The 5 Most Important Tools Your Online Business Needs

A friend of mine, Steve Sashen, has a great saying:

"Computers give us the ability to do things we have no right doing."

It is true, but the software you need to do what you have to do is essential. And there are certain tools that are irreplaceable.

1. An Email Program

Don't kid yourself, consumer email programs are just that, for people writing letters. You don't have to get fancy, just get Eudora (http://www.eudora.com).

Simply respond to your inquires.

2. A Database

Hate the word? Get over it. A database is the information you have about your customers. Birthdays, buying habits, demographic info, or even more simply, how many times they have purchased products and services from you.

Business is about being organized; I don't see how anyone can be organized without a database. Use it to write down summaries of conversations, contacts, and to keep people's names fresh in your mind.

Check out:

ACT

Microsoft Access (comes with most Windows95 software and up)

FileMaker
Yes, an old Mac standby, but still one of the easiest to use databases. My version runs on Windows and is great. I can print cover letters, invoices, and export email addresses to email. I can even create Web Pages out of it, but for now keep it simple. Figure out what information you want, and what you can track. Don't get fancy.

MyFavoriteMailingList:
Jonathan Mizel swears by this, a simple database program. Most of us just keep track of names, addresses, and products bought. This program does it all well.

3. Small Business Software: Quicken and/or QuickBooks

If you aren't running your personal and business accounts on Quicken, get with it. It will simplify so much and make reconciling your checkbook a breeze. If your business has grown like mine, you'll find QuickBooks good.

QuickBooks is a bit sophisticated, but today you can get many accountants to set you up on QuickBooks for a low price. Plus as you enter your information into QuickBooks, you can easily give it to an accountant to check.

I'm out here in the middle of the woods, a rural area, and all the accountants use Quicken and QuickBooks. So should you.

4. A statistical program

You need to track how many visits you get, compare that to the number of people that contact you -- Your Leads -- and compare the number of leads to the number of sales you have.

I use WebTrends, which is a bit sophisticated to run. There are a number of free and low cost (very cheap) online statistical services such as:

SuperStats
http://www.superstats.com

Site Flow
http://www.siteflow.com

CountMania
http://www.countmania.com

ClaimItFor
http://www.newisweb.com/claimItFor.htm

My Web host, prowebsite.com, also offers stats as a free bonus to their hosting. Many services do this.

The Internet gives us the ability to exactly measure our results. In fact, you will learn that all marketing and advertising is a low percentage game. Compare your statistics to:

• See how many actual visits you get (not hits, which is different; you want to count unique visits. Most stats programs will tell you this)

• Compare this to the number of people who contact you via email and/or telephone from that particular offer

• Count the number of people who contact you to who buys, your conversion rate.

Here's an example of what WebTrends measured for a marketing campaign Marlon Sanders created. Notice the time they spent at certain Web Pages; that tells whether they are reading the ad copy.

5. Time

It may sound like a cliche, but the way you budget your time is essential. If you spend all your time on busy work, technical work, you won't spend time on marketing and building your business.

Time is the essential tool; if something takes you six months to do (like learn how to create a Web Page and graphics), weigh that against the investment of paying someone to do it.

Or even better, trade your skills. I just did this for the closing costs on a mortgage, and it is working out great for both of us.

In fact, I'm willing to trade products or services for my training products simply because I know that barter is a tremendous asset to any business.