Effective Ways to Go Green and Maximize Office Expense

One of the most popular tag line is to "Go Green" and how beneficial it is to our lives, our businesses, and even to our planet. But unless you have taken the steps to implement the green revolution to your business, the entire act of going green may seem to be overwhelming or even impossible.

Don't worry because all you need to do is check out these simple yet effective ways on how you can smoothly direct your small business down to the "greener path."

Use recycled paper around the office.

The first step for many businesses is switching paper types. Purchasing recycled paper is as simple as heading to your local office supply store. Every major paper manufacturer offers recycled paper in a variety of sizes and uses. There’s no drop-off in quality, no major price differences, and it saves trees, water, energy, and space in your local landfill.

Reduce the paper clutter.

Alleviating paper clutter can mean many things to you depending on the size of your company, but here are a few easy tasks to complete that will make a difference.

Mailing Lists
Your company probably receives more junk mail than you realize. Some of it is unsolicited and that’s hard to manage, but plenty of it comes from mailing lists you’ve joined. Remove your company from as many non-essential mailing lists as possible and you’ll see a noticeable reduction in wasted paper from the mail.

Digital Subscriptions
Most companies today offer paperless solutions for their various correspondences. Banks, utilities, service providers, government agencies, newspapers, and trade magazines all offer email or web-based alternatives to traditional mailings. Switch to as many of these paperless solutions as possible and enjoy further reductions in the amount of needless paper in your mailbox.

Reuse Printer Paper
There will always be a need for scrap paper, so don’t throw paper away. Reusing pages that only have printing on one side is an excellent repurposing of a product. Printing double-sided documents whenever possible is also an excellent way to get the most out of your paper supply.

Use recycled printer ink cartridges and recycle old ones.

If you have to buy ink for several printers it can become quite expensive. Recycled ink and ink cartridges have gained prominence in the workplace and offer businesses a legitimate way to save real money. Savings can be as much 70 percent versus traditional ink cartridges.

Office supply stores and printer manufacturers offer rebate programs and other incentives to recycle used cartridges and purchase recycled inks. And you’ll never have to wonder if there are cartridges available for your specific printers. Recycled ink cartridge manufacturers offer solutions for every ink-jet and laser printer in use today.

Make the switch to energy-saving light bulbs.

This is one those “green” initiatives we hear a lot about but might not fully realize the full impact the right kinds of lighting products can have on your bottom line. Traditional light bulbs are horribly inefficient compared to today’s energy-saving bulbs.

LED Bulbs
These bulbs are ten times more efficient than incandescent bulbs. This translates to getting the same amount of illumination at a tenth the cost. The tradeoff for this type of technology comes in the up-front price. LED bulbs run approximately $35 per bulb, which can certainly add up to a substantial amount at one time. However, these bulbs also last 40-50 years before they need to be replaced, so that means they’re about $0.70-$0.88 per year.

Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL)
These bulbs are roughly seven times more efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs and come in at a fraction of the price of LED bulbs. At roughly $4 per bulb, the ten-year lifespan comes to just $0.40 per year.

The savings on monthly utilities alone makes switching to the most energy-efficient bulbs and lamps you can afford a savvy financial move and a great way to green-up your company.

Start carpooling or using public transit.

Many companies offer employee incentives to carpool and to take advantage of public transportations. Preferred parking spaces are often an excellent incentive for employees to carpool, but there’s no limit on what a company can do to encourage participation in this type of program.

Public transportation companies also have incentives for businesses to participate in their clean air programs. These typically include discounted transit passes and some form of recognition for its participants.

There are countless ways you can take your company in a green direction; the trick is to just get started. Hopefully these ideas will get you moving in the direction you always wanted to take but weren’t sure if there was really a difference to be made.

Finding Online Resources that Can Help You Maintain Your Computer

Technology has come a long way in the last 10 years alone (imagine what computers and maintaining it was like in 1997). But like all machines, things can still go wrong. And though it’s nice to have a dependable computer tech support company to lean on and be subscribed to, it’s good to search for online resources from time to time just to learn about minor or general computer maintenance.

