Do you own a steel or industrial business? If so, several digital tools will help you grow your business online. Take advantage of these 10 business tools.
Is your business trying to do things faster with fewer resources? That’s a common refrain in today’s business world.
If you’re in manufacturing, contracting, or elsewhere in the steel industry, there are essential business tools that you can’t live without. They’ll help you find a way to do much more with less.
In the end, that will save your business money and be more profitable. That’s sure to please managers and stockholders alike.
Read on to learn the top business tools that you can leverage in your business.
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Customer Relationship Manager
Having a great relationship with your customers and prospects is what keeps your business going. If you have a busy sales team, CRM will help them manage prospects better.
They’ll be able to schedule follow-ups and make detailed notes in the system, so any sales rep can handle a given call. Some CRM systems enable the sales and marketing teams to work together, scoring leads according to the likelihood of the closing.
That gives your sales team the ability to focus on the best leads, which can increase the conversion rate and lower your sales time.
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Cybersecurity Tools
Every business has to be concerned about cybersecurity. That’s also true in manufacturing, where manufacturers increasingly use Internet of Things devices and artificial intelligence to improve efficiency.
Almost half of all manufacturers have experienced some kind of cybersecurity attack. That could paralyze a business.
You want to make sure that you invest heavily in IT support and employee training to mitigate the risks to your business.
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Calendar Management
How much time do you spend trying to schedule an appointment? It’s annoying to you and your prospect when you’re emailing back and forth to find a good time.
What you can do is use a tool like Schedule Once to schedule the appointment. It integrates with Salesforce and Gmail Calendar to make sure that you don’t double book. You just send a link to your customer and they pick the day and time that works best for them.
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Accounting and Invoicing
Money management is a must for your business. A good accounting tool such as Quickbooks can make a huge difference to your business.
You can manage payroll, reporting, send invoices, and connect your bank accounts. You’ll be able to get an accurate report of your cash flow and financial standing at any given moment.
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Cloud Computing
Are you familiar with cloud computing? It’s an easy way to do business and link different departments, processes, and make sure everyone is on the same page.
Cloud computing is another way to say that everything is on the internet. An example of cloud computing is document sharing.
You’ve probably heard of Google Drive, Dropbox, and other document sharing apps. Before these apps, you would email a document back and forth and have to make sure that you were using the latest version.
That was the hard part because there were dozens of revisions to a document, it would be almost impossible to track.
What you can do it upload your documents to Dropbox. You should learn how to use Dropbox and find out how you can manage your documents and keep track of revisions.
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Social Media
Social media is a must for B2C companies, but is it really necessary for B2B companies? It depends on your customers and where they spend time online.
There are two social media channels that you should be on. LinkedIn is the place for professionals to connect with each other. It’s also a great place to share industry information and position yourself as a thought leader.
Quora has a lot of value because you can show your expertise by answering specific questions for people about your industry.
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Project Management
Project management is another essential part of your business. When you need to create a workflow, test, launch, and manage the daily tasks, you need a powerful project management tool.
Jira is one of the top project management tools that companies rely on. It can do just about anything related to project management.
The best part about it is that if your project is running with the Agile framework, you can use Jira to manage your project.
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Website Content Management
Your website is like the retail front of your business. People will research your company online to learn about you, and they’ll judge whether or not they want to do business with you based on your site.
Using a content management system like WordPress lets your team build a great-looking site without having to be programming experts.
It’s also very easy to add pages and start a blog on your site.
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Collaboration Tools
Do you work with remote workers around the world? That’s becoming more common for companies of all sizes.
The best way to communicate with those workers isn’t through email. It’s through a real-time messaging app like Slack.
If an employee has an issue, they can get an answer immediately. The alternative is to send an email and wait for an answer. That can take days and that may hold up your entire project.
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Marketing Automation Tools
Marketing automation is a new buzzword in the marketing world. It takes time to create content and email newsletters and send them out consistently.
Marketing automation lets you set up emails, and schedule them when someone signs up to your list.
The Best Business Tools for Your Business
How can you do more with less, and not spend a ton of money all at the same time? That question sums up the main challenge that most businesses in the industrial space face.
Competition is hotter than ever, and customers and investors have placed more pressure on your business than ever before.
Instead of imploding, you should invest in some of these business tools that will make your business much more efficient. In the end, you’ll be a more profitable one.
Be sure to visit this site often for the latest news and insights in the steel industry.
