Owning a business in the 21st century is, as Dickens put it, “the best of times and the worst of times.” It is the “best of times” because e-commerce has opened up the entire world to wanna-be entrepreneurs or pretty much anyone able to set up a website, list some products (not necessarily own) and add a checkout.



It is the “worst of times” because operating a successful business requires huge and continual re-adjustments to ever-changing technology that can allow the competition to out-shine, out-sell, and out-pace the business owner who gets lazy.






And the kicker is this: Tools for everything you want to do are out there for free! Here are just a few to start you out.


Company up and running? You have a small staff of employees, including sales people who are out and about during the day. How do you all collaborate, communicate, and share tasks and projects? The best new tool to provide all of this is at Bitrix. It’s free for up to 12 employees and allows you to set up an in-house email, video conferencing and group chaps from anywhere, online document shares, tasks and project collaboration, and a CRM that tracks all activity and communication with customers and clients, so that anyone can view the entire history. Basically, that’s everything you need to kickastart your company and keep it running smoothly from day one! As you grow, you can add to the plan, and there are several reasonable options.

Got the right team on board, it’s time to turn your biz from just an idea to the reality. Here are the initial free tools for you:

PickyDomains.com: If you want a catchy name for your business or for a product, you are introducing to the market; this is a crazy fun app to get it for you. You begin by providing a few small details, like are their letter combinations you want included and do you want the word to be close to normal or not? Once you plug in your specifics, you hit the search button (upper left corner) and you will get pages and pages of possibilities and combinations of possibilities.


Strikingly : chances are you have probably heard of this platform for both designing a great website and also as probably the best platform for setting up your business blog (and you will certainly need a blog). What you may not know is that Strikingly has one of the most pleasant post editors and loads of free, mobile-friendly designs to choose from – you can also re-code them in something more personalized later on with basic PHP skills.

Website Analysis: You need to be constantly mindful of how our site is performing. There are 3 great free tools for you to use regularly:


Want Invoice Simplicity and Efficiency? Then you will want to use Slimvoice , a free downloadable tool that lets you create a clear and simple invoice. You fill in the fields, itemize the charges, let the tool generate the total and then click the paper airplane at the top to email it to your customer/client. It is delivered in PDF format, and you then file your copy in the generated file for that client.

Do You Travel: Here’s a great little app - Open Signal and allows you to find free Wi-Fi hotspots anywhere on the planet to work like you’ve onced dreamed - on the beach with a cold fancy cocktail in hand. (working on the beach is impossible: hot, noizy and fancy cocktail are too overpriced. Just so you know...)


Content: Whether you are writing text for your site or posts for your business blog, you will want your grammar carefully checked. Try GrammarCheck.net. It has a basic grammar check for free and an upgrade for a minimal cost. Nothing is worse than grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors on content that your visitors and/or followers read.

About that Blog: Content marketing is all about have a great business blog on your site and then sharing the content, images and graphics everywhere, so that your brand and your niche expertise is spread everywhere. Here are some free tools that can make your blog a “go to” spot for great information and entertainment.

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