Organization is key in business. Luckily for us, there are apps that can help tremendously, whether you’re in your home office or on the go! These experts share with us their most valuable and vital apps that they use to stay on top of their game. These apps keep their businesses running and organized, so check their suggestions out and see what you can find!
Ian Naylor
Website: AppInstitute
Twitter: @iannaylor
- Receipt Bank- The tagline for this app is ‘effortless bookkeeping’ and I couldn’t put it better myself. Receipt bank has revolutionised the way I work through expenses by streamlining the process to just taking a picture. Where I’d be storing stacks of receipts in my wallet to the point of bursting before, I can now just take a quick snap of them and let the app take care of the rest. Awesome. Not only does this make things easier for me, but for our accounts team.
- Intercom -This makes interacting with customers almost too easy. Intercom currently runs our customer relationship management, support and even fuels our segmented email marketing. The nifty thing is, they have a mobile app that means I can even use it whilst I’m out and about or working from home. Out of the 3 apps I’ve mentioned, this might be the most essential.
- Slack -We can’t forget Slack, which really is a perfect example of a simple idea executed to perfection. Essentially, Slack is a chat platform – but since we adopted it in our business it has become an absolute essential. Almost all communication with our business goes through Slack, with individual channels for each team that allows everyone to stay on the same page. Slack is perfect for everything from providing feedback on the platform to organizing a work night out.
Christine Slusser
Website: Kansas City Photography
- Facebook Pages Manager -We do most of our business through our Kansas City Photography Facebook page . Having the Facebook Pages app to handle it is crucial. This way, we can respond to messages and inquiries immediately from our phones and don’t have to wait to log back onto a Desktop. You can also create custom responses in the app and on the Desktop site, to make it really easy to respond to people.
- WordPress – We keep a very active blog.. Having the app makes it easy to approve comments, and if we’re in a pinch, even write the blog post from our phones! It works just like the site — and you can even track your stats in the app as well.
- Square – In this day and age, you have to take credit cards. I shopped around, and before I used the Paypal Credit Card reader, but Square ends up being cheaper. I hate having more money taken out of my final deposit amount, but at least Square makes it a bit more manageable since they don’t take a ridiculous amount. I also has an instant deposit feature, which is really nice!
Barbara Mcgarity
Website: Paylesspower.com
Twitter: @authorityenergy
- Harvest – This app is essential for keeping me on track and making sure that I manage my time properly. I have all my tasks set up in the app and the amount of hours I expect to take for them. This gives me the accountability I need to make sure that everything i need to get done gets done without me getting distracted.
- Hootsuite – Hoostsuite is an amazing time saver. Being able to manage all of my social profiles in one place and even schedule all of my posts allows me to take one block of time for all of my social media work. Without it, i would probably spend triple the amount of time on social media.
- Evernote – Evernote is amazing when it comes to keeping ideas together. I’m constantly thinking of new ideas and tactics and being able to open my Evernote while waiting in line or at the doctor and having it back on my desktop is the best way to ensure that i don’t lose my thought.
Thomas Wooldridge
Website: Relamark.com
Twitter: @twool9
- Freshbooks.com The important part of the business is getting paid for your products and services. This was one of the most difficult parts for me to ask to get paid. Freshbooks allows you automate the process and be like your virtual assistant. It’s a great tool to keep track of your accounting
- Trello.com – This is what I use to manage my day to day projects. It helps me keep track of the project and communicate with other team members. This way I don’t have to rely on just emails to keep track of projects
- Mixmax.com– Is a wonderful app that integrates with my GMAIL. It helps me sequence email sales proposals and helps get stay organized. I can even see when people open up their emails to confirm they have read it.
Peter Dorfman
Website: Peter Dorfman Creative Services
Website URL: http://dorfmanwords.com
- Number -My smartphone is my only phone. These days spam phone calls and text messages are a constant plague. Interruptions from these things would make it impossible to get work done if it were not for call-screening and blocking apps like Mr. Number. The vendor maintains a huge database of numbers reported as spam sources. When you get a call from an unfamiliar number, it can often warn you that it’s suspected spam. If it is spam, you can block the number from calling you again. Over time, you can put up a decent barrier and protect your productivity. It’s not perfect, but it’s free and it has made an enormous difference for me.