First, it’s so easy to search for online resources that can help you maintain your computer. All you need is to search on Google (or any other search engine you’re using) by typing key words such as “online resources computer maintenance” or “online computer maintenance tips.” However, if you want to go direct to the really helpful sites without doing generic searches, here are our suggestions.

Official sites of your computer’s OS

One of the best ways to get help and advice for computer maintenance is to go directly to the company’s official site, depending on whether you’re using a Mac or a Microsoft computer. Apple’s official site has its Apple Support Communities that give free advice in troubleshooting your Mac computer and other software or hardware issues. You can also engage in a live chat with an Apple technician. The Microsoft official website also has a Microsoft Community for free troubleshooting advice. You can search by category or you can post and an accredited expert will assist you.

Official apps and manufacturer’s sites

If you’re having trouble with apps like Firefox, SmartThings, and Spotify, you can simply search for the manufacturer’s websites themselves. They often have official wikis, support forums, and even telephone numbers so you can call their technical support.

Supportrix knowledge base

Supportrix is known worldwide for its outstanding and superb technical support services and they can handle a wide variety of issues such as virus removal and security, PC tune-up and repair, networking issues, data recovery, and the like. But it’s no surprise that they have a knowledgebase of technical articles arranged in categories that you can select in order to search for tips and advice on computer maintenance and other issues.

YouTube

Naturally, if you can’t find what you’re looking for in article format, then you can always search the world’s largest cache of roughly 85 million videos. You’re bound to find videos that discuss about computer maintenance and other issues, usually posted by those who have experienced the same problems. You can even find videos from the official manufacturers as well.

Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites aren’t just for chatting, posting photos, and reading all that fake news (kidding), because you can find the official pages of manufacturers on social media. Also, like in Facebook, there are also third-party communities that you can join that provide free tips and advice on computer maintenance and other issues. You can also use Twitter to contact official companies so as to get a faster and accurate response.

4 Useful Tips for New Business Owners to Succeed in a Tech-Centric Generation

Not many people know that small businesses have large impact on the economy and job market. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), there are 28 million small businesses in America, accounting for 54 percent of all U.S. sales. While we may not initially think of small businesses as large employers, they actually make up 55 percent of all U.S. jobs.

Thankfully, with advances in technology, small businesses today have access to tools that can help streamline operations and enhance productivity, without spending a lot. With new and more efficient capabilities in technology, even the smallest of businesses can compete with large enterprises.

Technology can project a larger image

If a small business is just starting out and operating out of a basement or a small rented space, portraying the business as legitimate and larger than it really is, can be vital to its success. Your online presence is important so invest in a website, social media outlets, and other online profiles like Yelp, Google and industry-specific sites where customers may find you, intentionally or unintentionally. Make sure your business message is clearly defined, your branding and logo is consistent, and most importantly, your information is up-to-date and accurate. Make sure customers can find you everywhere they search and that contacting you is easy.

Technology enables collaboration with everyone

Many small business owners struggle with communicating with both employees in the field and customers as well. Regardless of the type of business, there are cloud-based communications and collaboration tools, customer relationship management software and project management tools available that will not only allow you to work and manage your staff remotely, but enable your employees to work from anywhere, from any device efficiently. This flexibility will enable more workers to be effective without requiring the high price tag of rent, and allow you to expand your business, without the overhead costs.

Technology will advertise the business

Small businesses can take advantage of all the free ways to advertise. This is the beauty of technology today with the Internet such as having an online presence. The business website and social media are obviously great free ways to advertise and promote specials, discounts, and upcoming events. But it’s not limited to just these because when you collaborate with customers on, say Twitter, you can actually advertise the business. You can also try texting and e-mail advertising if you have leads from your customers.

Technology for operations and finance

Now, you can use technology to help manage your money instead of just using paper and calculator.

§  Project cash flow

Using software ensures that you’ll have the money on hand to pay your workers and other expenses when bills come due. That means you can stay on top of the cash flow.

§  Keep financial books and records

Being in business requires you to keep track of income, expenses, and other items so you can analyze how your business is doing. It’s also mandatory for tax purposes; you need these records to prepare your returns and back up positions you take on these returns.

