As much as we would like to say we can do anything and everything by ourselves… That would be a lie.
Having the correct tools and processes in place are essential to help any business run smoothly and professionally. With that being said, we have tried and tested (and still testing) many different tools and here is our round up of various tools and what they aid us in…
Planning - Asana
This is a time management tool, brilliant for not only organising our workload by the client but also great for collaborating with the wider team to ensure we hit deadlines!
Asana has a free version available so you can test out the platform before you invest. We find it is great for seeing an overview of team responsibilities, deadlines and project planning. You can set notifications and attach files to projects which can reduce documents getting lost in busy inboxes!
As a team, we also find this great for brainstorming ideas such as blog posts or ideas for other projects! What is great about this is it is all in one place and can be viewed by anyone you give access to.
Free and paid versions available. - https://asana.com/
Productivity & Time Management - Toggl
This tool enables the team to track time spent on each client easily. Being able to categorise, set hourly rates, and get reports on each client has been amazing.
Having this tool has helped keep track of just how much time we as a team spend on individual clients and on exactly what projects. It can help assess areas that we may need a new faster process or maybe a tool to help improve efficiency. It also has a nifty section for insights which can help with identifying earnings-per-client, return on investment and milestone setting.
Free and paid versions available - https://toggl.com/
Diary Management - Dial9 (voip system)
We are often taking and making calls from and for clients, from arranging meetings to holidays or even buying cars! This software enables us to make calls to and from the business number whilst out and about, thus keeping our personal mobile for my nearest and dearest. What’s best - is it all goes through an app and it is clear what is a business call and what is a personal call!
***paid version only available***
Social Media - Canva
Canva is a fantastic tool to help create engaging designs for social media. There are thousands of templates to follow, or if you fancy yourself as a bit of a whizz at design you can easily make one up from scratch.
This design tool isn’t just for social media, we have been able to create client presentations, PDFs and mock ups!
Free and paid versions available. - https://www.canva.com/
Team & client communication - Slack
This is a great platform for all comms with the team and clients alike. This tool has the ability to share documents, have conversations and manage your team all in one place. We have many groups in our slack, these can be client and project based which helps to keep all that useful info accessible in one place! Nothing worse than having several emails or messages about the same thing and then trying to locate them all!
Also, the platform allows integrations with various other tools like Asana, Trello, Hubspot - plus more! If set up correctly, it can help form processes and increase efficiency!
Free and paid versions available - https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/
So there you have it, our top 5 tools that help us remain balanced in our working week! At Balance we are innovative which means we don’t stop testing tools until we find the one that works best for us AND our clients. Also, as a small business we know just how expensive it can be to spend so much time looking for the right tool so we hope this list helps narrow down your search for you!