The Ultimate List of Tools for New Service-Based Businesses
Starting and growing a service-based business is one that can be exciting yet absolutely terrifying. Most of the time, you’re a one-person show, so it feels like everything falls on you (and it basically does). You quickly realize, though, that systems and tools are your new best friend.
However, it’s super easy to fall down the rabbit hole of Googling which tools are best for which purpose, signing up for free trial after free trial, and getting lost in a sea of overwhelm when you notice that you’re 50 applications deep yet you only use about 2 or 3 semi-consistently.
So, to prevent you from going anywhere near that rabbit hole and save the time that you would otherwise be spending on trial and error, we’re going to break down our ultimate list of tools for new service-based businesses! We’ll be listing a few options for different categories so as to not overwhelm you. Some of these we currently use and some we’ve used in the past before our business grew and evolved.
Project Management
TRELLO
When it comes to project management, there’s a huge space in our hearts for Trello. It was the software we used when we first started our business, and it’s one that has only gotten even better as time goes on. Its basic design is super user-friendly for those who prefer simpler tools, yet it has a myriad of add-ons called “power ups” that allow you to amplify your experience. We still use Trello for social media planning in conjunction with our current project management tool.
CLICKUP
For a while, once our business expanded, we switched to a more robust system, ClickUp. It was great for our needs at the time as it had different project views (list, board, columns, etc.) and a totally different interface. We housed everything here, and it worked out really well! ClickUp has since updated to 2.0, which has a bit of a different interface than what we used, and may be a bit too robust or confusing for the average user.
ASANA
Our most recent migration has been to Asana. It has a very similar interface to ClickUp 1.0 but a little easier on the eyes. Tasks and subtasks have more automated features, like subtask dependencies, which we use often. Since we have multiple members on our team, some working on the same project, we’re able to set a dependency on one subtask that alerts the next person when they can begin on their subtask. We were under the impression that Asana was a more difficult software to learn, but it was actually really easy for us to transition to.
CRMs (Client Relationship Management)
DUBSADO
There’s only one CRM that we’ve ever used, which should say a lot since we never felt the need to leave, and that’s Dubsado. It has everything you could need in regards to managing and taking care of clients packed into a user-friendly interface with an affordable price to top it off. You’re able to streamline your processes with workflows, create canned emails, send invoices, create beautiful forms, schedule appointments, and more. For a full breakdown of Dubsado’s features and functionality, read this blog post.
While we could talk on and on about Dubsado, check it out for yourself over here and save 30% on your first month or year.
Because it’s the only CRM we’ve used, we don’t have another suggestion for a CRM tool, but if you don’t need all of the extra features, you could find a way to get by with creating a client board in Trello. While it’ll be more manual labor on your part, it could be a useful alternative from investing in a CRM platform.
Social Media
LATER
We’ve always used and loved Later for scheduling posts to Instagram and Facebook. Its calendar view allows you to see thumbnails of posts, and we especially love the saved hashtags feature. We have different categories for hashtags for different posts, and we’re able to quickly pick the group that best fits the post and add to either the caption or the first comment. Your photo queue is a grid of 3-across, so you’re able to easily upload posts in the order that you would post on your feed and see what it will look like on your profile grid.
TAILWIND
Tailwind is the ultimate scheduling tool for Pinterest. With Smart Loops and Tribes, it’s the perfect way to increase your Pinterest game tenfold! Smart Loops allows you to set recurring rePins of content you choose, and Tribes allow you to find groups of other accounts related to certain niches and share each other’s content.
You’re able to connect your Instagram account and use Tailwind for scheduling your content there as well, but we prefer Later’s interface for that side of social.
CANVA
When it comes to graphics for social (or for anything, really), Canva is our absolute go-to. It’s quick and easy to whip up graphics that fit most needs, especially when it comes to simple, shareable graphics for social! We love using graphics on our feed to boost engagement and shares, therefore increasing traffic to our Instagram profile. Canva allows us to create a month’s worth of social graphics in 30 minutes, easy-peasy.
Discovery Calls
ZOOM
You can never go wrong with Zoom! We use Zoom for interviewing podcast guests, hosting webinars, student coaching calls, and regular meetings. It’s the perfect platform for holding discovery calls, and the best part is that the free plan allows you to hold meetings for up to 40 minutes, which is plenty of time for chatting with a prospective client. You’re also able to record meetings so that you can watch them later.
Time Management
GOOGLE CALENDAR
We live and breathe by our Google Calendar. If isn’t on our calendar, it doesn’t exist! As an added plus, you can also integrate your Google Calendar with Dubsado so that all scheduled blocks will show up on your Dubsado calendar as well. We also love that you can download the app on your phone or add your Google account to your iPhone settings and sync with your native iPhone calendar.
