Top Low Cost and Free Small Business Tools - Part #3 For the New Year

HAPPY NEW YEAR STUDENTS, ENTREPRENEURS, and EDUCATORS!

Today for the new year, we cover our favorite small business tools that are:

1. Free or low cost,

2. Help start off the new year right for you both personally, and in business and

3. Proven

TOP 10 SMALL BUSINESS TOOLS TO START THE NEW YEAR OFF RIGHT

1. www.Mint.com – A free finance tool. Financial literacy starts at home.

2. www.Doodle.com – Easy group scheduling tool.

3. www.GoogleDocs.com – Google docs are fabulous for virtual teams, and individuals who travel or have multiple offices. Tip: Use an excel sheet in Google Docs to manage your team tasks and give everyone access.

4. www.PollDaddy.com – Polls are a great way to direct action, and start a conversation.  The fact that they are free makes them even better. You can use Google Forms as well for a poll.

5. www.EventBrite.com – Use it for your real life events or virtual seminars. You will see why.

6. 1888PressRelease.com – Press releases with built-in SEO and social bookmarking.

7. www.TwitterAnalyzer.com – If Twitter is a tactic your business uses to gain influence, this is a great tool to examine in-depth stats. For straight rankings, see www.Twitter.Grader.com and www.Twitterholic.com.

8. www.SlimTimer.com – Accountability for your tasks, via the internet.

9. Six O’Clock Scramble – Healthy meals in 30 minutes. Busy entrepreneurs are short on time, and need to stay on top of their game. Here is one way.

10. www.FitDay.com – Related to #9, most intense entrepreneurs try to stay on top of their health to keep up the level of intensity. In the world of work hard, play hard, this is a good free tracking tool.

Discussion questions & suggested exercises:

A. Have students find their favorite online tools, and present between one and three in class. Categorize the sites as: Business, personal, school, other.

B. Of the tools above, which do the students think they might use now. Which might they use in 10 years? Explain?

C. Review the NFIB EITC (Entrepreneur in the Classroom)  exercise dealing with financial statements (in business planning section of Module 3 “Turning an idea into a business.”)  Why is having free access to resources important? Discuss the “expenses” part of the financial powerpoints at Entrepreneur in the Classroom (EITC). 

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Stay tuned for our final post in this series on low cost resources for start ups.

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