25 Virtual Solutions for Managing Your Home-Based Business
Posted in Business, Technology
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By Holly Reisem Hanna
One of the downfalls of having your own business is that you don’t have the so-called virtual supply closet at your disposal. Software, a separate business line, internet access, web hosting… add it all up and it can get to be a little expensive.
Luckily, with the exponential growth of the web there are tons of virtual tools for managing your home-based business, and best of all many of them are free.
Here are 25 free virtual solutions to help manage your home-based business:
Appointment Scheduling & Management:
1: BookFresh.com allows you to book online appointments.
2: Tungl.me a scheduling application that will sync all of your calendars together (Google, Yahoo, Outlook).
3: ClickBook offers free online appointment scheduling.
Chat:
4: Olark lets you chat with visitors to your website.
Contact & Lead Management:
5: ContactMe organize contacts, lead generation and calendaring.
Financial Management:
6: Outright automates accounting.
7: InDinero automates business finances.
8: Mint.com offers money management and budgeting.
Free Website Hosting:
9: Webs free site builder and hosting.
Large File Sharing:
10: Dropbox allows you to privately share videos, photos and large files that cannot be sent via email.
Mobile Web:
11: DudaMobile transforms a website into highly tailored, dynamic mobile websites in seconds.
Online Protection:
12: ESET is anti-virus and spyware software that protect your computer.
Online Surveys:
13: SurveyMonkey.com allows you to gather feedback, collect data, conduct and analyze research quickly and easily.
Schedule Email:
14: LetterMeLater.com allows you to send emails to anyone you wish, with the ability to have them sent at any future date and time you choose.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
15: Plug in SEO gets more traffic to your website by using easy-to-follow SEO advice, tailored specifically to your website.
Video Production:
16: Animoto.com a free video production site. Upload your raw video footage and produce a polished video.
17: Nimbb allows you to record free video by using your webcam.
Virtual Bulletin Board:
18: Linoit gives you the ability to post virtual post it notes.
19: GoToMeeting offers web conferencing and online meeting tools.
20: GoToWebinar conduct webinars yourself.
21: RingCentral virtual phone systems for mobile entrepreneurs.
Virtual To-Do List:
22: Evernote take text notes, clip web pages, snap a photo, or grab a screenshot and add it to your to-do and reminder list.
23: Remember the Milk is a virtual to-do list available with your smart phone, Google Calendar, Twitter or Outlook.
24: Jott.com records your voice and turns it into text messages giving you the visual cues and reminders that you need to stay on track.
25: UHaveAuido allows you or your visitors to leave you messages on your website.
Do you have any recommendations for free virtual business tools? Please share them below – thanks.
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Such a fabulou list! Thank you Holly!
I’m glad you enjoyed the list Sarah!
Holly~
What a fantastic list! Thank you for compiling these resources, you’re right ~ as a Mompreneur it’s a little difficult to discover the ‘supply closet’ when it’s all virtual!
Other “free” resources I’ve used are Skype and GoogleTalk for phone conversations. And I’m finding more & more that I’ve been utilizing the chat box in Facebook as well as when I’m in my Gmail.
Clearly, I’m a huge Google fan ;D So this next one is no surprise: Every project I work on is formatted in Google Docs. Whether it’s the editorial calendar for a client in a Google spreadsheet or the pre-approved automated tweets for another client in a Google Doc ~ the platform keeps all changes in real time, so there is never a question of which file is the most recent.
A previous platform I used {until I outgrew their free version} was SmartSheet.com, a great site with collaboration tools as well.
I hadn’t heard of the “ContactMe” … I’ll be checking them out today!!
Keep the great info coming!
Thank you-this is a great resource list. I will definitely come back to this often!
Carrie – Glad you enjoyed the list!
April – I use Google docs all of the time too. I’m new to Google Voice and I haven’t quite figured it out. Often times the calls won’t go through. Thanks for sharing the additional resources!
25 Virtual Solutions for Managing Your Home-Based Business…
One of the downfalls of having your own business is that you don’t have the so-called virtual supply closet at your disposal. Software, a separate business line, internet access, web hosting… add it all up and it can get to be a little expensive. Lucki…
Excellent list except for surveys you can create your own through Google Docs under “Create New” Forms. Thanks!
[...] 25 Virtual Solutions for Managing Your Home-Based Business [...]
I already own my online business doing transcription from home, however, if I didnrrrt this would certainly be an ideal place to start, site was in fact quite helpfull
What about mobile apps? I use ProOnGo Expense to keep track of all my business expenses. Would like to see a mobile app list in the future, but this post was fantastic
Hi JD, Thanks for the comment. Do you have an iPhone or an Android? I’ll keep that in mind for a future post.
Great list of useful tools, I also use some of these online tools for my home based business. The best collaboration tool for me that I use is Google Docs which allows me to create and access easily documents, presentations, spread sheets and etc. that I share on my employees. Another is a tool that I recently add to my tool box is this time management tool which helps me manage time efficiently and tracks time accurately on tasks it can be use personally or in teams. Using these tools it can help you improve productivity, collaboration, project management and team communication.