The Ultimate Toolkit: Why Entrepreneurs Should Embrace Microsoft Teams

If you’re still managing your team’s communication with emails and post-it notes, it’s time for a change.

Remote work and working from home have increased dramatically so being able to communicate and collaborate in real time with a video conference fosters productivity, participation, and morale.

Microsoft Teams: your new best friend and office superhero. I am going to dive into why Teams is the ultimate toolkit every entrepreneur need, and no, it’s not just because it makes you look tech-savvy.

What is Microsoft Teams?

A collaboration and video conferencing service within the Microsoft 365 Apps. Teams integrates with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. It also lets you customize your environment with third-party app integrations, custom tabs, and automated workflows.

It’s like your office’s virtual water cooler where you can chat, video call, share files, and collaborate. You can even create a meeting link with just a click.

It’s got channels for different topics, so you can keep your work and your memes separate, and you can even integrate it with other tools to make your life a bit easier.

And the best part? You can pop in and out of meetings like a ghost, because you’re always just a click away from turning on your video camera.

Microsoft Teams Features

Instant Messaging

Chats can be one-on-one or in a group. You can record voice messages, video clips, share photos and files.

You can click on the A with a Pencil Icon to format messages like bold, italic, insert columns, lists, etc.

Priority notifications – Mark messages as important to get your team’s attention or continually send urgent notifications every two to 20 minutes.

Send messages, react with emojis, create teams, and coordinate events with people inside or outside your company. There are channels where you can set up private spaces for collaboration within your teams. You can also work with other organizations in shared channels.

Not ready to send the message immediately? You can even schedule the send.

@mentions (similar to Slack) – Use @mentions to call a team member’s attention and to stay on top of your action items by filtering your activity feed.

Video Conferencing

With remote work becoming increasingly common, having a reliable platform to support virtual teams is important. Individuals at multiple locations can see and hear one another in real time by using a microphone and camera. It’s the key to keep everyone in the same page.

It’s quick to set up a new meeting. You just fill in a few details and save.

Video conferencing improves communication and efficiency, saves time and increases productivity.

Face to Face Meeting – Gives people working remotely a sense of belonging
Record meetings – To share in the future
Chat – To connect with before, during or after the meeting
Live Captions – AI powered real time translation for 40 spoken languages so users can read live captions in their own language
Share Screen – To follow what the presenter is saying
Customize Background – Choose, upload or blur background to minimize distractions
Raise Hand – To talk or ask questions
Participation List – View or download participants

Start meetings with anyone, with virtual backgrounds, recordings, transcriptions, and AI-powered recaps. Collaborate in real time on content shared by the presenter on screen. Anyone in the meeting can add text, sticky notes, reactions, or digital ink.

You can even host a webinar for up to 1,000 attendees with presenter views, real-time polls, and live reactions.

File Sharing

Secure cloud file sharing and collaboration tools built right into Microsoft Teams.

Whether you’re sending a PDF or a spreadsheet, the process is simple for all file types.

Choose who can access, view, and edit files to help protect sensitive information and maintain version control during the coauthoring process.

Select the paperclip icon below the box where you type a message to upload a copy of your original file. Or upload a file by going to the Files tab of a chat and selecting Share.

Built-in access to other programs and apps – Connect to Word, OneNote, and hundreds of apps for productivity and project management.

Collaboration

Collaborate on documents in real time and work with Microsoft 365 apps right from Teams. There are also other integration tools like Dropbox, Trello, ClickUp, Asana, Remind, Figma, Calendly, Zoom, YouTube, Salesforce, Canva, Datadog, Hoopla, Workday, Recognize, Trivia, Google Analytics, MailChimp, Sembly and so much more.

Communicate with anyone inside and outside your organization with chats or use shared channels to create a shared workspace across teams or companies.

Catch up on all your unread messages, @mentions, replies, and more under Activity.

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Stay secure and productive

Sensitive information is encrypted in all chats, calls, meetings, and files.

Data Analysis

Teams provides analytics that give you insights into your team’s productivity and engagement so you can make smart decisions.

Other Features

There is search option where you can look for a particular file, term or person.

How to Share Screen on Microsoft Teams

To present content in a meeting, select Share in your meeting controls. Then, choose to present your entire screen, a PowerPoint file, a whiteboard or a window.

Screen – lets you show everything on your screen.
PowerPoint Live – lets you share a PowerPoint presentation.
Microsoft Whiteboard – lets you share a whiteboard where participants can sketch together.
Window – lets you share an open window like a specific app you have open.

Is Microsoft Teams Free?

You can schedule or join video calls for up to 60 minutes, chat, share files and photos and collaborate with your community. Schedule meetings and invite people using their email addresses or phone numbers. Share the meeting link so that participants can join easily from any location.

Microsoft Teams (free) is sometimes called Teams personal and is free for personal use.

Microsoft Team Pricing for Small Businesses

According to Microsoft, there are a few different options available.

Microsoft Teams Essentials

Cost: $4.00 user/month

You get:

Unlimited group meetings for up to 30 hours
Up to 300 participants per meeting
10 GB of cloud storage per user
Phone and web support
Unlimited chat with coworkers and customers
File sharing, tasks, and polling
Data encryption for meetings, chats, calls, and files
Live captions in meetings
Whiteboard
Hundreds of collaborative apps
Collaborative annotations in Teams meetings, so participants can contribute to shared content
Team meetings recordings with transcripts
Standard security

Microsoft 365 Business Basic

Cost: $6.00 user/month

You get:

Everything offered in Teams Essentials, plus:

Identity, access, and user management for up to 300 employees
Custom business email
Web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
1 TB of cloud storage per employee
10+ additional apps for your business needs (Microsoft Bookings, Planner, Forms, and others)
Automatic spam and malware filtering
Anytime phone and web support

Secure cloud services:

Teams
Exchange
OneDrive
SharePoint

Web and mobile apps only:

Outlook
Word
Excel
PowerPoint

Microsoft 365 Business Standard

Cost: $12.50 user/month

You get:

Everything offered in Business Basic, plus:

Desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
Webinars with attendee registration and reporting
Collaborative workspaces to co-create using Microsoft Loop
Video editing and design tools with Microsoft Clipchamp

Desktop, web, and mobile apps and secure cloud services:

Word
Excel
PowerPoint
Outlook
Teams
OneDrive
SharePoint
Exchange
Clipchamp
Microsoft Loop

You can add Copilot for Microsoft 365 as an add on for any of the plans.

You can start with a free version that includes many essential features, and upgrade as your needs grow.

Conclusion

Microsoft Teams really is a game-changer for entrepreneurs. Microsoft Teams centralizes your communication, integrates with your favorite Microsoft apps, enhances collaboration, and keeps everything secure and organized. Plus, it scales with your business, helps your projects run smoother and offers analytics.

This means less time juggling different tools and more time focusing on what matters: growing your business.

The Ultimate Toolkit: Why Entrepreneurs Should Embrace Microsoft Teams