It is the start of a New Year and it is at this time that most of us pledge to make all sorts of improvements in our lives, so we decided to help you start the New Year off with a list of business tools you can use to enhance your effectiveness in 2017!
To speed up communication and reduce email, try Slack. According to Huffington Post, American workers spend an average of 6.3 hours of their work day on email communication. To reduce email clutter, move all conversations into the online communication tool, Slack. Slack is a free online messaging service that brings communication together in one place. It is a real-time messaging tool that will even push messages to your phone when your computer is idle. Up to 10,000 messages are stored at a time for searchable chat history (more if you upgrade from the free version). You can also split up your communication into channels meant specifically for those who need to see it and it runs in the background of your computer without notifying you unless someone is talking directly to you. Slack has a neat feature that allows you to “star” messages, forms a follow up action item and allows to add “reactions” to a message. This provides the sender with a receipt notice without the extraneous “got it” and “thank you” messages you get via email. Additionally, you can make conference calls and video chats directly inside of the program.
To organize complicated projects, try Trello. In today’s world, executing successful business projects often means coordinating many different people, across a variety of locations, each with a wide assortment of integral tasks that happen in a particular order. To stay on top of everything, consider implementing the free online tool Trello. Think of Trello as a crazy amazing post-it note system. Trello allows you to create a “card”, similar to a digital post-it that contains a checklist for every product, assigns project managers, assigns due dates, labels each card for specific markets, and allows projects to be moved from Campaign in the Queue, to Launched, to Campaign Completed. Trello can also be integrated with Slack to push real-time project updates for all to see as various team members check off items.
To keep staff sharp use ClearSlide for training. Keeping your staff engaged and up-to-date on these new tools and much more, try providing training webinars using the online tool ClearSlide. Have trainees login to view your presentations, instant message questions and comments during the presentation and track participant “engagement.” Engagement includes activities such as navigating away from the webinar to look at other tabs or check emails, it shows the presenter when viewers are “distracted”. At the end of a presentation you can tell who was actually watching and those who simply checked out. Clearslide also allows you to protect your collateral by sending a view alert whenever someone opens your presentation or forwards it and also by allowing you to create links that expires after someone has viewed your presentation.
The expert marketing consultants at Manning Media are here to help you make 2017 a prosperous New Year. Call us in Frederick at 301-620-7700, in Hagerstown at 301-733-4500 or fill out our online request form by clicking HERE!
Digital Tools to Help Build Productivity