TOGGL TIME TRACKING
If you operate and invoice clients hourly or even in packages, chances are you’re tracking your time. Toggl is an amazing, easy-to-use application that allows you to track time for basically anything! You can create projects for different clients and task categories under those projects. Then, when the time comes, you can export a PDF of their time report to easily add to your invoices.
Toggl has a Google Chrome extension that you can download to quickly turn on and off without having to keep a tab open of the website. There’s also an app available for iOS and Android so you can track time straight from your phone.
Time tracking is also such a helpful way to see where your hours are going during the day. If you constantly feel like there just isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done, try tracking your time. The results may just surprise you!
Financial Tools
OLD SCHOOL - EXCEL
Spoiler alert: We built a company from zero to nearly $200k before we stopped using Excel. Why use complicated fancy accounting software when you can easily do it the old school way for $0? For years we used Excel to track every receipt, every mile driven, all contractors we used, other expenses, etc.
We had separate sheets that gave us an overview of how we were doing — one that helped us forecast future income (especially when we were still running a client based business), one for contracted/paid income, and one that tracked when we paid ourselves and how much.
Every business is a little bit different, and Excel can easily be customized. If this sounds completely overwhelming to you, then we have some other options for you to consider.
QUICKBOOKS
Quickbooks is an awesome bookkeeping tool; however, unless you’re familiar with bookkeeping practices, it may be a bit overwhelming, especially for a brand new business. Once your business grows larger, hiring a bookkeeper to help with this software will be a smart and extremely useful investment.
As an alternative for the moment, Dubsado has financial reports available to you that allow you to track where your clients [read: income] are coming from, a full report of all invoices sent and payments received, a chart of accounts that lets you see your income and expenses during custom time periods, and more. For a step-by-step guide on how to use Dubsado for bookkeeping, check out this blog post.
WAVE
Wave Accounting is far less robust than Quickbooks, making it much easier to learn and a great middle ground. They integrate smoothly with most banks, which means no manual entry of sales or purchases. Wave Accounting covers everything from Invoicing, Accounting, Payroll, Payments and even Personal Finance. Their interface is really easy to learn, but if you get stuck they have a tremendous FAQ and Blog section to help you out.
STRIPE
We would have to rate Stripe as the top dog of payment processors for businesses both big and small. You can view a full list of all payments you’ve received including disputes and refunds, and your balances, which shows how much money is available to payout to your bank account, how much is on the way to your bank and what date it will deposit, how much will be available in Stripe soon, and more.
Financial pro-tip: When it comes to income, we recommend splitting it into 50/30/20. 50% gets paid out to yourself, 30% is put aside in a separate account for taxes, and 20% is invested back into your business.
File Storage
DROPBOX
Dropbox makes it so easy to keep all our files organized and is super handy because of its multi-device functionality. We’ve got Dropbox downloaded on our computers so we can save directly, and also installed on our phones so we can access documents or images on the go. We can keep track of all our blog post graphics, stock photos, slides for webinars, Creative Template Shop products and graphics, and all the course content we produce.
GOOGLE DRIVE
We’d be lost without Google Drive and, honestly, all of their G Suite products. With Google Drive, we’re able to keep track of all important documents and spreadsheets created within Docs and Sheets, as well as easily share those with other members of our team. Heck, this blog post that you’re reading on our website now was originally just written inside of a Google Doc that lives in our Drive folder for blog posts.
Pro Tip: Create only one shared folder then make folders inside it for organization. This way, you don’t have to create a share link for every single thing you work on — just add it to the main folder and anyone who is added to the shared folder can see it!
CARBONITE
As two people who have precious product information and memorable photographs, we are paranoid about backing up our files. Carbonite allows a behind-the-scenes automatic backup of all the files on your computer (you can add multiple computers and devices). We also use external hard drives to manually pull files from our computers and backup. Trust us when we say that you do not want to go through a hard drive failure when you haven’t backed anything up in 7 years!
ICLOUD
Ok, we have already harped on about backing up once, but here we are doing it again. We document on the go constantly, and as two photo fanatics, we would be devastated if we lost our latest snaps. If you have an iPhone, make sure your auto backup to iCloud is on. This could really save you in a pinch!
And there you have it! These are all of the tools that we would recommend to brand spanking new service-based business owners. Remember, we tried to give you a few options for different categories, so that doesn’t mean you have to use all of them! These are just ones that we’ve used, some we’ve outgrown as our business evolved, and some that we still use to this very day.
Although it’s easy to get distracted by all the bells and whistles that different tools and softwares showcase, simple is usually better, especially for a new business. So when in doubt about what to go with, always choose ease over a robust list of features.
DISCLAIMER: We wholeheartedly LOVE these tools. All opinions expressed here are simply because we do use these tools and find them extremely beneficial. A few of these links are affiliate links, though that doesn’t sway our opinion on these tools.
