Free Business Tools to Grow Any Business
There are many factors that can contribute in growing a business, but, more often, what tools you use in your business also make a significant difference. Whether they are looking for higher productivity, expansion, easier billing, building a website and producing content, or finding a tool that improves customers service, every business needs a framework for growth.
We have collected number of tools which can make a big difference in businesses. May be you are already using some of the tools we mentioned; you may find other tools to add them to your list. The list is based on popularity among many businesses. Here we go:
Advertising:
Google My Business
Google has simplified the way you do business online. It offers businesses a free profile to display and connect with customers. You can post working hours, location, address, pricing information, share pictures and even a virtual tour. All these information will be shown to your audience in Google’s search results.
Also, Having a detailed Google My Business profile can also boost your website’s SEO ranking.
If you are running a business related to food and drinks like restaurant, bar, bakery etc, then sign up to ZOMATO. This directory is just for dinner establishments and it is a free and instant way to let your know your business.
Through yelloPages you can invite your targeted customers to buy your product/service and respond to the reviews. This is a great free way to help your customers to reach online.
Even if you or your business on yelp, your customers might be talking about it. Set up your business profile to mention business informations and post pictures, see what customers are saying about it and respond back, even to the critics politely.
Business Planning
BPlans.com has sample business plans for nearly every industry- from startups to large MNCs! So, don’t waste money and time on inventory.
Preparing a business plan is very intimidating even if you have a sample business plan in your hand. Use Enloop to create a professional looking business plan. You will get a business plan score to make your plan great.
The first business plan is free, and subscription charges apply for additional features.
Business Development
Instead of searching for information on search engines like Google and reading the random articles, start at U.S. Small Business Administration’s website- SBA.gov for business education and advice. Here you can find the information about different type of businesses, how to write business plan and validate them, how to raise money for your business and much more. It’s an amazing resource for rookie and veteran entrepreneurs.
Local Business development centre
Score is a non-profit business association which is providing education and mentorship opportunities to help small businesses to grow. SCORE.org provided free online learning opportunities and in person mentoring services from entrepreneurs with many years of business experience throughout the country.
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Business Financing
AngelList should be your must-have resource for any startups whether you’re looking to hire your first employees or finding an investor. Hundreds of startups take advantage of this service to raise much needed funds for their startups.
Finding an investor is not the only way to raise funds. If you’re going to borrow funds for the business, Fundera is right online marketplace to go. Fundera also works with 25+ other lenders to find you the best loans with possible rates.
Kickstarter is a free to join crowdfunding platform to recruit micro-donors for your business, and it accepts a small percentage of money only if the campaign is fully funded. You can provide incentives or products or gifts of your choice to your donors.
Demonstrate the value of your business idea and get a loan for your business. StreetShares is a free online platform where you will be connected with peer-to-peer lenders for small business loans. You can submit a quick application and recruit lenders by demonstrating your business idea.
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Legal
Hiring a lawyer to create basic legal documents is expensive, especially if you have a brand new business. It can break the bank.
Docracy’s open source collection of legal documents, from employment contracts to service agreements, can save thousands of dollars on lawyer’s fees. Of course, you want those documents to be reviewed by a professional, but Docracy also offers free digital signing of legal documents.
IndiaFilings
IndiaFilings is the India’s largest business service provider helping people easily start and manage their business at an affordable price. Their aim is to help the entrepreneurs on the legal and regulatory requirements, and be a partner throughout their lifecycle, offering service at every stage to ensure the business is growing on continuous basis.
Money management
If your business not accepting payments through online, you are holding the business from growing. Paypal offers easy online transactions through both debit and credit card as well as recurring payments with no sign-up cost and direct fee.
Creating a traditional expense reports, tracking down employees for receipts or other information is painful. Exensify can make these processes simple with smart scanning of receipts, easy mobile tracking of expenses, and one-click reimbursement options. Expesify offers free basic plan and 30-day trial for team and corporate plans with other extended features.
If your business is hiring part-time employees or hourly employees, tracking their time spent on work is harder. Tsheets is a GPS monitored app that lets track your employees time right from their mobiles and generates timecard reports. You can use app with a 14-day free trial.
Zenpayroll gives your employees an online portal to update their information which helps you to track them and run weekly, or monthly payroll for your entire team. You can start using the service for free upto 2 months.
Productivity
Productivity is the factor that decides how successful your business is. Even if you have great idea, well crafted business plan, and loads of money, what you need is to get things done. Try our favourite tools to boost the productivity to move your business ahead.
Evernote keeps track of your thoughts, plans, and ideas in order. The app let you clip the content across the web, create your notes and share with friends, and comment on documents together. The app can be integrated seamlessly across variou devices and you can work from anywhere without missing a shot.
Google drive offers the same benefits of MS office, but it can be accessible from anywhere you have access to internet. Google added more benefits like you can collaborate the documents with colleagues, track the spreadsheet changes as you edit, and share with anyone without uploading. The service is free.
This is your to do list written on overdrive instead of pen and paper.
This is your pen and paper to do list on overdrive. Manage projects between multiple users, set recurring events, and track both large scale projects and the smaller steps along the way that make the big to-do’s possible. Producteev is ideal for keeping up with your own work needs as well as assigning tasks to employees near and far.
Internal communication
Skype is the first and probably the best internet calling service in the world. It offers standard video conferencing service between computers, and wifi-based calling between mobile devices. If you want face-to-face interaction with your clients or customers from far away, Skype is the perfect tool to use.
There are many tools like social media, email, text messages, chat tools exists in the market for communication, but multiple ways of communication is confusing leave room get lost in the shuffle. Use slack to manage your conversation with the team members across various devices and accounts on one platform. So you’ll be able to send an email, receive a reply over text, and follow up with a tweet and no one misses a trial.
Sococo is a tool to monitor your distributed teams. Just login to sococo to see who is working, communicate with the employees through text, audio, or video chat with a click of a button. Try Sococo’s starter plan for free.
Other tools:
Scheduling
Storage and File Sharing
Analytics
Blogging
Design
Social media
Stock images
The tools we mentioned above can boost your productivity by eliminating unwanted man power and huge amount of offline data i.e. physical data. These tools are smart and every businesses are making use of them irrespective of their size. You can too.