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My 3 Favorite Business Tools to Help with Productivity

January 24, 2017 by Tanya Brody Leave a Comment

One of the biggest hurdles to overcome when running your own business is finding the time to do all the stuff that it takes to run your business. The day-to-day work can be overwhelming.

Fortunately, there are a lot of companies that create business tools to make it easier for us small business owners to do what we love.

Here are three of the business tools I use every day.

Timely

Keeping track of how much time I spend on any given project has always been an issue for me. I’d vaguely observe what time it was when I started and vaguely estimate how much time I’d spent when I was done. Not terribly efficient.

Enter Timely.

I looked at, and tried, a few different time tracking apps before I settled on Timely as one of my regular business tools. I like it because it is sleek, easy to use and gives me exactly what I need to keep track of time spent on each project, but doesn’t pile on a bunch of extra stuff I’ll never use, or that I already have through other apps and programs.

Timely lets me track my working hours by project and client. I can bill different projects at different rates, if I need to. I can also set a certain amount of money or a specific amount of time for a project, and Timely will tell me when I’ve gone over that amount, and by how much.

Because I typically bill by the project, this helps me determine how much I ‘really’ made per hour when I go over my allotted time or budget. It’s good for helping me estimate future projects and noting if the number of hours for the project need to change.

I can also look at reports on what I’ve done. This helps me keep track of the project and what I need to do next. I can also export the report in Excel or as a PDF, to send to clients.

Timely integrates with several apps, including Google Calendar, Trello, GitHub, Asana and Office 365. Timely will automatically enter the time I spent on work appointments. This is great if I forget to start the timer once I’m on a call, or at a meeting.

Timely also has great customer support. Any time I have an issue or I’m confused by something, they’re always quick to respond with useful information or to help me fix the problem.

Timely offers a free plan, but it limits the number of projects you can have running at a given time. It also allows for multiple users, depending on the plan you choose.

Timely is keeping me on track, by tracking the amount of time I spend on each project. It’s fantastic. Learn more about Timely here.

Calendly

Setting appointments is one of my least favorite time-wasters. I hate sending emails back and forth with, “Can you meet at 2:30 on Thursday?” Only to hear back that Thursday won’t work, but how about next Monday.

To avoid all of this, I use Calendly. It’s a fantastic scheduling app that integrates with my Google Calendar. I just send someone a Calendly link for the appropriate type of appointment, they go to the app, choose a time we’re both available, and book the appointment.

We’re both sent a calendar invite, which goes right into my calendar, so I don’t forget. I can schedule reminder emails to go to the person who booked the appointment, so they don’t forget either. They can cancel the appointment from the reminder emails if something comes up, and Calendly prompts them to reschedule immediately.

On my end, I can send different appointment types of varying lengths, with buffer times on either end to make sure I don’t overlap appointments. I can control the times clients can schedule appointments, and I can block off certain days if I know I’ll be unavailable.

It’s a pretty slick system.

Calendly integrates with several apps and programs, including Drip, Salesforce and Zapier. They also have an API key and webhooks available for those who are more proficient at programming than I am.

Calendly does offer a free account, but your appointments will have Calendly branding on them. It’s not terribly intrusive. If you only have one event type (one type and length of appointment you need scheduled) it’s a great free scheduling solution.

If you have multiple event types, like I do, want to send appointment reminders and integrate with other apps, you’ll have to go with a paid account. The Premium account is $10 a month or $96 a year, per user.

Calendly has made my life a lot easier when it comes to scheduling appointments with clients and I recommend it highly. Learn more about Calendly here.

Quickbooks Online

I’ve used Quickbooks to handle my billing for years. Before that, (back in the dark ages) I used Excel spreadsheets. Not a fun game, I don’t recommend it unless you’re really good at Excel spreadsheets. I’m not.

Life in general has moved online. So has Quickbooks. It’s a fairly simple system to use, especially if you’ve used Quickbooks in the past.

I can create and email invoices to clients from the desktop interface. I enter a client’s contact information and Quickbooks sets up the email for me, then sends it when I’m ready. I can create recurring invoices and send them monthly to my retainer clients. They go out automatically, so I don’t have to think about them.

I have control over how the invoices look, including adding my logo, changing colors and specifying which columns and fields appear on the invoice. It’s very similar to designing an invoice in the desktop version of Quickbooks.

I can also accept payment via Quickbooks. I had to sign up for this service, and there are fees. It’s 50 cents per direct deposit and 3.5% of a credit card payment. But it’s worth it to have clients pay directly from their invoices.

