You are here:

Archive for the ‘tips & tricks’ Category

« Older Entries

Tech Tools for Business

12 Nov

by

The thing I love the most about the tech industry is how it tries to wiggle its way into nearly every facet of our lives.

The UPS guy, for example, is responsible for delivering packages. At first glance, it may seem like a pretty simple mission. Yet he carries with him a fairly sophisticated handheld device, recording what was delivered, when it was delivered and to whom.

Or the auto mechanic, who once wielded everyday tools like wrenches, but now uses specialized software to diagnose car problems and to calibrate settings to boost performance.

It’s exciting to see how computerization is helping us do more by doing less – especially when applied to long-standing habits and jettisoning the old-school way in favor of newer, simpler, more elegant solutions.

There are two neat tech tools I’ve been playing with over the last few weeks and I like them both very much. Each is easy to use and hard to give up once you’ve started using them.

The first is a web service Docusign (docusign.com). Now, I must confess: I have a strong aversion to any kind of printed document. I’m not sure why. I just don’t like them. I don’t like reading them, I don’t like signing them, I don’t like filing them and I don’t like looking for them.

But after playing with Docusign, I can say a feel the pull of rekindled romance!

DocuSign is an online tool that lets you send, sign and save documents. Everything is done online, using any device. For example, we just started licensing SuperGeeks (supergeeksusa.com) and will be opening our first mainland operation over the next few weeks. Instead of faxing or mailing contracts back and forth to the licensee, we used DocuSign to route contracts and capture electronic signatures.

It was quick, painless and professional.

How easy was it? In less than 5 minutes, I uploaded the contracts, indicated where I wanted signatures, initials and dates, entered the recipients email address, and I was done. That was it. The software did the rest.

One feature I really like is DocuSign will take your document as-is, regardless of whether it’s a Word file or PDF. All you have to do is upload it.

Who can benefit from DocuSign? Anyone who requires a signature. It could be a rental agreement, a service contract, a nondisclosure form, an employment agreement or just a memo of understanding. And since it works on mobile devices, you can now capture signatures and close deals anytime, anywhere.

The other geeky gadget I’ve been playing with is an inexpensive, easy-to-use, web camera called Dropcam (Dropcam.com). Now, internet cameras have been around for awhile, but what’s cool about this one is how simple it is to setup. All you need is wifi and electrical socket. No computer is required.

It’s got built-in security (so you can keep the video private), night vision, cloud-based storage (so you can remotely playback recorded video) and a special alert feature that lets you know when someone or something has walked in front of the camera.page1image26768

page1image27472page1image28496
I use the cameras at my martial arts schools Smart Karate (Smart Karate) Regardless of where I am in the world, I can always watch live video of my classes. The cameras also have audio, so I can listen to the lesson and speak to my instructors through the camera. And I can do it all via my smart phone, while exercising at the gym. The cameras give me significant peace of mind.

0 Comment business, Market Trends, tips & tricks Subscribe to our feed

Tech Tools for Administrative Professionals

16 May

by

Once a year, on Administrative Professionals Day, we honor the people in our organization who fight on the front lines.  You know who they are.  They are the ones who answer the phones, book the appointments, organize the information, greet the clients, support the boss, coordinate all the moving pieces and basically hold everything together.  Without their diligence, loyalty, skills and efficiency,  we would all be rendered useless and ineffective.

If you missed the official celebration last month of Administrative Professionals Day, don’t worry.  It’s never too late to honor the ones who help us.  In fact, every day should be Administrative Professionals Day.  Make the time and show your appreciation.  And don’t forget to schedule next year’s special day: 4/25/12.  Put that event on your calendar yourself. (More info: http://www.iaap-hq.org/events/apw)

Now take a moment and rethink your assumptions about your company’s operations.  How can you add more efficiency to your administrative layer?  How can technology help your team do what they do even better?  Can a new process or procedure boost efficiencies and help make your organization even more competitive?

