Two business tools I use every day

Ever take for granted the software or online services that you use every day? It's sometimes easy to overlook the impact such tools can have on your business. There are a couple of software tools that consistently impress me, every time I use them, despite the fact that I use them every single day.

The first of these is ProposalKit, which takes the chore out of creating and tailoring client proposals. With over 200 pre-designed self-guiding templates ready to fill in the blanks with your company, project/product/service and client information ProposalKit will get you on your way to writing your proposal immediately. ProposalKit provide the structure, layout, design, instructions and examples to get you well on your way before you even get started. What I like best about ProposalKit is the range of ProposalPack templates you can buy as add-ons to suit certain industries, such as Real Estate, Web Design, Consulting, SEO, Hosting etc. I just love this product.

The second one is Freshbooks. This little gem is an online invoicing, project management and time tracking service that saves you bundles of time and gives your business a professional image, no matter how small. We use it to invoice all our clients online and it can even be set up to automatically invoice recurring clients every month. It also has built in timesheets and project management tools so that all your staff can use the stop-watch to time the various tasks they do for certain clients and then bill those clients automatically at the end of the month based on the hours logged in the timesheet. I've raved about this product so much that they put my testimonial on their home page!

Anyway, just thought I'd share these with you and acknowledge the developers of these tools again to say thank you for making my life easier!

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User-Friendly Client Management Software

I've said before that I love software that makes my job easier. This week my husband put me onto WHM Complete Solution. The developers describe it as a "Complete Client Management, Billing and Support System for Web Hosts", but it works for any Internet-based business. We are in the process of switching our existing Search Engine College student registration process over to it.

It has a client login area where customers can view FAQs, lodge a support ticket or make a purchase. It has a built-in shopping cart which is really easy to use and supports a huge range of payment gateways, including PayPal and 2Checkout (our main two providers). We haven't yet trialled the client invoicing but if it's anything like the cart process, it should be perfect. It also has a built-in affiliate program. You can see how it compares to other providers here.

The main reason I wanted to tell you all about it is the user-friendly cart design. It is almost impossible to "break" during the sales process and even if a user abandons the sale halfway, it creates an invoice and sends them an email with their username and login so they can view the invoice they abandoned. This is a great feature to combat cart abandonment or usability issues.

It also captures the user's details and sends them to the vendor, regardless of the outcome of the cart process and automatically bans IP addresses that have 3 successive invalid login attempts. It has a 15 day fully functional trial and after trialling we are definitely going to purchase!

I was just really impressed with it and thought you all might like it.

Super Search Engine Resources

All the students at Search Engine College have automatic access to our super cool list of search engine resources in the SEC Lounge but did you know that non-students have access to it to?

Yes, you too can access The Lounge. It's both a meeting place for SEC students and graduates, as well as a library of everything search engine related, including:

* news
* articles
* links
* forums
* blogs & newsfeeds
* newsletters
* merchandise
* tools
* software
* FAQs
* worldwide search engine lists
* events
* competitions
* books
* training

Lounge membership is free and when you become a member, you get access to the following additional resources:

* employment forum
* industry discounts
* newsfeeds
* member articles
* glossaries
* lists of SEO/SEM firms
* research & statistics
* patents
* ability to submit news, articles & links

Enjoy!