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Archive for the Business Productivity CategoryMore Tech Tools to Increase Business Productivity22. December 2009 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant for ABC Business Consulting.
The Business Success Strategies Blog is Sponsored by ABC Business Consulting As I discussed in the previous Business Success Strategies Blog, Technology can help a small company, with a limited budget, compete on a global scale. Let’s continue looking at Tech Tools useful in your business. Note: All of the product quotes are full retail quotes and are subject to change. Femtocell A Femtocell acts like a mini cell tower to boost your cell coverage so you can have reliable, strong coverage throughout your office areas. A Femtocell can help in replacing the need for a landline altogether as your cell coverage will be consistent and reliable, without the risk of dropped calls. How does it work? The Femtocell channels the indoor wireless traffic through a broadband connection, (high speed internet is required). The Femtocell looks like a modem with a small antenna on it. Where can you get it and how much for the unit?
External Hard Drives Backing up information is vital so you want a reliable external Hard Drive which has a good software management system. Security is also a consideration with a Drive that is external to your computer systems. Some choices:
Free Online Fax Service: MyFax Send and receive faxes via email. Can send up to two faxes per day, of up to 10 pages per fax, for free. Can send MS Word Documents, PDFs and 175 other file formats. Multi-Function Server: HP Media Smart LX 195 Compact unit, about the size of a toaster. Allows you to access all your documents and photos through an on line portal. Can publish photos directly to Flickr, Picasa or Face book and listen to your music collection while you are on the road. Effective Business Server with 10 free user accounts, automatic backups and 640 GB of storage capacity. Cost: $399 Free VOPI: Ooma 3,000 Domestic free minutes per month and call international for as little as 1.4 cents a minute. There is also a Premium Service for $12.00 per month which offers land to cell transfers, a second line and three way conferencing. Free Presentation Tools Some competition for Power Point:
Website Hosting Discounts You can find great savings on Hosting Packages through:
Alternatives to Microsoft Office If you don’t want to spend $400 on the MS Office Suite, try these:
Note that neither of these have a replacement for MS Outlook. You may want to try Endora. Professional Looking Biz Cards for $9.95 Try Overnight Prints for reasonable, yet professional looking biz cards. Ask to view samples and sign up for free email offers. They’ll send a 25% discount coupon. My last three blogs have discussed numerous technical resources to save your company money, while increasing your Productivity and helping you to compete effectively in the market place. Technology is great, but it needs to be evaluated, tested and planned; otherwise, its effectiveness is significantly minimized. A good Business Planning Process should be built around technology so when you implement your Business Plan, the technology is an integral part of your company. Then that technology will be and create substantial Competitive Advantage. Company-wide training, adoptance and integration are key toward effectively leveraging technology. Have more tech tips for our readers? We invite your Feedback. (you will be sent to our blog comment sign up page) Upcoming Blogs will focus on Company Leadership, Customer Building Relationships, Employee Relations, Effective Business Plans, Winning Marketing Plans and Strategic Planning for Business Success. Need more help? Get the ABC Business Success Guide Date: Dec. 22, 2009 Author: Frank Goley, Chief Business Consultant for ABC Business Consulting Subject: More Tech Tools to Increase Business Productivity Posted in Business Productivity, The Business Success Blog | Print | No Comments » Web Based Tech Tools to Enhance Business Productivity14. December 2009 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant for ABC Business Consulting.
Business Success Strategies Blog is sponsored by ABC Business Consulting There are so many great tools out there to make you and your business more productive, profitable and efficient. Small Businesses need to work smart, and Technology is one big area where working tech smart can really payoff. The Web The possibilities of the World Wide Web, and the Tools available on it and through it, are endless. Let’s concentrate on some that will put extra profits in the bank and help you build a sound Internet Presence. Ø CMS: Content Management System You don’t have to know much anymore about web design to put together a sharp, effective, easy to navigate and search, website. CMS makes it much simpler. Some to consider:
Business Success Resource: Go to the ABC How to Article on Cost Effective Online Marketing Strategies to learn more about building and marketing a profitable website. Ø Blogging Blogging is a must as it drives excellent, targeted traffic to your website, while providing valuable resources to your audience / customers. Blogging is also great for keeping in touch with your customers, as well as, gaining new ones through the viral marketing affect blogging can generate. A lot of CMS, like 1-on-1, have blogging platforms already to go to include and integrate into your website. Some Blogging Platforms for Free:
Ø Tracking Website Traffic When you are set up with a Content Based Website and start actively Blogging, your site will start coming up in the search engine rankings. To track the success of your Blog and web pages is important and advantageous, as the results will help you tailor your content and sales pitch to concentrate on the market niche customers who are most interested and relevant to your biz. Some tracking tools:
Ø Learn to Tweet Twitter is a micro blog – a blog which can be transmitted and read on a cell phone (as well as any internet connected computer). This is an excellent platform to market your products and services, as well as, keep customers informed of important articles, updates, news, specials, discounts, etc. Twitter by the end of the year is going to launch a directory of biz users. Some Twitter Resources:
Ø Virtual Trade Shows So, you have a Relevant Content, resource Rich, CMS Website, a good Blog going and increasing your Viral Marketing Presence with Twittering. How about sell your services & products virtually to a large, niche market, without the heavy expense and logistics of a Traditional Trade Show. Also, Virtual Trade Shows help you increase word of mouth advertising in a web viral way. ü InXpo: your virtual booth links to your Twitter, Linked In, Facebook and You Tube profiles. A great viral marketing generator! ü Unisfair: supports 16 languages, including Chinese. What a fantastic way to expose your products and services to the world’s biggest market! ü On 24: Searches attendees’ profiles to suggest relevant exhibitors – a highly targeted, niche marketing platform. The next blog will focus on more Tech Tools to power up your Business, without high costs, many for free, so you can very effectively compete in the global market and have that big, smart market imprint, without all the overhead and employee costs of a big business. Work smart! Let us know your Opinion & Experience on these productivity tools and other tools you are using successfully to establish competitive edge. Date: Dec. 13, 2009 Author: Frank Goley, Chief Business Consultant, ABC Business Consulting Subject: Web Based Tech Tools to Enhance Business Productivity Posted in Business Productivity, The Business Success Blog | Print | No Comments » Collaboration Technology – Productivity Software & Platforms5. December 2009 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant for ABC Business Consulting.
