10 Tools to Transform Your Business on a Shoestring Budget

Building a business is expensive. From upfront investments to staffing costs, the expenses can start to rack up as a business grows. The debt can be daunting, and cash flow often poses a challenge. This doesn’t mean that the effort won’t pay off – but it does mean that finding economical ways to transform your business along the way is key.

You may not have the budget to build a top-tier marketing team full of specialized experts or a massive sales team bolstered by a premium CRM tool and call center, but there are numerous tools that can help you along the way at minimal cost.

The following are a few of our favorites here at TribalVision

Streak is an extension for Gmail that serves as a CRM to track leads and customers. In addition, Streak can be used to streamline other processes such as hiring or product development.

Once you download Streak, you can set up Boxes in which to store all emails and information connected to a certain project. The Fields in these boxes allow you to search and categorize your data easily. By creating communal Boxes across the company, you can ensure that all information and notes about a prospect or customer are visible to all employees. These Boxes can then arranged into a Pipeline where each stage represents a different step in the process that you’re tracking (for example, the customer decision journey).

According to a 2012 study by the McKinsey Global Institute, employees spend around 28% of their time at work on email. This is a huge chunk of time that could be spent doing more active work. By implementing Streak, you can help your entire team use email more efficiently and effectively – leaving more time to do the work that they were hired to do. Streak’s ability to serve as a CRM is also game changing. It is impossible to remember every client without a CRM to store and manage the data, and you are literally letting money walk away if you lose track of a prospect or reach out in the wrong way. Streak ensures that your entire team knows exactly where each prospect or customer is in the funnel and how and when he or she should be approached again.

Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service available to anyone with a Google account. Users can store files in the cloud, share files, and work together on shared documents. Through its three offerings (Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides), users can collaborate on a variety of content, analysis, and presentations.

Although you are probably familiar with Google Drive, the tool is far more valuable than simply as a storage tool. It enables your team to sync business files across all devices, ensuring that everyone can access necessary files at all times. By storing in the cloud, you also minimize the risk of losing valuable files and data (although you must be careful not to put any confidential documents on Google drive). Perhaps most importantly, Google Drive streamlines collaboration in the work place. Not only can it be used to share files, but it can be used to create files that are editable by all parties working on a project. This avoids time wasted merging documents and allows for instantaneous collaboration and enhanced business workflow.