Consider this: many small businesses, like yours and mine,  are financially fragile: The median business with more than $10,000 in monthly expenses has only about two weeks of cash on hand a recent US survey showed. 

That’s daunting news for small business owners everywhere. We need to tip the scales in our favor. Technology may give us that boost. It may even be the pivot that most small businesses need to come out stronger on the other side of an economic downturn.

What kind of technology? The kind that can help us better manage, cut off the red tape, and reduce operating costs. Below are the emerging tech tools that small businesses should be using today to ensure their tomorrow: 

1. Voice Tech 

Voice Technology is shooting up. More people are turning to voice tech to avoid using their hands or any physical contact. People are using voice to search online, pay for a purchase, access the elevator, or enter their workplace.  

Google reports that, globally, 27% of people online are using voice search on mobile. About 58% of consumers have found a local business using voice search. 

Why is this important for your business? Since “best place to buy” is one of the most popular voice searches, you need to ensure that your Google My Business listing is up to date. 

You also need to make your SEO voice search-friendly by using natural language that directly answers questions in your webpage text. 

If you have a physical store, allowing people to pay using their voice will attract safety-conscious customers. Employees will like it if they can access their workplace or clock in using their voice.   

Google Docs for speech-to-text transcriptions. Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant are able to carry out online searches, order pizza, check on your house, and most commands from your smartphone.    

2. Accounting 

This is one of the most important yet dreaded tasks for small business owners. These entrepreneurs often don’t have full-time accountants to manage their finances. 

The good news is there is a lot of accounting software that automates the whole process for you. Go for one that is cloud-based so that you don’t have to download the program on your PC. You can also access your dashboard wherever you are.  

Good accounting will allow you to get on top of issues before they become problems.  Issues like taxes can be a handful and never enjoyable.  

Accounting software that updates with the federal, state, and local tax laws in your area can be a lifesaver down the road. 

Coming from an entrepreneur who tried to do accounting; believe me, it will be worth it. Quickbooks Online and Xero are online accounting software popular from garage businesses to enterprises.

3. Payroll 

Most entrepreneurs can handle payroll if they are only paying themselves and don’t have any employees. But if you want to scale up, you need to add people. 

Payroll then gets complicated more than you can ever imagine. There are many payroll programs that are cloud-based that you can subscribe to on a monthly basis. 

Nothing kills the entrepreneurial spirit more than structure. Doing payroll is a very structured process. 

Use a payroll app that syncs with your employees’ time in and time out. When people need to be paid, everything has been processed already and just needs your final review and approval. Square Payroll and QuickBooks will suit most small business needs and are quite easy to learn

4. Marketing 

Marketing automation is very important if you want to keep a healthy line of leads ringing up business. 

According to Hubspot, 63% of businesses say that generating traffic and leads is their foremost problem.  Don’t be part of that statistic by automating the process of generating leads, and engaging them until they are ready to buy. 

You can do this with marketing automation software. Businesses that automate their lead generation increase their revenues by 10% in six to nine months. 

A small business like yours doesn’t really need a swarm of marketing people. 

First, you can’t afford them. Second, why hire when you can use marketing automation that catches leads when they go to your website, and sends them nurturing emails until they are ready to make a purchase.  

You can do this on your own, manually. Trust me, I’ve been there, you don’t need the aggravation. Hubspot and Marketo lead the pack in this very competitive category. 

5. E-commerce 

Each day e-commerce is growing. In 2021, it is expected that 2.14 billion people will buy online. That’s an anticipated e-commerce sales of US$ 4.8 trillion worldwide. 

You better hop on that e-commerce train yesterday. E-commerce might sound intimidating but there are online sites that basically automate the whole thing for you. 

All you need to do is upload your logo, products and type in some text. You can have the whole thing set up in under 30 minutes. 

Of course, there will be maintenance and updating to do such as product inventories and sales promotions. Easy peasy. You can access the dashboard from any device.

Only several years ago, e-commerce was the domain of the most tech-savvy people. Not anymore. Thanks to simple, clear, and easy dashboards and templates, anyone who can read instructions can set up their own e-commerce site. 

Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace host most of the e-commerce stores you can find online. 

6. Cloud-based file sharing 

You will never win the battle for more storage space if you are using hard drives. No matter how big they are you will eventually fill them up.  

Your best option is to use a cloud-based file-sharing system. You can access this virtual storage from any device from anywhere in the world.  

You can also share files with your employees or customers. If you need more space you can upgrade your plan.  

Cloud storage is the one thing that will free you from making unnecessary trips to the office to retrieve a file.  Have you ever experienced getting home only to find out that you need that file on your office desktop?  

Cloud storage will never break, get lost, or get damaged. Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive are two of the best. They also have generous free storage versions.

7. Synced Calendar Apps 

Working from home means more meetings than ever. Keeping track of your schedule can be confusing. You also need to invite people. 

A calendar app that helps you create a meeting or event and then invite people can make life simple. It also sends a reminder at set intervals so it’s hard for you to miss an appointment. 

This is like your personal assistant which reminds you of every meeting that you have for the week.  You don’t need to go far with Google Calendar and MS Outlook. 

8. Proposal software 

Proposals are a part of the business. Creating a proposal can take a lot of your time and rightly so. 

But sometimes, you can get stuck in the creative process such as designing the slides, devising a color scheme, proper formatting, and using the right fonts. 

You wish you could just concentrate on putting together the strategy. A proposal software will allow you to bang together one for as much as 70% less time.  

A suggested outline based on the kind of proposal or goal can be customized.  With proposal software, you don’t need to panic when a prospect asks for a proposal that they need yesterday. PandaDoc and Proposify are popular but there are others you can consider.

9. Grammar check 

The only thing worse than not submitting a proposal is submitting a half-baked one that is littered with grammatical errors. 

This kind of proposal will surely find its way to the garbage bin. 

There are a bunch of grammar checkers that can help you minimize errors.  Grammarly and ProWritingAid will fill in most gaps in your writing needs.

10. Social media management

Social media is an important part of marketing your business. It is very effective in spreading awareness and in engaging with your market. But it can be overwhelming for most businessmen. 

Most of your target market would have two active social media accounts. Companies will want to follow their audience wherever they are online. But small businesses like yours only have an army of one, that’s you. The wife, kids, and grandma and grandpa can pitch in for a while, but it is mostly you. 

With a social media management tool, it is possible to use just one dashboard to upload, edit, schedule, and publish posts. Notifications, if someone messages you, can be sent to your smartphone. You can always reply even if you are away from your desktop.  Hootsuite and SproutSocial seem to be among the best, but you can certainly find others more suited to your needs.

11. Business messaging 

You may already be using a messaging app in your daily activities. I strongly advise that you keep your personal messages walled from your business messages. 

This just makes for a cleaner separation between your personal and professional lives. It is also a good way to prevent burnout. 

Plus, you can avoid embarrassing or costly mistakes like sending your wife’s messages to a customer. 

You want a messaging app where, apart from chats, you can send files, photos, and videos. You also want it to be searchable, and most of all, secure. 

For business matters, DingTalk and Slack seem to be the best for professional communications. You can also use these to manage teams, collaborate on projects, and keep everyone on the same page.  

12. Project team management 

Remote team management will be the norm, rather than an exception. Going into business does not mean working alone. On the contrary, you will be working on projects with all sorts of people. 

You can only do so much on your own. You need project management software to keep track of who is doing what, deadlines, budget, and status. These are simply too overwhelming to track on different applications. 

A project management software with a unified dashboard can help you keep things grounded. The most popular ones are Asana, Trello, and Monday.com but there are others you should try to find the right fit.   

Conclusion

Adaptability is a key trait of successful businesses. Luckily, technology allows us to roll and flex at whatever life throws at us. 

Some of these tech tools are still evolving like e-commerce. Messaging is now a fixture of business management. While voice technology may show the way forward.  Some tools can even be disruptive, like fintech. 

Whatever tech tools we may decide to use, remember that humans will always be the driving force of how much positive impact technology will have on our business. You are your most important tool for navigating the future.