All of my business bank account transactions are downloaded into Quickbooks, so I can manage everything in one place. The download interface is easy to use, though it took me a few times to get used to using it. Quickbooks automatically enters any payments made through its system into my checking register, as well as the fees it takes for letting me use that system.

Quickbooks offers a free 30-day trial. I pay about $16 a month for the version I use. There are several different versions, depending on the size of your business, number of users, etc.

Using Quickbooks online has made my billing and accounting much easier. Learn more about Quickbooks here.

What Productivity Business Tools Do You Recommend?

I hope this round-up of business tools to increase your productivity helps. I’ll keep doing these posts as I have more tools to pass along. Meanwhile, what business tools do you use? I’d love to hear about them. Perhaps I’ll end up adopting them myself, and mentioning them in one of my future posts.

How to Create Your Elevator Speech in 4 Easy Steps

January 19, 2017 by Tanya Brody Leave a Comment

If you’ve ever been in a business course or a course on learning how to ace your next interview, you’ve probably heard of the elevator speech. It’s that 2 to 3 sentence speech that you rattle off to someone you meet, that explains what you do.

Ideally, it’s a concise speech that you can rattle off to a fellow passenger during a short elevator ride. Thus, the name, “elevator speech.” And it should give some reason for what you do, some benefit to the activity. That way, whoever you’re talking to is engaged and asks for more information.

For many small business owners, this can be a major hurdle. A lot of people never get around to doing the simple exercise of creating their elevator speech, because adding that benefit can feel overwhelming.

It’s easy to say “I’m Bob and I make widgets for woodworkers.” It’s a lot harder to explain what benefit the woodworkers get from those widgets in less than 20 words.

Today, I’m going to show you a simple method you can use to drill down from a full explanation of what you do and why you do it, to a one-sentence elevator speech. I learned this method from the amazing Pat Flynn at last year’s Converted conference.

Step 1: Figure Out What You Do and Why You Do It

The first part should be pretty simple for most people. Generally speaking, you know what you do for a living, whether you own a small business or you work for someone else. The “why” part is where many people get hung up, especially small business owners.

Is the “why” supposed to be about why you started your own business? Is it supposed to be about what your product does? Is it supposed to be about why people should use your product or service?

Technically, it’s the third one. But it goes a bit beyond that. It’s what benefit does your product or service give the end user.

If you haven’t figured that out yet, I recommend reading my “Finding Your Why” blog post. It will help you figure that “why” part out.

Step 2: Write It Down

Take between 5 and 20 minutes and write down what you do and why. Be as descriptive as you want, but make it 1 page or less.

I’ll model that here:

I am a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant. I help my clients by taking care of their marketing, so they don’t have to think about it. I offer a wide range of services, including:

Website copy
Landing pages
Squeeze pages
Online sales letters
Content marketing
Blogs
Articles
E-Newsletters
Emails
Autoresponder series
Case studies
White papers
Direct response packages
Press releases
SEO copywriting optimization for websites, blogs and articles
Keyword research
Site audits
AB testing and analysis
Refining and improving your sales funnel
Email list building
Customer conversion – the art of turning website visitors into repeat customers

I work closely with my clients to capture their company voice and work with their overall brand. If they haven’t established those, I help them create their voice and brand, then use them throughout their marketing.

I set up email list building and sales funnels to convert website browsers into life-long customers. I help my clients grow their businesses through well-written content and strategic marketing practices.

Okay, that’s a lot to tell someone in an elevator. Even if you had 40 floors to tell someone all of this, they’d have tuned out a long time ago. The next step is to hone this down to something reasonable.

Step 3: Reduce Your One Page Down to One Paragraph

Yes, editing is hard. All those precious words you just worked laboriously to create, how can you let them go?

Once you get going, it’s easy.

First, take out anything a total stranger doesn’t need to know. A lot of this information may be great for your website, but for a succinct one-paragraph description, it’s too much. As you’re doing this, feel free to change what you wrote originally so you’re happier with the way it sounds.

My single paragraph would look something like this:

I am a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant. I take the burden of marketing off the shoulders of small business owners so they can do what they love best, run their businesses and make their products or perform their services. I offer a wide range of copywriting services to my clients, from website copy and landing page creation to lead and sales funnels. I help my clients grow their businesses through well-written content and strategic marketing practices.

