Top Apps for Business Professionals
By Mike Eide
What a day and age we live in. Gone are the days where you would need to write everything down, carry mounds of papers with you to business calls or return every night to the office only to be entering countless amounts of data from the day’s sales calls. Now we have everything right at our fingertips that we might require to preform our daily tasks. Here are four of in our opinion the must have smartphone apps for any business professional.
Dropbox
Accessing files within an office setting is quite simple. Sharing files while out of the office is quite a different thing. With the invention of cloud-based services this task has become easier but still some people find it hard to trust these options of file sharing. Enter Dropbox. Dropbox allows the user to share files between 2 or more Windows based, Mac or iOS devices. The way it works is the user designates separate files or a subdirectory on the original computer to be made available. Once done the other users have the ability to upload new files, download or collaborate on these documents. Dropbox will work with most files you may require on the go including documents, spreadsheets, .PDF files and photos. Dropbox is a must have app for the on the go business type that is still required to access and review important files from the office.
Evernote
I am the type of person that loves to write notes. When I am meeting with someone or think I might need to remember something important I must write it down. Now finding the right notes or keeping them all in files and folders can be quite a challenge. Not now with Evernote. Evernote is a lot like One Note (a Microsoft product) except it works on not only Windows based computers but Mac, and all iOS devices. It allows you to take notes and share them between all your devices. The iPhone version of the software also gives you the ability to use voice notes and add location awareness so you can easily record your important meeting and check back at locations of past notes you have written. For the busy business professional that loves to write everything down for future reference this is the app for you.
Cam Card
If you are like me you probably have hundreds if not thousands of business cards that you have been given over the course of your career. Have you ever tried to enter all that info into your smartphone contacts? It can be quite time consuming. Cam Card uses the rear camera on your phone to take an image of a business card, it then analyzes the card, extracts the text and auto fills the appropriate contact fields. Cam Card will create a new business address book for you helping you separate your personal contacts from your business contacts (the scanned contacts are also available to be found outside the app too). Cam Card also allows you to send and receive business contacts from other users and create QR codes to be using on your website or sales handouts. These features all put together make this one powerful app for most business professionals.
What is LinkedIn you ask? Well it is one of the fastest growing social media platforms available today. LinkedIn is a social network for business. At its base it allows you to create a profile detailing your skills and work experience, you then add other business connections (like friends on Facebook or followers on twitter) and then allow other users to endorse your skills and past work experiences which in turn creates a socially verified page. LinkedIn works on the six degrees of separation principle which states that most people are within six steps of another. So as you build your business connections you will then be able to see the people that are connected with your 1st degree connections (called 2nd degree connections) and the people connected to them (3rd degree connections). This function makes LinkedIn an invaluable tool for finding future business partners, employees or helping showcase your current business or skills.
These above four apps are a great start for any business professional to help them while they are out of the office, or even in the office. They all help in decreasing the time load of something we used to have to do ourselves, whether it be accessing files, writing notes, entering business contacts or cold calling potential clients.
Do you have any other suggestions for must have apps for business professionals? Leave them in the comments below.