3 Must-Have Small Business Tools to Make Your Life Easier!

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3 Must-Have Small Business Tools to Make Your Life Easier!

Alyson Scott • Aug 23, 2021

Are you working as efficiently as possible? Many of the time-consuming tasks we face as small business owners can be simplified or automated, giving us back some of our valuable time.

As a virtual assistant, one of my favourite things is helping my clients get organized and set up with systems and small business tools that make their lives easier.

Here are the top 3 small business tools I recommend:

Calendly

Calendly makes booking meetings easy and efficient. No more back and forth to pick a meeting time. Clients or team members can easily see your availability and choose a time that works for them.

It’s easy to set up, integrates securely with your calendar, and makes rescheduling or cancelling a breeze. There is a 14-day free trial of the pro plan and a forever-free limited plan, depending on how simple or customized you want to get.

Let Calendly know your availability preferences
Share the link or embed it on your website
They book a time to meet with you
The event is added to your calendar

More advanced options include automating reminder emails and thank-you notes, SMS reminders, customization with your branding, app integrations, automated workflows and payment collection.

MailChimp

Email marketing is alive and well! Mailchimp makes it easy to grow an email list of interested potential clients. Whether you send a monthly newsletter to stay fresh in people's minds or create segmented lists with multiple sales campaigns, the tool has you covered.

What do I love about Mailchimp? It’s a great small business tool because it’s free to anyone with less than 2,000 subscribers, making it cost-effective to get started. (Mailchimp is also easy to use for beginners).

Once you start email marketing, you need to pay close attention to your insights to measure success. Mailchimp makes it easy to see detailed analytics like how many people opened your email, which links they clicked most frequently, and how your response compares to the industry average.

Dubsado

Dubsado is my new favourite business tool! It's an all-in-one customer management system to help you organize your calendar, create workflows, track tasks, manage projects, send invoices and more!

Another great small business tool simply because of all the features it offers in one place. If you are a new business or just at a point where you need to be more efficient to handle the growth, Dubsado has your back.

Send customized questionnaires, forms, contracts, and invoices
Organize your calendar and to-do list
Create portals for each of your clients
Manage your finances with essential bookkeeping functions

The many features of Dubsado make it a handy tool to have on your side. If you don't have anything in place right now, this is a great tool to start with, as it can grow with your business.

If you are new to the small business tools that can make your life easier, I get it can be overwhelming! There are so many options and ways of implementing systems and automation into your business. I hope this helps!

If you aren’t sure where to start, book a free needs assessment to see which systems and tools will make your life easier.

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6 Biggest Time Wasters for Entrepreneurs

By Alyson Scott • 26 Jul, 2022

Save Time by Delegating Tasks to a Virtual Assistant. As a small business owner, there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done! Your time is precious, and not all tasks are created equally. Say goodbye to these top 6 time wasters for entrepreneurs so that you can focus on the most critical areas of your business. 6 Biggest Time Wasters for Entrepreneurs: 1. Meetings. Whether you meet with clients, vendors or employees, prioritize and respect your time. Does it need to be a full meeting, or would a quick call or email do the trick? Look for other, easier ways to communicate. And if you need a face-to-face or virtual meeting, set a boundary beforehand as to how much time you have to dedicate. 2. Online Distractions. Getting swept up in social media, checking your email, or reading texts can be a big distraction and time waster. Setting times to sort through your emails and messages can help you focus on the task at hand. 3. Routine and Repetitive Tasks. Not all tasks are created equally. What jobs can only YOU do in your business, and which tasks can you delegate? Try keeping a list for a week or two, jotting down all the things you do in a day, then look it over and see what tasks are eating up your time that could be passed off. 4. Outdated Tools. Using the right tool for the job can save you time and energy. A few of our favourite tools are Calendly and Acuity for scheduling meetings, Dubsado for customer management, and Mailchimp for email marketing. 5. Lack of Strategy and Systems. Does it feel like you’re spinning your wheels and not making any progress? Creating a strategy for growth with measurable goals will help create a clear direction in your business. While systems and routines help you make the most of your time by ensuring you are as efficient and productive as possible. 6. Overthinking and Second Guessing. One of our biggest time wasters as entrepreneurs (and a significant factor in holding ourselves back!) is second-guessing our actions, overthinking, and not taking chances. Once you’ve done the research, don’t be afraid to jump in! Second-guessing yourself, your choices, and your abilities will only you back. How a Virtual Assistant Can Help Save You Time Take on the repetitive tasks that consume your time and take you away from the work only YOU can do. Set you up with systems and strategies to help run your business as efficiently and effectively as possible. Introduce you to tools and new technologies to help make your life easier. Run interference with clients and vendors, so you only take on the necessary meetings and calls. You didn't become an entrepreneur to work 24/7 – be sure you aren't giving more of your time to your business than you need to. Say no to some of these big time wasters and set yourself up for success! Check out a list of what a Virtual Assistant can do for you! If there’s anything we can do to help you save time (so you can get back to your LIFE), reach out here .

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