David Joseph Schwartz said, “The success combination in business is: Do what you do better and do more of what you do.” Easier said than done. As a small business owner, there’s no “typical” day you can plan around, and to do more of what you do best is challenging without some help.

That help might come from your employees, contractors, or periodic collaborators. But your team can only be as productive and effective as their tools and your ability to communicate with them. That’s why we’ve made it easy to invite your team to B12.

Why getting everyone working in one place matters

Relying on numerous business subscriptions and software causes your overhead costs to skyrocket, and it also slows down and stresses out your employees. A 2020 study by RingCentral showed that 69% of workers waste up to an hour every day toggling between apps.

In another survey, 74% of workers admit they usually have more than five apps open at once, while 16% have 15 or more apps open simultaneously. Each time they switch to a new one, they lose focus and momentum.

If your team members are client-facing, they may also have to create materials and communications. Think emails, invoices, contracts – the list goes on. Even with your oversight, there’s the potential for your team to put their own spin on your company identity, resulting in inconsistency in the market, and the risk of a disjointed client experience. Believe it or not, that can have an impact on your bottom line. A Lucidpress study found that consistent presentation of a brand can help to increase revenue by 10 - 20%.

So it’s fair to say, being able to get everyone on the same page is more than just convenient.

Bringing your team together in B12

Whether they’re a permanent staff member, a temporary contractor, your office administrator, or a manager at your firm with their own clients, getting everyone working in B12 means a more effective, efficient, and in-sync team. Here’s what you’ll be able to do:

Strengthen client relationships and ensure consistency of service

With B12’s team feature, you can add your staff and fellow team members to a centralized B12 account and have everyone manage clients from a single space.

While some platforms only allow for one login per company, or require individual user accounts that don’t interact with other folks on the team, B12 lets each of your employees access their own set of Client Engagement tools within your firm’s B12 account. That means your team will be supercharged with user-friendly tools to help them schedule appointments, manage contact information, and communicate with clients.

Since it’s all within your company’s B12 account, you maintain oversight. You can see how your team has engaged with their clients and make centralized updates to things like invoice and email branding, contracts, and other templates. Any changes you make will automatically apply to the templates your staff is using, ensuring a consistent client experience.

Delegate tasks to get your time back

On average, small business owners are personally responsible for 4.2 roles in their business, which probably feels more like a million. And if you think your daily administrative tasks are no big deal, you’re wrong. Small business owners spend a staggering 17% of their time on mundane admin work.

That’s not sustainable in the long run, especially as you scale your company and strive for a healthy work-life balance. You need to start delegating these tasks, or even better, automate them using B12.

Adding team members to B12 means you can easily share your workload without all the administrative headaches. Invite your office manager, administrator, or a consultant to your B12 account and give them access to make website updates, send invoices, set up appointment scheduling, or kick off an email marketing campaign to take a few things off of your already very full plate.

Remove bottlenecks

You want oversight, but you don’t want to be a blocker to getting work done or delivering projects on-time to clients. That’s why B12’s team tools come with built-in time-saving workflows, designed to improve client experiences and reduce wait times.

More specifically, team members with the right permissions and qualifications can automatically be added to applicable meetings. This means that when a client goes to schedule a meeting, B12’s intelligent appointment scheduling will look at team member availability and add the right person for the project. Want to schedule a meeting with any member of your team or every member of your team? Set it all up in a click!

Bring in reinforcements when you need them

For many small business owners, there are busy seasons. During these times it’s tempting to pull in contractors, but building channels for communication and collaboration can feel like a hassle that often sucks up more time than if you just did the work yourself.

B12 takes a flexible approach to the definition of “team.” New accounts now come with available user “seats.” Your account type dictates the number of available seats you have. Use your available seats to add permanent staff members or seasonal contractors – it’s up to you. Add or remove team members as you need them and adjust permissions based on the work you expect them to do. There are no limits to the number of changes you can make, and if you use all the team seats that come with your account, you can always purchase more.

How adding team members in B12 works

If your subscription includes team member seats, when you log in to your B12 account you’ll see Team in the left navigation panel. Click it to begin the invitation process. You can invite team members from directly within your B12 account. Add the recipient name and email address and the permissions you’d like them to have. Hit Send Invite and your recipient will receive an email with instructions for setting up their own free B12 account linked to your company account.

You can customize each team member’s permissions, choosing to give them access to make website and content updates, manage account, billing, and team members, or manage clients. You can change their permissions by visiting the Team section – where easy-to-understand checkboxes show you at a glance what access each person has.

B12 keeps records of all of your business interactions within the platform, so you have context and a paper trail when you need it. When your staff sends out invoices, contracts, and new client intake forms, everything is stored in the Contact Manager for transparency. It totally alleviates the headache of dealing with separate email inboxes: no more Cc or Bcc mistakes!

You can learn more about how to add team members and what permissions they can get in the B12 support center.

Add team members to your firm’s account to foster cross-team collaboration

B12 provides business owners like you with powerful tools that reduce the time spent on administrative tasks and help you focus on what matters most. With everyone working in B12, you can also be confident your entire company is providing an experience consistent with the identity and standards you strive to deliver.

For team members who work directly with clients, they get powerful tools to help their productivity. For those you’ve tasked with administrative work, they can manage processes and updates more efficiently. As the business owner, you get complete control and oversight, without having to do all the work. It’s a win-win-win!

Already have a B12 account and ready to get started? Log in or get in touch and we’ll walk you through how B12 for teams works. Customers on the Essential Plan automatically have access for two additional users (plus yourself) for a total of three seats. Those on the Advanced Plan get four additional users (plus yourself) for a total of five seats. You can also add seats for $39/month/seat.

Not a B12 customer yet? Schedule a time to chat with us and we’ll give you a walk-through of how we can help transform your online presence and set your team up to work more productively.