What are your plans for revenue growth?
Should you invest in experiential marketing campaigns to raise brand awareness? Hire popular social media advocates to win the trust of your online audience?
While these aggressive methods will surely bring you positive results, they can be too expensive and risky for startups who are still trying to get up on their feet. So rather than exploring costly new frontiers for your brand, you should first look within for internal processes you can improve in terms of speed and efficiency.
Enabling remote work is one of the strategies that captured the attention of budding startups. Thanks to cloud technology, teams can collaborate and become productive without having to meet face to face. You can also rent shared working spaces to facilitate team-building, brainstorming, and other activities you need to do as a team. Either way, you need to be equipped for the challenges of being digitally nomadic.
Here is a list of the top 5 apps you can start with:
1. Slack
As a remote team, you need to everything in your power to ensure the smooth exchange of information between members. A lightweight communication tool like Slack fits the bill perfectly.
With Slack, your team can stay in tune with the organization’s objectives — regardless if they are at home in front of their computers or in a coffee shop with their phones. All you need to do is to organize key discussions, such as lead generation, marketing strategy, and sales into ‘channels’. Members can also set reminders, send direct messages, and respond to messages via emojis and comments.
As you share files, Slack also keeps them on the cloud on your behalf. This ensures no team member gets left behind on the progress of tasks.
2. Trello
Trello is a more comprehensive collaboration tool designed for teams who need to be laser-focused on goals. Basically, you can use it to organize individual tasks into “cards”, which can then be sorted into lists and boards.
To enable collaboration with team members, simply add them into your board. Trello empowers productivity by letting users assign tasks to other members, leave feedback, share files, and create labels for further organization. Members can also set due dates to instill the sense of urgency in your team’s responsibilities.
3. LiquidSpace
Remote working is usually a win-win for businesses and their workforce. While employees can enjoy flexibility and a familiar environment to beat stress, employers can save money from monthly office space rental fees. However, you shouldn’t take office spaces completely off the table just for the sake of saving.
With LiquidSpace, you can easily look for flexible office spaces that are priced according to your needs — be it by the hour, day, or week. Just use the built-in search function or browse from a list of available spaces in your location.
Remember that having your team together in a physical space encourages maximum productivity and builds a closer company culture. According to statistics, 60% of remote workers who also use coworking spaces are more rested at home. Furthermore, 68% feel more focused while in a shared office environment.
4. Kajabi
Renting a shared office space with on-demand conference rooms is one way to discuss with prospective clients, partners, investors, and employees. But as a digitally nomadic company, your primary tool for communication would be your online content.
Kajabi is an online content platform where you can effortlessly aggregate your landing page designs, newsletters, online courses, videos, and more. It can also help you nurture your own online community through comments in your content.
You can use Kajabi to build an onboarding experience for new employees and customers alike. If you want, you can also create paid courses and collect payments without having to integrate a third-party payment gateway.
5. Oberlo
Sometimes, you just need an all-around platform to prevent ove-complicating your processes. For e-commerce companies that utilize dropshipping, Oberlo is one of the most versatile tools you can use. It can help you customize your product pages, track shipments, auto-fill orders, and update your inventory — all in one place.
Dropshipping is perfect for online businesses that don’t have a warehouse. It works by moving sold products directly from the manufacturer to the customer. Not only does this reduce overhead costs, it also makes your e-commerce business a lot easier start and scale.
6. Evernote
Evernote makes sure you have a single place to jot down everything. You can use it to create audio recordings, store business card information, create checklists, upload attachments, and more. You can also take advantage of the “Web Clipper” browser extension to easily capture, annotate, and share online information.
One of Evernote’s key features is automatic synchronization, which is perfect for professionals on the go. Whether you use the core app into your tablet, laptop, desktop, or smartphone, you are guaranteed to access the latest version of your notes — as long as you have internet connectivity. Finally, Evernote also enables multiple users to work on the same “notebook” for collaboration and brainstorming purposes.
Do you believe that remote working is the best next move for your business? Check out this post to learn how it can help you improve your customer service. Also, feel free to let us know what you think about remote working in the comments below — your insights are highly appreciated!
