Essential Apps & Tools for Small Business Owners & Entrepreneurs

Being an entrepreneur or small business owner can be challenging. You need to have a lot of different skills and knowledge to be successful in this industry. That said, you must also find the best tools that will help you manage your day-to-day tasks.

Here are some essential apps and tools to thrive as a small business owner and entrepreneur:

Time Tracking/Accounting – Freshbooks
CRM Software – Hubspot
Email Open Tracking – Mailtracker
Social Media Scheduling Software – Zoho Social
Google Analytics
Heat Map/Scroll Map – Hotjar
Appointment Scheduling Software – Book Like a Boss
Custom Domain Name Email – G Suite
Project, Task, & Team Management Software – Trello
Password Manager – Keeper
Screen Capture – Snagit
Track Goals on Your Wall
Productivity Planner

Keep reading as I share with you how you can use these essential apps and tools to help you be the most effective small business owner you can.

1. Time Tracking/Accounting – Freshbooks

Freshbooks is a great tool that can help with this type of task because it allows you to track time spent on projects as well as accounts receivable and payable.

The software is also ideal for invoicing clients, handling expenses, downloading reports to track your finances, or generating a P&L statement.

Freshbooks is also an app for your smartphone so that you can view and update projects on the go.

2. CRM Software – Hubspot

Hubspot is one of the most popular CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) software out there.

The program comes with a number of helpful features such as lead tracking, email marketing tools, and search engine optimization.

Hubspot can help you track every interaction with your clients. You can also set reminders to follow up with clients.

You can also see if clients are opening or clicking the links you send out in your emails.

This CRM software can help you manage your leads from beginning to end, so they become sales-ready prospects! It’s not just for small businesses either – HubSpot offers pricing plans that range from $19/month all the way up to $500 a month if you’re looking for a more enterprise-level account.

3. Email Open Tracking – Mailtracker by Hunter

Mailtracker is another excellent email tracking tool that will show you when your emails are opened. The tool can show you the email sender’s name, what device they used, how long ago they were opened, and what link they clicked on. This is a great way to see who’s reading your emails and find out what they’re clicking on.

The tool also has features like email scheduling, click-through tracking, reply and unsubscribe templates, hard bounces/weird mails monitoring, and more!

4. Social Media Scheduling Software – Zoho Social

Zoho Social is a great tool you can use to schedule posts for Facebook, Twitter, Google My Business, LinkedIn, or Instagram without ever having to go there yourself.

You can use Zoho Social to post to multiple social media platforms at the same time. See all the activity on your accounts and reply to comments without logging into each platform.

The software also has a few other features such as lead capturing, social media insights, and more. This is perfect for making sure your business always posts consistently to all of its social channels. That way, you can be at the forefront of your customer’s minds! Zoho Social starts free, but it’ll cost $10/month if you want any extra features.

5. Google Analytics

If you’re running an online business of any kind, I highly recommend that you have Google Analytics installed on your site. Google Analytics is a free, powerful tool that will track how many visits your website is getting each month. The program also provides helpful information on what your audience does upon visiting your website.

Google Analytics will tell you things like how long people are staying on your site, what content they’re interacting with most often, and where they come from.

It’s also a great way to see which posts have the most engagement so that you can do more of what works! You’ll need to sign up for Google before using this tool or use the Google Tag Manager to track your website.

6. Heat Map/Scroll Map – Hotjar

Hotjar is an excellent heat map software tool that will allow you to see where users are clicking or scrolling on your website and how far they scroll.

It works by adding a small code to your HTML so you can see how people are interacting with your website. It can be helpful to see how you should set up your webpage.

7. Appointment Scheduling Software – Book Like a Boss

Book Like a Boss is an easy way for you to schedule appointments with clients, send reminders about upcoming meetings, view their calendar in one place, import contacts from Outlook, Google, or Salesforce, and export to CSV, Excel, Outlook, Google Calendar.

The software will also help generate Zoom links and even prompt a questionnaire for your clients to fill out before your meeting.

8. Custom Domain Name Email – G Suite

G Suite is a tool to get you the custom domain name for your email accounts. This is an excellent tool for your small business email account. That’s because you can get up to 30GB of storage per user every month with this service.

The program also has an anti-spam filter that will help prevent spam from ever reaching your inbox.

For $6 per month, you can have a professional email address and all the features that come with it.

9. Project, Task, & Team Management Software – Trello

Trello is a free online project management tool with an intuitive interface. The program allows you to collaborate with other team members. You can also organize everything from work projects to personal tasks more effectively than ever before!

Track due dates, check the progress of current projects and keep communication on projects flowing with Trello.

Trello comes with loads of features free, but for $3.75 per month, you can have access to all the Trello Gold features.

10. Password Manager – Keeper

Keeper is the best password manager out there because it stores all your passwords in a single, secure location. The password manager also lets you generate strong, unique passwords for every account.

The software can save you time with browser integration so you can sign in with the click of your mouse. Also, Keeper can auto-generate passwords so you can have long secure passwords without worrying about remembering them.

11. Screen Capture – Snagit

Snagit is the best screen capture software out there because it can take screenshots of any part of your screen and record video or capture and edit screenshots. The software can also capture entire web pages as one image so you can reference them later.

12. Track Goals on Your Wall

This may seem silly and outdated, but I’ve never found a better way to track tasks than using a wall chart. I use stickers or a piece of paper and check the tasks off as I go.

It can help you stay excited about completing tasks and is also a constant, visual reminder of what you need to do and what is coming up soon. There is also something fulfilling about checking off the tasks as I complete them, which helps me stay motivated.

13. Productivity Planner

Using a physical productivity planner to organize your tasks and schedule your day can be beneficial if you don’t have an app that can meet your needs. You can keep it with you and update it as needed.