According to statistics, about 20% of new small businesses fail during the first year, and 65% fail within 10 years.
While there are many factors that go into determining whether a small business makes it past the first few years to become stable and successful, one way you can improve your odds is by making use of the right tools.
Tools for Making Small Businesses Successful
These days, when we talk about “tools” to help your small business succeed, what we’re most commonly referring to are different apps and types of software that can help you manage your business.
From team communication apps to different platforms for communicating with your customers, there are tons of tools out there that can help you get more done in less time. Here are some examples:
Conversational email
A conversational email app, such as Spike, is one of the best ways to improve communication and collaboration within your company’s team.
If you’re not familiar with conversational email, here’s a brief description of what it does:
Conversational email revolutionizes the way you deal with your inbox by turning traditional email threads, which are full of stiff formalities and repetitive content, into chat-style conversations.
In other words, when you receive a new email or a reply in an existing email thread via a conversational email app like Spike, you see it as an instant message bubble.
Typing out and sending your own replies is as simple as responding to a message in any other instant messaging app you may already use.
Why does this matter? Well, instant messaging is a much more natural-feeling, efficient way to communicate than email. Conversational email replaces long email threads that are hard to sift through with flowing dialogues, in turn improving your workflows.
Many people in the workplace spend 3+ hours dealing with their inboxes every day, and switching your team over to conversational email can put much of this valuable time back in your pocket, boosting your overall productivity.
Spike is the world’s first, and currently only, conversational email app, so we highly recommend you try it out.
Customer relationship management (CRM) system
A CRM system is an incredibly important tool for creating and managing sales funnels. This tool helps you do everything from organizing contacts to automating key sales-related tasks.
For instance, you can use CRM software to create automated sales reports and generate automatic sales forecasts.
Not only that, but CRM software stores tons of valuable customer data that you can analyze in order to optimize your sales and marketing processes, ultimately deriving more value from each customer.
Examples of good CRM platforms you could consider using include Salesforce, Zapier, and HubSpot.
Accounting software
No small business can thrive without organized, thorough accounting practices, and that’s where using accounting software comes in.
Accounting software improves your overall business efficiency, especially for small businesses just starting out. It allows you to keep track of all your business transactions in one place and automate certain accounting processes, such as generating invoices and compiling statements.
Accounting software is much more accurate than manually calculating financial figures, and it makes your annual business tax filing much easier.
Lastly, small business accounting software ensures you have all your financial records stored in one secure place, so there’s no risk of them getting lost. This also gives you a nice overview of your business’s financial history, and can come in handy if you ever get audited.
Some good small business accounting tools to look into are QuickBooks, FreshBooks, and Wave.
Customer service bot
A good customer experience goes a long way towards helping your small business thrive. If you don’t offer customers good service, it’s harder to acquire and retain customers.
One way to improve the customer experience is by integrating a customer service chatbot into your company’s website. Through the power of AI, these chatbots can answer frequently asked questions and even provide quotes — 24/7.
Not only does ‘round-the-clock access to customer service keep your clientele happy, it reduces the need for real customer service staff and helps keep your overhead costs down.
Talk to your web developer about adding a chatbot to your website or look into pre-built chatbot widgets and plugins that might work for you.
Human resources (HR) software
Hiring the right people and investing in their success at your company is another huge part of turning your business into a success, which is why you should be using HR software.
HR software can help you do everything from managing applications to onboarding and providing ongoing employee support.
You can track things like employee reviews, training, and performance to hold people accountable and help your employees grow and succeed with your company.
A few different HR tools you might consider implementing are Workday, Gusto, and Bullhorn.
Wrapping Up
There’s no magic formula for turning your small business into a thriving, successful company. But, when you use the right combination of tools, you can improve productivity, communication, collaboration, and much more, increasing your odds of success.