It has been a very chic business concept for companies to release their employees from the supposed chains of their offices.  Work from home, work from the road, work from the top of a mountain – technology makes it irrelevant.  I am not so sure.  Rather than calling this movement the creation of an “Office 2.0,” office brain drain is a more apt description for remote work because the intellectual capital of your business is scattered.  With any venture, the whole is far greater than the sum of the individual scattered parts.  I am skeptical of a complete shift away from the physical office for three reasons:

1. Office Culture

Tools like Skype, remote conferencing, video calls, and even our smartphones have made the notion of commuting to a physical office seem less and less necessary.  However, I think businesses are starting to observe the fallout from this type of thinking.  The biggest move away from the trend in “remote commuting” was Marissa Myer, CEO of Yahoo!, banning remote work and calling her employees back to the office.  Her view is that many of the best ideas come when employees meet in corridors, share lunch, or get together for an impromptu brainstorming meeting.  She also claims that workers are less productive at home, where there are numerous other distractions, though this is hard to measure.

“To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side… We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.” –Melissa Myer

Intuitively, Mrs. Myer’s argument makes sense and real human-to-human interaction is hard to mimic. At StartupNation, much of our team is remote and we have all wondered out loud whether this is the best path to continue down for the rest of 2013.  Imagine the difference in pitching a startup to a VC: “Our rockstar team will be scheming together in our office, building this company” versus “Our rockstar team is scattered around the world, but we will only be an email or phone call away from one another.”  Having your own desk and your own office phone as part of a larger business organism are office details that are here to stay.

2. Time Management

When you work remotely, when does your workday start and end?  You may wake up early, work, then exercise, work some more, get lunch with friends, pick up your kids from school, add a little more work, dinner, work, bed – or some variation on that theme.  While flexibility is touted as the most valuable benefit of remote work, I know many people who see it as a curse.  Without some tangible demarcation between work time and personal time, they lose the ability to truly relax because, in a sense, they are always at their “office.”  Add the fact that your cell phone is your work phone and now you’re chained to your job.  A return to the office means workers can give out an office phone number, rather than their personal cell number, and keep work at work.  It also means that when you are at work, you focus on work and when you’re not you don’t.  Often, this means greater focus resulting in higher productivity in both your personal and professional lives.

3. Go Local

A huge upside of remote work is opening up the availability in a company’s recruiting talent pool.  Instead of looking in just your local area, you can essentially recruit from anywhere.  So while this benefit is hard to ignore and businesses with different branch locations will always have employees across geographies, fostering the personal connection is getting easier.  A great article in The Atlantic reminds us that, despite our feelings to the contrary, airline prices have been dropping all along.  Despite all this, though, going local is a popular theme these days both in what vegetables you buy and who you hire.  Cheap airline tickets will never fully supplement the benefits of having your key employees within arms reach.  Expect to see a swing back towards home-grown talent.

Does this mean that we have to return to the cubicle culture?  Absolutely not.  Open office layouts, casual dress codes, areas to relax and socialize and even grab a game of ping-pong are all positives.  However, what is the point of having a swanky office if there is no one there to populate it?

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

Great! Now, what do you do?

A.     Sit back and watch who signs up.

B.     Communicate with your new registrants right away.

C.    Send valuable information to your list on a regular basis.

If you answered B and C… Ding, Ding Ding! You are right!

Newsletter Set Up is Just the Beginning.

The whole reason you have an online newsletter registration
is so that you can collect the contact information for potential
customers.

Once you get their names and e-mails, the real work begins…

• Send a thank you.

Immediately after people register for your newsletter, send them
a personalized, e-mail thank-you note. It should include a welcome
message, all the benefits they will be receiving and any kind of
free e-report, survey, white paper, etc. that you agreed to send
them if they registered.

• Schedule e-mail auto-responders.

What are they?

Well, after you send out your initial thank-you
and welcome e-mail, you need to communicate with your
list on a regular basis.

With e-mail auto-responders, you send e-mails to your
audience to remind them about your business. And these 5-10
e-mails are scheduled for automatic delivery over a matter of weeks.

However, you want to ensure these e-mail messages are personal
and provide value to the readers.

Perhaps, you can share a story about something that happened
to you recently, provide a business tip or talk about a current,
news story?

At the end of your e-mail, you remind your list about
a particular product or service that you are selling.

This way, you communicate with your list in a way that provides value,
reminds them you are around and allows them to get to know you
over time.

