Owning a small business or helming a startup venture often means juggling more tasks and responsibilities than you bargained for. As a boutique integrated communications firm working with numerous high-growth business clients on a daily basis, we see those struggles time and time again.

Small business owners have to do it all, from time and expense tracking and billing to resource and project management, marketing and human resources. Luckily, our experience in the startup technology space has exposed us to some of the best and most useful tools and resources for small businesses. We’ve seen firsthand the power of the right technology and its ability to increase the efficacy of your time and efforts and equip you to execute successfully across multiple areas.

So what are these transformative tools that we speak of? While they won’t make you a member of the “Unicorn Club” overnight, leveraging these tools will help you be more effective at moving your business forward.

1. CoSchedule – Create a Cohesive Marketing Calendar

Any small business owner or entrepreneur can tell you how important marketing is to growth – and WE definitely will. That includes regular blogging and social media to build your brand awareness, authority and “tribe.” Executing on a great blogging and marketing strategy requires a lot of synchronized work every single day. CoSchedule helps you build a cohesive editorial calendar across all your content marketing channels to deliver on your overall marketing goals..

2. Vorex – Project Management and Business Insights at Your Fingertips

We have a little insider knowledge about the power of a great project management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that Vorex delivers. Everyone has their own theory behind how to manage projects successfully, but bringing all of your business and project information onto one consolidated cloud-based solution is a no-brainer. Vorex will help your team gain better overall business insights through an overview dashboard as well as keep everyone on the same page when it comes to budget, timelines and status updates.

Vorex’s strength is its flexibility for companies of all sizes across various industries. The platform is great for basic project management and expense tracking that delivers key business insights and uncovers areas for improvement and growth. Or you can unlock all of its capabilities, including service desk ticketing, resource management and skill allocation to really move your business forward.

3. RescueTime – Put an End to Procrastination

We don’t care if you’re Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, every human being is susceptible to procrastination and distractions. In fact, a study found that 47% of people’s time online is spent procrastinating (yes, even at work). It’s no surprise given the abundant availability of social media platforms and hilarious BuzzFeed articles on animals doing cute things.

Enter: RescueTime! Installing this life-saving (and time-saving) tool will monitor how you spend your time at your computer while tracking productivity and giving you updates and graphs on how you’re utilizing your time. It will even block tempting websites for you so you can get more done in less time.

4. Pagemodo – Social Media Marketing Made Easy

We already discussed the importance of marketing and blogging above, but did you know how important visuals and graphics are in that strategy? One ad agency found that content with images have 94% more total views than content without. HubSpot also compiled some compelling stats on the importance of visual content in social media.

Connecting the dots between marketing, social media and graphics can be a challenge for many small businesses, however. Luckily, Pagemodo has just the fix for entrepreneurs with limited resources. Its Post Designer tool enables the average Joe to create beautiful graphic posts. Additionally, its Social Ads tool provides a step-by-step process to create Facebook ads, launch a campaign and analyze the results – so you can even become a social media advertising expert.. With these tools in your back pocket you won’t have to stress about finding the next David Ogilvy.

When you’re expected to be a jack-of-all-trades as a business owner and entrepreneur – especially during the early stages of your business – it’s important to have robust resources at your disposal. Leveraging these tools can not only help you deliver better content and value to your customers, but can also save you time and frustration. No matter what type of business you’re trying to grow or get off the ground, these tools can be small steps forward taking your business to the next level.