8 Powerful Tools Ideal for the Beginning Entrepreneur - Classy Career Girl

8 Powerful Tools Ideal for the Beginning Entrepreneur Starting a new business can be tough, especially for women who face challenges not typically faced by their male counterparts. Although more and more women today are embracing the idea of entrepreneurship, they still constantly have to deal with issues such as the lack of funding, balancing business and family life, coping with failure, and competing in male-dominated fields. While it’s easy to focus on these challenges, it’s oftentimes more ideal to bring attention to the things that can be controlled. With a solid skill set and the right business tools, any female entrepreneur can reach her maximum business potential. Check out the list below to see which small business tools women who are just getting started with entrepreneurship can utilize. 8 Powerful Tools Ideal for the Beginning Entrepreneur 1. Quickbooks A lot of entrepreneurs count on Quickbooks Online for their bookkeeping and basic accounting needs. For a small amount, the service comes with an app you can use on the go. You can send clients online invoices, view your balance, approve estimates, and so much more. You can also integrate it with services like PayPal. It may seem complicated at first but it’s actually quite intuitive, which makes it very ideal for eCommerce in particular. 2. Salesforce As the most popular customer relations management (CRM) system, it’s guaranteed to work even with small business operations. If you want to automate the sales process and simplify management of your business contacts, clients, and the like, then you should look into Salesforce, too, and study its viability for your operations. When you do subscribe to the service, take advantage of its various customization options to make your operations more efficient. 3. Wix For your website creation needs, you can opt to get started with Wix, especially if you dont have a strong background in web coding. It’s basically the easiest way to get yourself out there â€" for free. You can choose your own templates, colors, and other website elements as you deem fit through drag and drop. You can change these as often as you want. 4. Google Analytics Every startup needs a website, and every website needs a tracker. If you want to know how much traffic your website is generating, or where the traffic comes from, among other valuable data, then you need to start using Google Analytics. If you want to use this tool to make informed decisions about where to go next with your business, start fiddling with the tool’s configurations and play with the data you have. [RELATED: The Top Ten Online Tools I Cant Live Without] 5. MailChimp Email marketing can be a tricky endeavor if not done correctly. Thankfully, services like MailChimp exist to make things easier for you. It allows you to create free email campaigns, mailing lists, and newsletters so that you can expand your reach according to the select audience you’re targeting. MailChimp has a pretty solid collection of pre-built templates to start with (in case you don’t know where to start). 6. RingCentral Perhaps the most important facet of your operations is your communications. RingCentral helps you create a good first impression starting with its intuitive auto attendant feature. The service’s feature set even extends to voice, conferencing, online meetings, SMS and more so you’ll get the whole shebang that will keep you in constant contact with your customers and employees at packages you can afford. 7. Square If you’re into selling tangible products, it’s a huge mistake to accept cash-only payments. Nowadays, transactions are almost always online or through credit and debit cards. Square makes it easy for small businesses to accept money for their products, whether you’re at exhibitions or at farmers’ markets, or when meeting up with someone who placed an order online. When you sign up, Square will send you a magnetic stripe reader that allows you to swipe cards anywhere. You attach this to your phone or mobile device â€" an instant point-of-sale on your desk, booth, or coffee table. Another way to sell your goods online is through the online solution Shopify. Imagine having an eBay or Etsy store that’s completely your own. You organize your products, you customize the online storefront, choose the payment methods, track orders, respond to clients â€" the possibilities are endless. Doesn’t that make you look more professional? Start simplifying your small business operations by considering some of these powerful tools. After all, female entrepreneurs are known to be tremendously resourceful even with their limited means. It totally helps to know which tools will work best for your daily grind, and it’s even more important to understand how you can grow your company through these apps and services.