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Run Your Small Business From Your iPhone - Essential Apps


Being self-employed, I HATE to feel that I have to be at my desk for a prescribed number of hours, or to perform certain tasks. So, when I recently went travelling around Europe in my campervan, I had to find solutions to give me the freedom I wanted to enjoy my trip, but also to remain in control of my businesses, and not take my eye off the ball. I still use ALL of these in the everyday running of my business when I'm not in the office...which seems to be getting quite frequent!

1) Firstly, I had to find a way to be able to access my pc for the sole purpose of running the payroll on a Friday...any business is only as good as it's staff. so there was no way this could go wrong!

I discovered LogMeIn - free remote access to my computer, just as if I was sitting right in front of it. I just needed internet connection, which isn't difficult to find around Europe. There is a desktop version as well as an iPhone app, but the app isn't free...definitely worth the £17 though.

2) Being a bit of a control freak, I check my Google Analytics account a few times every day, as I like to know exactly how the site visitors found us.

I discovered Analytics Lite - another free app that I still use all the time as it's quicker than checking on my desktop!

3) Both of my business websites are created using WordPress, and I needed to make sure that if there was a problem with either site while I was away, I could access it and fix it as soon as possible.

WordPress has a free app. As it happens, I didn't need it, but it gave me fantastic peace of mind.

4) I was discussing mobile websites with a SEO guy and he laughed when I said that yes I have a mobile website, and it seems to run just fine on my iPhone. I was referring to my original website, which is obviously not what he meant!

I discovered DudaMobile - another free app that will convert your existing website into a mobile website which even gives you an app type favicon on your iPhone or Android home screen

5) I like to cast my beady eye over any legal docs before they leave our office, and I also love to analyse statistics to the nth degree, but I didn't want to have to use LogMeIn for everything,.

I discovered Google Docs - free 'MS Office' type programs that can be accessed as long as you have internet connection, and shared with different users at the same time. This meant my manager could 'show' me stats by looking at the same spreadsheet, at the same time, while talking me through it over he phone.

We've moved our entire document and spreadsheet library over to this!

6) As I wouldn't be able to take out of hours calls on the hop, I needed to find a way for my prospective clients to communicate with me and get answers to their queries. Email would be too slow. I needed a system that would allow me flexibility, while still offering excellent customer service.

I discovered Comm100 - a FREE 'Chat Now' button that I embedded into the header banner of my website. I downloaded the free app to my iPhone, and every time someone wanted to connect out of hours, I had a loud notification from my iPhone. I knew I had a few minutes to react so I'd find a hotel and away to go!

7) There were times when I wanted to check up on the office and make sure it hadn't burnt down or been burgled...or even the staff doing acrobatics over the desks!

I installed Skype on my iPhone and randomly called my manager for quick chats a few times....I was quite disappointed everyone was so well behaved in the background!

So, I had a great stress-free trip, and I never work Fridays...well not in the office anyway!

Call Catchers have gained so much knowledge over the years, it would be a shame to keep it all to ourselves....so we'll share what we can, when we can.

Call Catchers telephone answering service, virtual switchboard & order processing....you can't spend all day answering calls...but we can!