Today we’re suggesting a selection of online tools that can help founders and CEOs run a more efficient, productive and profitable business.
Whether you’re a one-man-band or a business that employs hundreds of people, outbound marketing and sales probably makes up a part of your day.
To help keep track of marketing 
and sales
When it comes to improving your company’s marketing and sales process, look no further than Yesware. It integrates seamlessly with Gmail and Salesforce, helping you better understand who you’re marketing to, allowing you to measure the effectiveness of your sales process. As their motto states, “Know what happens after you click send”.
It also provides deep analytics that will help you learn the most effective subject lines to use and the best time to send emails, as well as offering call and diary management functionality.
Top tip – Make email marketing more efficient… and fun.
At best, Yesware gives you visibility on the success of your email sales process. At worst, it makes email marketing a lot more fun!
Gamification can be a key part of getting results from your sales team. Yesware - and the analytics it provides - turns marketing and sales into a game. And, when effectively coupled with incentivisation, playing games often leads to better results.
As well as making potentially dull everyday tasks more fun, technology can ensure that your team is working together and communicating effectively at all times.
Team communication for the 21st century
As your business and your team grows, divisions in your business are inevitable. But division shouldn’t mean less communication.
At base, Slack is first-class instant messaging for business. On average, teams who use Slack see an average 49% reduction in internal email. It’s easy-to-use interface and entry-level packages offer all businesses a portal through which they can communicate. Using ‘Channels’, individuals can focus on specific topics and projects, or teams can collaborate on joint ideas.
But it’s so much more than just messaging, allowing you to display all of your feeds, drives and networks in one easy-to-access place as well as being the portal from which you can locate and easily share items, documents and files.
Top tip – Slack can replace email…. but don’t force staff to use both.
In a world where we’re constantly bombarded by information, some argue Slack is another layer of noise. Tell staff Slack doesn’t have to be 24/7/365. Some matters are urgent, but, for the most part, Slack should be used in business hours only. Your team will appreciate it.
Reducing the amount of email is one way of making your business more efficient. As a leader, it’s important that you are efficient and organised on a personal level, too. There are many tools for streamlining and maintaining your online sanity, but only one’s worth recommending.
To free up time and keep you organised
As the Evernote slogan goes: “Get organized. Work smarter. Remember everything.”
This simple tool allows users to record thoughts throughout the day, organising them cleanly and simply into Notes and Notebooks so that you never forget an interesting article or moment of inspiration. Think of Evernote as a second brain.
For centuries, business leaders have used notebooks and diaries in a variety of shapes and forms. Evernote is the 21st Century version.
Top tip – Plug in the Clipper and use whilst you browse.
By installing the Evernote Web Clipper on your desktop browser, you can ‘clip’ web pages as you browse, saving them and keeping them all in one place on Evernote, allowing you to come back later and quickly search to find anything you’ve collected.
Even if you and your team are more efficient and organised, you still need to be inspired. What you learn as a leader will filter through to how you run your business. So make sure you’re constantly learning from the best.
To inspire and educate
Business owners and CEOs should always be looking for ways to learn and improve … and you need look no further than TED Talks, which instantly gives you access to 2,500 talks, including many on business and entrepreneurship.
Check out our top six TED Talks here on the Capitalise Blog for founders and CEOs.
Top tip – Schedule time for TED.
You can’t hope that the information you’re listening to or watching on TED will vicariously penetrate your busy brain. You need to sit and watch without distraction.
Like reading, set aside time in the day for TED. Further, if feeling really keen, use Evernote to note the highlights and learnings from the talks that you watch.
But, let’s be honest, without proper financial management, none of the above tools and tips really matter. Preparing your business’ financial runway is probably the most important aspect of leading a team.
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At Capitalise.com, we enable SMEs seeking funding to compare and choose a suitable lender. This means that if you’re business is looking to borrow between £25k and £2m at some point in the future, Capitalise.com will find you the best deal.
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