When choosing tools for your roster, you need to keep a few things in mind. The first and most important one is the nature and scope of your business. You need tools that strengthen and complement your business and not what everyone is using.

Secondly, try to create a well-rounded roster. Don’t just focus on one aspect, say, marketing, but on every facet of running a small business such as communication, productivity, human resource management, and customer service.

Lastly, decide on a budget to help you be more specific in the tools you pick. Without further ado, here are the top 10 tools you need to run a small business successfully in 2023:

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1. Perkbox — for communicating with and rewarding your team

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Perkbox is an employee benefits and rewards platform that helps you communicate with your employees in a positive manner with its effective communication strategies. It helps you connect with your employees and celebrate their performances with its reward system.

1. Features

Here are some of the features of Perkbox

• Helps you manage your employee benefit efforts all in a single place, saving you time.
• Offers tips and ideas to facilitate a positive communication loop with your team for improved productivity.
• Eliminates the need to look for local suppliers by offering global benefits and rewards.
• Offers a varied range of benefits for employees to choose from and keep them engaged and motivated. 

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2. Pricing

Perkbox works on a custom pricing model so you’ll have to get a quote from the platform by providing a few details about your company. There is a demo available as well.

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2. TestGorrilla — for identifying top talent

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TestGorilla is an online tool that helps you conduct job interviews to screen out the most suitable candidates from a sea of applicants. It offers a variety of problem-solving interview questions that are specific to the role and helps you identify top talent with ease.

1. Features

Take a look at some of the best features of TestGorilla:

• Automatically ranks and grades candidates to save you time and allow you to skip the screening process in a lengthy recruitment process.
• Watch video responses from candidates to custom questions to help you get to know them better.
• Identify top talent by posing specific and real-world problem-solving questions.  
• The interviews conducted by TestGorilla serve as an extension of your brand and give candidates a positive experience with you, regardless of whether they get selected. 

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2. Pricing

TestGorilla is available for free with three paid plans as well as a custom plan for greater flexibility. The paid plans are $26 per month, $325 per month, and $2,200 per month.

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3. RescueTime — for time management

RescueTime is a fully automated time-tracking software that helps you manage the workflow in your office. It works as a productivity assistant by timing your tasks and reminding you of your commitments and helps your stay focused and productive. 

1. Features

Here are some features worth a look:

• Gives you a daily focus work goal based on your work style and the analysis of over 3 billion hours of activity from people.
• Sends you reminders throughout the day about multitasking or being less focussed than usual to help you get on track.
• Enable ‘Focus Sessions’ for some time periods where you need to get something important done — it will block sites that negatively impact your performance.

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2. Pricing

RescueTime is available for free. The paid version costs $12 per month with a 14-day trial available to help you see how it works for you and your team.

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4. MailChimp — for email marketing

MailChimp is one of the market leaders in email marketing. It lets you create entire email campaigns from scratch in no time with the help of thousands of Mailchimp templates. It runs your campaigns around the clock with the help of automation. 

1. Features

Here are some salient features of the tool:

• Personalize your content via A/B testing to see what works better with your audience.
• Send emails based on what the recipient responds with by setting up predecided responses in advance.
• Target your audience better with segmentation, dividing your audience based on certain demographics such as hot leads, interested, new customer, etc.

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2. Pricing

MailChimp is free of cost to use. Its paid plans are: Essentials for $11 per month, the Standard plan for $17, and Premium for $299 per month (covers up to 10,000 contacts).

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5. Hootsuite — for social media marketing

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Hootsuite is a social media marketing tool that helps you manage your entire social media presence in one place. Create engaging profiles, post content, and keep up with the top of trends to grow your reach with your social media accounts.

1. Features

Take a look at some salient features of the tool:

• Manage posts with ease with the help of a single calendar for all your social media accounts. Coordinate posts better and schedule them beforehand. 
• The platform offers you insights about the best times to post on particular platforms to get you the most engagement out of every post.
• Offers study materials and classes for beginners to help them understand the world of social media before starting any campaign. 