Later this month I have the pleasure of speaking to the Hawaii Chapter of the International Association of Administrative Professionals (http://www.iaap-hawaiichapter.org/).  The topic of my presentation will focus on how to harness new technology to make the office faster, better, cheaper.  Here are some ideas you may want to consider:

Get an intelligent phone system.

I tell my team,  “Every phone call is worth $10,000.  Learn to love the sound of that phone ringing.”  But that’s easy for me to say.  I’m not the one answering it all day long!  Fortunately, there are a bunch of inexpensive tech tools to help make phone-based communications smarter and more effective.

If you’re still using conventional phone systems, ask your internet service provider about “voice over internet protocol” (VoIP).  It’s just a fancy name for computer-based phone systems.  VoIP will save you money and will offer lots of neat features.  Be sure to take a look at Google Voice (https://www.google.com/voice).  Google Voice will translate voicemail into email and send it directly to your inbox.

Also checkout RingCentral (http://www.ringcentral.com/).  We’ve had good success with RingCentral,  which enables us to seamlessly route calls easily between our service centers, home offices, and our SuperGeeks in the field.

Decentralize the accounting.

I remember the days when the bookkeeper had to come onsite to do her magic and all paperwork had to be ferried back and forth to one central location.  And it wasn’t that long ago.

If you’re still doing your finances the old fashioned way, i.e. from a dedicated workstation, consider web-based accounting solutions.  Quickbooks Online (http://quickbooksonline.intuit.com/) is a winner.  Freshbooks (http://www.freshbooks.com/) is also worthy candidate.  Both come with their own ecosystem of partners.  This gives you the ability to integrate additional providers so you can achieve a nicely customized solution for your company’s operations.  You will like how web-based models offer more automation and more flexibility, like pushing accounting features directly into the hands of your front line staff,  saving you both time and money.

Put the forms online.

There are lot of things your clients can do online from your website.  In fact, they prefer the convenience of completing forms, scheduling appointments, requesting information, etc via the internet.  One of my favorite tools is Wufoo (http://wufoo.com/).  Their motto is: We make forms fast + easy + fun.  And it’s true.

Think of the paperwork in your operational cycle.  Brainstorm what kids of things can be collected and disseminated online.  One advantage of online forms is databasing.  By capturing data digitally and sending it to the right buckets, you can drill into that data more easily and leverage it more effectively.  That’s good business.

Capture receipts on the go.

Expense reporting is vital.  It’s also labor intensive.  Shoeboxed (http://www.shoeboxed.com/) is a neat online service that helps you keep track of your receipts.  Like the other solutions mentioned above, Shoebox integrates with various service providers, including Freshbooks.  Again, the more integration, the better.

Organize your contacts.

Customer relationship management, called CRM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_relationship_management) is the glue of your day-to-day business.  Just like the old Rolodex gave us power and authority to get things done,  managing your contacts wisely will help you build networks and close sales.

There are many providers in the CRM marketspace.  Ultimately, you will want one that integrates well with your accounting solution.  Batchbook (http://www.batchblue.com/) does everything a traditional CRM offers, as well as social media integration.  This means you can view and curate each contact’s blog posts, tweets, photos and more.

Don’t call or email.  Chat.

Everyone knows Skype (http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/home) is perfect for long distance calling.  But did you know Skype is great for live chatting, too?  We use Skype chat to message real-time between our service centers and our global software development teams.  It even supports group chatting, so we can have several geeks participating in the same live chat.

In the business world, communication needs to be fast and frictionless.  In fact, the sooner you get to the truth, whether it’s a client’s order or a staffing issue, for example, the more competitive your organization will become.  Skype is a winner.  It’s much better than Yahoo, Hotmail and Google chats.  And it’s free!

Manage projects online.

I wish there were some way to automate the whole project management process.  It’s amazing how quickly customer satisfaction rates can drop when updates are late and milestones are missed.