§  Invoice customers

Unless your customers pay on the spot with cash, checks, credit/debit cards, or electronic payments, you must send bills for the money they owe. Viewing outstanding invoices can help you monitor collections to ensure that all your customers pay and do not become delinquent.

Strategic Decisions to Make Before Considering Hiring an Online IT Support Team

It’s obvious that when you’re running a small to medium sized business – whether product or service based – you don’t have enough overhead and aren’t big enough to have your own IT department to take care of your IT needs for computer maintenance and support. But having IT support is necessary because should any breakdowns occur with your desktops and devices, these problems can be immediately addressed.

The best solution here is to get an outside online IT support company. It makes sense because all you need to do is to subscribe to them (usually paying just an annual fee) and all you need to do is call or message them should a problem arise with your IT infrastructure. However, before you go registering with just any IT support company, be sure to strategically research the company and consider the following:

Consider how long the company has been in business

According to the latest research by the US government, roughly 50% of startup businesses closed down within the first 5 years. Thus, you need to strategically research for an IT support company that has been in the business for at least 5 years, and the more years, the better.

Strategically research the number of employees

A very stable IT support company will have a lot of employees, and we mean a lot, probably not lower than 500 in several locations in different cities or states. They may also have several overseas locations that may also serve as their technical or call center hub in good English-speaking countries like Canada or the Philippines.

Ask about their engineers and technical staff

You need to strategically research for an IT support company with many engineers and technical staff that specialize in different technologies that are either licensed, well-trained, or are professional graduates of their specialized course. Be aware that there are IT support companies that have “jack of all trades” staff that are good, but don’t specialize in anything. Beware of companies that have negative comments or complaints in their reviews pertaining to complex projects, overruns, and overall bad service. Their helpdesk staff (made up of the same engineers and technical staff) should all be dedicated and are not field technicians that are merely called when not busy.

Ask how many clients they service for IT support

Strategically search for an IT support company that services a lot of clients on a daily basis. Ask about their success rate since established IT support companies share their success rates to inquiring customers. A 90% average success rate is good enough. Their IT and helpdesk support are also onsite in their company locations or branches and not outsourced to outside merchants. This means their helpdesk engineers and technical staff are trained by the company itself and their certifications updated.

Onsite calls must always be part of their managed IT services solution

Look for an IT support company that is a permanent managed services provider that provides onsite support as part of their monthly price subscription.

Using Social Media for Customer Service in Any Small Business

Social media is an important tool for marketing in any business, especially for small businesses. Aside from posting photos and other business updates, using social media for customer service can level up any small business and increase sales.

Any small business should have specific strategies in place for handling customer service issues through social media as this will also improve getting in touch with customers as well as customers inquiring about your product/service.

Social media is now the accepted leader in the mode of communications that customers are now choosing when inquiring about brands or sharing customer service issues. What also makes social media a viable marketing tool for small businesses is that it levels the marketing playing field since a small business can have just as large social media presence as a large corporation. The usual top social media sites that businesses can utilize for their customer service are:

§  Facebook

§  Twitter

§  Instagram

§  LinkedIn

§  Pinterest

Social media builds real customer relationships

Any small business can use social media as one of its main channels for both self-promotion and to respond to customer inquiries and comments. In this way, real relationships are built with customers since conversation is engaged.

Using a hashtag

In simple terms, using a specific hashtag helps to search concerns under the hashtag, making everything organized and easy to navigate. Original information and accurate content can be added to the hashtag as the business sees fit.

You can focus on creating a strong customer base

If a customer has a bad experience with the small business, one of the first things that customers is likely to do is to write about it on social media. Instead of trying to find ways on how to manage and respond to any negative comments, businesses should focus on providing such excellent customer service that they create a strong and loyal customer base that will advocate on behalf of the business if anyone has some negative comments to say.

Always present

Some small businesses fall short on social customer service because they simply are not active in listening and engaging with customers on social media. Companies that want to deliver effective customer service on social media should realize that all messages, inquiries, and comments must be flagged especially when it relates to the product or service.

