There are a lot of tech tools for small businesses available but which tools are the best ones to use?
I am always on the hunt for tools and resources that are going to help me increase my sales in my business and make running my business as efficient as possible.
I mean, you are only one person and there’s only so much of you that can go around when it comes to selling your product offerings, which is why it’s vitally important that you are leveraging technology to increase your sales in the online marketing world.
Today, I’m sharing with you my 7 best tech tools for small businesses that will help you boost your sales in 2024.
My #1 tech tools for small businesses is a CRM program
If you’re not familiar with CRM software, it’s customer relationship management tool.
And if you have been in sales for a while then you know the importance of a CRM tool.
I use Pipedrive and I love it so much and so much so anyone that has been in my, She Sells Wholesale course, you know that I love to teach you how to automate your retailer outreach utilizing Pipedrive.
You can load your full list of customers in there from a simple spreadsheet, you can load your email templates and your sales scripts into Pipedrive, and make your sales outreach process so much quicker and easier, especially when you’re reaching out to retailers.
Now, I definitely recommend not doing mass outreach and making sure that you are tailoring each email and personalizing it.
Customers know when you are just sending out blanket script emails and they don’t like that.
But the point of having a CRM tool is that you can save yourself time by having your templates at your disposal and having them ready to go, and then you can customize them for each of your customers, and then have all of your data and all of your interactions with that customer in one centralized location.
When that customer replies to you, it’s captured within pipe drive and when that customer makes a sale it’s also captured there, so you can see the lifetime value of each and every one of your customers.
Now Pipedrive is not the only CRM tool. There are a ton out there. There’s HubSpot, Salesforce, HoneyBook and click up is another one that a lot of entrepreneurs are using as well.
Flodesk vs Drip for email marketing
My second favorite tech tools for small businesses are Drip email software.
I recently switched from Flodesk to Drip. I will tell you it has so many more features like automation, workflows and analytics.
If you’re a newbie to email marketing, I definitely recommend sticking with Flodesk but if you want advanced features and ecommerce integration, Drip is an amazing platform to integrate into your sales outreach and automation process.
What’s also great about drip is it integrates directly with some of my other platforms, like Thrivecart, Shopify and Convertbox, and automates task to help me seamlessly communicate with my customers.
It also helps me segment my customers according to their buying habits and their interest, so that I can better tailor my sales outreach for each specific customer.
Utilizing tailwind to optimize Pinterest for SEO
I’ve really been focusing on optimizing Pinterest.
Pinterest is an amazing social media form that also acts as a search engine and a sales marketplace as well.
Tailwind helps me schedule and automate all of my pins that I schedule and also helps me optimize them for search engine optimization.
What is the best e-commerce platform for small businesses?
Shopify is hands down the number one ecommerce platform.
I have also been loving Thrivecart which hosts my courses, my memberships, and my digital products.
The other thing that I love about Thrivecart is that it was a one-time lifetime fee, so I don’t have a reoccurring charge each month to utilize Thrivecart.
Not only that, but it integrates with my email marketing form Drip as does Shopify, and so I can see the lifetime value of each and every one of my customers.
Thrivecart also has an upgrade to Thrivecart Learn where you can host courses and memberships, and this is a great way to expand your business with multiple streams of revenue.
My next tool is new to me and it is hands down one of the best tools that I have purchased in giving me a return on investment this year.
It is a sales targeting tool called Convertbox.
And if I’m not mistaken, I believe Convertbox is created by the makers of Thrivecart, but it integrates with Thrivecart and it launches personalized offers, lead capture forms, segmentation surveys to the right visitors at the right time with on-site engagement forms.
And so, it integrates with your email marketing platform, you can integrate it with your Shopify site, and with your website.
So, I have my website on Showit, and I also have it integrated with Thrivecart, and utilizing the segmentation that I have created in drip, I can launch personalized offers to each and every one of my website visitors or each of my course participants with upsell offers, or maybe I want them to become a member of my coaching membership.
So, depending on what my end goal is, I can create a targeted offer for that individual.
It’s incredibly powerful, and I am loving utilizing it so far, and it is definitely bringing in the return on investment as far as increased sales that I am seeing within my business.
Utilizing Airtable beyond hosting data
These next tech tools for small businesses are a sales automation tool.
Now a lot of people have started utilizing Airtable and they’re utilizing Airtable to simply host data.
But what I have been loving Airtable for is the automation.
I have embedded some simple forms into my website.
For example, if someone wants to apply to be a podcast guest, you can go to my podcast page on my web site and click the link, and you will fill out a form that actually inputs data into an air table database, and it sends me an email letting me know that someone has filled out a form. You can see what that form looks like here.
I also have my membership set up in an Airtable database, so I can track the lifetime value of each member.
When someone signs up to be a member in the She Sells Differently membership, they are automatically added to my air table database.
It has definitely helped me automate my sales process, my support process, and provide an absolute better customer experience for my clients.
What should I use to help me simplify the sales checkout process?
I get asked all the time what should I use to help me simplify the sales checkout process?
Hands down, I love the Shopify POS system. I highly recommend it, and I believe that you can get that for $5 a month.
You can also check out Square. They have a great solution too if you’re going to pop up markets and vendor fairs.
Clover is another option, although I have personally not used Clover, so I cannot speak to the reliability of Clover.
QuickBooks has an option too for a card reader as well.
My big recommendations though would be Shopify and Square.
I personally use the Shopify point of sale system in my candle studio and market and have had a great experience with the overall hardware and sales process and their support is just fabulous. So highly recommend it.
There you go!
7 different tech tools and resources that are amazing at helping you increase your sales in 2024.
I would also love to hear if you have a software or tech tool that you are really loving right now.
Send me a message on Instagram @andeehart and tell me what tool you are loving to help increase the sales in your business, I’d love to hear about it!