It is a fantastic way to build long-term, customer relationships.

• Are you blogging and using social media?

In addition to sending out the e-mail auto-responders mentioned above,
you also want to let your list know when you have a new blog entry,
article, sale, etc. And this is just a simple process of scheduling an
e-mail to go out whenever you have a new entry.

For these services, check out:

http://aweber.com/?324776
www.constantcontact.com
www.icontact.com
www.myemma.com
www.verticalresponse.com

This way, you can easily stay in touch with your list on a regular
basis and keep your products and services top-of-mind while
providing value.

• Monitor e-mail auto-responder results.

Once your newsletter-registration and e-mail auto-responder
process is in place, be sure to monitor it regularly.

By checking your e-mail service, you can see how many people
opened your e-mail, the most popular content and clicks,
the best subject lines and send times, undeliverables, spam notices,
and more.

This is valuable information you can use to get the best results
for your e-mail efforts. Plus, you can use this data to discover key
trends with your list members, conduct follow-up, stop issues before
they become big problems, and create new content to meet their
specific needs.

Take Advantage of This Process.

Having a newsletter registration allows you to create and
grow your own list of customers. But this is just the beginning.

Once you offer your newsletter, it’s important to provide
personalized information  to your list on a regular basis via
an e-mail auto-responder series.

Now, you may think that your customers will turn away if you
send them too many e-mails. And sure, you will get some
unsubscribes. But you do not want these “uninterested” people
on your list anyway.

Just be sure to send valuable information your customers can
use. And note that there is an art to the content and timing of these
e-mails… so I strongly advise that you hire an experienced, SEO
copywriter to help you write and send them.

But it’s well worth the time, cost and effort. With good, e-mail
auto-responders, your list will actually look forward to
receiving  your e-mails.

And this means you can build valuable,
long-term customer relationships that will catapult your business
above the competition and dramatically increase sales.

Do you need assistance setting up your newsletter process and
e-mail auto-responder series? Please write to me here or at
www.rembrandtwrites.com. Your site traffic will increase!

Well, the wait is over, and the competition is about to begin.  On Apple.com, there is now a link to the Verizon iphone

I say “Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!”

Competition is a good thing - it forces everyone involved to bring their A game.  Personally, I think AT&T has been holding steady at their C game for a while now.  I’ve commented before that having the iPhone run on AT&T is like owning a Lamborghini that runs on apple juice. I will probably immediately jump ship to Verizon, damn the fees.  What really sealed the deal for me with AT&T was CES last year - we had an entire city of people with completely useless iPhones because AT&T didn’t bother to think about capacity in Las Vegas during an ELECTRONICS show.  Sad, and pretty awful on the PR front.

For those undecided or looking at iPhone for the first time,  there’s a great comparison between AT&T and Verizon service and plans at TiPb.com.  Just go here

So, what do you think?  Will you be switching from AT&T to Verizon iPhone? Do you think this is a wake up call for AT&T to step up service?

Comment below, and join the conversation with me on Twitter here

Kevin Harmon

If you look closely at some new emerging startups, you’ll begin to get an idea of where this is all headed.

Shopkick, which recently debuted partnerships with Best Buy, Macy’s and others, is a new service that automatically rewards users just for walking into stores. The service installs sensors in various locations that alerts their system when you walk into a particular store, which then can offer you special deals from the store you’re at.

Another spin on location apps is connecting users to time-sensitive deals offered by local merchants based on the user’s location. TappLocal and PhoneTell are two startups aiming to tackle this, but in different ways. TappLocal (which is in private beta) serves local business ads inside other mobile applications that already have millions of users. TappLocal tracks their location, then alerts them with time-sensitive deals based on where they are. PhoneTell also aims to connect users to special deals based on location, but is more of a 411 for smart phones, with a bunch of extra goodies outside of locating deals through hyper-local search.

The app serves as a super smart phone directory, allowing users to search for relevant businesses based on their location (including by category, such as “pizza slice”, which would yield results of the closest pizza place that serves by the slice, is currently open and has strong activity on services like Yelp and Foursquare). PhoneTell also offers some handy features like uncovering hard-to-find customer service phone numbers, advanced caller id and one-touch text messaging to let callers know why you are unavailable and when they should expect a call back.

Another interesting take on this space is GroupTabs, a recently-launched service that offers Groupon-style special offers when a group of people “check in” to a local venue.

