My Essential Business Tools

Running your own business is such an incredible feeling – super empowering and fun as you can make it what you want it to be – but on the other hand comes a lot of stress and sometimes overwhelm. To avoid these feelings, having systems and tools in place to help all aspects of your business run smoothly, is so important and definitely key factor in making sure your business is a success!

I can definitely go into each individual system in more detail at a later date, but for now I thought it might be helpful to share the business tools which are an ESSENTIAL to helping me run my business to keep organised and making it a success.

My must-have business tools recommendations:

Studio Ninja

Although I am a relatively new member to the Studio Ninja community, SN is now the backbone to running my photography business! I couldn’t imagine running this side of my business without this incredible Client Management Software!

To say it has transformed the running of my business is an understatement – increased my income, made me feel in control of my business, organised, ahead of the game and taken my client experience to a new level. I am so so happy with Studio Ninja and the crucial part it now plays in running my business, I highly recommend it.

Having tried out multiple CRM softwares, this is by far my favourite. With a slick interface, an incredible support team and just a simple to use (not overcomplicated like some!) database that helps drives your business and you are running a photography business, an amazing way to keep organised with your clients, issue invoices and keep an efficient workflow.

Quickbooks

This programme actually makes running the accounts side of business, dare I say fun! Quickbooks is an easy programme to use and then to be able to submit my annual returns at the click of a button! I used to run a Limited company before taking my photography business full time, I used an Accountant to run everything for me and I was unbelievably clueless about the running of the finances in the business. I took the decision to run my own accounts for a couple of years as I think knowing the ins and outs of my business finances is super important!

This process has helped me feel confident in running my business, knowing everything about expenses, profits the lot. This simple system, makes this process so easy, no complicated spreadsheets that I set and then don’t understand. It also has a great app which helps you track mileage which when I am travelling for weddings can be a pain to tot up at the end of the year. This way I can do it at the touch of a button on the day.

Asana

This amazing online tool is incredible….and its free! Keeping my business organised from a goals, to-do lists and projects perspective, Asana has never been easier now that this is fully integrated into my business. I signed up to Asana some years ago and couldn’t quite get my head round it. I thought it was unnecessary when I had notebooks and pieces of paper. But that was one of the problems! I had millions of pieces of paper dotted around the office linking to different projects and ideas. This way I can keep it super streamlined and know exactly where everything is.

I love that it also has a mobile app, meaning if I am out and about and need to add something to one of my projects or just general to-do list then I can.

Google Drive

I pretty much always have a hard drive on me – part of the whole working from your laptop anywhere lifestyle – and I never save anything on my laptop/computer! But I find it super helpful to have some documents online that I can access at any point should I need them. It also works as a great online backup system.

Evernote

I am definitely one to use pen and paper and one of my trillion notebooks I have! However sometimes you might need to just jot down some notes. I used to used just the standard note app that came with my phone – but I found it super difficult to navigate, keep organised and remember where I had written something. Evernote is amazing as you can keep things organised in ‘Notebooks’ relevant to different areas of your life or business.

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Hope you found this useful and maybe introduce you to some new systems you might not have heard of before. I would love to know what are your business essentials and how they have transformed your business – comment below, I’d love to hear from you!

Much love, Charlotte x