Blog Sponsor: ABC Business Consulting Now days you don’t need a big company, lots of funding and numerous employees, to make a profitable imprint in the market. The coming together of broadband and software innovation makes virtual productivity software and other online technology the equalizer for many small companies. Build a company around online collaboration and productivity technology and make it an integral part of your company processes, you can operate much more productively, profitably and effectively. You can work from home, manage employees virtually and have high interactivity with your customers with web / video conferencing. This all spells Competitive Advantage to me and it us how I have built my companies for the last decade. Don’t worry if you aren’t tech savvy, I wasn’t and I have learned by doing. A lot of software is user friendly. Roll up your sleeves and use it, don’t farm it out to high priced consultants. Define your Company’s Operational needs, research available technologies and costs, and build your Business Plan’s Operational Structure around the technology. The technology will aide in producing better products and services, establishing competitive advantage, highly segment profitable markets, manage financial plans and projections, better serve customers, and often be more productive and effective than dedicated employees. Larger companies often struggle with truly integrating productivity software throughout its operations, and as a small, nimble, flexible company, you can very effectively compete in the highly competitive, ever changing, global market place. There is so much technology can do for a company. In this Blog, I am going to concentrate on collaboration software – collaboration with employees, strategic partners, management and customers. Without this structure in place, other technology won’t be nearly as effective. There’s a ton of marketing technologies that can exponentially grow a company, provided you have an Effective Marketing Strategy. I will be writing an article for our Marketing Section on Online Marketing, so be sure to keep an eye out (sign up for our Company Alerts and we’ll let you know when it’s out). Let’s take a look at some collaboration tools…. Socialtext and Confluence Employees can collaborate on documents and track the changes. Costs: Socialtext is $15 / month per user and Confluence is $49 / month for 10 users. Basecamp and Present.ly Great for a workforce that communicates via Blackberry or other mobile devices. Costs: Basecamp runs $24 - $149 / month for unlimited users and Present.ly is priced $1 / month per user. Concept Share and Get Sign Off Customers can provide feedback on products or services in development. Costs: Concept Share prices at $24 - $99 / month and Get Sign Off costs $29 - $59 / Month. Phone, email, fax, mail and in person meetings can be cumbersome, costly and time inefficient. Online collaboration tools are productive, real-time tools to run a company, its projects and interact with customers at competitive pricing as compared to infrastructure of Office Space and all the inefficiencies and costs related to typical brick and mortar companies. You will find that not having to schedule in person meetings and conference calls saves tremendous time and money. The ability for Employees, Management Teams and Customers to log in given their schedule needs and collaborate more freely, really pays off for a company’s efficiency, productivity and profitability. In fact, I think you will run a better company, implement projects and campaigns more effectively, and be much more tied in and wired to your customer and market niche needs than doing business the old way. Reference: Inc. Magazine, June ’09, “Technology: Connecting the Dots: How to choose the Right Collaboration Software for your Company”, by Darren Dahl. Note: Costs / Prices indicated in this blog may have changed! Resource: For more Software reviews and articles on managing tech systems go to: www.technology.inc.com Some more virtual productivity platforms….. Central Desktop Online Project Management with collaborators and customers. Online Operations tool. Dropbox File and Folder sharing tool as an FTP site. Drag and drop folders / files in a desktop folder which are uploaded and stored online. Can show up in collaborators remote computers. Great for sending large files without tying up Email. Iline Real time, face-to-face web and video conferencing. Can access files and programs from various desktops. Co-visit websites with a live browser, i.e. for a demo. Simple Event Host web meetings of up to 1,000 participants. Free conference-call service. Reference: Entrepreneur Magazine, June ’09, Build your Brand Section, “Come together-Virtually” by John Jantsch. The age has come where you can have employees, partners, management, executives, collaborators and customers spread all over the world with no brick and mortar infrastructure to support such. Online Collaboration Software provides all the structure you need, provided you plan it accordingly and effectively. Online Operations & Collaboration gives you maximum flexibility and provides a unifying connection company wide. You will find work flows to be highly streamlined, yet effective and most importantly, in real time. Your interaction and attentiveness to customers will be significantly increased, providing a communication two-way highway. This gives your company a great opportunity to solve problems for customers while getting constant feedback on your products and services. You will be better connected to the real, changing needs of your customers, seeing market trends way in advance of your competitors. Your ability to effectively Niche Market will be greatly enhanced, using these online tools to market test ideas, strategies and processes – all for a fraction of the cost of traditional biz models. Note: Costs / Prices indicated in this blog may have changed! The next blog will be on Tech Tools which are cutting edge, yet affordable and useful for achieving Business Success! We appreciate your Feedback, Comments, insights and experiences! Date: Dec. 5, 2009 Author: ABC Business Consulting / Chief Business Consultant Subject: Collaboration Technology – Productivity Software & Platforms Posted in Business Productivity, The Business Success Blog | Print | No Comments »
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