by Ellen Blake
It is difficult to find a new job at any time when age 50+, but even more so now during the pandemic. Every day I hear news about layoffs. Some of my friends are in a healthy position to retire and do not worry about finances; others need their income to make ends meet. A number of brave souls decided to start a business. All are competent smart women who achieved success in the past and believe they can again. Unfortunately, not all kept up with with technology over the years if they did not use it in previous positions. Now that they work for themselves, they need to get up to speed which can be a struggle.
Older adults need training and a supportive community to build a business in 2020. Fortunately, programs such as AARP Foundation’s Work For Yourself@50+ and SCORE offer free webinars and workshops to help prospective entrepreneurs master new skills. More good news – a large number of online small business tools exist to help boost your success and the technology is easy to learn.
Our favorite online small business tools
Constant Contact – Manage subscribers, send emails, and track results with this online marketing solution.
Dropbox – Keep your files safe, synced, and sharable with Dropbox. You can access your photos, videos and documents anywhere with no worry you will lose the files.
Google Drive – Store, share, and collaborate on files or folders from any mobile device, computer or tablet. Offers business email, calendar and more in addition to storage.
Google Pay – Uuse Google Pay (formerly Google Wallet) to receive money from people you know for small business transactions.
Loom – Create helpful and effective video tutorials using your computer screen to demonstrate. Personalize the training by adding your headshot.
Paypal – With PayPal, you can offer a fast, safe and easy way to send money, make an online payment, receive money or set up a merchant account. People can pay you either with their Paypal account or use a credit card.
Salesforce – Salesforce specializes in customer relationship management (CRM). With it, you can use cloud technology to connect with customers, partners and potential customers.
Square – Offer anyone a way to process their credit card payments to you using smart phones with Square..
Venmo – Venmo is a free digital payment service app owned by Paypal Venmo that allows users to send and receive funds from contacts or friends and connects to users’ bank accounts and credit or debit cards. Venmo is generally used for smaller purchases.
Zoom – Use this technology to conduct meetings, webinars, conferences easily world-wide.