Well, that would be a lot easier for someone to get through during an elevator ride, but there’s not a lot of room for conversation. By the time I finished all of that, whoever was riding with me would want to get off a floor early and take the stairs.

Now, I’ll reduce this down even further.

Step 4: Reduce Your One Paragraph Down to One Sentence

“One sentence?” I hear you cry. “My business is far too complicated to explain in one sentence.”

No, not really. Most people explain what they do in one sentence. If you ask someone “What do you do?” They usually answer with about 3-5 words:

I’m a copywriter.
I’m a lawyer.
I work at a grocery store.

When you add the “why” into that sentence, things can get complicated. The “why” is usually where all the extra words come in.

Take a moment and think about your “why.” If you’ve done the “So What Method” exercise, you should have a pretty good idea of why you do what you do.

My “why” is, I genuinely want to help small business owners grow their businesses. I do that by helping them with their marketing.

I could say something like: “I’m a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant, I help small business owners grow their businesses.” That is what I do, and even a little of why I do it. But there’s not a lot of end-user benefit there.

And honestly, I don’t have to tell people I’m a copywriter. Half the people I meet assume I work for the government in the Copyright Office, which I don’t. I usually say “I’m the kind that writes words for advertising” when I get that response.

I’m going to take the word “copywriter” out of my elevator speech entirely. Instead, I’m going to tell people what I do. Here’s my final elevator speech:

“I help small business owners grow their businesses by writing advertising copy that converts website visitors and leads into customers.”

This sentence tells you who I serve, what I do and the benefit my clients receive from my services.

See, easy.

Thank you, Pat Flynn.

Does this still seem overwhelming to you? Download my Pat Flynn’s Guide to Creating Your Elevator Speech checklist, so you can reference every step as you create your own elevator speech.

DOWNLOAD PAT FLYNN’S GUIDE TO CREATING YOUR ELEVATOR SPEECH NOW

Reflecting on 2016 as a Small Business Owner

December 28, 2016 by Tanya Brody Leave a Comment

2016 was a year of transformation for me. I lost a “real job,” left the corporate world, and now I’m a small business owner working for myself. That’s a lot to handle in one year.

So, I’m taking a moment to look back and see what I’ve accomplished for my small business in the last year.

In 2016, I:

Started a new small business.
Started a regular blog.
Worked on 20 projects for 14 clients (not all of which are finished yet).
Started and completed my Leadpages Conversion Marketing Certification.
Started and am still working my way through several new marketing courses.
Joined a Copywriting Mastermind Group (they’re awesome, by the way).
Learned several new marketing tools, like SamCart and Drip.
Attended 2 marketing conferences in one week.
Traveled the country and had fun with friends and family, while working.
Did a ton of research and learned many interesting new things.
Worked on my own business a lot.

That may look like a short list, but it was a lot of work, trust me.

And most importantly, I enjoyed it. I’m happier working for myself. I make a great boss of me.

I would encourage you to do this exercise as well. Whether you own your own small business or you work for someone else. Whether you’re happy where you are, or are looking to move on to another position in your current company, or on your own. You can do this if you’re retired or not working too. It’s just a useful reflection exercise.

Take a few minutes right now and write down what you’ve accomplished in 2016. Your accomplishments don’t have to be huge, but they should be notable to you. Projects you’ve finished at work or at home are good candidates. Working on projects for yourself are also a good idea.

They can even be as simple as “survived 2016” which can be considered an accomplishment this year. I don’t know about you, but 2016 has seen the demise of some major icons in my life, as well as several friends.

The point is to see what you’ve done in the past year. I expect it will be a lot more than you anticipated. And it can help you plan for the coming year.

This is something just for you. It’s not meant to be criticism or compliment. It’s just so you can take note and realize how much work you’ve put into the last year. It’s a good thing. Don’t compare yourself or to anyone else, or your year to any other. Just take a moment to recognize and be proud of what you’ve done.

A friend of mine who worked for AWAI spoke at their Bootcamp conference this year. One of her “secrets to a happy freelance life” was to avoid the Comparison Coma.

The Comparison Coma is when you look at your own life, stacked up against others who are doing better than you (regardless of what they’re doing). No matter how hard you’ve worked, it always seems like your life pales in comparison.

My friend recommended just being happy with where you are and what you’re doing. Others are doing what they’re doing. Some will do better, some worse. You can be happy for them, (or offer to help) but let any comparison go. You’re doing what you’re doing right now. That’s what matters.

