I think about my dad, an entrepreneur himself, and when he formed a start-up business many decades ago in New York.  First, my dad had to grow his business locally in New York, and when it came time to expand to other parts of the country, it required an actual presence where he wanted to go.  At this point, my dad had to make sure his original office was running smoothly AND then move himself to a new city to start-up and so forth and so on….He eventually had 5 offices running in 5 different cities that served their respective local area.

By the time the Internet arrived, others figured out how they could successfully sell what my dad was selling through the web all over the country with one office (more than likely a home office).  It worked out well for my dad, he sold his name, rock solid reputation, and list of current clients to the right guy to move the business forward into the current state of the business world.

Start-up Businesses of today can claim a national presence and following in no time by staking their place on the web.  This involves a website, strong SEO, blogging, keeping up with fresh content, and positioning themselves in all social media sites.  I love this!  As a parent, it is comforting to know that I can expand my business to other locations right from my home office.  We also have amazing tools like Skype, GoTo Meeting, and who can forget, Email, that allow us to conduct business far and wide.

Obviously, there is an ongoing love affair with the happenings of the Internet and start-up business, which is why I like to stay up to date and so should you……

Here is what is top of mind for me this week:

- Google is changing their search feature again to provide anyone logged into Google, results that reflect that person (as in YOU).  That is right!  Starting this week, Google is rolling out ‘Search Plus Your World.’ Basically, if you are logged into Google and search a term, your results will direct you to where Google believes your personal preferences lie.  I have not surfed this feature yet because it is slowly rolling out this week (and I did not get not yet), but you can read about it here.

My Question is…..How will this affect start-up businesses in coming up in a search if the results are no longer based on Google’s usual algorithms but rather one person’s perceived personal preferences?  Much remains to be seen…It can be turned off, but that is a user-based decision.

- Without getting crazy political with you all, I must mention SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).  This Bill if passed will place heavy regulations and consequences on websites that are perceived to be pirating information and/or linked with such sites.  As a blogger, I obviously do not endorse stealing content and I enforce copyright policies, however, this particular legislation may impede small business with radical censorship and dramatic punishments.

To learn more about SOPA - watch this:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

You should be aware of this and can contact your local congressman to DO something about this act here.

That’s it for now…if you have a chance to play around with the new Google Search - share your thoughts and experience!

Rachel

http://backngroovemom.com

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1. Computers

Whether you use a desktop with a large screen (ideal if you never leave your home office), or a laptop because you rarely work in your home office, save time by investing in a system that’s easy to use and is able to run programs you’ll be able to understand. It’s a waste of time to learn how to use an accounting program with more features than you’ll ever need, or a contact management program with too many places to enter client information.

2. Smart phones

A Blackberry, Android, or iPhone, among other smart phones, helps you save time when you need to find client contact information, track tasks to do and record other information you need to run your business every day.  When you organize the data in your phone through various apps, and sync your smart phone often with your desktop, you’ll save time searching for the data you need.

3. The Internet

Anything you need to know is only a keystroke away.  Phone books, printed manuals, and reference books…who needs them?  More updated versions of almost anything in print are available online.  Invest in the highest speed Internet you can get (and afford). The time you save waiting for pages to load can translate into more productive hours every day.

4. E-mail

Communicating with someone halfway around the world is as easy as staying in touch with your favorite local client. No more waiting for snail mail or overnight mail. If you need an answer from someone, you can have it in seconds. Make your e-mails more effective by being concise, by asking for what you want within the first few sentences, and by doing something to move each e-mail forward. Instead of opening an e-mail and then marking it as unread to review later, take action and either move it to your daily action folder to review during the day, or forward the e-mail to an assistant or associate who can handle it.

5. Voice mail

Save time playing phone tag by asking callers when you record your outgoing message, to leave the best time to return their call. Also check your voice mail after you record it, to make sure there aren’t any unwanted background noises. Clear your messages often, so callers don’t get the message that your voice mailbox is full.

6. Caller ID

It’s great that anyone can reach you anytime on your cell phone and you can still receive calls while you’re away from your home office.  It’s not so great that anyone can reach you anytime on your cell phone, especially when you want to take time off. That’s why Caller ID is incredibly effective.  By screening calls, you’ll stop wasting time answering the calls you don’t need to take, and instead answer the calls that need your attention.

7.  Scanners

Searching through stacks of paper to find what you need is a true time-waster. Instead, scan papers and store them electronically. Don’t forget to back up anything you scan and save. All-in-one machines like the Brother MFC-J825dw, complete with a scanner, are the ideal time-and-space-savers. You can scan important documents and after you name them, you’ll be able to find what you need, when you need it.

8. Videoconferencing

Face to face meetings don’t have to include an expensive flight, hotel, and travel expenses.  Instead you can meet with clients virtually, save time traveling, and best of all, you can sleep in your own bed at night.

