FREE SMALL BUSINESS RESOURCES
These are free resources we have used and/or ones that have been recommended to us to help a small business or organization become more productive. If you need help, however, with your phone, internet, tv, cybersecurity, merchant services or other office services please reach out to us today.
We make no claims that these are the correct choices for your business or organization but they can help in the right circumstances. For more info please free free to reach out to the specific organization that offers the resource as we do not sell, support, or service these offerings. If you have a solution that you think would be helpful to add to this page please let us know.
SECURE EMAIL
ProtonMail is a great free email solution for those concerned about security.
They use end-to-end encryption and zero access encryption to secure emails. This means even they cannot decrypt and read your emails. As a result, your encrypted emails cannot be shared with third parties.
SCORE
Raleigh SCORE is dedicated to educating entrepreneurs and encouraging the formation, growth, and success of small businesses by providing FREE counseling and low-cost educational workshops. They are phenomenal and got my company started. My mentor is awesome!
GCF LEARNFREE.ORG
I have taken many courses on this site and have been really pleased!
For almost 20 years, the GCFLearnFree.org program has helped millions around the world learn the essential skills they need to live and work in the 21st century. From Microsoft Office and email, to reading, math, and more—GCFLearnFree.org offers more than 200 topics, including more than 2,000 lessons, more than 1,000 videos, and more than 50 interactives and games, completely free.
GUIDES ON HOW TO START A BUSINESS
Do you have questions on what goes into starting a business?
Annuity.org features a very helpful guide for anyone looking to start a business. It covers topics such as the cost of starting a business, how to build business credit, and more.
https://www.annuity.org/financial-literacy/investing-business/
CRM - CUSTOMER DATA BASE TOOL
HubSpot’s CRM platform has all the tools and integrations you need for marketing, sales, content management, and customer service. Each product in the platform is powerful alone, but the real magic happens when you use them together.
CALENDAR SCHEDULING SOFTWARE
Calendly is a simple, easy-to-use, yet powerful scheduling software, which aims to save time, accelerate sales, and improve service quality. It eliminates the old-school way of using email and phone tags for scheduling appointments, calls, interviews, demos, and more.
EMAIL, CONTACTS, STORAGE, CALENDAR & MORE
Google has a great solution set for all the basic small business needs you might want. Email, Calendar, Contacts, Cloud storage... I have tried many tools but what I like most is their ability to integrate with so many other complementary programs.
MILEAGE TRACKER APP
Simple to use and activate. Just download to your smartphone, click on the "+" button and then click "track my miles" it does the rest. When you get to your destination, click "I'm Done Driving" and it calculates your mileage and total expense. You can download a report to give to your accountant at the end of year. No more having to go through your calendar and trying to figure out all your trips and qualifying mileage.
ORGANIZATION TOOL
This is a great free app that you can use to keep track of what you need to do daily and is simple to use. Best of all it syncs across iPhone, Android, Windows 10, and the web so you can view that list wherever and whenever it is most convenient to you. Download it today and get more organized! https://todo.microsoft.com/tasks/
EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
I use this tool often to reach out to all my existing clients as well as prospects. I build an email with the tools they provide and can see who has opened the email, clicked on a link or document, etc. Makes it easy to know who to follow up with when you send out an email. You can upgrade for a fee to get more features and functionality if you need it.
WEB SITE BUILDER
Wix does a great job as a free website builder. This is the site I used to build this website. I ended up upgrading to the Premium version which is a paid version but the free version got me started and did just fine.