Train your staff on social media

If your small business has all its employees handling customer service, then the company should have a clear understanding with everyone in handling customers, guiding principles, and protocols. Train the staff or employees by reviewing your social media strategy and product/service positioning and the types of social media tools the business uses. Walk everyone through the process for managing customer service, stress the importance of customer sentiment, and explain how positive and negative reviews can impact the business. You can also provide a list of potential questions employees need to respond to, including examples of negative feedback.

5 Easy and Free Tools to Help You Grow Your Business Online

Growing businesses need a fairly large amount of software to conduct operations, but it’s not necessary for the business owner to spend a fortune on commercial programs and applications. In terms of business and consumer software, there are literally hundreds of incredible and free solutions that can help get the job done for the business. The 5 free and easy tools listed below for all facets of business have been tried and tested and have received good reviews especially for startups and small businesses, handling everything from email marketing to endpoint protection.

You can also consult your IT support company to consult on the tools listed below or find something else that suits your specific business.

Don’t forget the basics – Antivirus protection

What’s the point of growing a business if it can be attacked and hacked by viruses or hackers? Endpoint protection from Avast comes in both a free and premium version, both of which offer good protection. If you opt for the free version, keep in mind that you won’t have access to proactive controls, a firewall, or data shredding. You’ll still get access to solid malware blocking, security scanning, and rescue disk functionality. If using Windows, make sure to keep its firewall activated to support Avast.

Join.me Videoconferencing

If you’re looking to connect with clients, prospects, remote workers, or your sales people in the field, you’ll need a reliable video conferencing solution to help you get the job done. Join.me offers a free plan that lets you invite up to 10 video participants, share screens, and supports up to five video feeds.

Wave accounting

To keep your financial books balanced, you can use Wave. With the free version of Wave, you’ll receive accounting and reports functionality, you’ll be able to create and scan invoices, and you’ll be able to scan receipts directly into the system. Although far from being a one-stop accounting application, if you keep things simple you can go far just by using its basic service. If you need anything heavier, go for the premium version.

HootSuite Social Media Listening

Small businesses simply don’t need a large social listening platform. A free, easy-to-use dashboard that lets you stay up-to-date on what your customers are saying should be enough, and Hootsuite Free offers a free version that’s good enough to do the trick. With HootSuite, you’ll be able to manage multiple social networks, schedule posts, and interact with your followers. You'll also be able to track how many followers you have on each of your social networks and monitor which posts are generating the most clicks.

MailChimp e-mail marketing

MailChimp is one of the best and most popular e-mail marketing platforms on the market. If your company sends fewer than 12,000 e-mail messages per month to fewer than 2,000 subscribers, you can use MailChimp’s Forever Free plan. This lets you use built-in signup forms to gather subscribers from across the web. You can use MailChimp’s drag-and-drop designer and e-mail templates to craft the perfect message.

Big Social Media No-Nos Your Business Should Avoid

When it comes to social media, many entrepreneurs are self-taught. You’ve learned your way around Facebook and Twitter with personal accounts, so you figure you’re good to go when it comes to a business account. Your experience will help, but there are some unspoken rules in the social media world that you might have missed while using the sites to dig up pictures of your old high school friends.

Whether you’ve just decided to launch a social media site for your new business, or already have a well-established social presence, it’s important to make sure your sites are professional. The following are some common social media mistakes that every business owner should avoid committing.

1.     Bad Trending Choices

When you’re posting to social media, it’s natural to take advantage of trending topics. However, it’s important to make sure your post is appropriate. Too many businesses try to capitalize on trending topics, and end up posting something insensitive.

For example, in 2012 after the mass shooting at the Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, the hashtag #Aurora was trending, as Twitter users discussed the event and voiced their condolences. Apparently, the person tweeting for this clothing store didn’t know why #Aurora was trending, and attempted to use the hashtag to promote a dress. Needless to say, the tweet came off as inappropriate and insensitive.

Interacting with trending topics is a great way to generate social media activity for your business, but before attempting to utilize a trending topic to your business’s advantage, make sure to establish that the topic is relevant, appropriate, and not in bad taste.

2.     Overposting

When it comes to posting frequency, there isn’t a hard and fast rule, but you don’t want to alienate your followers by being a chronic “overposter.” You’ll want to look at your engagement levels to help guide the number of times you post, but if you’re using Facebook, three to five posts a week is a good number. When it comes to Twitter, a tweet a day is a steady amount of content.