That’s why I recommend you look at this past year and appreciate what you’ve done. You can make goals for the coming year, but don’t be disappointed in what you’ve done this year. And even if you didn’t reach some of your goals, remember, they’re goals. You can keep striving to reach them.

So, here’s to celebrating our successes in 2016, whether we’re small business owners or working for someone else.

And here’s to an equally (if not more) successful 2017.

I wish all of you a prosperous and happy New Year.

3 Excellent Reasons to Follow Up with Current and Prospective Customers (and How to Do it)

November 6, 2016 by Tanya Brody Leave a Comment

I got a great compliment from a prospective customer the other day, a fellow named Adam Katz. I called him for our initial consultation, right on time. He answered the phone and commented on my punctuality. Then he said, “I’m very impressed by your marketing and your follow-up.”

This was very nice to hear, because I make an effort to follow up with everyone who contacts me about my copywriting business, and not just because they might be potential clients.

I’ve had a few folks contact me since I was interviewed on Ed Gandia’s podcast who were interested in learning more about freelancing. I’ve taken time to talk to all of them.

Why do I do this? Because following up with people is important. Whether you’re a freelancer or solopreneur like me, following up with potential clients, or you’re a brick and mortar business working with customers. It gives your business a better reputation.

Here are 3 excellent reasons, and good ways, to follow up with your customers:

1. Acknowledging You’ve Received a Message.

I am always amazed by how many companies, from small businesses to major corporations, utterly fail to acknowledge they’ve received your message. Or if they do, it’s something to the effect of “Your message has been logged in our system.”

Okay… So somewhere, a computer has logged my message. Is anyone going to respond to it? Will my question be answered? Or am I stuck in eternal limbo?

I had this occur recently at my car dealership. They had to order a part for my car, and they may have to order a second one, because they don’t know which part is actually causing the problem.

Well, I found another problem that may be able to diagnose which part is the faulty one. So I called the dealership and asked to speak to the fellow I worked with when I came in for the first appointment. He was unavailable, but I left a message.

No one has called to follow up with me. Not even to say, “Hey, we got your message and we’re looking into this. We’ll get back to you as soon as we have an answer.”

As a customer, it’s nice to at least know that someone is working on my problem.

Now, switch that around to your business.

If you don’t respond when someone calls with a question, to place an order or to hire you to do something, they’ll assume you’re not interested in their business and go elsewhere. That means you’re out a customer, and you’ve lost income.

Following up with that person, even if it’s just a quick email to say “Hey, I got your message” can be the difference between a good month and a bad month for your business.

Personally, I follow up in 2 ways.

I have an autoresponder connected to my contact form that sends a short email to tell them I’ve received their message and will get back to them shortly. I also include a link to my online calendar so they can make an appointment with me at their convenience.

When I get the information from the contact form (via my email service provider) I send a personal email. Again, I say I got their message and I’m interested in talking to them about their project.

Both of these show that I’m interested in working with the people who contact me for my copywriting services. And, most importantly, it shows that their message hasn’t disappeared into a black hole, never to be seen again.

2. Following up after the initial contact.

If people who have contacted me don’t make an appointment or respond to either email, I send another one in a few days.

Why?

Because people are busy. Generally speaking, we’re all much more involved in whatever is going on in our immediate lives. (Or as I like to call it, whatever is on fire on your desk at the moment.)

By taking the time to follow up with someone, you’re saying “yes, I know you’re busy, but you had a concern that I can help you with. What can I take off your plate?

Years ago, when I was a professional touring musician, I had the pleasure of hearing Derek Sivers speak at a music conference in Cincinnati, OH. Derek is the founder of CD Baby, an independent music distribution company. (It’s an awesome company, and yes, you can still find my music there.)

Derek was talking about how to market yourself as a musician, and in particular, how to get the attention of the person you’re trying to reach. He said something during that speech that stuck with me over the years. “Persistence is polite.”

In context, here’s what he was saying; if a music venue coordinator or booking agent didn’t get back to you right away, you should keep trying. A lot of musicians get frustrated in this situation, swear a lot, claim they’re “too good to play this dive” and call the next venue on their list. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work out well for some of them.

I took this to heart at the time, because I was one of those musicians who spent her days calling music venues to book my band. And I made it my mantra.

When I first contacted a venue, I would make a note in my Outlook journal of when I had contacted them, how I had contacted them (phone or email) and what had happened. Then I’d set a calendar alert to contact them again in a few days to a week.

