Running your own business is above all a question of being resourceful. You need the mental resources to come up with a great idea and figure out how to promote it, but you also need certain resourcefulness in relation to your environment if you’re to steer your business away from the red in those tough early months and years.
Making a profit can be dependent on your ability to source reasonably priced materials, premises, and tools, and to make the most of what you already have. Yet many independent entrepreneurs are sitting on a whole toolbox of digital applications without even realizing the power they have at their fingertips.
That’s because Microsoft, the ‘unsexy’ alternative to Apple, have packaged a whole range of extra apps and programs into their Windows 10 operating system but failed to truly shout about it. If you’re running a PC with the newest iteration of Windows, you’ve actually already paid for a set of programs that you could be using to maximize your productivity and the way your organize your business.
People for example, is a powerful central address book into which you can import your clients’ contact details from services such as Gmail or Outlook. And the newest version of Microsoft’s Maps app allows you to save maps offline and send them to your phone or tablet to use even when you don’t want to switch on your mobile data plan.
Cortana is a virtual assistant, like Siri, that won’t exactly replace your human assistant but is less likely to grumble when you wake up in the middle of the night with an idea or scheduling item to write down. And Sticky Notes are smarter than ever – you can scribble down ‘to do’ items with a digital pen, and the Sticky Note will even source additional information such as searching out travel details from the clues given in your note.
A new visual guide from STL lays out fourteen such labor-saving apps that you didn’t even know you’ve paid for. Utilize them today, and you could save yourself paying for extra services in future.