3.     Failure to Respond

The whole point of social media is to engage with your target audience. If you’re not interacting with your followers, what’s the point? Even if a customer complains, or says something negative about the company, you still need to respond in a timely and appropriate manner.

Since social media is constantly up and running. If your business wants to establish a strong social media presence, your company should be prepared to respond to people's messages outside of your traditional business hours.

4.     Being Overly Promotional

You can mention an upcoming sale or advertise a new product on social media, but that shouldn’t be the only thing you’re serving on your sites. Use the 80/20 rule—eighty percent of your content should be engaging posts and information that your audience wants to read, while the remaining 20 percent should be promotional.

If your social media plan is to sell, sell, sell, you’re going to fail, fail, fail. You need to offer a diverse array of information on your sites. For example, if you own a clothing store, you could post links to fashion articles, ask for feedback on a hot new accessory, or post pictures of celebrity clothing trends. Diversity is the key to social media content.

Ways a Well Optimized Computer Can Get More Things Done

We all know the basic truth that when a computer has been running for a few years into its lifespan, it tends to slow down a bit. As its workload increases, the computer slows down considerably. Also over time, unneeded files and programs fragments the hard disk and neglecting to clean out through regular maintenance adds up to slow down computer speed and performance.

To get your computer up to speed again, performing optimization through maintenance should be done on a regular basis. When a computer is regularly optimized, it achieves two things:

1. A well optimized computer brings back peak performance to more things get done faster. This is particularly important if the computer is used for work, business, or educational purposes like research and studying.

2. A well optimized computer means you don’t need to spend a dime on so-called software or programs that make grandiose claims that if you run their program your computer will run better and faster.

We’ll get back to number 1 to show you ways on how to properly optimize your computer. As for number 2, you need to realize now that you can perform maintenance optimization regularly for free. Software and programs with wild claims of optimizing your computer automatically, in reality, will do virtually nothing and are outright scams. This includes antivirus and malware software that sell add-on optimization tools that cost around $20 or less. Unless you’re running Windows 9x versions, all Windows today and even Apple computers have built-in optimization tools that are more than enough to keep your computer well maintained and in peak performance.

So going back to number 1, perhaps some do’s and don’ts reminders can first show you what and what not to do.

DO NOT:

§  Use Internet Explorer or IE based browsers like MSN Explorer.

§  Use Outlook or Outlook Express.

§  Open e-mail attachments that are questionable or suspicious or not expecting, no matter who sent them.

§  Respond to spam messages and e-mails using unsubscribed links.

§  Visit questionable and untrusted website.

PLEASE DO:

§  Always have an updated antivirus program running and keep that firewall up with no poked holes into it.

§  Have your computer automatically install all the latest security updates.

§  Delete all unsolicited e-mails containing attachments without reading them.

And most of all, perform regular optimization maintenance.

Disable transparency effects

These special effects look impressive, but use up too much of your PC’s resources. Turn off these effects and instead, go for that classic Windows look, to speed up your computer’s performance.

Disable unnecessary startup programs

Several programs contain a component that automatically runs at startup. While this is convenient for programs you use often, running unwanted software at startup could slow down your computer.

Disable shadows and animations

Shadows and animations look nice onscreen, but, they unnecessarily add to the CPU’s (Central Processing Unit) load.

Uninstall unnecessary programs

You need to uninstall programs you no longer need or use, especially those trial versions you installed and forgot about. Such programs take up memory and eventually slow down the computer.

And of course, don’t forget to regularly defragment the hard disk, running disk cleanup, restarting you computer at least once a week after you turn it on, and running only one antivirus protection program.

Several Factors to Consider Before Buying a Laptop

For most people, a laptop is usually considered a work tool or a study tool. But a laptop can be more than these for other multi-faceted purposes such as handling a personal business, entertainment, documentation, and even social media. This makes it imperative that the buyer should make the correct choice for his/her needs before buying that new unit.

So, here are the really important aspects to consider when shopping for a new laptop.