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2. Pricing

Hootsuite is available in four paid packages, priced at $23, $92, $552, and custom. It’s also available to try for free.

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7. Gusto — to manage payroll

Gusto is a payroll software that focuses on paying employees on time, incorporating all kinds of payments, such as in-person and remote. It allows unlimited payroll runs and automates them based on your compliance requirements.

1. Features

Given below are some of the salient features of Gusto:

• Set up and run your payroll in minutes in just a few clicks. You can even run it multiple times a month, depending on your need.
• Every time you run payroll, the tool calculates the tax and automatically files it with the in-charge authorities. 
• Offers seamless integration with other platforms to help you take other aspects such as health insurance and time worked by an employee into account and calculate their pay.

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2. Pricing 

Gusto is available in three paid packages: $40 per month, $80 per month, and the last one at custom pricing. A contractor-only plan is available at $35 per month as well. There is a demo available.

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8. Basecamp — for project management

Basecamp is an online collaboration tool used for project management. It helps you manage all your running projects in a single space. Collaborate through multiple apps seamlessly and engage with your team to work on multiple projects at once.

1. Features

Let’s take a look at some features of Basecamp:

• Set up your schedule in advance along with a to-do list for the day. There are automated check-ins scheduled to help you stay focussed. 
• Group chats and message boards for separate projects help you involve everyone working on a project. Add and remove people according to their availability. 
• Integrates well with other tools such as Adobe and Spreadsheets in Google to give a seamless work experience.

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2. Pricing

Basecamp is available for only one price that’s $11 per user per month, meaning the final amount will depend on the size of your team or organization. It's also available to try for free.

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8. Zendesk — for customer service

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Zendesk is a customer service software aimed at personalizing your customer’s experience and meeting their needs. Connect with customers and form bonds with them for the long term. It also offers additional services such as marketing and sales.

1. Features

Take a look at the winning features of the platform:

• Convert service requests received through various channels such as email, social media, and website into tickets.
• Collect all the tickets in one place to help you provide quick solutions to them.
• Places special focus on building fruitful relationships with customers and helping you craft a personalized experience for them.

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2. Pricing

Zendesk is available in three different packs: $49 per month, $79 per month, and $99 per month. You can opt for a free trial of any of the three packs as well. They also have an option for startups to avail of the service for free for six months.

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9. QuickBooks — for bookkeeping

QuickBooks is an accounting software meant for small businesses. It helps you keep track of your expenses and revenues to maintain a healthy cash flow as failure to maintain a cash flow has emerged as the biggest reason for as many as 82% of business’ failures. 

1. Features

Here are some of the important features of QuickBooks:

• Gives you a real-time view of your cash flow by connecting to your bank and importing and categorizing your transactions.
• Powerful invoicing features such as invoice tracking and payment reminders help you stay up to date with your finances.
• Helps you manage taxes and compliance with the help of immaculate filing and reporting.

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2. Pricing

The tool is available in four packs: $15, $27, $42, and $100 and you can add payroll services for an additional price. A free trial of 30 days is also available.

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10. Zapier — for workflow automation

Zapier is a software tool that streamlines and automates the workflow in your office. It automates routine tasks to help you work more efficiently and focus on creativity and innovation. It helps you improve your productivity as well.

1. Features

Here are some key features of the platform:

• Unites over 5,000 applications to create a single workspace where everyone in your company can be easily included. 
• Multi-step workflows allow you to be as specific as you need to be and scale your operations on the go. 
• Helps you manage your entire sales funnel — taking care of everything from lead generation to customer emails and helps your convert leads.

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2. Pricing

Zapier is available in five packs. The first is free. The paid packs range from $1, 633 to $66,486.

Pick a balanced roster of tools to succeed as a small business in 2023

Small businesses are often faced with the challenges of running operations with limited tools at their disposal. Creating a balanced roster of tools will help you focus on every aspect of your operations and improve them.

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Pick tools that help you promote positive communication with your team by rewarding them, help you pick top talent with intuitive screening, and overall management of your operations.

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Let us know in the comments what you think are the best tools for small businesses in 2023.