While building a successful business takes hard work and dedication, it also requires the right tools. The Resource for Entrepreneurs is a subscription-based online community that offers small business owners access to a library of financial spreadsheets, tips and educational information to help you be more successful in running your business.
””Resourcefulness” is the resourcefulness that you have, inside of you. This means that there are skills that you have that are useful for starting your own business. Some of these skills can be learned, while others might just be characteristics that you possess. #5. Being Resourceful”
Designhill
Designhill is a leading platform for small and medium businesses that need a variety of graphic design solutions. This site has many hundreds of skilled graphic designers from across the globe.
You can create your own logo, brochure, website and dozens of other design works through this site by launching your design contest and get many design ideas at one low price. You can also hire a professional graphic designer for your graphic design needs.
Virtual Staff Finder
Virtual Staff Finder is your virtual assistant when you are looking for the best employees and need to hire them through interviews. This tool helps you in creating a job description.
PicMonkey
PicMonkey is an online image editing tool that you can use easily. It is best when you want to make business card design or flyer design or shareable graphics for social media and your blog posts. A premium version of the tool is also available on annual subscription. Free online image editing tool.
Buffer
Buffer is another great platform to schedule your social media posts for publishing on your accounts. The tool allows you to customize your content as per the different needs of each social channel. You can also assess how your content is performing on the social platforms.
Gumroad
Gumroad is your shopping cart software that you can use to create your own digital products. This checkout software allows you to deliver digital goods automatically.
Canva
Canva is another great help for businesses that need design solutions. They can share your graphic design ideas on social media. The tool gives you many templates, fonts, styles, and background images to create designs.
Designhill Email Signature
Designhill Email Signature generator is a key software for generating your company employees’ and officials’ email signatures in a quick and hassle-free way. Such a signature at the end of your email to the clients makes a great impression on them and assures them that the email is authentic.
Leadpages
Leadpages is one of the highly useful tools when it comes to creating landing pages and landing social media page designs with ease. The site offers 70+ templates that you can customize to create the landing pages.
Shopify
Shopify lets you build your company’s online store. This e-commerce service provider also allows you to integrate the store with your website and helps in your management of inventory, order, and payment processing.
Rapportive
Rapportive is a Gmail plugin that shows your social connections and contact details in your inbox. You can see the pictures and locations of the people whom you are emailing. The site also tells about their social media links and your past conversations with them.
Online Geniuses
“Online Geniuses is a large Slack community of entrepreneurs and marketing leaders who talk shop across multiple areas of running a business. The community provides added benefits too, such as Q&A sessions with top industry leaders, link exchange or guest posting opportunities and business partnerships in multiple verticals.” ~ Mario Peshev, DevriX
Lean Luxe
“Lean Luxe, which hosts both a newsletter and a Slack channel, is an incredible resource for any entrepreneur considering building a consumer-facing business. It’s on my very short list of things I pay attention to with religious fervor.” ~ Colin Darretta, Innovation Department
Akimbo
“I would recommend Akimbo. It’s run by Seth Godin and they have a great website and series of seminars and groups. There’s lots of activity online around them.” ~ Nicole Munoz, Nicole Munoz Consulting, Inc.
ProBlogger Community Facebook Group
“There are several Facebook groups that are great for entrepreneurs. I particularly enjoy the ProBlogger Community Facebook group that’s built to offer resources and advice to new business owners. Members of the community can give each other advice and share their personal experiences so others can learn from them.” ~ Jared Atchison, WPForms
SaaS Growth Hacks Facebook Group
“For software-as-a-service (SaaS) entrepreneurs, I highly recommend the SaaS Growth Hacks Facebook group. With over 23,000 members worldwide, the discussions that are fostered on the page are rich in insight and advice. Plus, if you need any help with a certain aspect of your SaaS business, people are ready and willing to answer any questions or point you in the right direction. It’s a super friendly community!” ~ Ismael Wrixen, FE International
Digital Marketing
“There’s a group called Digital Marketing on LinkedIn. They have over a million followers and contributors, so there’s a constant stream of helpful information available for marketing, design, testing and so much more. If you’re even remotely interested in marketing, I suggest you give this group a shot.” ~ John Turner, SeedProd LLC
Unbounce
Unbounce is also one of the business tools for building landing pages when you want to reduce the turnaround time and looking for converting the traffic effectively. The site claims to have tracked over 250 million conversions so far.
MailChimp
MailChimp also is another great tool to build your email list, and it also allows for marketing automation. Due to its powerful features, hundreds of reputed companies are using this platform.
Flinto
This tool is especially useful to create rough sketches or high-fidelity mockups. All you need to do is to drop screens and start working. For example, if you are a t-shirt designer and want to know how you envisage the design, then this tool will function as your t-shirt design tool. For businesses, this is a good tool to create visuals for marketing purpose.
Meetup
Meetup is the site that you can use to find networking events as well as gatherings in your niche. If you are looking for advice on how to start an online business, you can use this tool to connect with and meet people in the related niche.
Business website
During the pandemic, websites are among one of the most important tools for startups. A website provides your business with much-needed visibility, allowing customers to find you online and learn more about your business. A small business website also provides a way to communicate with your customers. If a customer can’t reach you through your social media platforms, visiting the website allows them to connect through a phone call, email, or contact form.
There are a few options available for building a small business website. Some entrepreneurs do it themselves with the help of a website-building software service. Many of these services have various website templates to choose from, depending on the type of business; they also have stock photography options and offer customer support in the event you get stuck. If you don’t feel comfortable doing it yourself, consult a professional website developer for assistance.
Flexible business plan
One of the biggest tools entrepreneurs need to succeed at any stage in business is a business plan. In the time of Covid-19, this can be a tricky document to put together. Business plans often evaluate a business from three to five years out into the future and require additional details, such as sales forecasts and projected profits and losses, that may not be fully fleshed out within a startup.
How do you create a business plan in an uncertain time? Consider drafting a business plan that acts as a hybrid between a traditional business plan and a lean startup plan. This type of business plan will give you enough room to evaluate the following areas of your startup:
- Business description and value. You should be able to articulate what your business does, its industry, and how it earns money. Then, share the value that this business can bring within its market. What kinds of problems can these offerings and services solve for customers?
- Strategy. This section should offer further insight into the business and its offerings. How do these offerings and services work? If you are still in development stages, when will the business be ready to launch? Strategic goals that the business plans to reach should be outlined along with projected timelines. If the business has partnerships or additional resources it is using to reach these goals, outline these details as well.
- Customers. This section takes a deeper dive into the target market of the business. Who is your customer base? What do these customer demographics look like? How will your business be able to capture, engage with, and retain this market? How does the business plan to reach emerging demographics over time?
- Company overview. Use this section to detail the leadership in the company. Include the biographies of each member and their responsibilities in the startup. You may also share additional information about the business including its location and entity formation.
- Financial plans. One of the most critical parts of a business plan is its financial projections. Business plans are generally written to attract investors that are interested in investing capital into the company. Use this section to share existing cash flow projections in the startup as well as the expenses budget, sales forecast, and break-even analysis.
Conclusion
Our mission is to provide entrepreneurs with the tools they need to run a successful business. We’re dedicated to helping small business owners grow their businesses, by providing them with useful financial spreadsheets, tips and educational information. The Resource for Entrepreneurs is an online platform that offers members access to helpful spreadsheets, financial tips and training materials needed to be successful in running their businesses.