It’s clear that this space is going somewhere. It will be interesting to see how all of these apps fare against more established location-based apps should they decide to go after this market. My money is on the apps that can accomplish strong user retention by providing easy integration with a consumer’s daily activities and a lot more value than “checking in” somewhere.

Have thoughts? Leave a comment below.

The big, boxy first cell phone was my best friend and every technological evolution has enamored me even more. It is not just a matter of having the first new technological advancement; it is what I can do with that new technology.

I function best when I can change my surroundings. I enjoy warm places, nice hotels and traveling. Today’s technology allows me to leave Seattle and go either where I want to be or where I need to be at any given time, still staying connected to my business ventures and allowing me the opportunity to build my business.

What will work best for you depends upon the type of business that you are involved in. Multitasking, though something I don’t believe is very productive, has been made much easier. And yes, I am guilty of the practice, though it is out of necessity and is greatly overrated. With a Smartphone in your pocket and a laptop, notebook, tablet or netbook in your briefcase, the world can be your workplace.

Video conferencing has become a real time and money saver. Why travel for a meeting, wasting valuable time and money when you can arrange a video conference with as many people as necessary and accomplish the business at hand? It might even save you money if you were to supply your clients with the necessary equipment, when you consider the number of flights, meals, hotel rooms, tips, rental cars…

So, take a look at the technology in place. If you are not technologically savvy, then find someone who is. Explore your options when it comes to technology and how it can help you as you go about your business, and even with your family life. Most large communication companies have Small Business or Corporate specialists that can explain every single aspect of the technology at hand and the amazing difference it can make in your business and in the quality of your life.

Bear in mind that the original monetary outlay may seem to be high, but when put into the proper perspective in terms of money and time saved and the ease of doing business, the cost is value-added and well worth the expenditure, which, of course, can be written off at tax time.

What are you waiting for? Get a move on!

In the same way Apple has already dropped support for their “outdated” first and second generation iPhones, wireless carriers will likely take the plunge into 4G now, instead of waiting for Sprint or Verizon to fully implement it first. In fact, 4G actually surpasses most broadband speeds, so businesses that are looking to gain an edge will jump on the 4G bandwagon instead of traditional internet carriers like Comcast, Roadrunner, and Dish Network.

Mobile plans will stay the same, with unlimited plans staying at roughly $30 a month. Sprint’s current and Verizon’s estimated 2011 4G solutions will pull customers from other carriers, making the 4G change much more affordable for personal users.

For businesses looking to upgrade, you’ll have to consider where it is used first. If you spend your time in or around large commercial steel buildings, network coverage will still be spotty. In an open area, Sprint has already lowered it’s monthly unlimited 3G/4G plans by $10, making the monthly internet service fees $59.  According to Sprint, they’re still working on expanding coverage most likely the result of cities like Los Angeles and Boston that are covered in commercial metal buildings.

For the time being, 3G will be the highest standard network in the United States for both wireless as well as home users. Harbinger Capital Partners, led by Philip Falcone, and SkyTerra, have announced a merger to launch a nationwide 4G network that would cost over $4 billion to complete. The plan has already been approved by the FCC, which will hopefully help to spread out 4G availability beyond the current 11 states that have coverage in their metropolitan areas.

Professional answering services are easy to find and most telephone service companies offer as an added-value feature in addition to your phone service. But what potential problems might happen and what services are available to you?

There are four major types of answering services: automated, live, Internet and call centers. Automated is what we are used to where the caller will need to press a number to obtain further information. If you want to appear “larger” in employee size, you could create separate lines for departments, or even insert fake names. This type of system works well if you just want to provide general information.

A live service is a bit more expensive in where you would contract out an operator and the operator decides whether to talk a message or patch through to you directly. The advantage to this type of service is a real human operator rather than an automated message at any time of the day. If you operate an online site where customers make purchases, a live service can help customers trust your business and feel at ease when placing an order. On the other hand, if you go over the set number of calls in your contract, it could get very, very expensive.

Internet-based services like Google Voice, or RingCentral, work by consolidating phone lines and routing them to the best line or providing voice mail options that go to a Web-based account. Most of these VoIP services that use a Web interface to manage incoming calls have additional features like routing calls, accepting faxes, forwarding text messages to cell phones, and receiving an automated receptionist. And, all you need to set it up is an Internet connection and the phones. With an Internet-based service, you might have sound quality issues if you have a slow or bad Internet connection. Some phone system companies will guarantee a certain number of minutes a month your service will not be interrupted, but most of the time you can’t negotiate this number. The advantage of using VoIP answering service is that you will be able to manage your business from anywhere in the nation.

