Are you struggling with all the details involved in running your startup business? Feeling overwhelmed by everything you need to manage to keep your business on top? Owning a small business means wearing many hats. This is especially true if you’re managing a family (or a life) on top of maintaining a business. Fortunately, there are tons of resources available to small business owners that make life and work a lot easier. Here are a few top-notch resources (many of them free) to consider while getting your business organized and keeping your sanity intact.
Small Business Association: Perhaps one of the most well-known and valuable assets in your arsenal of small business resources is the SBA. Since 1953, the SBA has served as an independent agent of the federal government and provides assistance to small businesses throughout the United States.
They offer tons of free resources, counseling and in some cases, they can even provide opportunities for financial aid to small businesses. The SBA also helps business owners understand business budgeting, offers free training, explains employee rights, and so much more.
Employee Resources: Speaking of employee rights, if you have one or many employees, there are resources to ensure your SMB is compliant in terms of the safety and wellbeing of your workers. Your local and federal departments of labor can provide a wealth of knowledge about what is expected of you as an employer.
These government agencies can help you understand equal opportunity hiring practices, wage agreements, and what (if any) benefits you are required to provide your employees. As an SMB owner, you are also responsible for employee safety on the job. That’s when having resources like OSHA certification training programs and workplace safety auditors are invaluable.
Accounting and Tax Preparation: The world of small business tax preparation can be scary and challenging. You can help manage stress and risk by investing in accounting software programs such as Quickbooks. Many of these programs offer an introductory rate or even a free trial so you can test the software to make sure it meets your business needs.
Accounting programs allow you to capture all of your business expenses and income so that when tax season comes, you can easily produce the proper documents to submit for your business tax return. Some of these programs also come with helpful charts so you can see how your advertising budget is performing, or compare sales analytics from one fiscal quarter to the next.
Social Media Resources: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter…Yikes! Social media can be a sea of madness. With so many social platforms to consider for showcasing your small business offerings, it’s easy to get confused, overwhelmed, or just downright burned out.
Think about getting a social media management system (SMMS) to calm the chaos. An SMMS integrates all your social media accounts into one web-based platform. It allows you to manage your content, schedule posts, and analyze your SM traffic under one roof. It can also enable you to post on several or all of your social media accounts simultaneously, so your promo can go out to all of your social outlets with just one click of a button.
Communications: Communication is key to every business’s success. There are resources available that help you communicate internally with your employees as well as your business partners. There are still more resources that enable you to quickly and effectively communicate with your customers.
While email is a great tool, customer communication management tools such as Zendesk can instantly connect you with your customers via IM, text, chat, social media, or phone calls. These management resources can also store your contacts and customer information so you’ll never miss sending them a discount code for their birthday or anniversary.
Internal business communication platforms such as ClickUp can be invaluable in getting employees on the same page in terms of project management, assignment deadlines, brainstorming, and idea-sharing. Many of these cloud-based communication programs have built-in calendars too, so they are great resources to keep your schedule organized and current.
Final Thoughts About the Best Resources for Your Small Business
As a business owner, your SMB success depends almost entirely on you. Your decisions, time, investments, and talent are woven throughout every inch of your business. Because you pour everything you’ve got into your SMB, you might be at risk of burning out and on the brink of exhaustion.
That’s why you should take advantage of these and other resources for your small business. These tools help manage your time, money, employees, customers and so much more. What’s most important is that these resources can help salvage your sanity as you strive for optimum SMB success.
Nickida
Nickida is a first-generation Trinidadian American wife and mother of four. She enjoys sharing recipes from her childhood growing up in Trinidad with her readers. Nickida has a son with Autism and shares posts around traveling with a child with special needs to help other families like her own. She loves television, movies and is a true 80's baby.
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