What are some of the best free resources for entrepreneurs and small business owners? Running a start-up isn’t always a walk in the park, especially with some tasks being extremely tedious. As a small business owner, you have to ensure that all aspects of the business are being taken care of properly. Luckily, there are many resources available for startups and small business owners to use, that can help with the following aspects:
1. Operations
With running the entire scheme of operations yourself, sometimes keeping up with finances can be overwhelming. There are tools to help keep your operations in check that are extremely beneficial. One of these tools is Wave, a free invoicing and accounting service that is easy to use for non-financial managers. With tools like this, your operations will be a whole lot easier to handle.
2. Marketing and Branding
Marketing and strong branding campaigns are essential to creating awareness for your business. Marketing software such as Hootsuite allows you to keep track of all your social media platforms engagements, as well as schedule posts and campaigns on different platforms in advance. You should check out our article about 10 inexpensive marketing campaign ideas for small businesses.
3. HR
Handling personnel and HR management can be time consuming, while dealing with employee hiring, salary packages, or banks transfer authorizations. To help you be more productive, you can download the Business Owner’s Toolkit online and get access to several different HR software to help you run things more efficiently.
4. IT Management
Keeping up with the latest technology that can be helpful to your business or business management isn’t always easy but there are ways to keep informed on the latest tools and new software. Utilizing sites such as Small Business Trends that cover all the latest tech news and other similar sites will ensure you are constantly in the loop.
5. Website
As any business should, you need to have an amazing website, which can be costly. However, with resources such as WordPress, you can build your own website at very economical costs without the need for a website developer. It can be a piece of cake to have your website up and running in no time.
6. Social Media
Having a strong social media presence is essential for any business to engage with its target audience. With apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter a small business can easily reach many people through its personalized social media platforms.
7. Advice
Running a small business isn’t always easy; you sometimes need the help of others who have better industry experience. That’s why using forums such as Quora or Reddit is perfect to get the help of those who have been in your shoes before.
8. Finding Employees
If you’re scouting the market for people to hire, then you can use a platform such as LinkedIn where a collective of professional people can be found. Using this platform to hire or approach individuals will prove to be very useful.
9. Planning
If you’re looking for help when it comes to creating professional business plans, checklists, and templates you can use entrepreneur.com to make your documents look more professional.
10. Graphics
While a graphic designer is essential, until you can afford one, you can use a simplified graphic tool such as Canva that allows you to access photos, vectors, videos, and images and put them together in an artistic way for web or print designs for free.
You’d be surprised to know the number of resources available for free that any startup can use to get the help they need. When using these tools, you’ll save up a whole lot of time, money, and get your startup up and running without having to spend a fortune.