Expanded Core Systems

In Part 1, we discussed the core tools most businesses and organizations need to get off the ground, or begin to streamline existing operations. Now, in Part 2, we can shift our focus to more specific tools for various types of industries or services offerings. Through Part 1 and Part 2, we are laying the framework needed for better data collection, future automation, and more insightful real-time reporting – which I will cover in Part 3.

Productivity

A common need for businesses and organizations across industries is the ability to quickly, easily, and accurately track time and securely share resources.

For time tracking needs, the clear winner is Harvest. Their platform integrates incredibly well yet stays out of the way of what’s most important: Getting real work done. It includes browser extensions, a desktop-based widget, and a great app. Harvest also has some great invoicing and expense tracking tools, which allows you to completely manage projects – in terms of time, cost, burn rate, and reporting – all in one place. This suite of tools all rolled into one is a gamechanger for anyone in project-based environments like design studios, architecture firms, copywriters, and even small legal firms. Harvest’s companion app, Forecast, does an amazing job handling team resourcing and the classic problem of time spent vs time budgeted, over time.

The outlier in this category is password management. 1Password gets you away from that incredibly insecure note you have on your phone or that spreadsheet you share with your team. It helps you to create more secure passwords to then auto-fill from any device or browser – all while only sharing the passwords your team actually needs through “shared vaults”.

Communications & Sales

What you sell and how you sell it will help you determine which digital tools you need to be effective selling.

Square vs Shopify comes down to the type of products you provide.

Square has traditionally been more focused on businesses with customer-facing operations. Think: almost every cafe, hair salon, or barber shop you’ve been to recently. Square has also been making inroads with lite retail through the evolution of their inventory management system and its corresponding online features.
Shopify has traditionally been more focused on online stores and companies with more complex inventory management needs. Their shipping and receiving functionality is great, and their integration with Squarespace is great for small businesses.

I’ll say this about CRMs: There’s no such thing as a great one. Your best bet is HubSpot or Copper. Creating pipelines and staying on top of opportunities is straightforward once they’re set up. They both have good browser extensions and decent apps, too.

Copper is perfect for solopreneurs and small teams where sales is not necessarily the focus of your jobs. It’s very customizable and flexible, making it perfect to grow with and integrate with other tools – through Zapier – like MailChimp and Asana. It is the David to Hubspot’s Goliath in this category, and excels at openness where it may lack features or a slick design, currently. If you plan on using any automation features you’ll need to shell out $50/mo/user.
HubSpot is great for small teams focused on sales and/or marketing who need a more integrated solution largely out of the box. It is feature-dense, so it can wind up being overkill for a lot of people. Their free tier will get your attention if you’re budget-conscious, but don’t be fooled: Pricing can jump to $40 › $90 › $115/mo/user very quickly. That being said, you do get a lot more features and tools from HubSpot – some more useful than others. It also includes a basic chat feature for your website – which is a great way to improve customer engagement and increase sales long-term.

Bonus: If you need the very basic functionality of a CRM and don’t want another tool for the moment, consider using Asana to create a “new biz” project with sections for each stage of your pipeline.

FinancE

Layering Expensify into the mix completely removes some of the biggest wastes of your team’s time: expense tracking and reporting. If you or your team travels often, purchases goods for projects or customers, and/or needs clearer rules around expenses, then skip the spreadsheets and other bandaids. Expensify can handle purchases made with company cards and/or personal cards. You can forward receipts from email to automatically draft your expense report. And, Expensify integrates great with your accounting tools to ensure that reporting remains accurate and timely.

Systems Map

Not every tool in this version of our systems map will be useful to everyone or every team. However, from this vantage point, we can see how we’ve further clarified our customer journey, where data moves to and from, and our core operations.

What’s Next

Now that we’ve laid out the best and most common tools for a vast majority of ventures, we can switch gears and focus on growth. Check out Picking the Right Tools Pt. 3: Automation and Scale

If you want help or advice on implementing the right digital tools for your business, I’d love to talk. Click the button below to schedule a free consultation.

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