5 Business Tools You Should Use Every Day

“One of my mottos is: the right tool for the right job.'” Martha Stewart

Isn’t running a business a blast? You can create your dream life, work with people you adore, and achieve your personal goals, especially if you have the right systems in place.

Last week during an interview, I was asked, “what can you not function without?” My answer was a person, not a thing. I couldn’t do what I love to do without Laura. We have changed her job title more times than I can count, but she’s the right side of my brain – if that’s a title. Laura is who helps me brainstorm, research, and stay organized. She inspires me to keep growing as a fitness professional.

At FIT4MOM, I am lucky enough to have a team. From Jennifer Lungren and Lisa Hillman to my kickass PRO Team members, I get to lead a group of talented fitness professionals with various time constraints, expertise levels, and time zones. Honestly, we would never accomplish our monthly educational goals if I didn’t have such a strong group of women.

You are not an island. Entrepreneurship is tricky; you should have fellow humans who will help you every step of the way. Everyone should have a Laura or a team. On top of your person or group, you need tools to help you manage, run, and grow your business.

Here are 5 business tools you should have in place to use every day.

1. Communication
It would be best if you had a place to talk to your team. I learned from Shannon Fable at GroupEx PRO that having one communication input is far more effective and efficient for your team. There is no confusion about where they should go to look for your work-related communication with one location. So pick just one place or app. It can be text, email, or an instant message service like Google Chat or Slack.

Personally, I like Voxer, which is a voice messaging system. I know written communication can sometimes be hard to reflect your tone. With an app like Voxer, my team can hear how excited I am about our new projects or clients.

2. Task or Project Manager
Businesses have a lot of moving parts – from brand awareness campaigns to more significant projects. You need a way to keep yourself organized to see where all of the projects are in status and what your team members are working on finishing. Whether you like to see things visually or on a to-do list, you need a service to manage your projects and tasks.

My teams use Trello. I like this service because it is visual – like my brain – and it takes the place of another service we will talk about below. But there are other task managers such as Monday, Asana, and AirTable.

Are you ready to learn more about tools to make your business more efficient? Or are you searching for simple ways to help you build brand awareness, attract the right clients, and automate social media creation? Join me for this 25-minute “The Fitness of Your Business” webinar on August 26th at 11:30am to learn 25 different tips, tricks and tools to make your online life easier and more effective. Make sure you reserve your space today!

Can’t make it live? That’s ok! You will receive the recording afterward.

3. Design
You need a tool to create your brand awareness collateral, like social media templates, free downloads, and printable content. There are so many resources available to you now that this may seem overwhelming. Instead of jumping into every new app you hear about on Instagram, choose one service with multiple capabilities and slowly add to your app library, so you aren’t overwhelmed.

We use Canva to save multiple brand kits, creating content with the correct colors, logos, and fonts per business. Plus, Canva has so many content templates we can keep everything in one place, making it easier to share, recycle, and repurpose the content we create.

I also like to use the new GoDaddy Studio app, which use to be known as OVER. This app is more mobile-friendly than Canva’s app, but that is just my personal opinion.

4. Storage
I believe in batch-creating content. But just like cooking in large batches, you need a storage system. You can keep all of your content within the tool you use for design, or you can use an external storage system.

There are services available to store your social media content, like Planoly. However, I prefer Trello because I can keep more than captions & posts for social media.

We use Trello to store all of the content we have created. We use this service for our content creations, from social media posts & captions to email response templates to 8-week programs. Having one place where your creations live makes it easier for you to compile, brainstorm, and reuse the magic you have created.

5. Time Manager
Squirrel. It’s hard to stay focused and on track when life is moving all around you. You need a system to help you schedule and manage your time. Schedule a meeting with yourself to accomplish your work; for example, schedule a Monday 10 am meeting each week titled “Social Media” to create your week of posts.

Not only can a calendar help you, but simple timers can change how you work for the better. Have you heard of the Pomodoro Technique? This technique uses a timer to break work into 25-minute intervals. When your timer goes off, turn the job off, walk around, drink some water and take 5-minutes to yourself. Then, start back!

What are some of your favorite tools you use for your business? Share with them below.