Call centers are more on the telemarketing services side and helpful if you need a promotional product or sales push, or need an inbound call center to answer multiple phones ringing. AnswerConnect.com for example, offers live message taking, online order taking, paging and live call transfers delivering messages instantly to the customer’s email box for permanent storage. If you plan to outsource your answering services needs to a call center, or use appointment setters to take online orders, etc., you should spend time training, providing copy and monitoring (or listening) to the calls to ensure the company is professional and speaks accurately to your business.

1. Keep it professional.

Although you want to reach out to followers on a personal level, keep it professional and provide valuable information. Your followers really don’t care what you had for breakfast, that you are on the way to the doctor’s office or that you have to pick your kids up from school.

2. Provide value.

Use your Tweets to share interesting news and offer benefits to the reader. Link to pertinent blog posts, other Tweets, discounts, and information your followers want to know about. You’ll build credibility, and your followers will start to look forward to what you have to say.

3. Respond quickly.

Check your account on a regular basis, and respond to direct messages and followers who ask questions and provide suggestions. Give feedback on a timely basis to show that “you are home,” and that your business cares about its customers.

4. Be responsible.

While many media members use Twitter, this is not necessarily the right place to pitch a story idea. If you already have a relationship with the person, and are communicating through Twitter, it’s fine. But if you are just pitching your client or a new product or service out of the blue, this medium is not the right choice.

Instead, call the media member and introduce yourself or send a message via e-mail. This way, you can provide the right information and the right time without being limited to space. After all, you want to make a good, first impression.

Time to Tweet!

Twitter is a great communication tool to meet new customers, share information and build credibility. But to be an effective part of your public relations efforts, plan what you are going to Tweet in advance and think about what your followers want. Otherwise, you’ll waste time and effort… and even hurt your business reputation.

Here’s what David had to say…

What do you do at gotoBilling.com and how long have you been with the company?

I’ve been with the company for three years now. My official title is Director of Operations, but I do a little bit of everything. 

One of our big projects is building a new style of support modeled after another company that did wonders with the concept. It’s how our support staff will not only handle customer support and training, but will also handle the sales.

That way, when we work with customers, they never have to deal with different departments and different people from their initial call to ongoing support.

To accomplish this, I help with training, operations, and the workflow from our CRM system and how the rest of our internal systems tie together.

The concept is that from the beginning when someone calls, there’s one person that handles all the customer interaction so the customer always feels a strong connection to who’s helping them and that person never gets lost in the shuffle from one department to the next. 

I also work a fair amount on SEO on our Web site and do a little sales as well. Then, there’s also helping with the design and testing of new features as that falls into my Operations category of responsibilities.

Operations is always a broad category which I like as it really allows me to help with the overall working operations of an entire company so we are all moving in the right direction and in step with each other and each department.  

gotoBilling.com experienced a 307% volume increase during the recession. What is your secret to success?

Well, I think there are a couple of things. Number one is that every business still needs the ability to handle their payments and do it cost effectively.

Our system is much easier to use than other systems so it saves people valuable time, helps speed up their collection of funds, and since we handle multiple forms of payment many different ways for a business, then we have a real impact on helping a business streamline some of their processes. 

I think that is what has allowed us to continue growing during this downturn in the economy compared to many other companies. Also, and maybe most importantly, we didn’t make any budget cuts in marketing our services.

What do you do differently than other, similar businesses that are currently struggling due to the recession?

We kept on marketing and didn’t cut the budget. In fact, we increased our marketing and sales budget as that is the life-blood of a company. From what I hear, that might also have been a big factor in what we did compared to other businesses.

What can other e-commerce businesses do now to be more successful during these tough economic times?

Don’t stop marketing! 

To me, that’s the main thing to do. Now that the economy is tough, your competitors are cutting back on marketing and sales so it’s prime time to increase yours and grab the business. 

It’s sort of like buying property when the price is down. There are less people bidding to buy so it’s a better market. It’s the same thing when selling a product. There might be less businesses buying, but if your competitors have cut back their advertising, yours will stand out more for the ones that are still buying.�
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For more great tips from David and how his company is thriving during these tough times, check back on Thursday.

In the meantime, please feel free to send me your comments and PR questions here or at www.rembrandtwrites.com.