Size

If portability is the main concern, then consider a notebook that has a small screen and is light weight. Any laptop marketed as an Ultrabook should fit the bill as they are designed to be slim and light. If work or heavy tasks are to be done, then you may need the 13- to 15-inchers with better and faster specs.

Screen Quality

You’ll be staring at your laptop for many hours each day so you want to make sure you get a screen that is comfortable to look at. Touchscreens have glossy screens that lead to reflections so consider a laptop that doesn’t have a touchscreen unless you really need it. Size matters again since a big screen is needed if you need to do heavy tasks like video or photo editing or a lot of research and writing. Look at the resolution: a 1920x1080-pixel resolution, or full HD, should be considered if you want plenty of space to line up windows and keep things in view. Finally, the viewing angles are extremely important. A laptop screen that has IPS (in-plane switching) offers the widest viewing angles and the best user comfort. Never buy blind so go into a store and see the screen for yourself.

Processor Speed

It’s hard to go past any of Intel’s Core-based CPU’s when buying a new laptop. Think Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7. These CPU’s offer the best performance when it comes to multitasking and multimedia tasks. Core i3-based notebooks are generally found in entry-level systems, while Core i5 makes up the majority of mainstream computers. Core i7-based systems are for those of you who want the best performance from your laptop. However, note that with a Core i7-based system, heat coming through the base of the laptop can be cause for concern, especially if you plan to use the laptop on tabletops.

RAM

You need 4GB of RAM or more to get the best out of your system. More RAM allows for more applications to be run at the same time, and for more data to be quickly accessible by the system at any one time, which comes in handy for tasks such as editing photos.

Price

Of course you can’t ignore the price which is a significant factor to consider when shopping for a new laptop. Laptop prices are often predicated on the features of the device. So, a laptop with a faster processor speed and RAM would likely cost more than a model with less speed. However, increasing competition in the market and more attention to research and development of new products makes it possible these days to find moderately priced devices boasting features that would naturally be found in models that are more expensive.

Keeping Up with Technology Can Help You as a Business Owner

It has never been a secret that technology today can either make or break the success, transformation, or expansion of any small or medium-sized business and its business owner. It doesn’t if you’re a startup local coffee shop or an online beauty products boutique; internet-enabled IT systems can make businesses better organized, smarter, faster, or doom it to failure when technology is ignored.

So if you’re a business owner, one of the best investments to prioritize should be using technology and keeping up with it so you’re not left behind by the competition that also uses the same technology.

Use CRM to keep up with customers

Small and medium business owners can use customer relationship management (CRM) systems to meticulously plan out their interactions with customers in record time. With a CRM, you can keep all of your customers’ contact information in one place, alongside detailed information on the products they have purchased, the feedback the customers give out, and the marketing materials that have been used. Keeping track of this makes it easier to offer outstanding customer service, as well as targeted marketing materials based on your customers’ habits and preferences.

Use accounting software to manage your finances

Keeping a close eye on income and cash flow is an integral part of managing a successful small business, but this process can quickly turn into unnecessary time consumption if you don’t have the right technology. Accounting software can access up-to-the-minute reports on where your business stands at all times especially if it has easy-to-use user interface and simple setup to invoice your customers and keep track of payments.

Create an open and communicative environment

By centrally locating the performance appraisal information within a formal online framework, business owners can more easily communicate business strategy and create measurable goals for their employees that will support overall company objectives. It also allows for greater visibility, thereby allowing employees to see the whole picture and understand better how individual goals fit into the company’s business objectives. This creates energized and engaged employees that will definitely raise the work productivity of the business.

Connect teams virtually

Create employee portals and team sites to help people work productively inside the business or when they need to be out in the field, no matter what location. You will eliminate “silos” that effectively cut off communication because employees can utilize technology to reach out to others working on similar projects or find experts to answer their questions inside the business.

Performance, progress, and productivity analysis,

Naturally, employees in any business want to be appreciated for their hard work. Business productivity software can bridge the gaps in communication and convey to each member of your team that they are valued. With your people working at their highest capabilities and your business aligned from top-to-bottom, you will be creating a workforce that is engaged, productive and loyal. Feeling valued is the key to employee loyalty which leads to greater business productivity, and technology can help with this aspect.