Tips and Tools to Streamline Your Home Business

The latest tools and software to automate and make more your business more efficient

As home business owners, there’s always a need to make our businesses more efficient. The less time we have to spend on administrative duties, the more time we can spend on our clients and marketing efforts.

Depending on the type of business you run, there are a variety of products and services to help you streamline and become more efficient. It would be beneficial to talk to others in your industry to learn what products and services have been most advantageous for them.

One of the services that has been very helpful to me has been 1AutomationWiz.com. It is a shopping cart with several modules that I take advantage of including an affiliate program, auto-responders for each product, client and prospect database, email broadcasts, sales reports and many other features that help me automate and work more efficiently.

I also recently discovered Google Docs which allows you to upload documents and share with others that you invite. This is particularly helpful when others need to add comments and edits to the document. It is instantly accessible to everyone you invite and can be accessed from any computer connected to the internet. You also have the option to discuss the document live with the other participants.

Dahlia Benaroya, President of Dahlia Web Designs LLC shares some of the tools that enable her to work more effectively as well as support her customers.

“For business and personal tracking, I use Excel which enables me to streamline tracking under one umbrella tool. The power of Excel supports flexibility, multiple worksheets within one workbook, customization of columns and rows, formulas to speed up data entry and smart fill-in to reduce typing. Having Excel on most computers these days helps me access my data anywhere I go as long as I have a copy of my data with me. And a wonderful tool that allows me to easily take my data with me is a Sandisk flash card.

For quick access to client’s systems, a remote software tool is critical. There are many available applications that allow support personnel to remotely access and support their clients for tasks such as troubleshooting, implementations, training support and more. I currently use PC Anywhere.

I also utilize Constant Contact for more than just e-newsletters. The product and others like it, offer a wonderfully efficient way to maintain customer email lists and customer information automatically. Customers can type in their information on their own”, Benaroya shares.

Virtual assistants work with a wide variety of clients and industries so we asked one virtual assistant what tools and tips work well in her business. Andrea Bloch, owner of e-Volve Virtual Solutions offered this, “We prefer Simply Accounting for bookkeeping because it is easy to use and true to the accounting process. We also create a lot of printed materials. We find that sending proofs back and forth via e-mail to clients is a snap with Adobe Acrobat. This way, clients who do not necessarily use vector based drawing programs are able to view the artwork without compatibility and file size issues. It is also a handy tool if you do not want live files to be edited easily. And as virtual assistants we rely heavily on our Blackberrys. We are virtually there for our clients and able to receive, view and forward time sensitive requests at any time,” Bloch adds.

No matter your industry or business, there are likely new tools available to help you streamline and automate your business. Take some time today to talk to others and do some quick research for yourself.