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Free Software Tools to Run and Expand Your Business

February 10th, 2011 | Posted by martinbrossman in Local Owned - (0 Comments)

Free software for businessYou can almost completely run a small business without buying any software today. Below is a list of many of these free services and free programs. Some offer a rich free service that allow you to pay for greater utility when you need it. Thanks to my Virtual Assistant Angel for compiling this list ( http://virtualassistantsocialmedia.com ). A few items you have to pay for or only give you a short trial. These items are marked with at “$”

Core office tools like Wordprocessing, Electronic Ledger and Presentation tools

  • OpenOffice.org – Wordprocessing, Electronic Ledger, Presentation tools and more that are free to download and use. This is a Open-source version of Office.
  • Google Apps Free web-based Document, Presentation, Spreadsheet and Drawing.  After signing up you access it from docs.google.com

CRM – Customer Relationship Manager

  • Zoho.com – allows you to create invoicing, time tracking, contact management and it is free.
  • Highrisehq.com – database management, contact search, follow ups, reminders and free packages available Email
  • Gmail – Without a question Gmail offers you free email, document sharing, task options, etc.

Event Registration

  • Eventbrite.com – is a free resource that allows you to create a registration page for your event that works with paypal and other payment types. Also, Eventbrite easily integrates with Mailchimp.
  • Evite.com – free email invitation program that allows you to invite people to an event and see list of attendees. Lists can be easily imported into this site.

Document Sharing

  • Google Docs – when you set up a Google account, you have the option to share Google documents with other people by clicking on the sharing option.
  • Dropbox.com – allows you to share large documents from one pc to another. This is a good resource when you are emailing pictures and large video documents.
  • skydrive.live.com – Microsofts:”25 GB of free online storage for sharing Microsoft Office docs and photos.”
  • www.mesh.com – “Windows Live Mesh 2011 helps you access the stuff on your computers from almost anywhere. If you used one of these previous programs, here’s what you need to know before you start using Windows Live Mesh.”

E-mail Marketing

  • Mailchimp.com – is a free email marketing campaign program. Mailchimp works best on the Firefox platform. Mailchimp has many options for sharing your newsletter and database info on social media sites if you choose. Also works with Eventbright
  • Aweber.com – ($) is a very good program that has options for newsletters, database, invitations and event registration links. Aweber has many options for sharing your newsletter and database info on social media sites if you choose.
  • ConstantContact.com – ($) is a good program that has options for newsletter, invitations, and registration pages. Constant Contact works best on Internet Explorer. ConstantContact has many options for sharing your newsletter and database info on social media sites if you choose.
  • iContact.com – ($) is a local email marketing campaign company that many people use.

FBML Landing Page

  • Pagemodo.com – is a tool that allows you to create a Facebook Fan Page Landing with step by step instructions.

Hourly Rates

  • Freelanceswitch.com/rates/ – is a fill in the blank site that gives you insight into what your hourly rate should be to charge your clients.

Invoicing

  • Roninapp.com – is a handy tool that allows you to create nice invoices while also allowing you to track your hours and make them in a nice presentable manner for a client.

PDF Creator

Install PDFCreator carefully. Listeners have complained about PDFForge toolbar, which is included. It apparently directs users to urlseek20.vmn.net. You should have the option of not installing it. However, some people believe it installs regardless.

If you install the toolbar and have problems, it can be uninstalled. Click Start>>Control Panel. In Windows XP, double-click Add or Remove Programs. In Vista, double-click Programs and Features. In either, find the toolbar in the list and remove it

PDF to Word

  • PDFtoWord.com allows you transfer a .pdf document to a word document. You will need to upload the document to the site and they will email the document back to you (max 6 hours later).

Pictures (Royalty Free) [Very useful for Blog post]

  • Fotolia.com – you can find pictures royalty free or purchase for as low as $5
  • Photobucket.com – there are some free royalty free pictures (some are risque…FYI) but there is a paid program $3 per month that is another option to get better royalty free pictures.

Photo Editing Software

  • Gimp.org – “Image Manipulation Program” Open-source free software you can download that works like Photoshop to edit photos.
  • picnik.com – Web based photo editing program and also is integrated into Flickr.com

Photo on the Web (sharing photos and using your own on the web)

  • www.panoramio.com “Show your favorite places.” Owned by Google
  • http://picasa.google.com/ – Googles downloadable photo program that lets you post photos from you computer to the web at Picasa.
  • www.flickr.com – Yahoo’s free photo sharing feature with limited uploads for free. Paid upgrade to get more space.

Video sharing on the web

  • Youtube.com – 2nd largest search engine on the web and the most searched for videos.
  • vimeo.com – Video sharing that is very big in Europe.
  • SlideShare.com – Web based slide shows.

Press Release Distribution (NC Only)

  • PRSurvival.com ($) is an affordable website for Press Release distribution.

