I presented at the Tacoma - Pierce County Chamber of Commerce today.... trying to help businesses embrace technology.
I'm a tech junkie!
My goal today is to give you a few new things on your to-do list that will help increase your chances of getting in front of the people that are already searching for your service. Or... at the very least something that you can use to make your life a little easier.
You do what you do, well... which is likely why you started your business. Because you had a passion and the desire to make something out of your talents. Not because you are good at marketing, accounting, and all things technical.
I am a team member at the Business Examiner, my role is helping businesses with their marketing – which is, what you could call "my day job" ... I also own a construction company, mainly managing the marketing and trying to keep Blue Apple in front of potential clients.... and in the mix of all that... I have a family including two small kids, so I get the frustration of balancing a work life and a home life, and trying to do so on a tiny budget.... but, there is a way.
Before starting our construction company. I learned a lot about the do's and don't of advertising and what struggles business owners go through when I worked at Yellowbook. Over the 5 years I was there, and even now, I see business owners shelling out their hard earned money on things that are available online for free or for a very low cost. Drives me nuts!
So, as a business owner trying to do what you do well and manage to do everything else on top of that... where do you start? First. Know when to ask for help.
Ask friends and business associates what their favorite tools are, I've found several this way. One of my favorites and what I tell people to start with first is. Getlisted.org
If you do nothing else... you need to go to this website and run a search of your business. All you have to do is put in your company name and zip code and it will tell you what search engines you have claimed and which ones you haven't. It is also a portal to access all the search engines and update your info [on google, yelp, bing, yahoo, Best of the Web, & Hot Frog]
Claiming your listing means putting in your logo, photos, hours, parking, website... everything that tells a potential client about you and what you have to offer them. You can still do pay per click if it's a good fit for your company... but don't forget the free stuff FIRST.
Google wants to have current relevant information available when someone searches for you... if the searcher knows who you are and looks online specifically for you and can't find you... the search engine is the one that looks bad. If you have a lot of free time on your hands, you can go online to each search engine and update your info... Get Listed is a portal created by a couple of businessmen in Portland with the goal of helping small business owners harness “all that is the internet”... and allowing you to do so all in one place, and somehow they do it without charging.
Making sure you're information is submitted to all these search engines will increase the chances of your company showing up in organic search results. Getlisted.org also offers a pretty cool university if you are wanting to learn more and network with other business owners.
Now, to some people "the internet" is very scary... with that said, I know HTML and can build and play with websites all day long... but it doesn't mean I have the time. So finding tools to do these things that are simple to use strangely make me giddy... did I mention that I REALLY love FREE!
So imagine my glee when I got an email, literally, yesterday letting me know that my square reader has been shipped and will arrive in 1-2 weeks... What is square you ask? Square is changing the way payments are accepted. For no monthly fee and no rental cost for a processing machine, anyone can accept credit card payments. Really... Anyone. Anywhere.
What's the catch? You do have to have an i-touch, i-phone, or android device for it to work. However there is no need to write the customer out a receipt, as they input their email address and it privately sends it to them, it also keeps track of all payments both credit, and cash that have been ran through their system. and of course, being part of a mobile device, it's completely mobile. Which means you can sell your widgets ANYWHERE.
So, Accept payments. Everywhere. 2.75% + $.15 when card is present. 3.5% + $.15 when card is not present. That's it! squareup.com
Preparing for today, I did a search for "business tools" which brought up a Mashable article that I have scoured before and found many useful tools. Mashable is one of my favorite tech sources... so much so, I follow them on Facebook for frequent updates and am always finding new stuff to try out. This particular article had over 270 tools for things like: accounting, invoicing, scheduling, presentation software, customer service management, marketing & publicity management, newsletters, and even payroll.
Anything you want, is likely already available online.... for FREE or low cost... Doing things the old fashioned, brick and mortar way... leaves you paying for a store and sales people to fulfill and manage your services. When you find cool things like this... always bookmark them. Or better yet, email them to yourself so you can search for it later.
That brings me to email options... If you don't have a gmail account you are seriously missing out. Their new priority inbox is making my life easier and I love the search options and filters, which is why I email stuff to myself for future reference. I recently started having all of my work emails to my gmail account and I can now search through all of those emails and I am not bogging down our server or the memory on my computer.
Looking to save time? Assuming you already have a cell phone that has at least basic funtionality... be sure you have unlimited texting and start using it. You can update twitter, facebook, get directions and information and manage your calendar... all from a text message. Internet and fancy phone not required.
To use Google SMS, just text the word "help" to 466453 (GOOGLE). Pretty much anything you can “google” on a computer, you can also find via text message. I have it saved in my phone and often have people call me for directions only for me to text for the information and forward the replies to them.
