Digital Tools for Any Business
In previous posts, I’ve talked about digital tools to help improve your social media presence. For today’s digital tool roundup, let’s look at some tools we use at Roundpeg or that I’ve used before that can be useful for any business. Whether you have 5 employees or 50, whether you do plumbing or sell organic cat treats, these are some of the best digital tools to foster organization and collaboration within your business.
Insightly
The Roundpeg office uses the Insightly tool to keep track of what we’re working on individually and as a team. It functions as an online to-do list, and provides transparency throughout the office. Tasks can also be categorized by client so employees and our fearless leader Lorraine can keep track of where projects are for each client. Beyond simply tying loose tasks together, Insightly allows you to build pipelines which are a series of tasks that occur in the same order with one trigger. In a business like ours where we go through the same steps for each project the pipelines prevent things from falling through the cracks. It is a terrific contact management tool, with fields for short and long notes along with the client contact information so everyone in the office has easy access to the information. And the opportunity screens make sure Lorraine is on top of calling prospective clients as well. The mobile ap lets you take your entire address book with you everywhere you go.
Google Drive
I lobbied for this tool in the office specifically for how functional it is. Google Drive is made up of three main features: Docs, Sheets, and Slides. These essentially serve as Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, respectively, except these are entirely online. They have fewer features than the Microsoft Office suite, but the basics uses are still the same and unlike Microsoft Office, Google Drive is free up to a certain storage size. Google Drive is optimal for housing any document that others in the office might need access to, any document a client or prospective client would need to view, or anything you might want to access from home or another remote location. That pretty much covers all of them, right? It also gives employees the chance to work on a document at the same time. Whereas Microsoft restricts access to files and locks users out, multiple people can collaborate and work on a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide at the same time. And it automatically saves your work!
Slack
Slack has become more of a staple in today’s offices and the consensus is that you’re either married to it or you hate its guts. What is it? Simply put: it’s a chatroom for your office. Slack makes communication open and easy for offices where that can be difficult. It thrives in large office settings, but can be redundant in smaller ones. For example, it was incredibly helpful during my college years at a student newspaper with a staff of over 50 people to communicate with the whole staff at once or with specific departments about what was going live on the website next. But if you have an office with five people in it, a quick email does just as well. So why the division? Oftentimes conflicts in offices are bred from simple miscommunications. Slack helps alleviate those woes. You can have a channel dedicated entirely to one client, and whenever there are discussions to be had about said client, it’s a great place to discuss that. However, it can also provoke too much conversation and a feeling that you never actually stop working. When your boss is just a Slack message away, that can cause a lot of heightened stress. What are your favorite digital business tools? Let me know @PageJones31 and feel free to read my other work here. Want to talk about how these and other digital tools can help your business? We would love to hear from you.