5 Great Tools To Help Make You Better At Your Business Job

Posted on February 20, 2014

SellHack

The first tool came from a friend, Ryan O’Donnell. It is called SellHack, (found in the Chrome store) and it let’s you click a button on someone’s LinkedIn profile and see a strong guess of  of that user’s email address. SellHack displays a ‘HackIn’ button on a LinkedIn member’s profile page next to the Connections, Message, or InMail buttons below the profile picture (depending on your relationship with that person). The magic happens when you click the ‘HackIn’ button. You’ll notice the page slides down and their system starts checking publicly available data sources to return a confirmation of the person’s email address or their best guesses. If SellHack can’t verify the email address, you can always copy/paste automatically generated email permutations against Rapportive. Ryan and his team built the tool while trying to find new leads and it worked so well he began letting other people use it. I really hope LinkedIn doesn’t shut him off and they let this tool run (or acquire the technology). I think LinkedIn is an interesting network where some amazingly useful tools can be built. SellHack is definitely one of them.

Pipeline

The second tool was sent to me from Nam Nguyen, my former colleague at Aviary. It is called Pipeline and was built by Myles Recny (the guy who builtFollowGen and wrote a very popular post titled, “Twitter Should Shut Me Down,” which Twitter eventually did). Pipeline (also found in the Chrome store) turns any social profile into a prospect. Once you add, you can click a “Pipeline” on Linkedin, Twitter, Google, and Facebook profiles, and Pipeline figures out who this person is and delivers it to you however you need it (pipeline dashboard, CMS, API, etc.) While I have just begun using it, I find it really awesome.

Buffer

The third tool is called Buffer* and it is the best way to share content to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn from anywhere on the web with just one click. Buffer is one of my favorite new tools, as it allows me to queue up a bunch of posts at one time, pick the social networks I want to send them to, and then spread the posts throughout the day so that I don’t need to be in front of my computer at all times in order to manage my accounts/presence on various social media. On top of that, Buffer shortens your links and provides basic analytics around the performance of your posts.

I am happy with a Basic account, but you can “Upgrade to Awesome” which costs $10 a month (or $8.50/mo for the year) if you want unlimited posts (Basic covers 10 at a time). In addition, with the upgraded package more people can use the account (i.e. a brand run by more than one person), and you can include up to 12 social profiles instead of the standard Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Google+ page, App.net. I’m a big fan of Buffer and the company seems to be on the rise. It’s a great tool for your arsenal to make you better at your business job.

RelateIQ

The fourth tool is one I recently created an account for, so I don’t have a long history with yet, but so far so good. RelateIQ, started by co-founders, Adam Evans and Steve Loughlin, is on a mission to help people build better relationships and make smarter decisions. There are a few things RelateIQ does well. The first is that it automatically captures communication data pulled from email systems, smartphone calls, calendars, and social networks, to make your life easier and not have to deal with manual data entry. They figured out how to automate the tedious part of relationship management. The second is that it makes it really easy to assign follow-ups, tag your colleagues in comments, and share interactions with your team. I’m bullish on RelateIQ and look forward to using it more.

Super.cc

Super.cc* launched two weeks ago and lets you add events to your calendar from any email and any device. All you have to do is email add@super.cc with your event details. Super.cc automatically detects date, time, location, and landmarks. This is the perfect tool for people scheduling meetings and looking to automate the process. According to Super.cc’s FAQ page, it makes it really easy to get your events from the place you receive them (your inbox) to the place they need to be (your calendar). Super.cc is new but looks like it will definitely help business people streamline meeting scheduling.

There are a ton more tools to make you bigger, faster, and stronger at your job. Some notable ones are YeswareToutAppStreakBoomerangHelloSign,ZapierPipedriveAsanaNewsleRapportiveLinkedIn*Falcon.ioTrello*, and more. But these 5 are a newer crop and I’m excited to watch them grow.