If you’re like most business owners, you have a lot on your plate. You’ve got proposals, marketing, employees, contractors, budgets, client deliverables, and more to manage. And email, Voxer, Slack, and your Google drive just aren’t cutting it anymore…for you or your team.
So what do you do? You seek help…or at least you should.
And then, you receive the recommendation that a project management tool/software could be the answer.
But you’re hesitant.
After all, there’s a learning curve. It may require an investment – whether it be in the tool itself or setup or training. And there can also be anxiety about bringing another tool into your business.
But the benefits for you and your team are practically priceless – and it goes beyond the ability to manage a project from start to finish.
In my years of working with different agencies – whether it be a marketing agency, a publishing company, or an accounting firm (and yes, any business that has a team and provides a service to another person/group is an agency) – they all experience the same benefits when they move their team to a project management tool.
And these are some of the benefits you can expect to see!
Improved Communication
Good communication is essential for any team – no matter the size of your team or project. And while there are many factors that can contribute to effective communication, having a good project management tool can certainly help. With a project management tool, team members can easily stay up-to-date on the latest developments, share files and ideas, and track progress. In addition, a project management tool can help to cut down on email traffic and other forms of communication clutter. As a result, your team will be able to communicate more effectively, which can lead to better results.
Increased Collaboration
In today’s business world, you most likely have remote team members – maybe they’re full-time remote employees or contractors, or perhaps they just work from home on occasion. But when it
comes to working on projects as a team, collaboration is a must for success – no matter where the team is. Having a project management tool or software can help to facilitate this by giving everyone a clear overview of the project, as well as a space to communicate and share files. With all of the necessary information in one place, team members will be able to quickly refer back to previous conversations, decisions, and tasks. This will help to keep everyone on the same page. In addition, having a central repository for project information will make it easier for new team members to get up to speed.
Better Scheduling/Planning
Wondering when you’ll have room to take on a new project? Who has the capacity to pick up the slack at the moment? How far along is a current project? Then you understand that any successful business depends on good scheduling and planning – but it can be hard to track those things without information. So how do you get this information? By creating phases and milestones – which allow you to see where a project is in your workflow! Has the client just been onboarded? Is your team member smack in the middle of working on client deliverables? Are you getting ready to send an offboarding email? Knowing these things allows you to better plan and schedule for current and future clients.
Big Picture Overview of Your Business
If you’re like most agency owners, your business most likely has a lot of moving parts. You’re responsible for everything from sales and marketing to hiring to customer service. And while you have an excellent team that’s supporting you, sometimes you just need to get that big picture view of your business. You need to know who’s working on what, what’s ahead (or behind schedule), the status of current marketing campaigns, and much more! And more importantly, you don’t want to go digging to find all of this information – because who has time for that?! But by taking advantage of all that project management software has to offer, you can get that overarching view of your business – and then take it down to a more granular level if needed.
Improved Prioritization
With so many demands on our time, it can be difficult to know where to focus our energy. Should we focus on the big project that’s due next month or the small task that’s due tomorrow? How do we balance our time between work and family? You guessed it…your project management software can help. By giving us a clear overview of all the tasks we need to complete, project management software enables us to prioritize our time and energy. We can see at a glance which tasks are most important and which can be safely set aside for later. And by tracking our progress on each task, project management software helps us to stay on track and avoid getting bogged down in details.
Increased Efficiency
Who doesn’t want a business that’s more efficient? The more efficient your business is, the more productive your business will be. The more productive your business is, the more revenue you can have. And yes, your project management tool is a key player in your efficiency! By using project management software, you can streamline your workflows and get more done in less time. As a result, your business will run more smoothly, and you will be able to achieve your goals more quickly. As Hendrith Smith says, “If you want to have a profitable business, you need to have an efficient business.”
Easier Reporting
One of the most important aspects of any project or business is the ability to generate reports which can help you make decisions. And, as a business owner, you know that manually creating reports can be a time-consuming and error-prone process. Luckily, there are various project management software solutions that can make reporting easier. By automatically collecting data from various sources and generating clear and concise reports, your project management tool can save you a considerable amount of time and effort – all while providing you with reports that are accurate and up-to-date. As a result, investing in a good project management software solution can be an extremely wise decision – and lead to more wise decisions down the road.
Bringing a project management tool to your team – or, more importantly, the right project management tool to your team – can bring some amazing benefits. From improved collaboration and communication to increased efficiency and improved prioritization, you and your team will not only reap the rewards but so will your clients (although the client benefits are a blog for another day).
If you have questions about project management tools and software, how they can improve the operations of your business, or what’s the best way to implement one, let’s talk. You can schedule a discovery call here: https://melissavmorris.as.me/discoverycall, and we can assess your needs.