Technology can help you save time, especially when you use the right technology and take the time to learn how to use it.

Is there any piece of technology that’s making working from home work better for you?  Share your comments below.

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I’m telling you the story of what happened to me. I was in the middle of starting up a new business while playing Startupologist here at StartupNation. And my hard drive had crashed, according to the Dell Customer Service rep. A DISASTER!!! ALL MY STUFF, GONE!!!

The Cinderalla aspect of this story, though, is that just a month earlier, a business associate at a collaborating company for my startup suggested that I get an automatic back-up service. Actually, he didn’t suggest, he demanded, saying something like, “If I’m going to be dependent on you, I’ve got to be confident that you won’t have a catastrophe and lose all this data we’re sharing. You’ve got to have an automatic back-up for your data.” He mentioned a couple of options he’d used for automatic backup of your computer. I chose one not knowing the difference - Carbonite, which is always working in the background, syncing your files with a remote storage area at Carbonite.

And thank goodness for his sage advice. Within a few days of my hard drive crash, I had received a new hard drive from Dell, I logged in to Carbonite, I selected “Sync,” and after Gigabytes of downloading, Bingo! I was back in action, not a single thing missing, everything organized just like before.

So I connected with Carbonite to ask them to make a special offer to fellow entrepreneurs at StartupNation who MUST NOT suffer a loss of their priceless data. Our businesses are just too small to endure that kind of blow.

Glad to share that Carbonite has stepped up and offered a special two-months free on an annual subsciption costing around $59. They also offer their standard “Try It Free” trial without a credit card required. Here’s Carbonite’s special offer for StartupNation folks.

My data was priceless, literally. At around $5/month ($59 annualized), it was a no-brainer for me when I was first advised to download it, and now I’m giving you strong encouragement to develop your own hands-off, automatic back-up solution.

Yes, Carbonite is an automatic backup service we have a special offer on, but choose any such service and get your data backed up automatically without having to think about it. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did. In business, the key is taking only risks you HAVE to take. Your data no longer has to fall into the “risk” category.

Here’s the special offer at Carbonite

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1.  The essence of an API is that it makes it easy for two types of programs to talk to each other.

2.  So when you are selecting an email marketing vendor or an accounting vendor, you want to ask them if they have an API.

3.  Next, you should consider if there are already integrations in place.  If there are, then you don’t even need an API.  For example, if your email provider is already integrated with Salesforce.com, a popular CRM application, then you know the two applications can talk to each other automatically without you having to hire a coder to make them talk to each other.

4.  Now, if any application does not have an API, then consider that it will be significantly harder to get it to talk to other applications.  Just keep that in mind then you are in decision-making mode.

As examples, many vendors have free APIs already available to anyone.  For example, Twitter and Facebook have a variety of APIs that allow you to push your content directly to the social media platforms or let your users log in to your website directly with their Facebook or Twitter information.  Many of your key solutions also integrate with your website.  For example, your email marketing platform will communicate with your website and automatically update your mailing list when new users register.  This automated approach saves you time and eliminates error.

Overall, APIs simplify your business processes by making your solutions work together seamlessly.  They are easy to integrate so all you need to do is take advantage of their benefits!

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I’ve been working with the creators of StartUpNation since 2001 when I was hired to shoot Rich Sloan doing yoga on the conference room table in the Birmingham Michigan office of the up and coming StartUpNation.  I was recently offered the opportunity to blog about photography if I thought I could contribute to entrepreneurs and start ups. I think I can so I’ll give it a shot.  I’ll be talking about all things photography, from how to do a shoot in the office, to what’s the best stock agency for what your needs are, to rights and usage contracts.  I’ll be answering questions about any thing relating to the business of photography and photography in your business. If I don’t know the answers I’ll look to the vast knowledge base of my peers and will share what I learn with you, so post your questions and comments about you’re photographic quandaries here, and I’ll help you along the image driven super highway of successful businesses.

