Businesses can get bogged down by all manner of tedious tasks, which can shift the focus away from the growth of the businesses as a whole to the daily monotony of running the operation efficiently. While both are equally important, the monotony of maintaining the business can become burdensome and boring after enough time has passed.
Luckily, there exist many tools that can help business owners get away from the day to day operations of the business and focus instead on growth. These five tools can help your business focus on growth by assisting with some core functions of a business.
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1. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management tool that every business owner needs to look into. The idea of logging into separate social media accounts to create the same post is daunting, to say the least, but Hootsuite makes it simple. With Hootsuite, all of your social media accounts will be connected to one easy-to-use interface, so you can manage posts and followers from the same place.
Using Hootsuite can save you hours of time that would otherwise be spent managing individual accounts and posts. Hootsuite also offers scheduled posting services and key analytics information, so you can take a better look at how your posts are actually performing on a daily basis. Starting at just $29 per month for ten social media profiles, the service is affordable and versatile enough to keep your social media accounts performing at their best.
2. PEO Services
When you’re growing a business, the last thing you want to handle is the HR part of the organization. Setting up payroll, benefits, and the like can be exhausting and time-consuming; especially if you’re new to it all.
Luckily, PEO (professional employer organization) services exist that can handle all of your HR needs so you can focus on business growth instead. If you’re looking for a PEO company, sites like retireat21.com have lists of the best PEO companies for businesses of all sizes.
The PEO service will also handle all of the paperwork involved with the HR process, so you won’t need rooms full of filing cabinets or servers laden with thousands of employee information documents and HR forms. Your HR department won’t exist within your business but will be a separate entity that’s entirely managed and maintained by the PEO.
If you don’t want to handle the HR part of the company, leave it in the professional hands of a well-established PEO service. You’ll find that your business will be more streamlined and efficient with such a service managing your HR needs.
3. Slack
Slack is a favourite among startups and established businesses all over the world. Where once the standard was email chains, endless staff meetings, and long-winded phone conversations among departments, Slack took the concept of business communication and streamlined and simplified the entire process.
Slack focuses on “Channels”, which help organize departments and organizations into separate communication networks. This makes the process of one department getting ahold of another as simple as sending a message in the interface.
Slack is trusted by thousands, including some big names like Airbnb, Target, and Oracle. Slack offers several pricing options for businesses of all sizes, with the starting package being free of charge for small teams looking to try out the service.
The “plus” package is offered to larger businesses, but only costs about $12 per month and can offer some amazing features. With 24/7 support, Slack is simply one of the best team communication and management tools available to business owners.
4. Google Analytics
If you’re running a website for your business (which you should be in today’s market), you’ll need a powerful tool to help keep you informed of your site’s traffic sources. Google Analytics is absolutely vital to your website’s success, as it can offer you more insight than you could ever hope to gain by using onsite tools or guesswork.
Google is the most widely-used search engine service on the planet, and its resources are tremendous when it comes to offering insight on web searches, web traffic, and other internet-related services.
You’ll get a closer look at who’s visiting your site and from what geographic location, your bounceback rate, site visitors, engagement rate, and much more. Every business should use Google Analytics for their website to ensure their marketing efforts are being as effective as they can be.
5. Cloud Storage
Cloud storage tools are quickly becoming the standard for modern business, and their ability to integrate with other software programs makes them one of the most versatile tools available. Cloud storage not only saves physical space and the cost associated with it, but also offers greater security for information, an easily accessible platform for simpler sharing and collaboration efforts, and an affordable way to streamline the business’s storage needs.
Sites like Dropbox and Google Drive offer free storage up to a certain size (Dropbox is about 2GB and Drive offers 15GB free), and both have business options for greater storage needs.
