and I love that I can just pull images from my feed to use as attention grabbers next to links or just leave a text button link. I think it is actually a lot better than most of the more popular link-in-bio tools. It also gives you an embed code if you want to embed it to a webpage. Now I use a custom page I made for my website.
Other: Facebook Messenger being turned off
Okay this is random but I can’t stand trying to keep up with communicating with clients from 20 different avenues. I like it all organized in email because then 17hats helps me keep up with it. What I did was turn the business messaging off on my facebook, and instead linked a 17hats lead form into the Facebook page contact button! This means that anyone who tries to contact me through Facebook is prompted to fill out a 17hats lead form instead. This is a huge time-saver for me. It means no asking clients to send me an email or trying to remember where I was having a conversation. It is all in my email.
Need more support besides the best business tools?
Hopefully these resources can be of use to you, as you work on streamlining your business workflows! For more free business advice, sign up for my email list here or see my blog posts here.