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Allowing Your Employees to Work From Home

April 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I had lunch with a friend of mine the other day and he was asking me for some advice on different ideas for his own business. He is going to be opening his first office and wants to allow his employees to work from home or the office. He gave me a basic run down of what his business is going to be doing and what types of things he would like to see. I gave him a little bit of advice and decided that I wanted to share my ideas on this subject with you.

If you are going to allow your employees to work from home you are going to need those employees to have some of their own equipment. A lot of information can be handled through email or fax machines. You can fax just about all the documents that you need to back and forth from a home location to a central office. I recommend that he makes sure any of his employees that work from home have their own fax machines that way it eliminates any additional delays in sending or receiving the information that he would need. 

Email is also another good approach that can be used by anyone running a home office or central office. Email is a very cheap, fast and effective way to communicate with anyone. It also helps prevent miscommunication by allowing everyone the ability to go back and review the emails and confirm any information they may have forgotten.

It should also be noted that using free standard programs such Skype are invaluable tools for just about any business. You can set up live chats and conference chats through Skype and keep in touch with all of your employees. I suggest that you set a required amount of uninterrupted time for each employee to be using this software. This way you can quickly and easily connect and communicate with your employees.

When we finished up our lunch I did mention to my friend that I thought he would be better off giving some more thought to his current plans. If he is going to offer the employees the chance to work from home like this, he is better off saving the money on leasing an office space and putting that money back into his company. If he does want to have his own office, then it would be better for him to have his employees work in the office, that way he can remain in contact with them and put the office to good use. I am not a fan of wasting resources and really would like to my see everyone who wants to start their own business succeed.

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Social Media Outlets are Moving to the Front Line

March 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

While it is no surprise to me that more companies are using social networking and media sites to connect to the public, I never really expected it to go beyond just advertising. Every day you can find a new company using sites such as Facebook and Twitter to try and create a more personal connection with its customer base. I have mixed feelings about this approach from a business standpoint.

I will agree that you can reach more people and seethe feedback about your business, and any suggestive posts you make to your company blog can also be viewed more readily. However, your competitors can also see what is working for you and try to mimic your success in their business. You can use it as a marketing tool to see how many people agree with your ideas or current products and offers, although everyone else is able to see it too.

Do not get me wrong, I am all for healthy competition as it helps fuel change and growth in all types of companies. It also keeps them from becoming stagnant.

Now, the reason I am even bringing any of this up, I was taken back by a post from a few years ago that a friend forwarded to me. It involved Skype and an outage that customers had to withstand in December of 2010. Skype used Twitter to notify their customers about the outage and they made the apology for the issues through YouTube. To me this was a total cop out. They could have made a public apology to help their customers understand what happened, but instead they chose to keep the issue quiet and only notify those who were really looking into what happened about there even being an apology. They have the ability to advertise all over the place, but they can’t take the time to make a simple apology anywhere aside from YouTube?

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An often overlooked secret to passive marketing

May 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

E-MailOn the web, there are a ton of things that are competing for your customer’s attention.  What if I told you there was a simple, yet often overlooked way to gently remind everyone you come in contact with about your company and what you do?  Or even to alert them of a promotional offer or special you are offering?

There is.  And you won’t believe how incredibly simple it is.  Ready for this?  It’s your email signature.

You’ve seen them before, but have you ever used one?  It’s basically just a little blurb of text that automatically gets inserted into the bottom of every email you send.  If you participate in online forums, you can even have a “profile signature” with a link back to your website.

In the case of e-mail, this is a very simple and easy way to mention a special sale, promote a client or convey a a message – even if that message isn’t about your business itself.  Basically, you’re spreading your message about what you have to offer without really selling.

It doesn’t have to be complicated, in fact, as with many things, the simpler the better:

John Q. Public
Your Widget Corporation
800-123-4567

Want to save 25% on your next widget order?  Ask me how!

As far as forums go, your signature here serves a dial purpose in that it not only delivers your message, but it also creates a very valuable link back to your website everywhere you post.  Nothing helps propel you in the search engines better than good, quality links.

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