No matter what size business you have, collaboration is always an important challenge to solve. Teams operate better and get more done when they work together — and in our modern age, there are plenty of tools to make that happen.
From assigning deadlines and monitoring project progress to communicating from across the country, employees can be more effective than ever, even if they’re located in different regions.
In this post, we’ll share our top choices for small business collaboration tools, bucketed into three groups: workflow, communication, and data insights. Improve your team collaboration today with these picks.
Productivity and workflow
Before you can get any work done, you have to make sure everyone is on the same page. Productivity-focused collaboration tools allow different stakeholders from across your business to work together on projects, promoting visibility into each component.
With tools like Trello, Basecamp, and Asana, you can assign deliverables and due dates, tag contributors, and share your progress. It’s an effective way for managers to observe how their employees are working, and it’s also important for team members to keep themselves on track and juggle multiple deadlines.
Plus, these types of collaborative workflow platforms help teams feel more aligned. When individuals can see how their work contributes to bigger company goals, it becomes a source of encouragement and can even increase employee satisfaction.
Communication
When you’re working, there will be times when you need to speak with other team members to ask questions or get feedback. This isn’t always possible to do in person, especially if you have a remote team.
Fortunately, there are dozens of free or cheap communication tools that you can use to stay in touch. If you just need to ping someone a quick question, Slack or Skype are both great options for internal communication.
If you need something more robust, perhaps for video conferencing or screen sharing, Zoom or BlueJeans offer strong solutions in that space. These are also useful and polished tools that can be used in client-facing communications.
Data insights and analysis
Growth is one of the key focus areas for any small business. In order to accelerate your growth, you have to understand whether your current efforts are resonating with your customers and prospects.
For example, how are they finding your website? Is it through search or social media? And which pages are they exploring when they arrive? Analyzing these behaviors is critical because it will allow you to double down on what’s working and scale back on what’s not.
Data tools like Google Analytics allow you to trace a customer’s path to your website, while customer relationship management (CRM) platforms like HubSpot will capture their information. You can then leverage these key insights to serve them content or advertisement geared toward their interests.
Of course, budget is a major consideration when you’re running a small business. Each of the tools listed here is either free or affordable priced for growing companies. Check them out and see your team’s productivity, communication, and insights take off!
