Top 5 FREE Resources for Your Small Business

Starting and maintaining a small business can quickly become costly with stacking subscription fees, outsourcing services, and not to mention the cost of time. Here are the top 5 free resources we use and recommend that will save you some both money and time:

1. Get organized with a Bullet Journal: Before making the switch to a Bullet Journal for our personal and work lives - we cycled through several organizational tools, planners, and notepads and still fell short of being on top of all our tasks and duties. The Bullet Journal method gave us flexibility to document goals, track progress, write our grocery list, and see our appointments all in one place. There are a vast amount of resources and communities to maximize your use of this way of organization and there's no right or wrong way - just whatever format works for you! The best part? You can use any notebook to leverage the bullet journaling method.

   
   

Check out our Pinterest board for bullet journal inspo

2. Notion: There are many task tracking and collaboration platforms all with their own benefits. After our initial research, we opted to use Notion for a few reasons: it's free (the version we use, anyway), the customization isn't distracting, and the platform allows us to build our backend (processes, forms, house multiple calendars, etc.) as we build our business. It grows with us.

3. Buffer: This little gem of a platform has been a lifesaver. When we first launched our goal was to get to a point to schedule social media content so we had time to focus on other projects. We tried scheduling through Canva, Laterly, or even just posting manually whenever we could. Not having extra money or wanting to spend it on subscription fees, we searched for a user-friendly, free option - insert Buffer.

With the free version of Buffer you have great features like the ability to connect up to 3 channels (including Pinterest and LinkedIn), a calendar view to better visualize your feed, and you can add tags to your posts (important for those who are utilizing categories/funnels and like visualization) - this is our favorite feature. Buffer also has a Create tab where you can brainstorm your posts and continue to develop your ideas in the draft.

The columns and tags for your post ideas are customizable to your needs.

4. Canva: Canva is seriously the best! Providing amazing accessibility from a desktop and any mobile/smart device - you can sync your projects across all platforms in real time! Hosting several plans, Canva does have a free plan for anyone to flush out their creative ideas and access the free version of graphics, templates, fonts, etc. While we currently subscribe to the Pro Plan, we started out leveraging the free version because we needed a space to create fun content that would enable and inspire us with no daunting cost as a small business. Canva has numerous resources to guide new users in creating content.

(Created in Canva)

5. Unsplash: I cannot recommend this site enough! Unsplash is a great free resource for stock photos. You can provide the designer with credit for their image in your media, and the options are top tier for a free resource. Like most stock photo sites, there is locked premium access for some photos if you have the budget, but for a free version when just starting on a smaller budget, Unsplash is my go-to above all else!

(The credit for this one goes to me!)

Whether you're just starting or have been in business for a while, everyone could benefit from saving some of their hard-earned cash. You get to be the judge of what features are most important for your business and most importantly where you invest your money. In the meantime, the resources shared above have great free versions that will help you scale your business in time, engagement, and reach.