Dot Net Dreamer Business Technology Blog

Tech Isn’t Important

Sadaajit — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:31:37 +0000

Technology Can Be Confusing If Your Not A Techie

This guest post from Werner Rogers

Technology isn’t really my thing but I give it my all. I know that there are so many different ways to go about learning but for me trying to navigate the inner workings of a computer is like trying to figure out how to do brain surgery or something. I’ve owned my little woodworking business for years and years and that’s what I do – I make really great things out of wood! – but now that we’ve entered the digital age I have to get with it. I recently went to the small business xo website to check out my options and thankfully they make it all pretty simple and the tech support people have been really helpful, too. I love that things are made easier by people trying to help but it’s still really tough for me to get it. I think it’s crazy some people spend their whole day in front of a computer but you know, I guess to each his own. I’ll keep working on wood and they can keep typing all day!

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Maximizing Your Online Presence

Sadaajit — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:58:27 +0000

Online businesses are today's gold rush.

Your company is growing at a pretty steady rate, but you know from all the business news that your website presence isn’t what it should be. You don’t have an onsite web development team and, after visiting your competitions websites, believe that a custom website design would really make your company stand out.

You could find a company that specializes in website design, but in reality it’s not just the design that’s important. How that website is optimized, what kind of content is most effective, as well as campaigns that could bring more customers in, are also important. You can try copying the website design new york where major key competitors are located, but if all the other factors aren’t figured in all you’ll have is a pretty web site.

More than likely you need an ecommerce development company, rather than just a web design company. A company that specializes in all aspect of ecommerce not only knows how to design a compelling web site, but will also be able to help you maximize your business using integrated interactive services, having original and creative e-Business marketing ideas, and ways to help establish your brand in the global market place. So, if you’re a medium sized company looking to move up a notch, or a larger company that wants to stay ahead of the competition, working with a full service ecommerce company may just be the answer you’re looking for.’

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Looking For A Business?

Sadaajit — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:40:49 +0000

As the economy continues its agonizingly slow recovery, many people have been out of work for an extended period of time. If you’re one of them and have the desire to own your own business, rather than returning to the workaday world, finding the right fit in a business can be daunting. For a few people they know exactly what they want to do, as they’ve dreamed about it all their life. However, for many their dream job was the one they just lost. Now they feel like a boat without a rudder, just drifting in circles.

Keeping Your Business Local May Improve Your Image

I found what looks like a pretty cool idea stimulator on the Internet. It’s a PDF document entitled “20 Small Business Ideas for Small Towns.” I think the ideas will work in big towns, too, especially in the area of creating locally focused businesses. People want to buy local, they want to keep the money in their local economy, so having a business that can tout that it’s local in some aspect, such as manufacturing, growing produce locally, or something along that line, will help you have a sure in with the sustainably conscious, which is growing rapidly.

Remember though, it’s harder to keep a business going if you’re not really excited about it. Owning your own business is a lot of work in the beginning, because, unless you have crowd funding or a sugar daddy, you’ll end up doing almost all the work yourself. So, while brainstorming keep tabs on your internal excitement meter.

If possible meet with some people who are doing what you’re thinking about and find out the real ins and outs. Once you’ve made your decision check with your local Small Business Administration office and see if they have any resources you can use. Also, local community colleges often have courses, at low or now cost, to help people get up to speed on opening a business.

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First Participant

Sadaajit — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:22:01 +0000

I have my first participant for my pilot program. Now the real work begins. You know you plan and plan, then when you start in for earnest everything that you didn’t think about planning rears its ugly head.

I’ve got a skeleton outline of what I want to cover in the classes, but now I have to prepare the indepth information, especially handouts and reference materials. I need to have homework for each class and interactive work that they’ll do with their health buddies (need a catchy name for this).

What am I going to provide, what do they need to provide? Where will I hold all the classes? What questions do I need to prepare for? Then all of a sudden you start to doubt you know anything!