I did this over and over and over. I was always polite, and I deliberately said in each of those messages, “Please let me know one way or the other, so I know what’s going on at your end.”

I wasn’t interested in wasting my time trying to contact people who weren’t interested in talking to me. I’d rather have them say, “No thank you” so I knew and could move on to whatever was next.

Several times, I had venues who would call or email back, weeks or months later, and say “Yes, we want to book you.” Somewhere in the booking process, a couple of them said “We’re really excited to have you, and thank you for continuing to follow up with us until we responded.”

Yes. Persistence is polite. Do it. I think you’ll like the results.

3. Checking in to see if you can help

This is a great idea, especially if you’ve been contacted by people who are interested in what you’re selling, but may not need it right away.

This lets your customers (or potential customers) know that you’re still interested in doing business with them whenever they’re ready. And it keeps you top of mind when they are ready.

Again, I do this in two ways:

I write a monthly email newsletter that I send to current customers and people who have expressed an interest in doing business with me. It’s a quick update about what’s going on with me, an invitation to contact me if they’re ready to talk about their next project and a special business tip I only include in these letters.I also include a list of the month’s blog posts from my blog, so they can see what I’ve been writing about. (This sneakily acts as a set of samples and a reminder that I do content writing, among other things. Now everyone on my monthly newsletter list knows my secret.)

Occasionally, I’ll send a personal email to clients I haven’t heard from in a while, just checking in to see what’s going on and whether they need my services.

Both of these techniques have gotten me work. And I’ve gotten to help out some folks who were in a bind and needed something done quickly.

How Do You Follow Up In Your Business?

Now that you know the importance of following up, I hope you’ll make it a regular part of your business. If you are following up with current and potential customers, how do you do it? If not, why not? Tell me about it in the comments.

My Top 3 Small Business Tools to Grow Your Business Exponentially

October 6, 2016 by Tanya Brody Leave a Comment

I’ve decided to start a semi-regular blog post category of small business tools and resources for small business owners. (We need to stick together, after all.) Eventually, all of these recommendations will be added to a Resources page. But for now, I’m going to start with this short list.

These are the tools I feel every business needs to have so they can grow their email list and create a solid customer base. I have used, or currently use all of these. Yes, I do have affiliate links for these tools, so you will be benefitting me if you click on the link and buy.

But that’s not why I recommend these small business tools. I recommend them because they are easy to use, easy to understand, well supported and will help you grow your business. That is what this post is all about, growing your business.

Everyone will have their own opinion on which small business tools are the best. This series of posts simply reflects my opinion. Agree or disagree, try them, don’t try them. The most important thing is to find what works for you and your business.

Now that I’ve made my disclaimers, here’s my list of the top 3 small business tools you must have to grow your business exponentially.

Leadpages

Leadpages is an excellent landing page and lead generation software suite. It’s SaaS (software as a service) based, so you purchase a monthly or yearly membership. I recommend getting the Pro yearly account, which works out to $49 a month.

With Leadpages, you can quickly and easily grow your email list and promote your products. I use these 3 Leadpages’ features regularly:

Landing Page Templates

Leadpages began as landing page template software. The company provides over 200 landing page templates (some free, some available for purchase through their Marketplace) for you to use as a base to create your own landing pages. (I wrote a post about why you need more landing pages last week, just in case you missed it.)

Templates range from very simple squeeze pages that take about 5 minutes to set up, to long-form sales pages, where you can include video, pictures and lots of text. You can also create your own templates with their new Drag and Drop builder.

Leadpages integrates smoothly with over 20 email service providers (ESPs) and can be integrated with just about any other ESP, with a bit of effort. Once your ESP is integrated, all of the contact information you request on your landing pages will be instantly entered into your ESP lists.

All of the Leadpages templates are optimized for conversion in terms of location of call to action buttons, photos, videos, etc. You can set up automatic delivery of a file (Word doc, PDF, etc, MP3, etc) when someone gives you their email address on a landing page. It all goes through the Leadpages system, so you don’t have to worry about having an additional service to manage this.

Leadpages lets you publish your pages in 4 ways:

Immediately on their lightning fast server.
Via a WordPress plugin on your own website.
Exporting the HTML code to your website.
On your Facebook page. (Please note, you can only post one landing page to each Facebook page you have.)