Struggling to manage your calls and voicemails? google.com/voice gives you one number, and you choose which phones ring for which callers. You can even transfer between phones seamlessly. If someone leaves you a message, google transcribes the message for you to read, and those messages can be emailed to anyone you want... and they are saved until you delete them.
Share calendars with each other to make scheduling easier or "join" public calendars to keep up to date on what's going on. If you're looking for a calendar to add, let me be your first... I have a networking calendar that has area chamber and networking events. I'm happy to share.
Networking calendar for Pierce County...
(This is a work in progress... if you know of something not on this list, let me know. So far I have started with the areas that I focus on which is Tacoma and Puyallup, however I would like to have many options available so I can look at it and add items to my actual calendar as needed.)
You can copy and paste this into any feed reader.
http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/f1g83a6af6n8ljbenh982vh27o%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic
You can copy and paste this into any calendar product that supports the iCal format.
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/f1g83a6af6n8ljbenh982vh27o%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
Please use the following address to access your calendar in any web browser.
http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=f1g83a6af6n8ljbenh982vh27o%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America%2FLos_Angeles
Google docs, allows for sharing documents and is accessible through any computer.... just log into your Google account. This worked really well when I was having problems with word opening up on my computer at home. I was still able to manage documents that people sent me, since I could open them and make changes through Google.
Google reader, find stuff you're interested in, and read it on your time. This is a great way to follow the BE Daily if you feel like your email is bogged down these days.
Create alerts in Google to find when someone mentions your business or a new article is available on your industry, the info can be sent to either your email or to your reader.
Do you troubleshoot with clients or team members? Send them a screenshot of what you are seeing and add notes, highlights, and arrows to explain what you need.
Want to send out a quarterly newsletter? Be sure it has great content, looks professional and follows the anti-spam laws. My suggestion is to avoid monthly if you can... it locks you into a commitment you might not be able to fulfill and sending too often can bore your audience, play around with it and see what your audience wants.
Share between co-workers, your own various computers and smart phones. Allows you to share a link to specific documents which is helpful for creating hyperlinks in your newsletter to allow readers to click to download an applications and other information.
Need an 800#? Rates vary but about, $5/month & $.07 /minute
Up your RSVP's and control your events with Eventbrite, they even help promote it for you!
Track your miles and receipts, via text or online/app.
Engage your audience. Allows you to ask a questions and your audience texts in their response for online polling during a presentation.
Edit and fill forms on PDF's
Lifehacker wrote a very useful post today about converting documents online. To convert a document simply attach the file and send it to any of the following email addresses.
1. iPhone@pdfonline.com—Converts any attached Microsoft Visio or Word file (including the 2007/.docx kind) to PDF files, and supports multiple file attachments. Ignore the "iphone" in the address, as it works from any device or computer, but only supports files up to 1 MB in size.
2. pdf@koolwire.com—Converts Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint files to PDFs. Like the other Koolwire addresses below, it accepts files up to 10 MB in size.
3. doc@koolwire.com—Convert PDFs to Word or Rich Text Format files.
4. mp3@koolwire.com—Convert WAV files to MP3s.
5. wav@koolwire.com—Convert MP3s to WAV files.
Converted documents will be sent back to you!
Like Photoshop? Gimp is similar, but free.
Like Illustrator? Ink Scape is similar, but free.
Be sure to claim your listing on geo-location check-in sites. Offer a "prize for checking in on certain days or certain times or for number of check ins" This can help you spread awareness of your company, on Foursquare it will say offer nearby when someone checks in at another local business. If you are not on these sites, you are missing a HUGE marketing opportunity, people are checking into nearby businesses whether you use this or not. If you reward them… they will come!
Twitter (be funny, vulnerable, informative) Make sure you have a photo, and fully complete the profile info. I learned how to be engaging on twitter from David Morris, the CEO of Dillanos Coffee Roasters, you should follow him @coffeemaverick he’s an amazing business owner and you WILL learn a lot from him…. And he has great energy!
Facebook (be social, don't overpost, be informative, be relevant) Reach out and tag others in your status updates, engage with others more often than you promote yourself.
Share events, url's, contact info... create your own QR Code...
QR Code Generator http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/
Now that I have thoroughly overwhelmed... my job here is done. I am, however, available to you on a consultation basis... one of the cool new features available to you through the Business Examiner, as always the South Sound Business Information Resource.
If all else fails go forth and “google”. Google is my friend.... I hear they have room for one more.
[This was created for a presentation that I did for the Tacoma – Pierce County Chamber of Commerce. If you have questions or want to see what else I have in my head… follow me on twitter @nowtherearetwo or call me on my cell 253-226-4515 I’m always available to point you in the right direction if you’re not sure which way is up.]
If you have other tech things you enjoy... share them in the comments!
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