Starting a business can be tough. Especially if you’re the sole owner running the show. Knowing how tough it can be prompted us to curate some awesome tools to help you with all aspects of running your business. These are just a few of the many great tools that are out there. We just thought we’d share some of our favorites! Hope you find them helpful!

Planning and Scheduling

https://calendly.com/

https://www.pick.co/

https://www.latergram.me/

https://www.busybuildingthings.com/products/everyday-hustlin-2016

https://opstarts.com/

https://knowlium.com/

https://www.focuster.com/

 

Time and Project Management

https://www.hiveflux.com/

https://www.prodpad.com/

https://kanbantool.com/

https://lavagna.io/

https://www.smartsheet.com/

https://trello.com/

https://slack.com/

 

Client Acquisition and Management

https://www.leadfuze.com/

https://www.mytime.com/merchants/scheduler

https://www.leadpages.net/

https://www.leadfeeder.com/

https://leadwagon.com/

https://leadiq.io/

 

Finance and Accounting

https://harpoonapp.com/

https://pendium.io/

https://foresight.is/

https://learn.foresight.is/

https://www.thinknum.com/

https://www.waveapps.com/accounting/

 

Everyday Business Tools (Miscellaneous)

https://mixmax.com/tracking-templates-google-inbox

https://hacktheentrepreneur.com/podcast/ben-foster/

 

“Why spend money when I can get it for free?” is probably one of the worst statements when it comes to investing in your business. Granted the WYSIWYG website builders like Wix and Sqaurespace are great tools, however, free doesn’t always equal quality when in terms of developing your online presence. Nevertheless, this question is definitely worth exploring. Here are just a few reasons why it pays to pay for a website.

Originality

Harping back on our last post, originality is key. The main selling point of sites like Wix and Squarespace are their templates, which most people opt for. With roughly 100 million users between the two platforms, it’s very likely your site will end up looking just like someone else’s. This makes standing out pretty difficult. Both sites do allow you to build your own site, which leads me to my next point.

Expertise

When you pay an agency to build your site, you’re also paying for professional and technical expertise ensuring many other important aspects of your website besides it’s aesthetic features. Aspects like search engine optimization, content development, and user experience design. Sure, you can drag and drop to your heart’s content, but does your site’s flow make sense? Do you have the most important content in the right places? Is your site truly optimized for performance handling large images or video? Will search engines find you amongst the sea of other Wix and Sqaurespace sites? It’s hard to take all of these things into account without the expertise needed to do so. Besides, you’d much rather focus on your expertise, right?

Customer Satisfaction

I tell client’s all the time, building your web presences is comparable to, for instance, choosing the tables and chairs in your restaurant, your employees, or the menu items, and is just as important. All of these are representative of your brand and business’ image. If you skimp on any of those things, customers WILL notice which could hurt your bottom line or customer retention. Why treat your website, one of the first impressions of your business, any differently?

It’s essential to remember that your website can either be of quality, inexpensive, or developed quickly, but never all three. Investing the time and money in having a team of experts develop your website will pay off 100 fold in the long run. Visitors will appreciate the investment in their browsing experience while using your site to learn more about your business. First impressions are the most important so make it a memorable one.