When I started my business in 2022, I had a lot of excitement, encouragement from family and friends, nervousness and hope. The one thing I didn’t have a lot of was money. I was(and am) deep in bootstrapping mode like many new entrepreneurs. Money is still tight and I can’t afford to waste it on anything that isn’t absolutely necessary to keep the business running and provide quality services to my clients.
Even though my business is new, I want to use as much technology as possible from the start to build systems that will help it run efficiently and save both my clients and me time and money.
Here, I’ve listed my four favorite apps I’ve discovered in the last few months that helped me create everything from workflows to a faster client onboarding process to creating engaging social media posts. The best thing about all of them is that they are FREE or have free plans!
Just because your business is operating on a beer budget doesn’t mean it can’t have champagne quality systems and processes.
If you’re like me, and only use Facebook or Instagram to post social media content, then Meta Business Suite will be a super useful tool.
Formerly known as Facebook Business Suite, it was launched in 2020 as a complete social media management tool to enable you to manage your business presence on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. You can do everything from creating and scheduling content to monitoring engagement. It also has a tool for analyzing insights so you can see how well(or not) your content is connecting with your audience. All you need to do is create a free business account in Meta Business Suite or connect your existing business pages.
Google Drive is a cloud storage service and can help to expand your ability to store files above the capacity limits on your hard drive. The free account give you 15GB of storage and if you are a solo business like me that should be more than enough to get you started.
Drive also integrates with Google Docs, Sheets and Forms, which I use to collaborate with clients by creating onboarding documents and checklists that they can access and update in real-time. I also use Docs to create discovery documents for prospective clients. I can send them a link and they complete the forms online and send them directly to me via Drive. This reduces a lot of emails and attachment clutter. Drive also helps me stay organized, by keeping all of my documents and correspondence in one place. It also has top-notch security to store and share confidential information.
Even though my business is small today, I anticipate growth in the future and look forward to the day when I hire my first employee. To prepare for that day, I’m already creating workflows and building systems to help my business run more efficiently. Asana has been a huge part of that process. It is a project management platform that gives entrepreneurs an easy way to create, organize and track their work.
I use Asana to create my business workflows for vetting prospects, onboarding new clients and managing current client work. I can create templates for forms and emails and attach them to a task in Asana. The app also allows you to create recurring tasks. It integrates with many popular apps like Slack, Google Drive, Zapier and Canva. Asana has a free plan for beginners that has more than enough tools for a solo business.
Full transparency…I do not like creating social media content. I’m not a social media expert and it takes a lot of mental effort and time for me to come up with even the simplest of posts for my social media accounts. That’s why I can’t sing enough praises for a tool like Canva!
Canva is a free online graphic design tool to help you create social media manager quality content for all of your social media platforms. Name the occasion and Canva has a free template for it. Need to create a price list or a welcome packet for your business? You’ll find it on Canva.
Recently, they “upped the ante” by introducing ‘Magic Write’ within Docs. It uses AI(Artificial Intelligence) to generate original copy from your prompts. For example, if you type “5 ways to save money as a small business”, ‘Magic Write’ will produce 5 ideas that you can use as a social media post or to help you get a blog post started. It’s has really been helpful for someone like me, who deals with frequent writer’s block.
Some of the templates on Canva are a part of their premium services and come with a fee. You can also upgrade to Canva Pro(free 30 day trial) but if you’re just starting out, the free version will suffice.
You can use all of the tools above on your laptop or phone.
*I use all of these tools on a daily/weekly basis for my business.