Top 5 Productivity Tools Every Small Business Owner Needs in 2022
As a business owner, your days are probably jam-packed with everything from client meetings to keeping up with emails and administrative tasks. It’s easy to become overwhelmed and stressed. Fortunately, advances in software and apps mean that today, there are plenty of digital tools available to help you streamline your business and make your work less stressful. Here are 5 productivity tools that every small business owner needs in 2022 to help save time and streamline their business.
#1
Notion
If you know me or have worked with me, you know I can’t praise Notion enough. I use it for both professional (projects and team management, client communication) and personal (to-do lists, books, recipes) matters.
The gist
Notion is a robust virtual workspace for companies that wish to connect employees, streamline processes, and manage teams. Notion is our project management software of choice for both internal and external projects. Notion offers a lot of flexibility and customization. The free edition is highly feature-rich, but if you need to upgrade to provide extra team members or client editing access, the cost is very minimal.
👉 Pro tip
To construct your ideal system, you must first grasp the basics. Start with a template and tailor the pages to your own requirements.
#2
Later
A social media plan is critical for small businesses to increase brand awareness, reach their target audience, and drive sales. If you are lost as to where to start, download our Social Media Strategy Workbook. It will help you get a clear strategy and direction to ultimately grow a targeted following. 📈
Once that’s done, you’ll need to move on to creating and planning content. And that is when Later.com comes in!
The gist
Later is a tool that we utilize to help us plan content for various social media networks. We have tried several tools, and this is BY FAR our favorite! Thanks to its drag and drop planning and visual user interface, we love how easy and intuitive it is to use. You can plan content based on photos and preview your feed before your posts go live. It’s packed with several user-friendly features and insights to help you boost your reach and engagement.
👉 Pro tip
Try planning your content in advance for 2 weeks to 1 month, so you can ensure your business’ presence is consistent on social media, save time by batching content creation and focus on engaging with your community daily, instead of thinking about what to post.
💸 Use this link when registering to get 10 extra posts.
#3
Flodesk
E-mail marketing is not dead! It is still one of the most ROI positive marketing means out there (yup, in 2022). We are definitely Team E-mail Marketing but make it pretty! Enters Flodesk, the e-mail builder that will change your mind about newsletters being boring and not on brand.
The gist
With an easy-to-use platform, Flodesk reimagined what email marketing should look like. Users can have an infinite number of subscribers and use all the features for a reasonable price. If you have a large audience, this is a terrific value because the price is fixed (vs. based on the number of subscribers, as is frequently the case with email providers). Here are a few reasons why Flodesk has grown so successful in such a short period of time and why we rave about it. First and foremost, it offers the most visually appealing email builder we’ve ever seen. Second, it makes email marketing a lot easier. The user experience is excellent: easy to use (just 3 tabs) and very intuitive. We love it, our clients love it, you’ll probably love it too!
💸 Use our referral code to enjoy a 50% discount on Flodesk.
#4
Canva
Although all designers will agree that the Adobe Suite is the best design tool out there (we use Illustrator to design logos, InDesign, and Photoshop), it is not beginner-friendly. This means that clients need our help to make any change to a design. For some designs (such as logos and main brand graphics) that is totally fine, but most business owners want the ability to make quick changes to their designs such as social media graphics. That is when Canva comes in handy!
The gist
Canva is a user-friendly program that allows you to create personalized graphics. We upgraded to the pro version (it’s well worth it, especially if you want to add your brand’s fonts, which is a must to stay on brand). We enjoy how easy this product is to use for small business owners with no design expertise. You don’t need to be a graphic design professional to create stunning graphics using Canva. We’ve used it for anything from basic tasks like curating beautiful images for social media, templates, company presentations, to more complex designs for our new marketing materials. It also allows us to create editable designs that can be edited by our clients.
#5
We use Pinterest, aka. mood boarding heaven, to gather inspiration for branding, packaging design, website projects, or photoshoot prep. It is very easy to collaborate with clients on a specific board, which enables us to get an idea of their taste, style and to ultimately get aligned on the vision, before starting to design.
The gist
Pinterest is a visual search engine for finding inspiration. It is mostly used for recipes, home decor ideas, and we of course use it for branding and marketing. The sheer number of pins on Pinterest ensures that you’ll never run out of inspiration. Pinterest serves as a regular source of project inspiration for us and our clients. As a social media platform, it is also a great way to boost the number of backlinks pointing to your website, which in turn increases traffic. Using Pinterest to attract new clients is a terrific way to grow your brand’s audience. We find that it is also a great way to collaborate and mood board with clients.
👉Pro tip
If you like a photo, scroll down to view more similar ideas.
🎁 Look at these Pinterest boards we curated for inspiration:
We hope that our top five business productivity tools might help you simplify some of your processes and gain some time back. Are you already using some of these tools? Do you think we missed some that you couldn’t live without? Let us know on Instagram, we’d love to hear!
At AHBC Group, we are passionate about helping entrepreneurs launch and grow a brand that is authentic to them, their purpose, and their audience. We enjoy working with entrepreneurs who have a strong purpose, a clear vision and who are animated by ethical, eco-conscious, and inclusive values, who like to challenge the status quo, and are not afraid to build a truly unique brand. If that sounds like you and you would like to discuss your project with us, apply here!
