With the rise of new technologies, it’s becoming easier every day to integrate your small business with the latest updates and releases, and phone applications are no exception. We are constantly looking for ways to make our lives and businesses more efficient. While optimizing your business may seem like a daunting task, it’s easy (and inexpensive) to take small steps to make your processes more efficient. Here are 10 apps that will help you improve your performance and set up your small business for success.
10 Apps for Small Business Success
Grammarly Keyboard
Effective marketing requires high-quality content—blog posts, emails, website copy, and more. While we all know spell check is available across most devices, Grammarly goes above and beyond to provide a silent editor to correct even the most overlooked mistakes, available whenever you need it. Grammarly is available on iOS, Android, and Desktop—use it for effective content marketing.
Scanner App
If you are a small business or bootstrapped company, the Scanner App is ideal for sending forms and documents easily without losing professionalism. Rather than a photograph or screenshot, Scanner App allows you to take a photo of a document, automatically detect borders and shadows and adjust accordingly, and convert into a JPEG or PDF. You can even select multiple pages and add a signature. Scanner App is available on iOS and Android.
Evernote
Evernote is perfect for business owners who struggle to stay organized when you have a million and one tasks to complete. Evernote is the all-in-one planner—you can easily and quickly take notes, either typed or written, create to-do lists, presentations, memos, add images, scan documents, draw sketches, and more! Evernote syncs across all devices, can be shared with multiple people, and can even integrate with Apple watch to help best optimize your business operations. Evernote is available on iOS, Android, and Desktop.
Taskade
Taskade is a relatively new application with big promises. Similar to Evernote, Taskade offers organizational features to facilitate small business success, but with an emphasis on collaboration and personalization. With hashtag capabilities, the ability to live brainstorm with your team, and create unique checklists, Taskade provides a custom user experience to integrate your teams. Taskade is available on iOS and Android.
Invoice by Wave
If you need assistance with your accounting and invoicing services, Wave is perfect for all your financial needs. Equipped with the ability to send free, unlimited, customized invoices to freelancers, contractors, and other small businesses, Wave makes it easy to get paid quickly and easily track all your expenses in one place. Wave helps you optimize your small business easily and risk-free by generating reports and collaborating with other members of your team. Invoice by Wave is available on iOS and Android.
LinkedIn is a great marketing tool, and the app provides some unique, on-the-go features that can prove beneficial to any business. The LinkedIn app allows you to job hunt or recruit while on the move, search for people quickly that you may need to connect with, and follow other competitors or companies of interest. The LinkedIn app is useful for everyone to have and provides the ability to connect with other business owners or individuals. LinkedIn is available on iOS, Android, and Desktop.
TripIt
Traveling for business can be stressful, especially if you are the organizer. TripIt makes it easy to build a master itinerary for you that’s available online and offline, on any device, completely free. TripIt even syncs with your calendar to allow for full integration with your phone and helps to best optimize your business. TripIt is completely secure and owned by Concur, another expensing software. It is available on iOS, Android, and Desktop.
Expensify
Expensify is also an excellent app for frequent business travelers and helps to make expense reports a breeze! Expensify is able to automate every step of the expense reporting process, from receipt scanning to reimbursement, and includes full integration with Oracle, Quickbooks, and more services. Expensify is available on iOS, Android, and Desktop.
Google Drive
Having a cloud-based productivity suite is a must for any small business. While we all know G Suite boasts a whole host of features, it includes many that will help to optimize your small business, such as the Google Drive app. Some of the most notable include the ability to easily send photos and documents with a shareable link, syncing capabilities across all accounts and devices, and the option to turn receipts, photos, and more into PDFs. You are even able to comment on files across multiple accounts to provide feedback or commentary. Google Drive is available on iOS, Android, and Desktop.
Forest
Finally, to end the list on a fun and different note, there’s Forest. As a business owner, you work hard and are dedicated to the day-to-day tasks of your business. However, it can be easy to get burnt out and sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is give yourself a breather. Enter: Forest.
Forest is an app that trains you to put your phone down, and keep it down, while also having a real-world impact. Within the Forest app, you plant a small cartoon seed, and it will slowly grow into a tree over the course of time — but if you close the app, the tree dies, urging you to resist the temptation of using your phone when you have work to complete. The incredible thing about Forest is that for every tree you plant in the app, a tree is also planted in real life! Forest is available on iOS and Android.
While optimizing your business may seem like an overwhelming and expensive task, with small adjustments and these 10 apps, you can make your business the most efficient and savvy it’s ever been!
Looking to optimize your small business marketing specifically? Use one of our marketing plan templates from our free eBook below:
