It is the usage of small business tools that prevents businessmen from reinventing the wheel every other day. Running a business ain’t beans and without automating some standard steps and procedures, it would be well nigh impossible. That’s like a businessman building a proposal without the use of small business templates, and ending up working more on the formatting than the content.

The same thing applies to financial planning templates and website design. Not to mention other commonly used tools like spreadsheets designed and ready for various uses like financial statements or balancing checkbooks. There are sample documents, letters and formats available for various functions from B2B contracts to job application forms and independent contractor agreements.

It’s also important to be well prepared with checklists for dealing with critical matters. This includes everything from trademark disputes to tax audits, subpoenas and customer lawsuits. The only alternative is to keep a roster of expensive experts on the payroll who will then dispense advice identical to that on the checklist.

All of this is but only the tip of the iceberg. The real value lies in more complex usage, like customer relations, sales & marketing, HR management and performance analysis. Some of these are freely available, like a tool which helps poll customers and tabulate the survey data into charts and reports.

Whenever there’s something that needs to be done, make it a point to first check to see if there’s a handy tool to do the same thing easily. For instance, buying or selling companies is not something where one expects to use a simple tool. But there are many that can make the research far easier, like a valuation calculator.

The toolkit should be especially useful for HR functions, where there is a high degree of repetitiveness. Job application forms are required, and employees constantly fill up forms and documents for things like appraisals or satisfaction surveys. The biggest help comes in using tools to manage benefit programs, which are very difficult to manage while being important from a tax viewpoint.

Even more useful than HR toolkits are the ones used in sales and marketing. Metrics need to be collected and the analysis needs a bit of expertise. There are standard toolkits to help with this, such as a worksheet that can track the effectiveness of an ad campaign and provide customer acquisition costs. Also, a telemarketing tool used the right way can put sales on the fast track.

It’s important here to not turn this article into a laundry list, considering that one page is hardly going to be enough. So let’s just say that before doing anything, remember that there’s already small business tools for it. This is true for every business planning aspect involved in running a business, big or small.

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