Business Tools I Use as an Entrepreneur
october 22, 2024
Category: business
business tools I use as an entrepreneur
sharing the essential tools I use for my biz almost daily.
If you’re an entrepreneur you already know it can be a wild ride. When I started my business 7 years ago I was doing all the things solo and it was DRAINING. I quickly realized that I needed to find tools to help streamline my business or I was going to lose it. That paired with hiring a team (more on that in this blog post!), was a saving grace. Now, I still swear by these business tools as my ride-or-die way to get more done in less time.
For Biz Operations
As a business owner, finding what programs work for you is essential. There is so much that goes into business ownership and without these holy grail tools managing leads, contracts, paying employees, communicating as a team, you name it, would be SO much more challenging.
Dubsado — The CRM of all CRMs in my opinion. Dubsado is super customizable which makes it kind of a designer’s dream. With Dubsado, we’re able to customize our inquiry form so it seamlessly blends with our website design and we’re able to send out highly-branded proposals to each client to keep things feeling cohesive from the very beginning. It’s the hub of Brighten Made and where we store all of our leads, projects, contacts, forms, and more.
Quickbooks — As a business owner, keeping track of your finances is beyond essential. I love using QuickBooks to help me stay on top of my income, expenses, and taxes. Plus, it’s the bookkeeping system I use to pay my employees. But don’t be fooled, I outsource all things numbers to my bookkeeper because #notabookkeeper. This makes it super easy for tax time, too!
Acuity — A life-saver when it comes to setting up client meetings. We use Acuity to book any and every client call including our intro calls and website consult calls for example. With Acuity clients can view your availability and schedule a meeting when it works for them. You can also add a sort of mini questionnaire to any appointment so you can gather more information prior to meeting with a new lead — a winning feature for sure.
Dropbox — The ultimate storage platform that allows my employees and me to access design files wherever we are.
The Contract Shop — A one-stop shop with countless templates for any type of legal contract you might need for your business. Plus, they’ll let you know when updates to the contracts you’ve purchased have been released so you’re always able to keep things up to date, protecting yourself and your clients.
Slack — As someone who has employees scattered across the Midwest having a real-time communication tool is vital to my business. Slack lets us communicate one-on-one and as a group, plus has huddles for quick face-to-face calls when we need to collaborate quickly in real-time.
For Project Management + Client Communication
As a business working on anywhere from 5–15 projects at a time, having streamlined tools for project management and gathering client feedback is crucial. Plus, I can’t recommend hiring a dedicated project manager to help set deadlines and communicate all the things enough.
Asana — We use Asana to organize and manage every project. And I mean EVERY project. Whether a client project or something internal for Brighten Made, Asana is our go-to system to assign tasks, communicate client feedback to the team, pass work around for reviews, and make sure everyone is adhering to deadlines on our end and the clients.
Markup — As a designer with multiple employees helping to bring projects to life for our clients it can be challenging to get clear, solid feedback. That’s why we lean on Markup. Markup is a tool that allows you to upload a file or website URL and provide comments directly on various elements. We’ve found this tool to be hugely beneficial for both our client work and our internal review process! My favorite part of markup is being able to toggle between desktop + mobile on our client sites.
For Emails + Marketing
Flodesk — Hands down my favorite email marketing platform (unlesssss you’re an e-commerce business, then check out Klaviyo). With Flodesk you’re able to design highly, highly customizable emails and landing pages so you can have a beautiful, branded experience that makes things feel super seamless for potential clients and as you create lead magnets. It’s also super easy to manage your email list, add people to different segments, and schedule out sends. It’s kind of the GOAT of email marketing if you ask us.
Interact — One of my favorite ways to generate leads and create engagement on a website is with a good ol’ quiz (more on that + generating leads here). Interact is an easy-to-use platform that is a sure-fire win to generate leads in a fun and engaging way. Our design quiz is one of our best lead generation tools we’ve created since day 1 of my business!
Squarespace – I’ve been an avid Squarespace user since I was a junior in college (so many, many years ago). We host our Brighten Made site on Squarespace and love how easy it is to update and maintain our blog, portfolio, and site as a whole. Squarespace also integrates pretty seamlessly with both Acuity and Dubsado so it’s a win in my book!
Are you a designer specifically!? I gotchu. Here are the design-specific tools I use daily for my business!
