Managing a virtual team can be hard! It can feel like managing a herd of cats at times.
Credit: jkstalent.com
Fortunately, there are a lot of great softwares out there that can make the process much easier.
Unfortunately, there are way too many options and picking the right tools can be really hard. I've learned this first hand. This article includes the softwares that I've tested and have found to be best for managing a small to medium virtual team.
Don't pinch pennies when it comes to investing in the tools that help you manage paid employees and plan important projects. "Expensive," is such a relative statement when it comes to these things. The ROI on great systems is unbelievable and almost always worth the investment. The best understand this.
Software for Managing Payroll
If you decide to hire your virtual team off of the traditional 3rd party platforms, you'll need a tool for managing your payroll and employee hours.
My tool of choice is Hubstaff.
Hubstaff allows my virtual employees to clock in and clock out. I can also monitor the activity level of my team and see which pages they are spending the most time on.
You can technically use Hubstaff for full scale project management and task delegation, but I recommend using something in a addition to it.
There are many other tools for managing payroll though, so don't rush your decision and jump straight into Hubstaff without first reviewing your options and finding your best fit.
Which brings me to the next set of software...
Software for Managing Projects and Delegating Tasks
Truth bomb: this is a preference decision!
Anyone who says, "Asana is the best," or "Basecamp is the only thing you should use," is only half right. Those tools are best for them, not everyone. The best project management software is the one that you actually use.
Having an endless number of features isn't going to do any good if you don't use them!
With that being said, here are the 5 most popular options.
Note: All of the big name project management softwares mentioned below will have integrations with other 3rd party apps that your team might use. Keep this in mind when making your decision. The best choice for you may be the software that plays best with your other software!
Asana - Most popular premium project management software on the planet. You really can't go wrong with Asana and it isn't "break the bank" expensive. Integrates very well with Hubstaff, so it is what I currently use.
Notion.So - Incredibly versatile. If anything, it does too much. It's as powerful as you want it to be, but I felt a bit overwhelmed when I first got into it. I recommend it more for personal work as an alternative to Evernote or Diigo.
Basecamp - The intentionally minimalistic project management software with reportedly over 3 million users in 2019. $99/month but is free from per user fees that can add up on other programs.
Trello - Probably the most popular free/low cost collaboration software.
PipeDrive - Best for linear processes. Step 1, Step 2, etc. Sales teams or businesses that have chains of processes that must be followed in a certain order will love this.
We used Pipedrive back in 2014 in my first service based business. It worked very well for what we needed.
I've dabbled with each of these. We are currently using a combination of Asana and Google Drive.
Software for Team Communication
Slack - The industry standard app for chats for large teams. Integrates with tons of other tools.
Loom - Record your screen and share in the cloud. Unbelievably awesome value for the price. You can go far with the free plan, but a team plan is very affordable and worthwhile. You can also store your past recordings in folders for easy future reference.
Snagit - A picture says a 1,000 words. Snagit allows you to take screen shots and annotate them. This is a lifesaver when a video is overkill.
Zoom - The industry standard live meeting software.
Software for Content Marketing
CoSchedule - Manage your content calendar, assign tasks, add deadlines and much more.
Buffer - My social media scheduling software of choice. Plans vary but this works very well for teams that require a strong social media prescense.
Sprout Social - Buffer on steroids. Overkill for most solopreneurs but brilliant for companies at scale.
Software for Training and SOPs
Simpy SOP - My top recommendation for creating SOPs for your business.
- Record your tasks (video and screen share)
- Add text
- Easily swap out steps with new videos
- Have a vault where your VAs can easily access your SOPs
- Connect your SOP vault with other tools like Slack and Trello
SweetProcess - Create detailed SOPs. Very robust software and worth it if your business regularly adds new employees.
Trainual - Similar to Sweet Process but better looking. This software feels more like a collection of mini courses related to your business.
Xtensio- Looking for a tool that helps you manage content, task, teams, presentations and deadlines, Xtensio is the one! With impressive features like lots of pre-built templates, color schemes and live document sharing, it is one of the best content marketing tools.
Additional Recommended Outsourcing Tools
Last Pass - Share account access with your team without ever sharing the actual passwords. Revoke access whenever you wish.
Text Expander - So much more than just a convenient keyboard utility, Text Expander allows for sharing of snippets (links, scripts, canned responses etc) among teams.
Zapier - This is the software that makes other software work together. It can help you and your team get much more out of many of the tools I've mentioned in this article.
Google Drive - The silent king of productivity resources for teams. Drive and the G-Suite of tools (Sheets, Docs, Slides, etc) are built for collaboration and are extremely customizable. Most people just lack the creativity to make it really sing and dance.
Further Reading
Want to see the tools that the founders of FreeeUp.com used to manage 45 VAs and grow their business from $1,000 to 8 figures in less than 5 years? Click here to check it out.
We use Flock instead of Slack.
can’t believe todoist is missing from the task manager list. for recurring tasks that need to be delegated, there is no better tool IMO. and from the same team, “twist”, a calmer way to communicate and my definite preference over slack.
Interesting! I’ve heard about it but haven’t ever used it beyond downloading the app and not testing it lmao Might have to go take another look at it. Haven’t heard of twist though, will check it out too.
Have you heard about Zenkit? It might be worth a look. 🙂 It allows you to switch views (table, to-do list, kanban, calendar, hierarchy, and mind map (wiki & gantt coming soon) in one click. You don’t have to jump between different apps anymore. Please let me know what you think!