Jeff Goldenberg

Abacus Co‐Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Jeff Goldenberg has a full-time staff of 11 but conducts business as if he has an army of 100. That’s because Jeff is a hardcore growth hacker who has learned to leverage the handiest digital resources and apps to reclaim his time and increase his work output.

Last week, about 65 entrepreneurs and I crammed inside of the Rogers Small Business Centre in Toronto to find out the veteran start-up founder’s favourite online tools for ramping up his productivity.

“Every year, as I get a little older, I realize more and more that productivity is the whole ball game,” Jeff told the crowd. “The only way we can be better than our competition is if we are more productive and more creative than them.”

Cut the complication out of meeting scheduling

If you’re like me, and the majority of other small business owners I’ve met lately, you likely don’t have a secretary to take your calls and schedule your appointments. To help make the process swift and seamless, Jeff recommends using Calendly for scheduling meetings without the back-and-forth emails.

After creating a free account, users are prompted to indicate their availability preferences. Calendly then populates a URL displaying a list of meeting times that can be accommodated for users to email to their colleagues. Recipients of the email simply click the link, and select the time frame that is most convenient.

“I love it because it can be synced directly to your Google or Outlook calendar,” said Jeff. “This service actually helped me figure out how I want to manage my time during the week.”

Who says you can’t squeeze the cost of a personal assistant into your budget?

..not Jeff. He understands that we can’t possibly do everything ourselves and, doggonit, we shouldn’t!

“Multitasking is the enemy of productivity; it’s a symptom of not knowing what you should be focusing on,” he explained.

When you need someone else to pick up the slack on other tasks occasionally, Jeff suggests trying Fancy Hands.

As explained on its website, Fancy Hands is a team of US-based assistants who will tackle anything on your to-do list—from price and vendor comparisons to making restaurant reservations—at any time of the day. I checked out their pricing, and I think it’s quite reasonable for the services they provide.

“Fancy Hands is really crazy amazing!” Jeff exclaimed. “I’ve offloaded a whole bunch of stuff to them, and use them for research all the time.”

Invoice like a boss

Fresh books is small-business accounting software that allows you to customize your invoices, make invoices recurring, and bill customers by credit card—it even alerts you once an invoice has been opened. The service is free to use for up to three clients, and then still fairly cheap.

Jeff swears by it.

“This is probably my favourite company and app for business…period,” said Jeff. “It’s the easiest way to invoice when you’re small.”

Learn to become a full-fledged growth hacker

Jeff shared many more useful tips and tricks on productivity during his presentation, but for the sake of my managing my own time and productivity, I suggest you hear him speak on the topic when he’s at a venue near you. 😉

If you’re interested in skyrocketing your company’s growth through proven digital marketing strategies, consider checking out the book A Growth Hacker’s Guide to the Galaxy, co-authored by Jeff in 2015.