The need for small business software keeps growing.
Everything from office communication to accounting to email marketing.
These are just a few areas where having the correct small business software can make or break the bottom line.
There’s no shortage of solutions out there, although that can be a double-edged sword.
Businesses—especially smaller firms that might not have a software expert in-house—struggle to find the right solution for their unique needs.
The answers fall into three general categories.
1. Free tools
WordPress and Skype are examples of systems where you can start for free.
The advantages to this approach—besides the price tag—are that it allows for a learning curve.
If you start with a free WordPress content management system, you can use trial and error to learn what types of content work best for your business and how you need to present it.
The same goes for Skype and employee communications.
This works in an environment where there is time to settle on a solution.
Free tools are rarely good enough in and of themselves, but they provide a cost-free way to get started and establish a base of information from which you can decide what features your firm truly needs.
2. Paid upgrade
A natural offshoot off the free tools, this is where you buy a better version of whatever it is you’re using for free.
The advantage is that you presumably know what you want in the software and if the price is affordable, it’s a relatively pain-free to implement it.
3. DIY tools
For firms that have a software expert on staff or readily at hand, designing your own tools can be a great way to ensure that the software will meet every unique need of your business and have nothing superfluous.
Just make sure that you aren’t completely dependent on one person to maintain and troubleshoot the system—there’s no other place to turn if there’s a crash.