We use Basecamp (http://basecamphq.com/) to manage software development projects.  We can setup milestones, store related files online, create reminders and even invite clients into some or all of the project management process so everyone is participating and well-informed.

Similar solutions include goplan (http://www.goplanapp.com/) and huddle (http://www.huddle.com/).  All offer 30-day free trials.

Make your event a success.

Eventbrite (http://www.eventbrite.com/) is a very useful tool for organizing company events.  The events could be anything, ranging from a seminar for your propsects to an employee appreciation BBQ for your team members.  With Eventbrite, you can publish the event online, push invites via email and social media to boost registration, track response rates, generate name tags, create check-in lists, and collect money online.

I haven’t tried it yet, but I think you can leverage Eventbrite to run a bootstrapped version Groupon or LivingSocial.  You can imagine you have a hot product and a good contact list and you use Eventbrite to push out timely specials, treating each deal as a kind of event.  Sounds promising.  Let me test it.  Will have more for you in my column next month…

0 Comment business, Market Trends, tips & tricks Subscribe to our feed

On-page SEO (search engine optimization)

14 Feb

by

How to SEO Your Business

Ready for some news that’s both surprising and yet not-so-surprising? Nearly 70 percent of adults in the United States “rarely or never” use the phone book.

That’s according to a recent study by Harris Interactive.

Instead of the phone book, people are turning increasingly to the Internet to find a product or service. Judging from the stacks of unopened yellow pages, most people probably will nod and agree with the overall trend.

But, what does this mean for businesses, many of which still advertise in the old-fashioned phone book?

Well, it means your company is advertising in the wrong place. And it means your competitor is probably grabbing your market share.

It wasn’t that long ago when yellow page advertising was one of those necessary evils. Like most other business, if you wanted your phone to ring, you had to pay to play. And it wasn’t cheap.

Now, all that’s changed and we business owners — regardless of whether we like it or not — must be willing to change, too. The fact is your prospects are more likely to be sitting in front of a computer screen, tablet PC or a smart phone, using Google, Yelp and Bing. They want immediate results. And they’re not willing to spend a lot of time and energy searching for it.

This means your company must develop its online footprint and ensure that your potential clients can indeed find you easily online. The easy solution is click-thru advertising.

The smarter approach, though, is to optimize your web identities, like your website and social media profiles, for higher organic rankings. In the geek world, we call it SEO, or search engine optimization.

SEO can be segregated into two parts: on-page SEO and off-page SEO. Both are important.

On-page SEO refers to the things you can do to ensure that your website is properly recognized by the search engines. Search engines regularly send bots (software) to scour the Internet and catalog what they find. You want your website to “sing” your targeted keywords while making it easy for the bots to “read” your website.

If you’re an attorney practicing employment law, you may want your website’s content to include relevant keyword phrases like: labor attorney Hawaii, labor attorney Honolulu, labor law Hawaii, labor law Honolulu, employment lawyer Hawaii, etc.

At the same time, you need to make sure your website is coded in a way to facilitate the search engines’ abilities to understand your website’s actual content.

It gets a bit technical here. But your rankings will improve if you take the time to do it right.

Below is a list of some of the things you should address. Give the list to your web head and get a fixed-price quote for what it will cost. Larger sites having more pages will obviously take longer and thus be more expensive. In general, market pricing typically will range from $500 to $1,500 per website for on-page SEO, depending on the scope of work.

Here is a quick guide towards good on-page SEO (source: www.seoco.co.uk):

• Internal linking: Make sure that all of your web pages can be indexed by search engines, and make sure that they all have at least one link from somewhere on your site.

• Unique content: Make sure that you have unique content on every page. Simply bold and underline your target keywords present in the content. A word of warning: Do not overdo it. You don’t need to bold and underline all target keywords present in the content, only a few.

• Page title: Your page title tags and description tags should describe the content of your different web pages. The page title tags should be less than 68 characters and the description tags more detailed but less than 148 characters.