Screen Capture

  • Greenshot, is free screen capturing software that allows you to capture a screen into a .jpg file (http://sourceforge.net/projects/greenshot/)

Twitter Tracking (and other social media status updates including Linkedin):

  • Hootsuite.com is a great program that allows you to track your Twitter feeds for new posts, pending tweets and follow various Twitter follows in different programs. Hootsuite also allows you to pre-post on Facebook Fan Page (yours or one you are an admin on), LinkedIn, Twitter and various other social media sites.
  • Tweetdeck.com is fabulous program for tracking Twitter followers, direct messages, re-tweets and more.

Signature

  • Wisestamp.com – is a great way to get a free email signature. What I like about Wisestamp is that you can add a live hyperlinks and a Twitter feed to the bottom of the signature.

Podcasting / On-line Radio and Audio

  • Audacity – Free Audio Editing  Open Source software.
  • BlogTalkRadio.com – Free to offer podcast and audio shows. Offers a advanced paid version too.

Accounting / Money tools

  • www.freshbooks.com – Limited free invoicing with a paid upgrade you can use.
  • squareup.com – “”Accept credit  card payments anywhere with your iPhone, iPad or Android phone”
  • Paypal.com – Except direct money and credit cards with out big merchant services.
  • gnucash.org – “Personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.”

Phone

Project Management, information management and File Sharing

  • DropBox – File sharing what provides 2Gig free and syncs from your computer to the web
  • ManyMoon.com – Task/Project management that works with Google Docs.
  • EverNote.com – Like a card file or multi media note system that syncs with all your computers and your phone. Free and advanced feature paid.*****

Blogging

  • WordPress.com – Free Blogging software with free hosting
  • Networkedblogs.com allows you to post your blog to various social networks automatically. This is a free program.

Password Management

  • LastPass – “An online password manager and form filler that makes web browsing easier and more secure.”
  • keepass.info – “an open source password manager. Passwords can be stored in highly-encrypted databases, which can be unlocked with one master password or key.”

Bookmark Sync

  • www.xmarks.com -“Offers bookmark synchronization, search enhancement and web discovery based on sites bookmarked by users.”

This is a small list of thousands and we want to hear which ones you like and why?

Compiled by Martin Brossman NCSmallBusinessTraining.com and Angle virtualassistantsocialmedia.com
Share this with others: http://bit.ly/freetoolsforbusiness

Facebook for Business: A few tips for Businesses using Facebook

February 3rd, 2011 | Posted by martinbrossman in Facebook - (0 Comments)
Heather OA Facebook Business page can be a great way to stay connected to your customers.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating and managing your page.

DO NOT:  use a Personal Profile as a Busienss page. It is against Facebook’s terms of use and you will at some time in the future will be shut down and lose all your friends. If when you look down the left side and all you see is  “Friends” and do not see a window that says “People Like This” then you have broken the rules of this free service.

If you have a Facebook business page: even though it looks like people can see your personal page from your business page, they can not. It is only connected that way because YOU are the adminstrator. Make sure to build a personal profile then a business page and understand the “administrator” private info is protected from the busienss page.

An easy way to create a business page: Create a personal page with your real name. After signing in go to any Facebook business page, like mine: http://Facebook.com/MartinWBrossman and scroll down the page looking to the left. After all the images are going you will see the words “Create a Page” and create an appropriate page from here.

How to find your business page after you create it: Sign in to your personal profile. Click on the word in the upper right hand corner that says, “Accounts” then “Manage Pages” and you will see it there.

A few more things to keep in mind when you set up a business page on facebook:

• Choose the page name carefully. It cannot be changed once you have more than 25 ‘fans’
• Remember that facebook is still the internet. Choose words that would be relevant ‘search words’
• Choose a photo not just a logo. This is a social network. People want to connect with people.
• Don’t set up a page unless you are willing to go there and post at least once or twice a day
• Decide what you will offer before you start. Think about what topic(s) are relevant to your business, that people will find value in. (ie. a Real Estate Broker might choose investment info, community info, latest trends,etc)
• Commit to finding/posting an article or video each day on that relevant topic.
• Make sure that you have contact information on your page, and remember that a lot of people still prefer to use the phone.
• You won’t receive notifications when people comment like you do with a personal page, so you have to go to the page and check it often!

Above all, remember that most people avoid advertisements whenever possible (think of all the ways people avoid TV commercials!). Focus on how you can add value in a way that is relevant to your expertise. People buy from those that they know, like and trust. Be personable and use photos and video whenever possible.

Share your tips on Facebook or what was useful to you.

Created by Martin Brossman – NCSmallBusinessTraining.com and Heather O – FacebookandBeyond.com.

Email Marketing Resources and Tips

January 25th, 2011 | Posted by martinbrossman in marketing - (0 Comments)

email marketing

A few resources for learning about email marketing. Remember with email marketing you still have to earn the right to stay in your customers attention or your email will not be opened. The content needs to be relevant to your customer, clear what they are reading from the first line, clear who it is from and provide value worth their time. What is important to your customer beyond what you sell? Why should they take the time to ready your email if they already are overwhelmed by email? Value, Relevance and a personal tone is important but not sloppy. Look as how your email look if you remove all the graphics for many email services do that and how it look on a smart phone. People don’t want more emails but they do want useful information that is relevant to them.

