Tools of the Trade
I've been wanting to write this post for awhile, just to let some of our customers in on our process and the tools that we use. Hopefully they may pick up a few ideas for their own business, based on our own experience running ours for over a decade.
Lead Management
It all starts with a lead, doesn't it? This is so important, I decided we should build our own web application for this, Lead Zeppelin. Granted, there are plenty out there already, but we just needed something simple that we could wire up to our website, track deals and reminders for bids and follow ups. Follow up is key! Many of our own customers have admitted that they suck at follow up. You don't have to remember everything (you can't!) so let your little computer be your nag and worry about the one hundred other things on your plate.
Project Management
We've been using Basecamp for about as long as it has existed. It truly simplifies project management, and makes our team of remote workers collaborate as if they were right down the hall. Our customers like being able to 'check in' and see what's still on deck with the to-do's and milestones, or see what got completed yesterday on the dashboard.
Time Tracking
After trying a few systems, we settled on Harvest. The only reason we don't use their nice invoicing system too is because we still have messy accounting things to take care of via QuickBooks. There are a number of 'invoicing' systems out there, but many don't manage everything from end-to-end, they may track hours, but if you have to expense items that were purchased on your credit card, and track that credit card as a payable as well, you're still gonna need some accounting system.
Payroll
We just signed up with Intuit Online Payroll to handle our quarterly filings and cutting paychecks. We'll follow up with a post on our experience.
Content Management System
We eat our own dog food here and the the cre8 website is powered by the ExpressionEngine content management system. We had worked with a few CMS' over the years, but have settled on specializing in EE. It has the best blend of developer-friendly features and user-friendliness (for non-nerds adding content). For our .net friends, we do handle DotNetNuke CMS too.
HTML, PHP Coding & FTP
John, KC and I all use Coda for the Mac for coding. It's a hand-coding app with built in SVN. Carolynn here (on the PC) uses DreamWeaver.
Version Control
We've been using Beanstalk for a few years now and love it. Its great for collaborating with multiple people and especially when we are sharing website updates with clients. Bonus: clients get a backup of their website.
Page and Email Testing
Litmus gets used here almost daily, checking out pages and emails across a variety of popular browsers and email clients. It's a lot easier than firing them all up on our end individually. And, we can share the test screenshots with clients to show them how their pages and emails fare.
Validation
W3C Markup validation is part of the process here. If you have Chris Pederick's Web Developer Toolbar, it's just a click away. Firebug and YSlow also come in handy for troubleshooting.
Image Editing
Photoshop has been a mainstay for me, and have been using it for years. It's not cheap, but it does everything. Carolynn and John also use Fireworks.
Browsing
Recently switched from Firefox as our primary browser to Google Chrome. It [seems] faster, less hanging.
Backups
We switched from DropBox earlier this year after their security snafu to Wuala.
Mobile Phones
We have service with AT&T for our phones -- I have an iPhone (1st gen) and a Bluetooth Plantronic headset. We just 'upgraded' Carolynn's phone to a Backberry Curve 9300 for testing purposes. In addition, we do have a Google Voice number and are thinking about making that our primary number and routing system.
Chat/Video
We primarily use Skype around the office here to talk to (and see!) our peeps abroad. Other than that we use MSN Messenger.
Audio Entertainment
iTunes Radio, Pandora and Last.fm
What do you use?
We'd love to hear about any app or devices you use to help with your business. Share in the comments below!
Comments
There are no comments for this entry yet.