• Meta tags: Make sure that your meta tags are arranged correctly. Meta description should be used to describe the site and Meta keyword should be used as a list of words that inform viewers about the main focus of the page.

• H tags: Make sure you label the different headers on your web pages using H tags.

• SEO-friendly URL: Make sure that your web page URLs are SEO friendly; use mod rewrite for Linux and Apache hosting or use IIS redirect for Windows. Ideally, make it so that the URLs describe your content.

• Complete links: Make sure that the links within your site are complete.

• Right image names: Make sure that you use descriptive URLs for your images.

• Alt tag: Make sure that you label all of your images with descriptive alt attributes.

• Meaningful anchor text: Make sure that you make good use of anchor text links within your content — if you have a page about blue widgets, use the phrase blue widgets in the text that links to it.

• Unique website: Make sure that there is only one version of your site.

• Unique homepage: Make sure that there is only one version of your homepage.

• W3C validation: Make sure that your code is valid; in some instances bad code can lead to search engines not being able to properly read a page. Use the W3C validator to check your markup.

I know. The above list is full of geek-speak. But your web head should know what to do.

Search Engine Optimization & Internet Marketing Services

1 Comment business, Search Engines, SEO, tips & tricks, Web Design, Website Marketing Subscribe to our feed

Resolutions for the New Year

21 Dec

by

“The sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home.” – Christopher Columbus

Technology is like that for me. It’s my ocean. It pulls me closer to new horizons and at the same time eventually delivers me back where I began – kind of like something out of T.S. Elliot’s famous poem “The Waste Land.”

The metaphor works for just about anything. For in the end, we realize the only way to truly learn about life (or technology) is through constant exploration.

And so, as we wrap up this calendar year and look towards the next, with bellies full of hope and renewed enthusiasm, we should list our resolutions for self improvement. Here are my suggestions:

Get the next generation iPad. It’s due the first quarter of next year. You don’t have to like the iPad, but as a business person you do have to understand it. Consider the purchase small investment in your education. After you’ve played with the ‘natural interface’ for a while, install an app called Flipboard (flipboard.com) and play with a variety of content sources. The iPad and its competitors herald a new era in hardware and software. Now is the time to thoroughly grasp why the iPad is so popular and to figure out how your business can take advantage it.

Join the South By Southwest (sxsw.com) interactive conference in Austin, March 11-15. This yearly event brings the best and the brightest together for one long weekend of seminars, speeches, panel discussions and schmoozing. Think of it as Spring Break for nerds. Everyone is welcome. I highly recommend it. You will learn a lot about what’s happening in social media, e-commerce, search engine marketing, user experience and how your business can leverage those trends to boost profits. Let me know if you’re interested. We should go as an informal hui and serve as the geeky ambassadors from Hawaii.

Start using Plancast.com. As you might have guessed from the name, Plancast helps you plan what you intend to do. But equally importantly, it helps you meet the right people. Are you trying to break into a new market or industry? Want to deepen your network? Plancast is perfect for business. You can follow thought leaders and see which work-related seminars, conferences and events they are planning to attend and then map your own schedule accordingly. You can also see who else in your field is attending and make arrangements beforehand to meet. Plancast is free.

Ask questions, get answers and learn what you need to know at Quora.com. Social Q&A sites are nothing new. If you haven’t yet had a chance, check out LinkedIn Answers. I like LinkedIn Answers because I can help people and because in the process those people may eventually become my clients. Lately, though, I’ve been playing more with Quora. It’s a bit more social and a lot more fun. Create your Quora account during your lunch break today. It’s free and just takes a minute to get going. Follow topics and people relevant to your industry and start interacting with others. Use Quora to position your company as a leader in your field and start turning those prospects into leads.

