If my experience as a business owner has taught me anything, it’s that trying to do absolutely everything involved in building a company from the ground up on our own can make it a much more stressful, drawn-out process. I’m not saying you need to pick up the phone the moment you start to feel panic, but it’s always a good idea to accept a helping hand when you can get it.
The problem is, in the business world, these helping hands can cost. Consultants, managers, software – whatever you need help with, there’s a fee for it, which will eat into the costs already associated with starting a company. New business owners usually don’t have much in the way of budget to begin with, making it difficult to utilize any resources that could assist us with our day-to-day operations.

Luckily, there are some cost-effective tools that can help business owners find solutions that help them grow without breaking the bank. That’s the subject of an article at the Intuit Small Business Blog Canada, entitled Tools for Entrepreneurs on a Budget, which takes a look at some affordable (and in some cases free) options available on the cloud that new business owners can choose from to help them run things more efficiently.
Here’s a look at one of their suggestions:
WordPress – You want to have an attractive website that is scalable, and empowers you to be able to market your business to your clients without being a web developer. WordPress is available through a number of web hosting providers as a free content management system, or through WordPress.com for an affordable monthly fee. Choose from one of thousands of themes available either for free or at a low price. WordPress has evolved from a blogging platform into the most popular web publishing platform, supporting about twenty percent of all websites. StudioPress and ThemeForest are a few great sites for themes.
We here at AIS Solutions are fans of WordPress and make use of it for our own website. Our sister company, e-Commerce Essentials, also utilizes it for their own web presence, and has built more than a handful of clients websites using it as well. It’s a free, easy-to-use solution that offers plenty of options for customization and, as the article mentions, has thousands of themes from which you can choose, ensuring you build a website that matches your brand.
The article also mentions tools that help with managing customers and sales, online marketing, online shopping and social media management, with great recommendations for each one. We’d recommend giving the full thing a read to see if you can find some extra help without incurring too many extra costs.
What do you think? Did you find the article useful? Do you utilize any of the tools it suggested? Do you have any recommendations of your own? Your thoughts are always welcome, so let us know!
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