Tag: small business

Categories
business

Small Business Don’t Checklist For Web

3290657131.jpegSmall businesses are usually cash-strapped. Even if not, they hardly have piles of cash laying around their offices. In recent days I had a few people asking me for some kind of small business friendly technical resources citing lack of funds to pay for full-scale items – be it web design, search engine promotion or just a laptop and a printer.

So after talking to quite a few people I have put together a quick SMALL BUSINESS DON’T checklist. Basically, if you are doing more then one thing from the list below – you already shooting yourself in both feet.

  • DON’T take any free web site offers. The reason is simple – whatever is free is worth what you pay for it. As you already know, if your business is not online – it doesn’t exist. But if your web site is covered with banners and ads you have no control over, is slow to load even on fast connection, times out frequently and looks like it was put together last night after couple of six-packs – I’d be surprised if it will land you any significant income. However, by spending a reasonable amount for professionally-looking web site you will be able to get better deals and maintain the professional image from the beginning.
  • DON’T buy extremely cheap computer or hardware with good intention to replace it “later”. If you will find it troublesome to do any significant work on that cheap piece of equipment, you most likely will loose any motivation to do the work. There is a telltale that famous Paganini performing on three, two and even one string of his violin while they break. One thing you have to remember is that he already was Paganini when that happened; it didn’t happen while he was starting his career. Small screen and below-average performance may impede you from doing more in less time, and the time is the only asset you have when starting a company.
  • DON’T buy the top of the line stuff either, unless absolutely neccessary. As a small business operator myself, I am always in doubt when I hear some fellow small business owner’s justification of purchasing a top fo the line notebook. Most likely you competing with someone who already have more money than you do. Therefore, if buying a $5,000 computer is what going to make you a winner then you already lost – the other guy can always buy more, faster and at a larger discount.
  • DON’T go for cheapest credit card processor if your business requires it. Go for the one you have the most trust in. In addition to PayPal both Google and Amazon offer payment solutions, so there is really no need to go in all the gray areas. Besides, shady processor may damage your business’ credit rating which might take years to rebuild.
  • DON’T underestimate the power of the Force the power of the crowd. Visit all the consumer-feedback web sites and visit them often. Not only you can get a better understanding of how your business is viewed from the consumer prospective, you can also get an idea how visible it is to the outside world at all. If you are a niche player – visit niche forums and groups, if you sell or provide services to wider audience – visit general feedback web sites.
  • DON’T be afraid to put a face to your business. If you’re inclined to participate in online discussions about your company or your product – make it known who you are. It gives your current and potential customers some sort of a feedback shortcut. In a long run it may do more good to your company’s image.

Obviously the list is as short as it is incomplete. Feel free to add more.

Categories
business technology

Cheap hardware? That’s expensive!

About every two months one of the computer magazines – be it ComputerShopper, PC Magazine, PC Wworld or any other publication – comes out with this flashy and attractive idea of “cheap computer”. Whether it’s a cheap laptop or cheap desktop – it’s always a good thing, you should save a bunch of money and feel good. Right? Right?

Not so fast. The cost of your computer is not only that number on the receipt or a credit card statement. At least – not for a small business owner. While it is widely perceived that small businesses should live on a shoestring budget and (widely used example) reuse old home computer for their businesses, the idea isn’t quite perfect.

The reason in a so-called “cost of ownership” that most starting up business people have no idea of. If you know what that is – skip to the next paragraph. In layman terms the “cost of ownership” is how much you spend (or loose) by owning that specific tool or service. For example, if you have an old car that you use to deliver widgets to your customers, the cost of ownership would be all the money spent on repairs and parts to make sure your car will be running tomorrow.

But what’s the cost of ownership for an old PC? There aren’t that many parts to replace and no oil or gas to refill. However, what that old PC would probably hit the most is your time – because it’s old and slow. Sure you can upgrade it – add memory and new hard drive, but the old thing would still be a bit sluggish. So instead of booting up in less then 45 seconds it will boot up in three minutes. Add another minute to start your inventory app – be it something proprietory or plain old Excel. Add some more time on number crunching and some more to process your accounting sheets. A minute here, a minute there, just a little slower saving or loading – and you’re looking at an extra hour or two for a day. That’s about 6 working hours wasted for a week – if you have Sunday off. Bad news – now you have to work on that Sunday, since you are loosing 6 hours of productive time from Monday to Saturday.

So what now, does every small business enrepreneur should rush off and buy a shiny new laptop or speedy new desktop? Perhaps, but only if you feel like your system could be more responsive. It’s hard to give any kind of specific advice here. My guess is that even if you bought your PC (desktop or laptop) only two years ago – you didn’t purchase the latest and greatest piece that was out there. Most likely even then it was a low or medium level PC with only enough RAM and hard drive space to make it worth purchasing. Upgrading it won’t really improve your situation – so maybe a little research on the internet and extra couple of hundred dollars will buy you a much better rig that will save you more then just money – your precious time.

Categories
annoyances

Conference Center Wireless Trickery

Wireless connectivity at hotels - Small business, marketing and web design blogThis Saturday is hard. Not only I had to get up at 7am – pretty early for me on any given day, let alone Saturday. I had to drive all the way to Long Island. As I am blogging this, I am sitting in the lobby on Long Island Marriott Hotel & Conference Center. This is March 2008 and it’s almost 30 miles from New York City. The cell phone even shows 3G network. Which I am comfortably using.

Guess what? The wireless internet connection that is redundant and free less then 30 miles from here costs $2.95 for 25 minutes, with $.25 each additional minute. Or you can pay $19.95 per 24 hours of wireless internet. It’s a same scam that other hotels running.

Imagine a hotel charging you additional money for using a water fountain. Or a restroom. Or timing you sitting in those supposedly comfortable chairs in the lobby. Two dollars per 30 minutes of sitting, after your time expires some hotel worker comes to your chair and throws you out unless you pay more money. Personally, I don’t see any reason why hotels wouldn’t do that.

One might argue that the infrastructure costs money. Sure it does, but I’d be delighted if someone would provide any real-world numbers as to how much hotels make off of the paid internet connectivity. And how much they loose. Being a small business owner myself, I am very conscious when it comes to additional and hidden charges. So if I would come up with the idea of having a seminar here or there, the fact that anyone coming to my conference (say it’ll last for 4 hours) would have to cough up anywhere between 12 and 20 bucks just to check their e-mail, take their notes online or blog about the event would be embarrassing.

Of course, it’s capitalism out there and people wouldn’t stop having meetings and conferences and seminars at hotels just because of outrageous prices for internet connectivity. Bus someone must bring hotel management up to speed with the outside world. Next time some doctor decides to have a meeting at a hotel’s conference center this Marriott may just be out of luck. Just because people use internet more then for 25 minutes at a time.