Share your presentations using SlideRocket.com and SlideShare.net. The beauty of the internet is you can easily sell your product or service to anyone, anywhere and do it with relatively little start-up capital. Both SlideRocket and SlideShare are excellent tools to pitch clients globally. One solid presentation, coupled with strong distribution, could really boost your company’s sales. Both solutions will let you add analytics so you can you can measure your presentation’s effectiveness. You can even embed lead forms inside the presentation so viewers can easily contact you.

Access your files wherever you are with DropBox.com. It wasn’t that long ago when we stored all our files on our local hard drives or the office server and accessed those files while at work. Now, we find our working environments far more decentralized. We want to get to those files at all hours of the day, regardless of where we may be. DropBox is a terrific tool for making sure you have immediate access to the files you need. DropBox will automatically distribute and update the important stuff across all of your devices. Need the same set of files to be on your iPhone, your home computer, your office computer and your laptop while on the road? No problem. DropBox will do exactly that. And it will make sure its the most recent version of those files.

Use Evernote.com as a business tool. Evernote’s goal is to be your online brain. I use a Moleskin for quick notes, phone numbers, passwords and messages. But I use Evernote for everything else, including shopping lists, reading lists and daily action items. It’s great for capturing content on the fly and then referencing it later. But Evernote is also good for work. For example, you can snap a photo of a printed doc, store it in Evernote, and then review it during the commute home. Using its character recognition capability, you can use your cellphone to take pics of things like of business cards and expense receipts, and then file them accordingly. Evernote works across all your devices, from your cell phone to workstation, and syncs all your data so you get what you want, when you want it.

Curiosity is the key to knowledge and knowledge is the key to success. This is especially true in business, where trends and the changes in trends can bring great opportunity. The tech world is moving at warp speed. What worked 5 years ago for your business may not offer as much value today. To stay competitive, we must be competitive. That means we must maximize our exposure to new things. And given the significant return on investment it offers, harnessing the power of new technology should be one of our top priorities. Just jump into the sea. You can figure out how to swim along the way.

0 Comment business, Market Trends, Social Media, tips & tricks, Web Design, Website Marketing Subscribe to our feed

Marketing 2.0

20 Sep

by

Traditional yellow page advertising is dead.

There.  I said it.  Oh, and by the way, conventional libraries and Post Offices are dead, too.

Please don’t get me wrong. We still need to advertise our businesses (yellow pages), read (libraries) and communicate (Post Offices), it’s just the ‘old school’ way of doing is – well – inefficient.

So you, as business owner, have a choice.  You can do business as you’ve always done, just like your parents did, and ride into the proverbial sunset.  Or, you can shake up your assumptions about how thing ought to be done, and get with the times.

Take a moment and think about where we are today.  The internet is no longer something that’s out there somewhere.  It’s now on our desktops and on our cell phones.  Hard drives used to be places where we stored stuff.  Now our applications come to us, wherever we are, at the ready.

My point is this:  Business is different now.  And that means, among other things, we have to change with the times if we hope to find and retain customers.  Over the next few months, I will map out the steps your organization needs to take to stay viable.

Step one: Throw out your old marketing manual.  It’s no longer relevant.

Step two:  Get listed.  If data is king, and it is, then you want to add your business to those databases. Marketing 2.0 is all about being in the right database at the right time.  Remember when everything was location, location, location?  Well, now it’s database, database, database.

The insight I’m about to give you is worth tens of thousands of dollars, but only is you take action.  Here’s what you need to do today:

