We’re living in a golden age of innovation. Every day, more and more products are introduced to the market that can help streamline and improve your business’ workflow. The internet is loaded with resources that can help you and your team communicate better, share information with each other, and improve your visibility with prospective clients.
However, the sheer size of the internet can make it difficult to weed out good products from the bad. Companies are fighting for the attention of consumers, and often it’s the loudest and most bold advertising scheme that grabs people’s attention—but when has the loudest ever equated with the best?
Despite all the white noise, there are certain products and programs that stand out. Smart businesses have discovered them, and they use them to boost their productivity, drive their operations, and improve their performance.
Upwork
Even though many businesses retain salaried staff, there are always occasional projects that require skills that aren’t possessed by internal employees. In these cases, it’s common for businesses to turn to freelancers. However, vetting freelancers can be tricky. They arrive from word-of-mouth sources, or are found on websites like Craiglist with suspect resumes.
Upwork removes all of these sketchy variables from the freelance hiring process. Their workers are heavily vetted, and their reference system ensures that potential hires are credible, proven, and capable.
Quora
Sometimes no one around the office can answer a technical question, or you and your team are struggling to plan your business’ next step. In these cases, Quora—a crowd sourced Q&A forum—can often provide you with answers. People who sign up and use Quora to both answer and ask questions are vetted in ways that other crowd sourced forums haven’t been in the past. It’s a great place to ask questions about the latest cloud storage hard drive, or how other businesses have dealt with personnel issues.
Slack
Gone are the days when teams need to physically seek each other out for every little question that they might have about a project. If someone in the office needs to send a large batch of files, or to ask a quick question, Slack provides a condensed and closed-off space only accessible by members of your business.
Slack is used by businesses of all sizes, and in many workspaces it’s become mandatory. It can streamline projects, help organize teams and information, while at the same time guaranteeing a level of security that prevents outsiders from accessing your business information.
Squarespace
Even in the internet age when face-to-face interaction has been drastically reduced, first impressions are still important. With so much content on the internet, having a sleek website can help your company stand out from the rest. Enter Squarespace.
Squarespace is a website builder that is easy to use and offers premade templates that will fit any business. Their websites are elegant, minimal, and very easy to manage. If you ever have trouble on the backend, a dedicated support team is there to clear up questions that you may have and to help with any and all development issues. Squarespace is the full package, and should be the first step for any company who wants to present themselves online in a respectable way.
Things
If you’re tired of losing track of information or you’re having difficulty digging up files that you need to transfer, Things offers a streamlined personal task management system that is award-winning and increasingly popular among companies. It helps you manage all of the tasks that might otherwise overwhelm a busy company, and keep everything organized so that employees can easily refer to their designated assignments.
Not only is Things incredibly useful, it’s also easy to use. Other task managers get bogged down by poorly designed user interfaces and an overwhelming number of options, but Things was built with a sleek design that was intended to make navigation simple.
No matter the size of your business or how successful it might be, there’s always room for improvement. It’s worth investing in tools that can take your productivity to the next level. Beginning with the products on this list, you can get your efficiency soaring and will have clients knocking on your door in no time.