Here are a few landing pages I’ve created for myself with Leadpages standard templates or the Drag and Drop builder:

Leadboxes

For those of you wondering, “what the heck is a ‘Leadbox?’” It’s that little pop-up box that appears when you click on several of the buttons along the right side of this page. They look like this:

Leadbox from the “Follow My Journey” button to the right.

Leadboxes are an easy way to add a form to any web page. You create a Leadbox in the Leadpages software, then copy the HTML code and paste it wherever you want it on your web page in the “Text” view.

I use them all the time to capture email addresses on the blog posts where I give away checklists, guides or other content upgrades. Again, Leadpages will automatically deliver whatever file I attach to the Leadbox directly to whoever gives me their email address.

I get analytics for each Leadbox, so I know how many people have clicked on it and how many people have actually given me their contact information.

You can put as many Leadboxes on a page as you want to. I usually have 2-3 on my pages (depending on whether I’m giving something away on a blog post) but I’ve seen many more on other websites.

Leaddigits

Leadpages has a built in SMS Text Message system. It only works for incoming lead generation, so you can’t use it to send text messages to your customers. However, it’s an amazing tool to use anywhere people have their mobile phones.

It’s a pretty simple system. You choose a unique identifier for your campaign. Then you set up your Leaddigit to deliver a lead magnet to anyone who texts your unique identifier to a specific phone number or short code, then texts you their email address.

The text conversation looks like this:

So if you text the word HARPMUSIC (all one word, ignore your autocorrect) to the short code 44222, you’ll get a free song.

It takes less than a minute to set up a Leaddigit, and I find them incredibly useful at conferences, performances, live events and speaking engagements. There are hundreds of ways to use Leaddigits. Here are some ideas I’ve seen in action:

On real estate signs
On flyers
To get a coupon for a free _______
Share slides from a presentation or meeting
Contest entries
At the end of a Podcast to download notes or another lead magnet
Share a code to download an app

Leadpages has other great ways to collect leads and make sales. They’re coming up with new lead generation tools all the time. Their entire platform is incredibly easy to use. (I’m a copywriter, not a tech person. I can use everything in my Leadpages account.)

Leadpages has an exceptional customer support team. If they can’t answer my question right away, they get back to me as soon as humanly possible. They’re also excellent problem solvers and can find work-arounds for most issues I, or anyone else, comes up with.

Leadpages does not offer a free trial, but they do offer a 30-day guarantee. If you don’t like Leadpages, just tell them within 30 days and they’ll give you a full refund. If you cancel after that, it will be pro-rated, according to your plan.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I used to work for Leadpages. But that’s only one of the reasons I recommend this tool. It really is an awesome small business tool.)

Drip

Once you’ve gotten all of your lead generation campaigns up and ready, you do need somewhere for all of those exciting new leads to go. Drip is an email service provider, or ESP. Drip integrates with lots of different apps and programs, including Leadpages.

I like Drip as a small business tool because it’s incredibly easy to use, but it gives advanced options for automation. You can set up a sophisticated email follow-up sequence without having to know absolutely everything there is to know about automation and coding.

Drip also gives you the option to resend an email a specified number of days later to people on your list who haven’t opened the original. They’ve got some other spiffy features that I haven’t really played with yet, but I’m looking forward to learning more.

Again, full disclosure, Drip was recently bought by Leadpages. Drip offers a free 21-day trial of their full service. After that, it depends on how many subscribers you have. You can have up to 2,500 subscribers to get their basic plan, which costs $45.

Square

Square is the original independent, low-cost, no monthly fee credit card processing company. A lot of other companies have come in and offered the same services, but I still really like Square as a company and as a service.

They’re already in compliance with the new credit card regulations, offering chip card readers. One of the nice things about Square is that you can either order a card reader directly from Square, or pick one up at Best Buy, Office Max or other, similar big-box stores. That way, if your reader goes out in the middle of a busy day, you can pick another one up right away.

Their system is easy to use and easy to manage. You get paid for whatever credit card charges you accept the next day, via direct deposit to your bank account. You can send invoices, set up loyalty programs, and manage your employees’ time cards and payroll.

Square even offers marketing tools, including a website builder, an email service provider and a calendar scheduling system. (FYI, I use different small business tools for many of these functions, but Square does offer these services.)

Again, there are many other companies that offer card readers and credit card processing. I recommend that you use the one that works best for you. But I really like Square.

Tell Me About Your Favorite Tools

I’ve given you three of my favorite small business tools. I’m sure I’ll give more in the future. But I’m curious to know what you use. Some of them may help me out. Tell me about them in the comments.