Archive for October, 2009

Buying software in tough times

Written by MichaelZ on October 31, 2009 – 10:15 pm -

sage software

Cutting your software budget

I want to help you save money and I am never going to ask you for a dime in return.

Every year I save hundreds of euros by not spending any money on software. I wanted to find a more economic way of getting systems for my business - a move inspired by the Sage Software in a quote I had received. I have learned that I can do most of the day to day tasks efficiently using tools that cost me nothing. They dont teach this at Harvard. The tragedy is that just about 90% of small business owners don’t know the facts about the amount of free tools out there.

Stick to this approach and start saving money.

* Spare ten minutes every day to search on the term for the tool you need.
* Record your findings using the free service from evernote.com.
* Devote ten minutes each day to test drive everything you found.

You should expect it to take about a month to get a list that will give you everything you need for today and the future. To help you get started and prove my point here is a list of tools I use regularly.

If you are about to purchase any of the basic software you need for your business, the chances are you have looked at the software I have listed on the right hand side of the page, on the left you will find their free equivalents.

Here we go:

Just type the name of the free product to the search engines

One system to manage customers and accounting

salesorder.com pricing: free Sage Software - really expensive and only does Accounting

Creating and writing Documents

Google Docs pricing: $0 Microsoft Office pricing - at least $100

Or

OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org)

Sharing ideas online

Bubbl.us pricing: $0 Mindjet pricing - at least $200

Making videos

Jing pricing: $0 Camtasia Studio pricing - at least $300

Teleseminars

DimDim pricing: $0 AdobeConnect pricing - at least $200/month

My thanks to the Sage Software incident for the inspiration!motivation to blog this and help you out.

Come back soon as I will be adding more insights here…

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Internet Marketing And Permission-Based Email Marketing

Written by MichaelZ on October 31, 2009 – 10:15 pm -

When you hear the term “internet marketing“, what do you think of?

For many, that term conjures thoughts of websites or spamming or search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. For others, it’s all about graphical design, writing fancy code or even affiliate programs. All of those answers correct, but the essence of internet marketing is much simpler.

At its core, internet marketing is about these things:

* Understanding the target market to which the product/service/cause you’re marketing will appeal
* Determining exactly how your target market interacts with the internet
* Positioning your content on the internet to attract the attention of your target market
* Collecting information about your target market (also known as “leads”) for follow-up and conversion into sales
* Design of offers or incentives to induce the desired actions from your leads

Since there is insufficient space in this article to give all of these topics adequate attention, let’s focus on just one specific topic with the realm of internet marketing: Email Marketing.

My best payoff has always come by focusing on permission-based email marketing. Permission-based email marketing refers to the practice of collecting information (including email addresses) from website visitors and communicating with them via e-mail with their direct consent. The “permission” aspect of permission-based email marketing is what separates legitimate email marketers from the spammers that everyone despises.

My love of email marketing is strong for one reason: It works very well. Email marketing has been much like a never-ending goldmine: It enables us to produce income on demand simply by sending a good offer to our list. When you have thousands of loyal subscribers - as we do - and you put a strong and compatible offer in front of them, income becomes nearly automatic.

However, the key to successful email marketing is the development of a legitimate trust relationship with your subscribers. If you opt to send your subscribers a request for purchases every single day, they will likely tire of your badgering and cease reading your emails altogether.

Alternatively, if you take the time to provide good content to your readers on a regular and frequent basis, you’ll discover that your readers take all of your emails far more seriously, and as a result your emails will be opened, read and acted upon with greater frequency. Essentially, email marketing is really an exercise in trust.

Even though there are more sides to internet marketing than just email marketing (permission based), email has been the foundation that our business sits on.

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Prevention is Better Than Cure and Always Has Been…

Written by MichaelZ on October 31, 2009 – 1:59 pm -

Personal Dental Care

There more I hear from people interested in the hydro floss, the more impressed I am. I have my own experience with this device as well and I’m very happy with what it can do in regards to my dental health.

Many dentists are also recommending the hydro floss. This is because of the history of this device. Studies have documented it’s effectiveness. The second study was designed to disprove the first, however, it showed the hydro floss to be even more effective than the first study.

A personal dental irrigator may be very helpful to you. You would be surprised just how much comes out of your mouth even after you have brushed and flossed.

Cost is not a factor because if you are able to buy one of these devices for less than the cost of a single office visit, isn’t it worth it? That seems to be especially true if it can save you from expensive dental treatments. A scaling and root planing treatment might cost you up to $1600

Some people have to replace their teeth. I met a gentleman who spent $26,000 to have his teeth fixed / replaced. That makes the cost of a $100 home dental instrument sound miniscule doesn’t it?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we shifted our focus a bit from treatment to prevention. Imagine the health care dollars that we could save. Imagine the personal pain and suffering that would no longer be necessary.

We have always known this to be true. Remember the saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"? This quote is as true today as when it was originally coined. We have moved to far away from prevention, let’s get back to it.

Unfortunately, prevention and what it means is something that each of us needs to really understand personally. You can not leave prevention in the hands of someone else and expect the kind of results that you are deserving of as a human being.

Author: Dave S.

Disclaimer:  This article is for information purposes only.  If you have or think you might have any type of health problem at all, visit a physician for advice diagnosis and treatment. The USFDA has not evaluated statements about products in this article. 

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