Do you ever feel like your business has stagnated or that you are struggling to manage the various processes? This is a common feeling but in today’s digital age, help is close at hand! There are hundreds of business development and business management tools available that you can use to improve productivity, boost effectiveness, reduce costs, and drive growth.
I find that it can be a momentous task to know where to start with business tools though – there are so many to choose from spanning multiple disciplines, industries, and purposes.
To give you a head start, I have listed nine digital tools below that cover the most important business processes such as accounting, customer management, web development, and communication. We use many of these tools on a daily basis so feel free to contact us for more information.
1. Accounting Software – Xero
At the heart of your business there must be a sound financial foundation including organised and up to date books, payment processing, and invoice generation. This is where accounting software is vital – it allows you to keep track of, and manage your finances, ensuring prompt bill payments, payment processing from clients, and payroll management.
Our preferred accounting software is Xero and this tool offers the following features to name a few – bill payment, VAT returns, expense claims, acceptance of payments, project tracking, payroll management, bank reconciliation, payment filing, and reporting.
It’s essentially a one-stop software solution that takes care of all your business financials. The price plans are flexible and comparatively affordable, and your accountant should easily be able to get to grips with the software and integrate it with your existing business infrastructure.
2. CRM Software – GoHighLevel
CRM or Customer Relationship Management software is essential to manage your customer base and potentially your prospect journey. If you want to get the most out of your customers and build effective relationships with them, using a CRM platform like GoHighLevel will prove invaluable. We have our own branded version called KP CRM 😉.
GoHighLevel excels at customer management and lead management and works on the three stages of Capture (acquire new customers via things like landing page creation, phone systems, and forms), Nurture (develop relationships with those new customers via things like SMS, emails, and social media messages), and Close (Secure the new customer whether that’s through contact agreements, payments, or appointment scheduling).
The customer service is good, and the price plans can be tailored to suit the exact services and features your business can most benefit from.
3. Project Management – Teamwork
While software like Microsoft Teams takes care of communication, an often overlooked business tool is project management software. This software allows you to manage individual projects such as a single client, or particular task for a client.
We use Teamwork, an established project management platform with 4000+ positive reviews. Using Teamwork, you can create a project overview that gives everyone involved the starting details. From there, you can assign tasks, track progress, manage associated resources, and make sure everything is running smoothly.
We like how milestones can be added to projects to show progress percentage and give a sense of direction as the task unfolds. As things like budgets and costs can be included, Teamwork also helps with budget management and pricing.
4. Communication – Microsoft Teams
Every business needs effective communication both internally and with clients. Employees and departments within your company must be able to share work and information quickly, and you need a reliable and flexible way of communicating with your clients where face-to-face meetings aren’t possible.
Our communication platform of choice is Microsoft Teams – we love the ease of use and features and it makes for incredibly simple communication. The core features of Teams includes video conferencing, VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol – essentially internet telephones!), instant messaging, workflow management, and scheduling.
Primarily you can use Teams as a direct means of communication either by voice, video, or IM. However, the platform goes far beyond that and it’s scheduling features are incredible too, allowing you to organise meetings and strategy sessions with clients and maintain a business calendar. It’s free to sign up for teams, and the cost per user for business use is relatively inexpensive compared to similar services.
5. Ecommerce Development – Shopify
If you’re an online shop, then you clearly need an ecommerce platform. Our recommendations are either WordPress with WooCommerce or Shopify. Shopify is one of the premier options and a great starting point for solo entrepreneurs and SMEs looking to sell online.
The platform offers a range of free and premium ecommerce store templates that have been professionally designed. You can customise these to match your business branding and easily create product pages and more. Shopify also has features for managing your inventory and products.
As your business grows, the Shopify store has thousands of plugins available to enhance the functionality of your site such as AI chatbots, contact forms, and product comment plugins. If you already have an ecommerce store created as a bespoke site, it could be possible to migrate to Shopify too to streamline your web development process.
There are advantages and disadvantages to WordPress with WooCommerce or Shopify so consider these before making your decision on your platform.
6. Email Marketing – Mailchimp
Email marketing can still be an especially effective type of marketing for business development but it can also be tricky to manage. Many people struggle with the initial template creation or knowing where to start with designed an email marketing campaign.
Tools like Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor can help greatly with your email marketing creation and management. The suite of services includes marketing automation so you can deliver your emails to the right customers at the ideal time. You can also utilise their templates to easily create emails that reflect your brand and message.
Not only that, but Mailchimp offers reports and analytics so you can measure the success of your campaigns and look at areas for improvement. The great thing about Mailchimp is that they offer a free standard plan although this has limitations and may only be suitable for startup businesses with a limited customer base.
We actually use GoHighLevel now for our email marketing, and for our clients we use Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor (our branded version is called MetricMail) or GoHighLevel (our branded version is KP CRM).
7. Social Media Management – Hootsuite
If you’ve tried to manage multiple social media accounts on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Instagram you can understand the challenge this presents. It can be hectic and difficult to keep track of everything while also churning out quality content that aligns with your marketing goals.
This is where social media management tools like Hootsuite are invaluable. Hootsuite offers a myriad of tools including social media analytics, AI content creation, advice on best posting times, post scheduling, and competitor insight.
It makes managing your social media accounts easier and should help you yield better results from your social media marketing efforts. The downside is the monthly subscription fee which is higher compared to other tools. There is currently three plans available starting from £89 per month and each plan gives you a different amount of users, social accounts, and features.
Again, we use KP CRM for our social media management and other social media marketing tools are available.
8. Content Marketing Ideas – ChatGPT
AI or more precisely, machine learning, is becoming prominent in many areas of business and indeed many of the tools listed above utilise AI to improve processes, speed, and client utility. I understand that there is an air of uncertainty and fear relating to any AI technology, but in business development and marketing, when used correctly it can be invaluable.
An effective way to use AI is with software like ChatGPT for content marketing idea generation. This is essentially a machine learning tool that continually evolves its knowledge. You can give it different prompts or ask it questions and it will provide accurate answers.
An issue with content marketing is continually creating fresh ideas for things like blog posts and social media posts. ChatGPT can help generate ideas or give example article outlines and thus speed up the creation process.
One thing we really do not recommend is asking ChatGPT to actually write the blog post for you. You have to edit any content, and provide your opinion, you need to make it yours and not something that has clearly been written by ChatGPT.
9. Analytics – Google Analytics
If you want your business website to be successful you must analyse its performance and look for areas of improvement. Google Analytics is a primary business development tool to achieve this.
It provides a vast wealth of information relating to your website usage such as overall traffic, page traffic, user demographics, and bounce rates. The tool is free to use which is an additional benefit and there is a wealth of tutorials and documentation to help get started. Google Analytics also integrates with other important marketing tools like Google Ads.
We actually recommend Google Tag Manager with Google Analytics and also always recommend that appropriate Goals / Conversions are set up so that you don’t just monitor website visitor numbers but also website enquiries.
Improve Your Business Processes with These Business Development Tools
There you have it – nine fantastic business management and development tools that your company could use to streamline processes, improve efficient, and get results. Of course, I don’t advise jumping in at the deep end and signing up for all of these tools at once!
Instead, take a measured approach. Analyse the services and merits of each tool and the associated cost and see if your business could benefit from its usage. Not all business development tools are suitable for every company – it depends on your industry, type of business, budget, and goals.
Hope this blog post has been helpful.
