Gone are the days businesses had to invest huge sums to create bespoke software that would anyway become antiquated in a couple of years. Today small businesses and even the smallest of start-ups can leverage the same incredible technology as the world’s largest organisations, by simple pay monthly subscriptions and some intelligent thinking.

Here’s just four…

You don’t have to know your Golang from your Python (still with me?) to successfully implement business smart workflows that can link your entire business together. Software such as Zapier and Microsoft Flow let you create simple and hugely effective smart connections between the apps in your ecosystem (think anything from CRM, Newsletters, Invoicing, responding to enquiries), without needing to write a single line of code.

The problem (and the opportunity) within small businesses, is that the workflows and processes which worked great at the beginning, quickly become time consuming and full of mistakes. Manually creating invoices or managing data in excel is okay at the beginning, but when you’re handling 10 times the business, you and your team’s time needs to be elsewhere.

By creating a strategy through business workflows and mapping customer journeys, you can quickly see how many tasks can be easily automated. At the same time, you’ll also be creating invaluable data which you can use to further define and refine your workflows and journeys as your business grows. Sounds great, no? Especially when you can pick up a Zapier subscription for under £50 a month.

One of the quickest ways to make a massive impact in your sales is to design the way you manage your enquiries. By the time someone sends you an email or submits a contact form, you’ve already done the hard part of getting them interested in your brand – so don’t lose them here.

To start with, your simple auto-response of ‘Hey. Thanks. We have your email. We’ll get back to you within….’ You get the message, isn’t really going to cut it. This is the first opportunity for you to show your potential client who you really are.

Anyway, you also need to consider your company isn’t the only one they are interested in. By being smart about it, you can create ultra-personal auto responses simply based on the actions this person has taken on your website and the information they’ve given you in the enquiry form.

For example, a personalised travel company might want to show their personality right from the first interaction, using the information received via the enquiry (in blue):

Great, huh? Similar emails can be written for follow ups and at different stages of your customer journey. Most CRM systems such as Zoho or email marketing software such as Drip, will allow you to write in these processes as part of their monthly package.

The decade long discussion of homeworking, 4-day weeks and swapping the office for the beachside café, has suddenly been catapulted to the front of every small business owners mind. The Pandemic has changed the way we work. It’s no longer an option for a business to be agile – the ability to work remotely is now a necessity for both survival and growth, as well as being able to attract the best talent.

Luckily, there has been a plethora of great services and applications to help small businesses, far before the pandemic began. Office 365 and Google Workspace create a base for any business to quickly begin their digital transformation.

The ability to hold your entire business in the cloud, securely, with tools such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and in-browser apps such as Word and Excel, let you collaborate, chat and grow your business, without any negative impact and without being in the same room.

With monthly subscriptions under £10 that grow with your business, if you are yet to move your emails away from GoDaddy’s SMTP server, now’s the time.

I touched on it above, but the one of the biggest advantages of digital transformation is the data and information you start to collect as a business.

Instead of guessing conversion rates, or what demographic your market is, you can not only have this information at your finger-tips, in real-time, but use it to create and devise marketing strategies that are immensely targeted, as well as spot the areas in your customer journey where you’re losing out, and fix them.

And it doesn’t stop with just making more sales.

One of the biggest concerns small business owners had about remote working, is if they would still get the same productivity if their team were at home. Many would think that question has been answered over the last year, but if you’re still concerned, the information provided can quickly alert you to any drop in a particular business area.

As you’ve probably guessed, you don’t need to invest huge amounts in a bespoke software. Creating business dashboards can be done through the best-in-class CRM systems or analytics software available already.