In the world of business tools, nothing beats cloud software for its convenience, mobility, and team access. As the market demand for business tools grows, so does the number of apps and services provided. From a place where every cloud services provider is out to beat competitors and assert its voice, it can be tough for small businesses to choose trustworthy tools that will also pleasantly surprise their budget.
How Business Tools Can Help Your Organization?
- Streamline operations: Tools for business, such as project management software and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, help organize and automate various processes, reducing manual effort and improving overall efficiency.
- Enhance collaboration: Small business tools like team messaging apps and document sharing platforms facilitate better communication and collaboration among team members, enabling seamless sharing of information and ideas.
- Improve decision-making: The best business tools in the realm of data analytics and reporting software enable businesses to collect, analyze, and visualize data, which aids in making more informed decisions and uncovering valuable insights.
- Boost customer satisfaction: Online business tools, including customer service software and feedback management systems, help organizations address customer concerns, gather feedback, and enhance the overall customer experience, fostering loyalty and repeat business.
- Support scalability: As a business grows, adopting the right tools can simplify tasks, automate processes, and enable seamless integration with other systems, ensuring your organization is well-equipped to handle increased demands.
In the SMB market, the best advisors are those who know small business challenges inside and out.
That’s why we asked solopreneurs, small business owners, and marketing managers from around the world to share and review their favorite cloud tools, so you can hand-pick the ones perfect for your team.
Asana: “Communicating with my team, wherever they are”
Overview: Asana is a project management and collaboration business tool best suited for remote or mid-sized teams. This tool allows business owners and managers to assign tasks to team members and effortlessly check on the status/progress without the need to email back and forth for information. Asana ought to be on the PC and mobile device of every smart entrepreneur managing distributed teams and freelancers/contractors.
Recommended by: David Miles, Co-Founder & CMO, WiseMee
Pricing: Free basic account for teams up to 15 people
Mobile app: Yes
Difficulty: Simple-Medium depending on specific needs
BigCommerce: “[A platform] ready to step up when we are”
Overview: One of the top e-commerce platforms, BigCommerce is a great way to launch an online store or sell a product/service. With targeted solutions for wholesale, B2B, multi-channel and international commerce, it’s a flexible, modern platform. Features include storefront design, conversion, and multi-marketplace support (sell on Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, eBay).
Recommended by: Max Dirnfeld, owner and CEO, Toner Buzz
Pricing: from $29.95/month
Mobile app: Yes
Difficulty: Medium
ClickFunnels: “The seamless sales funnel tool”
Overview: Any business website is designed to sell a product, a service, ar an idea. A service like ClickFunnels allows you to market via an optimized sales funnel. What is a sales funnel? On a basic scale, it is an organized series of automated marketing messages and landing pages that cater to individual client needs and contain a targeted call to action. A simple sales funnel can optimize conversion by 300%.
Recommended by: James Canzanella, Owner, Isolated Marketing Nights
Pricing: from $97/month
Mobile app: Yes
Difficulty: Simple
Dubsado: “This tool tackled my imposter syndrome”
Overview: Dubsado is a real find for a small business owner. In the CRM arena populated by enterprise giants such as SalesForce, Dubsado was created to answer small business needs. This Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform is well-known among entrepreneurs for its 24/7 support and all-in-one CRM functionality. It features client portals, invoicing, contracts, proposals, automated emails, and handy templates for all your marketing needs.
Recommended by: Sarah Ashlock, Content Writer, Solopreneur
Pricing: from $35/month for 1-3 users
Mobile app: No
Difficulty: Simple-Medium depending on specific needs
Freshbooks: “I can’t imagine my life without it”
Overview: Freshbooks is invoicing and accounting software for business. Among its great features are integrations with many platforms any business owner/manager is already using. If you’re new to business but have to manage the accounting yourself, Freshbooks has good customer support and videos to get you started. The mobile app will be handy for checking sent and received payments on the go.
Recommended by: Colin Ma, Founder, OC Tech Alliance
Pricing: from $15/month
Mobile app: Yes
Difficulty: Simple-Medium depending on specific needs
G Suite Business: “One cannot beat the Google Apps Platform”
Overview: G Suite, also known as Google Apps for Business, is a budget-friendly Cloud alternative to solutions like Microsoft Office. It features all the tools needed to manage projects with the team, instantly share and edit documents, slides, presentations, and complete to-do lists in real-time. G Suite also features corporate G Mail, team chat, and even a web builder of its own. Best of all, all G Suite apps are mobile, allowing your team to collaborate on projects on the go.
Learn more about G Suite Pros, Cons, and Alternatives.
Recommended by: Jonathan Faccone, Founder, Halo Homebuyers LLC, Halo Redevelopment
Pricing: from $6/month per user
Mobile app? Yes
Difficulty: Piece of cake
Invision: “The best way to collaborate on design projects together”
Overview: Invision is a tool built specifically for designers and design-oriented businesses. It is created for prototyping, design management, and collaboration. Team collaboration is a standout feature of Invision that lets designers keep the conversation going through sharing and comments. Invision also has great design education resources including design chats, podcasts, webinars, and design community support & inspiration.
Recommended by: Malte Scholz, CEO and Co-Founder of Airfocus
Pricing: Free to try out with 1 prototype. Business plans start from $15/month
Mobile app? Yes
Difficulty: Medium
MightyCall: “Keep business and personal calls separate”
Overview: A cloud-based VoIP phone system for small business, MightyCall takes care of small business communication like no other — from choosing/porting in a toll-free, local, or vanity number to setting up professional calling features. These include call forwarding to multiple devices, privacy settings, team collaboration, customer experience tools, and mini CRM included. MightyCall will also help your business get rid of annoying spam and robocalls. Learn more about the fantastic benefits of Cloud telephony for small business.
