You know that one conversation topic you always hope will somehow come up? Mine is… tech and systems. There are very few things in this world that make me more excited than getting to chat about all things tech! 

Okay, maybe there are more than a few, but just know that this conversation is high up on that list! When I first started my entrepreneurial journey as a virtual assistant, I quickly fell in love with setting up systems and finding tools that made my job (and life!) easier. We’re all only human and have only so many hours in one day, so why not incorporate systems that make those hours more effective? 

In this post, I have rounded up my top 6 recommendations for the tools you can begin utilizing today to help you grow your online business. With these guys in place, you will be dancing in your room at 9:00 on a Wednesday morning knowing that your business is still running smoothly, even without you needing to micromanage it! So, if that’s the kind of morning you want to have, let’s not waste any more time!

Asana 

Staying on top of your projects, deadlines, and dates will be extremely important when you’re starting out, but especially so once you begin to expand your team. To make sure my entire team knows what’s going on at all times, I use the project management tool, Asana. 

With this tool, I am able to delegate tasks, see what projects we have coming up, and where my attention needs to be each day. I have also been able to layout my business’ standard operating procedures within Asana, which makes for pain-free collaboration. 

With their free version, you are able to see a calendar, list, and a board when organizing dates and tasks. I also love the calendar function, which helps me to know what needs to be completed from a monthly point of view, and I can plan my week and month accordingly.

Being able to easily collaborate with my team is one of the things that has taken my business from the Solo-Jasmin-Show to a fully operating social media management agency! 

Zapier 

While you’re dancing around in your room, holding discovery calls, or writing next week’s Instagram caption, Zapier is zapping away and allowing your business to run itself behind the scenes. 

Zapier is an automation tool that helps to integrate all the different systems in your business. So, when you want an action in Dubsado to trigger a notification for one of your team members in Asana, this program allows for that communication to take place. Zapier makes it possible to create and connect automations between the different platforms you use

Slack/Voxer

Slack and Voxer are both messaging communication tools. Whether you are communicating with clients and/or your team, having one place for all of your daily communications will make tracking conversations a thousand times easier. 

Not to mention, if you haven’t jumped on the Voice Note train yet, it is a time saver and a game changer! Your time is precious, so instead of trying to formulate an email that gets across the exact message you want to say, simply say what you need to into a voice note, and save yourself the stress of a miscommunication. 

Hishhash 

A social media manager’s dream come true! But no matter if you are a designer, coach, copywriter, or even just using Instagram as a blogger or influencer, you will want to be utilizing Hishhash. 

In this app, you can store the different categories of hashtags you like to use. When it comes time to post, you no longer need to scan spreadsheets and manually pick and choose a random variety of hashtags to use. Hishhash’s most popular (free!) feature is their mix and match function! The app will automatically pull random hashtags from the categories of your choice so that you always have a wide variety of hashtags being used in your posts.

Hashtags are still incredibly important for growing your Instagram, so utilizing them effectively needs to be a no-brainer for you!

Planoly

The days of randomly posting to Instagram are long gone around here! When growing your business, it is important to make sure that there is meaning and strategy behind each post. Every touchpoint with your ideal client counts! 

I use Planoly to visually plan and schedule my own Instagram posts, and those for my clients as well. It helps so much to be able to see what everything will look like, as well as what story we are telling with each post. Meaningful content is your golden ticket!

Dubsado 

Dubsado is huge in the online business world right now, and for a big reason! Dubsado makes client management so much more efficient than handling things manually. In Dubsado, you are able to house your client’s contact and project information, contracts, invoices, and more. 

I will admit that it can be a little intimidating to set up, but once you have it done, it is well worth the time spent. Dubsado not only gives you one place for all of your client’s information, invoices, contracts, and emails, but it also has so many other features that make managing the back-end of your business so seamless. 

With all the automations Dubsado allows you to integrate, it will be basically running your business for you. In order to give you time to get set up and get things smoothly running, their free trial allows you to work on up to 3 projects in their system instead of giving you a specific time limit. That way, you don’t have to rush to try it out within a two week period, and you can really get a feel for the platform before committing. Out of everything on this list, if you have to choose one thing to start with, I would tell you to begin with Dubsado.

I hope that this post has de-mystified the back end of an online business for you! Every business needs systems and tools that will help it to run efficiently, and your online business is no different. 

Whether you need to become more organized, get things automated, or simplify your communication processes, there is a tool to help you do it!

Today I covered a range of tools to help in each of these areas of your business, but tell me, which one calls out to you the most? Where can the back end of your business get a little smoother in 2021?