- Smart Voice Recorder– I’m a journalist and a writer of marketing content for corporate clients. I work from interviews, which I record and then transcribe or refer to. Smart Voice Recorder and my phone are the best recording solution I’ve ever used, for live interviews or phone conversations. It manages to concentrate on the conversation even when the background is noisy. Also free.
- Google Keep – I adopted Keep when Evernote announced it was going to start charging what I felt were exorbitant fees. Keep is a note-taking app. I organize clients, prospects, current projects, finished projects and all sorts of other details in it. It’s not designed to be a project management app, but that’s how I use it. I love that it’s a cloud app and my stuff is available on all my devices, and shareable with other people. Also free.
Ray Higdon
Website: Higdon Group
- Timetrade – We run a coaching and training business and have clients in all different locations and time zones and timetrade allows them to schedule time to book their coaching calls with me
- Teamwork – Teamwork is a project management app that allows you to assign tasks to employees or contractors and also allows you to setup templates for common projects such as running events or launching products.
- Facebook Mentions – Facebook mentions is an app reserved for verified accounts on Facebook where we run our Facebook lives to our 230,000+ audience. We do Facebook lives almost daily to train and stay in front of our clients and audience.
Brian Meiggs
Website: Millennial Money Guide
- ShapR: With the Shapr app, I can create a profile for myself and include my interests such as entrepreneurship, networking, and startups and get connected with like-minded people with those same interests. It’s one of the best and and convenient ways for me to get connected with individuals in my area. It’s also completely free and helps me expand my network with my business. I’ve meet a few dozen entrepreneurs in my area so far.
- Crowdfire: In order to build social media engagement, I needed a tool for it to grow. I use Crowdfire which implements a social media strategy and marketing plans for my social media accounts. My Twitter account now has over 3,000 followers.
- Fiverr: Fiverr is one of the largest freelance marketplace online and when I need a specific service I can count on finding a freelancer that is willing to do it, for about $5. I’ve used it to create logos, infographics, and revamp my website.
Audrey Christie, RN, RM, CCMA
Website: WholebeingRN
- Boomerang – This is a gmail application and it is a lifesaver. Working from home I have to prioritize my time and often email response occurs outside of normal business hours. I use Boomerang for 2 purposes, 1- to schedule email replies so they land in the inboxes at the most optimal times 2- to send emails of importance BACK to me because they are guaranteed to get buried in my inbox and missed if I can’t respond to them immediately.
- Todoist – This is a phenomenal to-do list organizer and project management system with a desktop site, gmail plug-in and app for mobile devices. I keep everything from my grocery lists to specific project information in this handy little app. I can include others and assign team members too.
- Spark Post – This is a mobile app that I use to design 90% of my graphics. It is simple and I can do it from anywhere on my iPhone. I can use Photoshop or Illustrator but this makes it so simple.. And the pre-built templates make it easy to change an image to fit the platform you are using it on.
Note from Leslie:
While I know most these apps, there were a few listed I hadn’t heard of before that I’m definitely going to check out!
As far as my favorite apps…
CoSchedule: This WordPress plugin is a little spendy, but I love that I can schedule social media to all the major platforms, including Pinterest within my WordPress dashboard. It also has a browser add-on that allows me to share stuff through it. Plus it has an auto-schedule, so shares are automatically generated and passed along if I haven’t scheduled anything for the day. It also includes analytics so I can see what posts are doing well (or not well) on each platform.
HootSuite: I like Hootsuite because I can engage on most of my social media platforms from one spot. It also has a scheduling tool and analytics. It recently stopped working with LinkedIn and you need a third-party app to integrate Pinterest, but it’s great for having one place to go to check on comments, likes and other other social media interaction.
Google Products: I use Google Calendar and Gmail regularly. I also like analytics to track what’s going on on my websites. I use Chrome as my browser and have several extensions that make it easy for me to stay safe, share social media, check analytics and more. I work with many organizations that use Google Docs and Google Drive. I use Maps and love the feature of texting directions to my phone.