Recommended by: Sandra Balzola, Red Sand Studios, LLC
Pricing: from $19.99/month for unlimited users
Mobile app: Yes
Difficulty: Simple
Mailshake: “Quite easy to learn and use”
Overview: Mailshake is a tool for automating cold email marketing. If the term “cold email” sounds uninviting, that’s because emails sent to users who had no prior contact with your product/service (so-called “cold” emails) are often taken for Spam. For this reason, attracting clients with cold marketing is a headache (but a necessity) for any startup. A designated cold marketing tool like Mailshake automates outreach, sets tasks to complete, and provides you with necessary analytics, giving “cold emails” the warm, human touch.
Recommended by: Kevin Rodrigues, Founder, Gardening Mentor
Pricing: starting at $39/month per user
Mobile app? No
Difficulty: Simple
MASV: “No worries and no commitments”
Overview: MASV solves the IT problem most businesses run into at one time or another: sharing and collaborating on massive files (up to 5 TB). While this challenge can be more or less frequent depending on your industry, MASV is the cloud tool that will have your back in case of need. Since massive file sharing is a vital but not everyday kind of problem for most businesses, it’s good to know that MASV works without a subscription.
Recommended by: Amanda Murray, Digital Marketing Manager, seoplus+
Pricing: Pay as you go, $0.25/GB
Mobile app? No
Difficulty: Piece of cake
Mio: “Keep chatting on your tool of choice”
Overview: Mio helps distributed teams bring corporate chats into a single place. Instead of optimizing time by heaping all your business chats onto a single dashboard, Mio offers a different kind of experience. Running in the background, it lets Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Webex users find and message each other from their preferred app. Even if you’re on Slack and your colleague is on Teams, you’ll see their message and reply without leaving Slack. It is especially handy for business owners managing distributed/remote teams and freelancers.
Recommended by: Dominic Kent, Director of Content Marketing & Communications, Mio
Pricing: $3/month per user with special conditions
Mobile app? N/A
Difficulty: Simple
Orderhive: “Helps in streamlining the ordering process”
Overview: Orderhive is a multi-channel inventory management tool for e-commerce and retail. Oderhive takes care of all the aspects of commerce like purchasing, ordering, shipping, inventory management, warehousing, returns, etc. Importantly, it lets both physical store retailers and online store owners fully automate order fulfillment, shipping, purchase & return management, putting a lot of productive time back where it belongs.
Recommended by: Krishna Jani, Marketing Executive, Orderhive
Pricing: from $44.99/month
Mobile app: Yes
Difficulty: Medium
QuickBooks: “Great value and dependable”
Overview: QuickBooks is cloud accounting software for small to mid-sized businesses. Features include expense tracking, invoicing, accounting reports, cash flow management, automatic backups, bank-level data security, and unlimited support. Small business owners will also appreciate the mobile app which lets you create and issue invoices from your phone, among other key features.
Recommended by: Alex Williams, Owner, Hosting Data UK
Pricing: from $15/month
Mobile app: Yes
Difficulty: Simple
QuickFMS: “Space management in a better way and less time”
Overview: Effective facilities management or space management is something large offices and teams struggle with as they juggle between peace of mind, productivity, and space economy. QuickFMS is a cloud tool that lets managers distribute and allocate space in real-time (to employees, specific departments, or project needs) so everyone is at their most productive. It will be useful for large teams in busy sectors like PR, advertising, digital marketing, and sales.
Recommended by: Ajay Prasad, CEO, GMR Web Team
Pricing: Schedule demo
Mobile app: N/A
Difficulty: Simple
Trello: “A really easy way to manage and plan multiple projects”
Overview: The favorite cloud tool of project managers worldwide, Trello brings Kanban-style visual boards inside your PC and phone. Create a visual board for your project and keep all tasks up to date with to-do lists and cards shared with your team. Trello makes it fun and simple to collaborate on projects and keep procrastination down to a minimum. Its free plan and fantastic mobile app make Trello a must-have tool for every business.
Recommended by: Ben Taylor, Founder, HomeWorkingClub
Pricing: Free plan available
Mobile app: Yes
Difficulty: Piece of cake
Vacation Tracker: “Employees need only a few seconds to request leave”
Overview: VacationTracker is a Slack integration that makes managing employee leaves, vacations, and days off a breeze. Instead of filling out applications that have managers manually double-checking vacation overlap for each team member, Vacation Tracker simplifies the tasks for everyone. Employees can request leave by answering a few short questions in the app, and managers will instantly see how this time-frame compares to other team members’ vacations. Vacation Tracker is currently available only for Slack but integrations with G Suite and Microsoft Teams are coming soon.
Recommended by: Luka Arezina, Co-Founder, DataProt.net
Pricing: $25/month for up to 50 users
Mobile app: No
Difficulty: Piece of cake
Tools for Business Your Way
After reviewing various tools for business that other companies enjoy, it’s crucial for businesses to carefully assess their unique needs and goals. Identifying the right set of tools that align with your organization’s objectives is essential for enhancing productivity, streamlining operations, and facilitating growth. By taking a strategic approach to selecting and implementing these tools for business, you can unlock new opportunities, optimize efficiency, and ensure long-term success for your organization.