I should tell you a bit about me.
I began my career as a photographer early in life.  My brother had a darkroom in a closet at our house when I was a sixth grader.  It didn’t take long for my teachers at school to see an opportunity to recruit the next news paper and yearbook photographer.  That’s when I learned that you can have fun and provide a needed service at the same time.  I could get credits for graduation if I work on the year book and news paper staff!  Life was good.  Then one day I was handed a press pass to cover the cheerleaders for a story for the news paper, that was all the motivation I ever needed to pursue my career.  When I was a senior in High School I was introduced to an advertising photographer in my home town of Detroit named Ameen Howrani.  He let me watch him work one day, he was shooting a news crew for the local ABC affiliate.  It was very glamorous, they had food there!  I was face to face with the local anchor man!  That’s when I decided that advertising was where it’s at.  Fast forward 25 years.  I have photographed some really great people, some incredibly beautiful places, and some of the most interesting stuff you’ll ever see.  I picked up a few professional sports teams along the way as well.  Namely the Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Tigers, Detroit Lions, and currently Tampa Bay Ray’s as well as the NHL, NFL, MLB and other editorial venues related to sports. I’ve had unprecedented access to closed door behind the scenes events in the NFL, NHL, and MLB to name just a few. I was given the opportunity to shoot a book for the Detroit Red Wings called “48 Hours with the Detroit Red Wings”. Its a chronological documentation of what happens in forty eight hours in the world of the Red Wings Hockey team.  I was able to travel with the team to photograph players, coaches, and staff. We took two days to shoot the book so we could show the travel aspect of how the team lives on the road (and above the clouds).  During that shoot I was given access to coaches meetings that had never been photographed before.  One of the best experiences I had with the Red  Wings was Flying on the team jet to Washington DC to the White House to meet President George W Bush.   I was given an assignment by the Detroit Tigers Baseball team to shoot an eighteen page photo essay of Tiger Stadium during the final home stand ever to be played there.  The parting shot was Al Kaline in his nineteen sixty eight world series uniform (it still fit), pondering his days playing in that historic stadium.  The cover shot was of the stadium from the corner of Michigan and Trumble on a Friday night with fireworks lighting the sky.  I was able to get images never before captured, such as the neon Tiger Stadium sign from the roof of the press elevator.  I’m currently team photographer for the Tampa Bay Ray’s Baseball team, and have a nice client list of local and national companies and agencies as well.  I live in the St Petersburg area of Florida where I’ve lived for the past six years.  Before that I lived mostly in the suburbs of Detroit with a few years in New York city.  Please feel free to see some of the photographs I mention here at www.kovich.com

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HubSpot strives to have every major marketing feature that small and medium-sized businesses need - Search Engine Optimization (SEO); lead generation, nurturing and tracking; blogging and social media management; and email marketing. Additionally, it has the analytics and reports to help companies figure out what’s working and what’s not.

Thousands of companies can’t be wrong. In fact, our user base confirms that HubSpot hits the mark. Not only does HubSpot do a good job of SEO for search engines, but it delves deeper to grade keywords on social media sites and press releases. HubSpot also provides comprehensive lead tracking and nurturing tools and incorporates timed emails to prospective leads to increase the chances of conversion.

This solution is geared to the SMB in two ways. First of all, although the price may seem high (from $250 to $1500 per month, depending on quantity of users and campaigns), it’s much cheaper than buying tools separately or hiring a consultant. All the tools come integrated - a huge added bonus. HubSpot’s value-add is really in the additional help (okay, sometimes hand-holding) that smaller companies sometimes need, especially when getting started. It ranges from the very simple (online training or webinars, for example) to the more complex (group training classes, 1:1 coaching, customized marketing plans).

HubSpot isn’t the only game in town - far from it. It’s got several worthy competitors that are well worth checking out. But so far, HubSpot is winning the game, one customer at a time.

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1. You want a system from a trusted company with many satisfied users. Salesforce has the largest market share of users in the CRM space.  There are many satisfied customers and a wealth of user forums for your reference. Salesforce is a trusted company with many satisfied clients.

2.  You want a reliable, hosted CRM solution. You may be realizing that its time to move to the Web. Salesforce is a hosted solution and with it come all of the benefits of utilizing a system in the cloud.  You won’t have to worry about hardware or hardware upgrades, data backup and releasing new software versions to your company.  All you need to access your Salesforce system is Internet access. It is also accessible through mobile apps.

3. You expect your CRM solution to expand and grow over time. With Salesforce you can start out small and even customize the solution for your company early on and then have it grow over time by moving to a more advanced edition (there are 5 Editions).

4. You want the flexibility of wide and varied customizations. Salesforce has multiple custom modules to choose from depending on your business needs. The number of customizations and custom functionality grows daily, and you are sure to find the customizations out there without having to write the code yourself.

5. You want access to consultants to aid you in your implementation. There are many independent Salesforce consultants out there ready to help with analyzing your needs and determining your solution. In addition, they will consult on customization tasks and implementing your solution. These consultants can also aid you in growing your system over time.

If most, or all of these statements ring true for you, consider yourself clued in that you should investigate Salesforce for your CRM needs.  And if these statements are way beyond your needs, then check out many of the simpler, cheaper solutions out here: http://www.comparz.com/reviews/crm.

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So what is social CRM?  It’s a platform that enables a company to manage all of its interactions through all forms of digital media in one place.  With Facebook and Twitter becoming an important part of any company’s marketing strategy, it is crucial to have a Social CRM tool to manage these activities.

