As an SME, you need all the help you can get. The resources available to you are never enough, and time is limited, so you need to be able to make the most out of each of your resources.
In this post, I’m going to share four top small business dashboards that will help you succeed.
It’s a great era for small businesses – while it’s true that the competition is fiercer than ever, because there are more opportunities than ever, it’s also true that we now have access to an incredible array of business tools – from accounting to marketing and anything else in between.
These are now more accessible than ever, some are even completely free, and each is designed to help you save time, improve your results, be more productive, and perform all kinds of tasks that you can’t do yourself.
So as a small business owner, I believe it’s very important to future success to focus some time on finding the right tools for your business, on trying to identify what types of tools are needed and then trying to find the right solutions based on these needs.
Because otherwise, you’re most likely going to lose time and resources unnecessarily – but most importantly, you’re going to lose opportunities. Opportunities which your competitors might be on to.
Check out these tools.
9 Spokes
9 Spokes is not just a (free) business dashboard, it’s also a great way to discover new useful business tools.
The concept is very straightforward – the tool enables you to connect all of your business tools so that you can track them all in one dashboard.
You’ll be able to track pretty much any business data that you’re interested in, such as:
- Your employees and their schedule
- Your accounting: anything from how much cash you currently have on hand, what you owe and to whom, and how much you owe in taxes
- Your website analytics
- Your social media ROI, analytics, and engagement
- An overview of your sales and profits
- Your products and inventory information
And these are just a few – depending on what tools you use, and what data matters to you, you can customize your dashboard to your liking, with tools from nine different categories:
And this is where it gets even more exciting, because apart from using 9 Spokes as a business dashboard, it also gives you access to a huge library of business tools within these nine categories, all of which can be connected to your dashboard.
But what’s really great about 9 Spokes, in my opinion, is that you get to build your dashboard just as you want. You can use the tools you trust, and find new ones that can help, and completely make it your own, while still getting a complete overview of your entire business.
As for integrations, there are various different apps and tools that can be connected, in all nine categories (mentioned earlier). There’s a range of well-known options here, including Shopify, MailChimp, any major social network, Google Analytics, the Office 365 suite, and many, many others.
Cyfe
Cyfe is another business dashboard which enables you to monitor pretty much anything regarding your business, with a big focus on analytics.
Within Cyfe’s dashboard, you’re able to monitor almost anything that has to do with your business – for example, see, at a glance, how many new app downloads there have been, who has mentioned you on social media, how your clients are faring online, how much traffic your website is getting, and much, much more.
It’s a highly powerful tool, and one that delivers business intelligence and monitors data and activity in a variety of categories, like sales and finance, project management, social media and other marketing strategies, web analytics, and client information.
To get even more out of your business dashboard, you can set up goals for yourself so you can evaluate your success more effectively, and find out where you need to focus so you can improve and grow as a business.
Zoho One
Zoho One is a great tool for connecting all of your employees under one dashboard – but more importantly, it’s also a tool where you can connect all of your important business data: sales, marketing, accounting, CRM and customer support, HR, and more.
The platform has over 40 different integrated apps which you can leverage for your business, as well as 40+ apps that you can use on your mobile device for decisions on the go.
And not only is it a business dashboard for monitoring your data and analytics, but it can also be used to take action and run your business. For example, you can manage your email marketing campaigns, take surveys, build lead generation flows and customer engagement forms, and collaborate with your various teams on different projects, among others.
Geckoboard
Geckoboard is built for teams who use all kinds of different tools to manage their business. The platform helps connect these apps, enabling you to view all of your important data in one place, and you can even build dashboards depending on each persons’ needs, so everyone can focus on the data, tasks, and objectives that matter to them most.
For example, you can create a dashboard for the CEO with a focus on revenue and revenue growth, a dashboard for salespeople and their managers where you can track revenue, conversion rates, and an overview of the sales reps’ activity, and so on. There are numerous possibilities for almost anyone on your team.
In terms of integrations, Geckoboard can pull information and data from over 60 different apps and tools in all kinds of categories, including Instagram, Twitter, and other popular social networks for your social media marketing, Salesforce for sales and finance, Mailchimp for email marketing, and Google Analytics for, of course, web analytics.
Conclusion
Business dashboards can be extremely valuable tools because they enable you to see the entire status of your business at one glance, which then helps you grow your small business faster.
Hopefully these tools get you thinking about the potential for your business, and provide assistance in choosing which is right for you.