Every business has its own tools they rely on daily to help their business make the greatest impact possible.
To help you improve your business practices, we thought we’d list the best tools that other businesses use in one place! Some tools may not be a great fit, but our hope is that these insights from other professionals can help introduce you to a new tool that may help you become more efficient in a particular area of your business.
Here are 10 practical tools that businesses use to improve their daily practices.
Entrepreneurial Operating System
The EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) management model has become a way for us to reinforce our company vision and establish company-wide, as well as individual, goals that all contribute to reaching that vision. Company meeting cadence and communication are critical components to the EOS model, and these have become imperative to our team, especially through this crisis. EOS has provided us a structure for keeping the entire team inspired, motivated and committed to innovation, which enables us to continuously make an impact in the communities we serve.
Thiru Thangarathinam, MST Solutions
Company Core Values
Our eight core values have been our company’s foundation since day one. Therefore, they remain the tools I rely on the most. They inform all of our decisions—who we hire, which products we prioritize, the partnerships we enter, acquisitions we make and our organizational goals.
These commitments fuel the culture we’ve so carefully cultivated over the years and are intrinsically linked to our higher purpose. They are truly our guide to making an impact and fulfilling our vision—and we wouldn’t be where we are today without them.
Heidi Jannenga, WebPT
Connection Between Your Skills with Your Passions
My business is to leave the world better than I found it. To connect capacity to need. To stand in the gap between poverty and prosperity. Of the many practical tools I have at my disposal, the most important are my heart for service and my skill for matching purposes.
Debbie Accomazzo, Grand Canyon University
Daily Update Meetings
Daily update meetings are crucial for our work because things can change quickly. Having a morning meeting and an end-of-day meeting allows us to determine what to expect and how to prepare. They also put the team on the same page so that we always know where everyone is at with their assignments.
Court Will, Wil & Will
Data Management Software
We rely on our data management software to ensure that we don’t lose any of our work. With tools like offline data migration, server data backup and synchronization, we are able to access our information easily and efficiently. Tape becomes more important because of the built-in air gap that prevents any malware from accessing it. Without it, we risk losing all our work and failing our customers. Because we are all about data and data management, we could not make an impact without protecting the files we use.
Dr. Marc M. Batschkus, Archiware
Task Management Software
I rely on Asana on a daily basis to ensure that I am achieving all my tasks and that my teammates are also not falling behind on their tasks. As a manager, it is of the utmost important that I am able to track my team’s progress across various projects and clients at any given time. Out of all the task management softwares I have worked with, Asana is definitely the easiest to use and most organized.
Nikitha Lokareddy, Markitors
Ahrefs
There are a few of them but the one that helps the most is Ahrefs. We use it to track our content marketing efforts and the links and mentions we earn naturally. It also shows us the keywords that we’re ranking for and the amount of traffic that we’re earning.
Dmytro Okunyev, Chanty
Clockify
This is a free time tracking software that allows me to track the hours I spend on billable clients versus my own business development. Using this tool daily allows me to stay on track and ensure that I am focusing my time on the right thing at that right moment.
Audrey Hutnick, Smallwave Marketing
Mentorships
We’ve been able to make great strides by relying on our own analysis of the market and our gut feelings of the industry, but sometimes you need an outside perspective to grow your business. To use a software development term, a mentor can help you rubber duck your problems: by explaining your issue to someone who doesn’t have a stake in the outcome, you can often find the right solution or the mentor can point out blind spots in your thinking.
Rob Bellenfant, TechnologyAdvice
Mindomo
Mindomo is a mind mapping tool that allows me to get a visual on the many ideas I have for my business, in one place. The map is linked to other company tools including: Google Docs, Dropbox, YouTube and many others. It can be simplified to focus on the main business categories for a “30,000 foot view” or expanded in more detail for more of a “street view.” This provides a holistic approach to the interconnection of business strategies and goals.
Mark Jamnik, Enjoy Life Daily
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