With Constant Contact, instead of having two separate platforms, one for social and one for email marketing, you will soon have a product that integrates both - making your life easier.  The company plans to release a new social media marketing offering early next year that will help you “create and launch integrated social campaigns” and help you monitor campaigns across multiple channels.  But you don’t have to wait until next year to take advantage of some of these functions - Constant Contact’s current email platform already provides some social media tracking such as clicks, email opens and social media interactions.

As the prevalence of social media continues to grow, it is important that you are able to support, monitor and communicate with your customers via all digital touch points.  Constant Contact will soon make it even easier for you to do so!

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• Start with the right equipment. Figure out how much time you’re wasting using old equipment and outdated software. Computer prices fall regularly, so it may be worth your time to buy a new laptop or desktop. The money you’re saving by not buying new equipment may be costing you in lost time and productivity.
• Turn four machines into one. If you’re still using a separate printer, fax, scanner and copier, use an all in one machine instead like Brother’s inkjet MFC-J615W unit. You’ll save space and money by combining machines and you’ll save time maintaining only one machine, not four.
• Install software that’s easy to use. Before you buy and download any new software, try it out for a month. Most software companies offer a free, 30-day trial period.
• Designate a specific place to store extra supplies. The tendency is to store supplies wherever they’ll fit. Instead, store them where you will find them easily, such as on shelves or in a closet.
• Set a cut-off time for surfing the Web. You know how it goes…you watch one video and then click on links to a related video. Or you read an article that links to another and an hour later, you’re still clicking on links. Set a timer for 30 minutes, click on all of the links you want, and when the timer goes off, get back to work.
• Get into a routine. Be flexible, but for the most part try to get to your home office at the same time every day. If you have specific tasks to handle, add them to your calendar. Treat time to work on tasks the way you would an appointment, and keep them.
• Divide your day into blocks of time. Rather than jump from project to project, designate certain blocks of time for different activities. During a one-hour segment, answer e-mails, while during another segment handle marketing tasks.
• Set up electronic folders within your e-mail account to organize incoming e-mails by individual, client or project. You’ll save time when you look for past e-mails and you won’t have to sort through old e-mails to find the new ones.
• Develop the urge to purge. Some people keep information “just in case” they need it one day. The problem is that when they need it, they can’t find it. Get in the habit of keeping only the papers or supplies you know you’ll refer to or use again. Something is worth keeping only if you’re able to locate it within minutes instead of within hours.

It takes time to set up a home office with function and productivity in mind, but the time you spend planning ahead, will help you save time in the long run.

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A crisis can be an event or series of events that can lead to operational failures, financial issues or even damage to the small business’s reputation.  For the small business owner, effective crisis planning and response can help companies protect reputation, maintain continuity, improve employee morale, while mitigating the overall impact of the crisis.

Timeline and stages for effective crisis management

Pre-Crisis: Preparation: Success in a crisis is proportionate to the amount of preparation. To ensure that your small business is prepared to handle crises that arise, the first step is to establish a crisis response team to equip the company with information and tools needed to respond quickly and effectively.  Whether your company has five or 50 employees, the team should include the founder or president and then at least one other employee who helps drive and manage the day-to-day operations.

Crisis Identified: First 6-8 Hours: As a crisis begins to emerge, your business must move quickly to determine all it can about the situation, including what exactly happened, who is impacted, the extent of the problem and who is responsible. You should assign a spokesperson to address any potential media inquires and develop key messages and talking points to guide potential interviews.

Rapid Response: The Next 24 Hours: The first 24 hours of a crisis are critical to your company’s success in managing it. If an organization does not actively provide its point of view during this period, it can be forced to play catch- up throughout the crisis.

Crisis Subsides: 2-4 Weeks Following End of Crisis: As the crisis begins to recede, it is important that the crisis response team captures what happened and evaluates how the team and company responded. This provides an opportunity to identify areas for future improvement and provide feedback on areas that still need to be addressed.

Don’t Wait; Act Now!

There is no silver bullet guide for small business crisis response and management; however, the first crucial step small business owners should take is mapping out a clear pre-crisis plan that is action-oriented against a clear timeline with a professionally trained crisis manager.

Some other key tips for crisis management and response can include:

1. Business as usual: Although your resources are diverted to the issue at hand, make an effort to continue normal business operations, while communicating with your customers honestly and ethically.
2. Own up: If you are responsible for the crisis or issue, take accountability and apologize to your customers and employees as quickly as possible.
3. Assume nothing: Over-communicate with your employees so they are aware of what exactly is going.  Instruct employees how to document any inbound customer complaints, while addressing these complaints and questions clearly, honestly and head-on.
4. Legal Ropes: Understand the legal ramifications and consult with an attorney who can help you navigate through tricky circumstances.
5. Media tips: Ensure your spokesperson has prepared messages and talking points if interviewed by reporters following a crisis. Don’t point the finger, don’t ramble and remain honest.

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