Over the past few years, we’ve seen more people forging their own path and turning their personal passions into businesses. These individual business owners, sometimes called “solopreneurs,” wear many hats as they run and grow their businesses: salesperson, marketer, accountant, the list goes on.
That’s why one year ago, we launched Google Workspace Individual as a new offering to help these solo business owners grow their businesses with the familiar apps they’re likely already using in their personal life. We’ve heard from customers that Google Workspace Individual helps them focus their time on doing what they love — like meeting with customers and designing personalized services — and less time on recurring tasks like scheduling appointments and sending emails. Since launch, we’ve delivered a number of improvements to provide even more value to customers, and today we’re announcing what’s coming next – electronic signatures right within Google Docs.
Coming soon: Easily sign important documents right in Google Docs
Whether you’re an event planner or digital creator, it can be a challenge to stay on top of contracts and customer agreements that need to be signed as you’re constantly context switching and jumping between different apps to get work done. That’s why we’re natively integrating eSignature in Google Docs, so you can quickly execute agreements from the familiar interface of Docs without having to switch tabs or apps.
Coming soon: Easily request electronic signatures directly in Google Docs
eSignature in Google Docs will take advantage of the same secure-by-design infrastructure and built-in protections Google uses to help secure your information and safeguard your privacy. Let’s take a look at how eSignature can help you create agreements:
- Collaborate in documents: Collaborate on changes directly in Google Docs with comments and suggestions — no need to export the file to send a draft contract over email.
- Add fields to documents: Within the familiar Google Docs interface, you can easily drag and drop signature and date fields in branded documents you create.
- Request a signature: Once you resolve all comments and suggestions, requesting a signature is as easy as sharing a file in Drive.
- Add signatures: When ready to sign, the signee can easily add their signature, no downloads needed. Once the signature is added, a completed PDF contract is emailed to both parties.
- Monitor and track progress: Quickly see the status of pending signatures and easily find completed, signed contracts.
- Create copies of contracts: For signature workflows that need to be repeated regularly, you can streamline the process by creating copies of existing contracts and then modifying as needed.
eSignature in Google Docs is coming soon in Beta to Google Workspace Individual users and is the latest in a series of improvements we’ve announced for the subscription in the past year. If you’re already using a dedicated eSignature solution, Google Workspace integrates with a number of leading providers. Learn more about how these eSignature and other integrations can help you optimize your workspace on our blog post.
ICYMI: Google Workspace Individual updates from this past year
Email marketing updates for engaging campaigns
For any business, it’s vital to connect with customers and prospects, both on a one-to-one basis and at a large scale. Google Workspace Individual makes it easy to do both, so you can easily send communications like monthly newsletters and also offer items like scheduled consultations.
Create and send customized marketing emails from Gmail
To help you reach many customers at once, last year we added a way to run simple email campaigns directly in Gmail. We started first by providing professionally designed templates that you can customize with your own branding and images in just a few clicks. Then earlier this year, we added multi-send, which allows you to deliver individual emails to a large number of recipients with a unique unsubscribe link for each recipient. With the combination of these improvements, it’s easy to make communications as targeted as you like, because you can create multiple email mailing lists within Google Contacts for different audiences and easily tailor the message to each audience. Gmail layouts and multi-send are generally available in Google Workspace Individual today.
Appointment scheduling updates for easier bookings
For scheduling in-person appointments or virtual meetings, Google Calendar helps streamline the appointment scheduling process and avoid back-and-forth communication to find a time that works. Since launching, we’ve made a number of enhancements that improve the experience for both the business owner and scheduler, including the ability to:
- Help prevent no-shows by customizing the timing of reminder emails and having users verify their email before booking for added security.
- Reflect your operational needs by setting flexible appointment durations, adding buffer time between appointments and limiting the number of bookings per day.
- Easily update your availability with one-off exceptions like regional holidays and customizable start and end dates.
Get your own professional booking page that stays up to date
Customized appointment scheduling with the above features are generally available in Google Workspace Individual today, on the web and your mobile device.
Google Meet updates for your customer and partner calls
Once an appointment is on the books and it’s time to connect, Google Meet provides an easy way for you to deepen customer and partner relationships through secure video meetings. Helpful features in Meet ensure you can be clearly seen and heard. Noise cancellation removes background distractions like barking dogs, while low-light mode automatically adjusts your video in poorly lit settings. Here are a few notable Meet announcements from this past year:
- Mimic taking your call from a real-life cafe or condo with immersive backgrounds.
- Filter out the echoes in spaces with hard surfaces so that you can have conference-room audio quality whether you’re in a basement, a kitchen, or a big empty room.
- Clearly see participants on a call while you’re presenting or multi-tasking with picture-in-picture on Chrome browsers.
- Review your forecast or business proposal with meetings directly in Docs, Sheets and Slides.
Quickly join a Google Meet call from Google Docs, Sheets and Slides
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Source : New Google Workspace features to help solo business owners