A number of email marketing sites:

– Constant Contact – 1st choice for small business users for ease of use and integration of social media for business.

– Mail Chimp – Lets you have 1000 contacts and send out up to 6,000 emails per month FREE and work with Eventbrite. Very good for micro-businesses and groups with a very limited budget.

– awebber – a professional high capacity email program used for high volume ‘list building’ by many top email marketers.

– iContact – A competitor to Constant Contact with equal features, just not as much support resources.

– Swiftpage – It’s big plus is it fully integrates with ACT contact manager.  Reliable with a number of useful features but very challenging to use. See these Swiftpage demos for more info.

These are two GREAT resources for email marketing tips and tricks.

http://www.theemailguide.com/

http://ducttapemarketing.com/

The Constant Contact Learning Center is second to none and the user community is huge.

http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/index.jsp

http://www.constantcontact.com/community/index.jsp

Useful on-line posts about email marketing:
Top 7 Email Marketing Trends – Tips for 2011

8 Email Marketing Tips – from CRM.com

How To Avoid Getting Your Campaigns Accidentally Junked – from MailChimp.com

Increase your Open Rate -Opt-in Marketing

A number of posts on email-marketing-report.com about the best time to send emails

Examples:

Restaurant email marketing example

Natural Skincare email

Business trainer announcing an event

How do you use e-mail marketing and what resources do you find useful?

Compiled by Martin Brossman and Brian Walker who offers eMail Marketing Magement.
See Martin’s class on the topic: Marketing Your Business Through E-mail

Blogging and Websites with WordPress

December 16th, 2010 | Posted by martinbrossman in Blogging | Wordpress - (0 Comments)

 

The two key components to understand when using WordPress:

1) The “Page”: Pages are the closest to the original fixed web pages but easier to edit. This is where you post the content that does not change as often. Examples of this would be About Us, Contact, Services. Pages – and the ability to set the home address to one of them (for example, About Us)  is one of the biggest things that makes it possible to use WordPress as a web site instead of ‘just a blog.’ Here is the Home page of this site: http://www.ncsmallbusinesstraining.com

and

2) The “Post”: The “Posts area” is the “Blog” component of the WordPress website and allows you to add current content on various topics easily. This has been part of WordPress since it started, and is usually the default page you see when you set up a simple WordPress site. Here is the “Posts area” on this site. Posts can be styled numerous ways – recent first, undated, set up to look like articles.  http://www.ncsmallbusinesstraining.com/blog/

You can find Post and Page in your Dashboard (also called the Admin Panel) that can be found on by signing in to your own wordpress site by typing /wp-admin after your website address in the browser bar to get the sign-in and password.
Here is the sign-in for this site, note the URL at the top after clicking on:
http://www.ncsmallbusinesstraining.com/wp-admin/

To setup WordPress so it looks like a website with a home page instead of the blog section:

1) Sign-in to your Dashboard
2) Create two pages: one page that you want to be your home page (i.e. Home or Welcome) and a page that you want to store the blog section (i.e. Blog or Articles)
3) Go to: Settings>Reading

3a) Under “Reading Settings” see these options: Front page displays change from “Your latest posts” to “A static page (select below)”
4) Pick the page you want to be seen first as the “Home Page” from pages you already created (Home or Welcome) and then the page you want to be your “blog” from the pages you created (see step 2). Make sure to select “Save Changes”.
5) Now just look at your site and see how it looks

Getting a API Key:
For some plugins you will be requested to provide an API key on the hosted WordPress. To get that you need to sign up for a WordPress.com account if you have not already and go into the area from the Dashboard: Profile / Personal Setting then look for “Your WordPress.com API key is:” copy that numbers/letters. This link may work if you are signedin to wordpress.com:
http://dashboard.wordpress.com/wp-admin/users.php?page=grofiles-user-settings
and to directly get a API key: http://akismet.com/wordpress/

If you notice the bottom of your WordPress pages you may notice that people can post a comment. If you don’t want that to show up (most people don’t) then just go into the page from Dashboard and scroll down till you see: ”

Few Examples of WordPress Websites:

ycorpblog.com – Yahoo

www.thefordstory.com – The Ford Story

electronicsblog.sel.sony.com – Sony

www.samsungusanews.com – Samsung

www.benjerry.fr/blog – Ben and Jerry

dalesgoldbergcpa.com – CPA Company

www.gowerpower.com – Gower Power

NCSmallBusinessTraining.com – Small Business Training with Martin Brossman

www.assistantangel.com – Assistant Angel

www.elsmithconsulting.com – Consulting site

A few tips on creating Pages and Post so they can get results:

  • At the bottom of each Page and Post answer the questions: What action do I want them to take next? and make sure you state that clearly. e.g. Give use a call? How have you use (the item) in your business?
  • At the end of each Post also have a link to the home page.
  • Have a relevant picture or video on each Page and Post to make it more interesting to view and keeping them on the page longer.
  • For ever photo added make sure to include the relevant keywords so Google can index that photo in the “alternate text” area.

To contact the instructors:

Michelle Gower GowerPower.com

Martin Brossman ProNetworkingOnLine.com

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