  • Strengthen your web presence.  Your company’s digital footprint doesn’t have to be elegant, it just needs to work.  If you’re on a budget, create a business page on Facebook.com.  It takes 30 minutes.  If Facebook is unappealing, a simple, single-page website would be fine for now, too.  Whatever the solution, be sure to include plenty of calls-to-action.  Your web page has got to do the hustle for you.  Decide it’s purpose.  Is it’s purpose to collect email addresses, schedule appointments, make a sale? Don’t leave money on the table by just sharing info about your product or service.  Big mistake.  Instead, trigger the visitor to do something.  Turn the prospect into a lead, or better yet, turn the prospect into a paying client.  Think online forms, e-newsletter fields, Buy Now buttons, and prominently displayed phone numbers.
  • Add your company to Google Maps. Ever notice how your search results via Google almost always include Google Map results at the top?  You want to be in those Google Maps results every time anyone searches on anything relating to your business.  Go to this page: http://maps.google.com/ and click on the link ‘Put your business on Google Maps.’  Take the time to do it right.  Include pictures, logos, videos, coupons, slogans, testimonials and more.  By getting your company fully registered on Google Maps, you’re ensuring your business hits one of the worlds most popular databases:  Google.  Every week I get a report on where our business is coming from.  I am always surprised by the number of people finding SuperGeeks via Google Maps.
  • But wait.  There’s more. DMOZ.org is the world’s largest, human-edited directory on the web.  It’s been around for several years now.  You can post info about your company free of charge.  So go ahead, get listed there because it’s huge and because other directories pull data from it.  Google Directory, for example, pulls data from it: http://www.google.com/Top/Business/ Remember, when it comes to databases, you want your company to be everywhere.  For fun, checkout YellowPages.com and SuperPages.com and see what pops up.
  • YouTube is a search engine. In fact, it’s one of the most popular search engines in the world.  Two billion videos are viewed every day via YouTube, with the average YouTube visitor spending 15 minutes per day on it.  Use YouTube to warehouse commercials, educational clips, sales pitches, seminars, how-to videos, etc.  And be sure to fully describe the video with all the SEO (search engine optimization) tools already build into tYouTube.  This means you must give each video a title, description and tags which match your company’s targeted keywords.
  • Look for other great places to submit your site. Go to your browser and enter this address:  http://dir.yahoo.com .  Click on the appropriate category on the left hand side and voila!  You will get a listing of specialized directories. These directories see much less traffic than the big boys’, but they are highly specialized and thus worth the effort.  Remember, targeted marketing is smart.  Always.  If you’re feeling really geeky, try this Google search string:  ”computer directory -inural:yahoo.com -inural:google.com -inurl:dmoz.org”   It tells Google to give you all of the computer related directories but ignore any directories that have yahoo.com, google.com and dmoz.org in their URLs.  You can use the same search for your industry.  Simply replace ‘computer’ with ‘auto repair’, ‘accounting’, etc.
  • Create a Yelp profile. Yelp.com is a social networking site where users review everything from restaurants to bookstores.  It’s a local search engine , with more than 30 million unique visitors per month.  Make sure your company in properly listed on Yelp.  It’s a great way to share info about your company’s products and services: http://www.yelp.com/business?country=US
  • Ask clients to post reviews. Word of mouth referrals are useful for everyone, so it’s not surprising search engines are pushing reviews to the top of their results.  Google Maps will let you review businesses.  Encourage your happy clients to post something good.  Do the same for Yelp.  The more positive reviews your company has, the higher your company will show in the search rankings.
  • Look at your company from afar. This action item is real important.  We spend so much time working in our business, we neglect to take evaluate it from the outside.  Every three months or so, hop online and start searching like one of your potential clients would search.  The goal is to see your business through the public’s perspective and to fix any issues along the way.  Although rare, competitors do sometimes hijack business profiles and direct traffic to their own web sites. More often, though, a business hasn’t taken the time or energy to update their business profiles and as a result a lot of important info is incomplete or nonexistent.

Make the above your priority for the week.  It doesn’t take a lot of time and you will learn quite a bit along the way. Most importantly, you will get your organization on the map.  And you will get noticed.

Lastly, avoid paying to get listed in a directory.  Good information wants to be free.  That means good info wants to be discovered easily but also available at no charge.  So be careful when anyone starts asking for money.  In most cases, it’s not necessary to pay to play.

When in doubt, call me.  Or email me.  I am delighted to help.

1 Comment business, Market Trends, Social Media, tips & tricks Subscribe to our feed

« Older Entries