Do you have one or more persons who support you in your business? If so, you know it can be a pain to have to email a document (especially a large one) to one or more people. If that document needs to be updated by more than one of the other team members, well that just gets ridiculous keeping track of which version is the most current and emailing it back and forth.
If you haven’t yet discovered the wonderful ease of a file sharing program, then it’s time you did.
Software, such as Dropbox or Google Drive, are file sharing programs that are hosted online. Files, documents, videos and pictures can be shared between team members. Most email accounts have a limit on how large of a file can be sent or received, so it can be frustrating if you are trying to get information to someone either on your team, or a client, and the file is too large to go through email.
With both programs, you can easily access your files through an icon on your desktop. Both are free up to a certain amount of data. I’ve exceeded the free limit with Dropbox and I pay only $10 per month for up to 100G of storage. You can also choose what you share and with whom. For example, in my Dropbox, I have a folder for pretty much every one of my clients. I can share just client folder A with client A. Client folder B with client B, etc. They can only see what I’ve shared with them and any other files they are sharing in their Dropbox account.
You can also share a link to just one document. Say you have a document that you need all of your clients to read and normally you attach it to an email and send it out. It’s easy to systemize this by creating an email template and adding a link to just that one document in the email.
Folders can also be created that aren’t shared with anyone, but make a good place to store big files you don’t want taking up space on your computer hard drive. In full disclosure, I use Dropbox more than I use Google Drive and yes, Dropbox periodically has syncing issues, where updated data can’t be seen by all people. But I work with technology so much and I’ve come to the realization that nothing works 100% of the time.
I’m in and out of my Dropbox folders all day long with my clients – whether I’m accessing email copy we both need to see or updating upcoming event attendee lists or projects that I’m working on.
Are you using a file sharing program? If so which one and how do you like it? Please comment below.