Business & Design
12 mobile applications to assist in running your design business
Several weeks ago I wrote a post about the iPad and iPhone revolution, and more specifically the proliferation of apps. It put me in the mindset to do some research into apps that could pertain, in some way, to doing business in the interior design industry. I’ve checked a lot of them out, and have boiled them down to 12 that I think will make your work easier.
I’ve decided to leave the vendor / product / services apps out of this post. Why? Because while I’ve owned a workroom, been a shelter magazine columnist, and have designed furniture and my own line of fabrics, I’m not an interior designer. That may be a post I research in the future. For today, it’s all about resources, facilitation, simplicity, and task mastering – from a businessman’s perspective.
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1. Evernote: Far and away the best software app for organizing your business. You can keep an endless number of notes (perhaps one for each project), you can bookmark webpages within notes, save images to files etc. What’s even better is that you can have multiple users on one account, so your partner or assistant can sync every hour if necessary to find out what needs to be attended to next. You can read about it here, or you can watch the YouTube tutorial. Price: FREE
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2. PayPal: Although there are a variety of payment options available, PayPal is the most recognized way to accept payments on your mobile devise. Check out the tutorial. There are those who find the service taxing and cumbersome, but it is currently still the most widely accepted. Price: VARIES UPON SERVICES
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3. Storenvy: Allows you to create a Web store, edit your HTML and have your own Facebook store. You can also use your own URL. There’s no tutorial, and the website is a bit complicated to navigate and understand, but the concept is revolutionary. You can set up your own showroom/shop for folks to browse, and what’s even better is that your store-within-the-store will appear in Google searches. Price: $2.99 – $4.99 PER MONTH
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4. Google Analytics: Business marketing tracking that will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about your websites traffic. Know the times of the day people access your site, from what countries, and what products, services, or posts are most popular. A must for online stores, designer home pages, and bloggers. Scott Bradley’s tutorial is great. Price: FREE
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5. WordPress: It’s clear that blogs are to the 21st century what printed brochures were to the 20th. WordPress is an inexpensive, simple to implement and navigate way to share just about any information you want, with anyone who’s interested. There are many tutorials, start with this one and watch a few more. *NOTE: You’ll find there’s WordPress.com and WordPress.org., read Don Campbell’s post on the differences. Price: VARIES FROM TEMPLATE TO TEMPLATE, AND DOES NOT INCLUDE DOMAIN REGISTRATION/HOSTING
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6. inDinero: The scary side of any design business is managing your finances. Most creatives don’t enjoy it, so this helpful app is an amazing hassle-free financial management tool. The company’s primer tutorial is great. Price: $$$, but along with the software comes a virtual staff of book keepers, CPA’s and CFO’s for advise.
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7. Quickbooks Mobile: Definitely the more economical solution to accounting software, so if you’ve got a staff book-keeper and financial consultants – this may be the way to go. In my experience, it ends up costing about the same as inDinero. There are no tutorial that I know of. Price: 30 FREE TRIAL, THEN $9.95 PER MONTH. (use the free trial to decide if you need more help that this DIY program can provide.)
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8. Mailchimp: The most intuitive email campaign system there is. Send daily, weekly, or monthly emails to your customers reminding them how much you love them and updating them on new product releases. As for tutorials, Mailchimp is KING. You can watch a basic overview here, and once you’ve set up an account, the company has a dozen tutorials to help you understand how it works. There is another MAJOR reason to use Mailchimp instead of batch email updates from your personal account. If someone reports your personal email update as spam, Google can and will interrupt your service. If someone reports a Mailchimp email as spam, nothing happens. Price: FREE FOR UP TO 200 SUBSCRIBERS
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9. Hootsuite: If you’ve ever found yourself frustrated by social media, and the time commitment it requires as a marketing tool, this is the definitive answer. You can manage Facebook, Facebook Business Pages, Twitter, and LinkedIn all from one extremely easy to navigate interface. What’s more remarkable is that you can pre-schedule posts on all 3 social media networks. There are however 2 industry views which you should read about. Find the pros here, and cons here. There’s also an informative YouTube tutorial. Price: FREE
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10. SBA Gems: A relatively new mobile application for small businesses and entrepreneurs to find and share federal and SBA programs and resources to jump-start or grow business. You will find this application useful in finding and utilizing various resources and programs from the Small Business Administration and Federal Government. It’s worth noting this is a dedicated Android app. The YouTube tutorial has no sound (??), but if you pay close attention, it’s fairly simple. Price: FREE
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11. Small Business Toolbox: Similar to SBA Gems, this app also provides assistance is finding the closest Small Business Administration (SBA) district office, assist in easily gathering license and permit website links and sites recommended by the SBA. Price: FREE
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12. America’s Economy: As any business owner knows, everything comes down to the numbers. This app provides real-time updates for 16 key economic indicators released from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Bureau of Economic Analysis. Key economic measures on employment, manufacturing, international trade, retail sales, and residential construction and sales allow those who follow the U.S. economy to be the first to see whether the indicator has gone up or down since the previous report, and trends over time. Sound daunting? It’s not. Watch this YouTube tutorial, and read up on the app. Making informed financial decisions has never been more crucial. Price: FREE
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Obviously there are many more mobile apps that can assist business owners in conducting and growing their businesses. It’s my sincere hope that this post will spark a dialog where you might add an app you find helpful in the comments section below. I believe we all need to help each other. Generosity is the new Black.