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3 MIN. READ
Between distractions and sudden changes in the business environment, it can be difficult to stay on task and be productive.
To get the most out of your business, you need to use productivity tools. There are a vast array of products and services that can help you optimize your time in the office. Below is a description of some of the more critical productivity categories and a list of some solutions that we think you’ll find very useful in 2021.
Time management is one of the biggest challenges facing anyone in business. We only have a finite number of hours each day to accomplish everything that needs to be done. When considering time-management and productivity tools, look for those that focus on organization and optimization while keeping the entire team on the same page.
Since many teams spend the majority of their time in meetings and multitasking, there is little precious time left over for actually being productive. RescueTime helps eliminate spending energy on unproductive actions. It manages your time by tracking what you are spending most of your effort on, activating distraction blockers and sending weekly reports on what has been accomplished. The software is customizable to fit your team and includes robust privacy to protect employees from being watched too closely. Over 2 million people use RescueTime and have managed an estimated 3 billion hours collectively.
Contracts can be complicated and decidedly precise in nature. Trying to wing it with boilerplates downloaded from a search engine is a surefire way to end up on the bad end of a deal. Productivity tools like contract management programs can help your business gain every possible advantage in negotiations while also improving compliance.
This software handles the entire lifecycle of contracts from start to finish. Featuring contract automation, drafting, approval and e-signatures, PandaDoc ensures that all parties are properly included on all documents. There are plenty of templates in the content library to pick from as a starting point for your own contracts, and they are easily modifiable. PandaDoc also accepts a variety of file types including PDF and Word document. Integrations are numerous, including accounting, payments and over a dozen CRMs.
PandaDoc for businesses is $49 per month per user.
The popularity of video for branding and awareness far exceeds any other medium. If your company has relied upon text to describe your capabilities, consider creating a video or infographic to get that message across. Don’t worry if you don’t have a dedicated creative team or fancy video editing software. There are productivity tools that will let you take simple videos filmed with a phone, add text or voiceovers, and merge them into a masterpiece of marketing.
iMovie3 is one of the most intuitive video editing programs. Simple drag-and-drop editing allows you to move video clips around with ease. You can add music, narration and text titles, and insert transitions between clips. It supports multiple formats, including MPEG, HDV and H.264. The only drawback of this software is that it is only compatible with Mac products.
iMovie is included with all Mac computers and phones.
Canva is an extremely popular infographic maker with 30 million monthly users. An easy-to-use interface allows users to create or edit images to use with any of the hundreds of available templates. In addition to infographics, Canva is also effective for social media photo posts and website image design.
Finding information on businesses in a given industry is always easier when using productivity tools like a single-source provider. Rather than having to search for contact information, capabilities, location and other data for each company, you can find everything in one spot at your convenience.
IndustrySelect, the industrial database from MNI, features 460,000 industrial companies with searchable profiles and data fields. Sales-specific tools allow for the listing and ranking of prospects sorted by location, size and industry. The database is updated weekly to guarantee that only the most current information is displayed. Additionally, getting the most out of IndustrySelect is made easier through the presence of weekly webinars and video lessons. In the event that you need assistance, IndustrySelect offers unlimited phone and email support as well.
Read More: Top CRMs Used for Industrial Sales