TRANSCRIPTION

Here’s a fact – running an online business is never easy, and there is certainly no time for you to cut any corners when you are your own boss. From sourcing and marketing to creating websites, managing the hosting and security, there are simply so many things you need to keep up with. It’s crazy to imagine doing these things without any help. In this podcast, I shall introduce you to the top three must-have tools all online business owners should own when managing their businesses.


Okay, here’s a disclaimer. I am not paid by anyone to do this podcast. I honestly think that the tools that I am going to recommend to you now are great, and I have used all these tools myself. The purpose of this podcast is to help busy entrepreneurs like you save hours of your time, so that you can put them to better use. And with this done, let us move on to the main topic of this podcast – the tools to help make your life easier as an online business owner.


And the first up is this: Asana. If you have been following me, you probably won’t be unfamiliar with this name. Asana is a superb tool for you to connect and collaborate with your team while working remotely. It is spelled A-S-A-N-A, you can search for it if you want to read up more. What’s great about Asana is that you can plan projects and coordinate work among different teams using this tool, and assign team members with various tasks in an organized manner. That way, your team is never going to be confused about what they are in charge of. Meanwhile, I especially like the Kanban chart function in Asana. It’s this table-like interface where you can put the tasks for your team in little ‘cards’ according to different customizable ‘columns’, like ‘To Do’, ‘In Progress’ and ‘Completed’. You can move these cards around depending on the status of the tasks, so it keeps your team on track of what’s going on and what they should focus on next. You can check out my YouTube video, ‘How To Track Your VAs’ Productivity – 3 Applications To Make Your Life Easy’ on WAH Academy’s YouTube channel for a visual illustration of what I mentioned just now.


Oh, and did I mention that Asana allows you to log in from browser, from desktop, and also from your mobile devices with its IOS and Android apps? This will allow you to be constantly in sync of your team’s progress even if you are on the move, so it’s very convenient. And like most business tools nowadays, there’s a free, basic version and a paid version for the Asana platform. But so far my team has been working with free version of Asana, and its functions are more than enough to serve our needs. So check It out if you need a tool to keep track of all the tasks going on in your business!


Next up is another tool that I use frequently, and that is Slack. This tool is spelled S-L-A-C-K, and it is a platform that is more for communication purposes. Imagine it as the business version of Whatsapp or Telegram. What’s good about Slack is that it allows you to create different ‘channels’ for your respective teams, so that each team can be kept on the same page while working on a common project. You can share files with your team and store it in the channel’s cloud. These files can be accessed by all the channel members, and you can simply pull them out when required. with Slack’s easy-to-use channel search functions. Meanwhile, you can also message individual team members, or have a video call with them using this tool directly. My marketing team has been using Slack to communicate their ideas for a while now, and it has been much easier for them to keep track of their work using Slack than having lengthy email chains.


And like Asana, Slack also has the desktop software for Windows, Mac and mobile apps for IOS and Android, so you can communicate with your team on the go easily. You can choose between the free version of the platform or subscribe to a plan for the paid version of Slack, which will allow you to access more functions. My advice is that you can test out with the free version first, then consider upgrading if you really like it.


Last but not least, the third tool which you must use for your online business is ‘Screencast-O-Matic’. Now, this is a video recording tool for you to create, edit and capture your ideas with videos and images. It is very simple to use, and even for someone who is not professionally trained in video editing – like me – they can pick it up easily.


You may ask me, ‘But Willy, I am running an online eCommerce business. Why will I need to record videos or edit videos?’


Well, precisely because you are running an online business, and you are working remotely from your team, you will need this tool to create instructional videos for your team. Trust me, there are so many ideas which you need to communicate with your team that can’t be expressed easily with words. Sometimes, doing a recording of your computer’s screen and narrating your instructions out is more straightforward. For example, if you want to show your team how to source for products using certain websites, how to navigate around the Amazon Seller Central, or how to create the listings, etc – can you imagine the time you need to spend for typing out these instructions word by word? So this is where Screencast-O-Matic comes into the picture. You can record and show what you are doing on your computer screen as you speak out your instructions, do some simple editing, then send the recording over to your team with a link. And… that’s it! Your team will be able to access the video from the link and do their tasks accordingly.


And for Screencast-O-Matic, there is also a free version and paid version of the platform. So you can try it out for a while, before deciding if you need the paid version. I am using the paid version right now, and for about USD $48 a year, there’s no limit to the number of videos that I can record all year round. So I find this very worth it!


And with this, I have come to the end of the podcast. There are of course many other tools you can use too, but if you want to cut the research – just use these three tools, and I promise you, your business will get into shape real efficiently.


See you, and cheers.