Posted / 10th June 2019
We’ve all been there! Working eighty hour weeks and wondering how are you going to get all of the administration done, pay the wages or do your taxes. I know in the early years starting out in business, I really struggled with all the ‘running a business’ stuff that came along with the actual cleaning part.
Between trying to learn how to become a leader, managing the teams, customer service and admin work, I often felt like I had three jobs not one.
But throughout the 25 year business journey I’ve been on, we’ve picked up some awesome tips and tricks to try and minimise the time you spend doing repetitive tasks to achieve goals and we’ve shared them below! The best part is with most of them, they’re either available as a free or discounted trial or they are ACTUALLY Free!
We know, you’re totally welcome.
Team communication and management
We have a few tools here that are the lifeblood of our businesses. We use WhatsApp as our main team communication tool. So for getting messages out to our teams super quickly, we simply pop it in with a video or image of the issue needing solved and you’re good to go!
For the admin side of stuff and for communicating with our support teams and VAs we use an app called teamworkpm
We use a paid version but there is a free version that you can set up and use for up to two full projects and see how you like it before you commit to signing up. Prices range form $49 to $250 per month depending on the size of package you need. We previously would have held long operations meetings every month and this one app eliminated the need! We have up to date information available on any devise 24 hours a day 7 days a week!
Here are more systems to help scale your business
Website and Social Management
Ok this one is minefield but here are some of the apps we simply couldn’t do without.
Canva – for the design of everything you need for all your website, blogs or social platforms. Again we use a free version but there is a paid premium version that includes 1000’s of stock images and an awesome resizing tool. Build a post for Facebook and the app will optimise it and resize if for Instagram – like seriously how smart is that!
Typeform – we use the free version here again and this app lets you build out forms to collect data for your website, email or socials. We use it for collecting data from our teams, for customer service feedback surveys and for application forms.
I-Auditor – If you need to conduct site quality or safety inspections as part of your service agreement, this one is a game changer. A little expensive at £45 per user per month but the amount of time it saves for each auditor/supervisor in formatting and typing up reports is well worth it. You use your smart device to capture images, data and mark up any tasks that need to be actioned and the app creates a really professional PDF file that is timestamped and location stamped. Simply hit send and you can email it straight to your client before you even leave the building. Forms can be customised to include any information you need and they have a huge library already there to get you started.
Kinemaster – simply put this wee app is a movie studio grade editing software in your pocket. You can add video, images, music, text, and all the usual editing magic you would usually have in an expensive suite of PC software. Again comes with awesome templates and lots of tutorials in case you get stuck. There is a free version that is watermarked with their logo or you can get the paid version at about $45 for the year. If you do any video for your socials or website, this one is a no-brainer!
Accounts – QuickBooks pro needs little introduction. I was probably the last person to know it existed but it has completely changed how we manage our finances. We can have real time information from multiple devises and I can scan receipts or invoices on my phone and the data will input straight into our accounts. There’s a few packages depending on the size of your business but they have a 50% off trial for 6 months from sign up from as little as €7 per month.
See also how to manage team shortages this holiday season.
Hopefully one or some of these can help stream line how you run things and help you free up the time you spend on the admin side or your business.