I’ve been living what I’m going to teach for the past 22 years and yet, this morning I was sitting there thinking, “What scientific research have I done? What if they ask me questions I can’t answer?” and of course the worst, “What if it doesn’t work for anyone?” I know the answer to the last questions, but still ego likes drama and is playing it for all it’s worth.

So, if anyone out there has any suggestions about what you found the most useful thing for teaching a workshop, or pitfalls you didn’t anticipate, or anything that you think might be useful for me or other readers about how to put on a highly successful workshop, please use the comment box below to let us all know.

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Pre-Launch Pilot Program

Sadaajit — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:13:56 +0000

Time's running out. Need to stay focused to get my pre-launch program ready.

It’s finally here. I’m setting a pre-launch pilot program start date of March 1. This means I have to really focus for the next couple weeks to get everything in order. I’ve done most of the business plan, there’s just a little tweaking to do there, so now I need to move from the planning stage to the implementing stage.

Here’s what’s on my list for the near future:

Email to prospective pilot program participants.

Write email

Send to prospects

Design web site.

Pick theme for web site.

Define web site parameters.

Find graphics.

Prepare each week’s program.

Topics set.

Hand-outs with instructions and references.

Prepare consent form.

Have functional web site up by March 1 when I launch the pilot program.

I’m keeping my pilot group small, just 6 people. I’m also going to offer the program at a very reduced price. In exchange they’ll need to give me constant feedback and fill out questionaires; be willing to write up or have videoed a testimonial; allow before and after pictures; follow all instructions to the T or forfeit their money and participation rights; have primary care providers approval if they have any serious medical conditions.

If you’re considering offering a service business, you may find having a short pilot program that friends, aquaintences, and co-workers can participate in and help you tweak the program before you bring it out to the public in general. Helping you to avoid possible catastrophe.

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Effective Marketing

Sadaajit — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:05:50 +0000

Common Business Mistakes to Avoid

Good information, very poorly presented. Will this help or hurt your business?

I was just reading an article on how to use YouTube to advertise your business. They had the Old Spice ads running as an example. They went viral and I realized I was in trouble.

Videos are really big in getting people to pay attention to your product or service, but I found the Old Spice ads disturbing. I thought, “Gad, if I give that to my husband the house is going to end up destroyed.” It did nothing to make me want to buy their product. I wonder if it really worked? They had 110 million views on their channel, but did it really turn into 110 million sales?

I know that YouTube videos are almost essential to make your business go, even if you put them up so that you can have them on your web site. However, I do think that you need to really look at the impression you’re making on viewers.

They say that videos need to be entertaining, instructional, or weird. So, what impression do you want to make? I think most businesses should avoid the weird category. Unless you are a really out there sort of business, it will only make people want to avoid you.

Instructional seems easy enough, however, you need to make sure you aren’t boring. Plus you need to keep it to 5 minutes or less, if possible, so be very focused on what you cover. You aren’t going to be able to teach someone how to build a house from scratch in one video (you might show a house being built in time lapse, though). You’ll need to keep it to one step of building the house for each video and that can add up to a lot of videos to get the house completed!

The area that is the most nebulous is entertaining. As I said I didn’t find the Old Spice ads interesting. I thought they were dumb, with some overly built guy, screaming at everyone. So, if they were effective I better stick with informational, because I just couldn’t do a video like that one.

I know that there are a lot of kinds of humor out there and maybe there’s one that will work for your business, but make sure you know the type of humor that appeals to the market you’re looking to attract, before you go into production.

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When You Need A Break

Sadaajit — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:39:17 +0000

Keeping things light actually makes you more productive!

It’s important to never become too serious when you are working. Did you know that they’ve proven that people who have a lighthearted attitude toward their work are actually more productive than those that are serious? So, when you see that your employees need a break, come up with something crazy like a duckface contest.

Lighthearted doesn’t mean you don’t get the job done. I just means that you don’t allow yourself to get bogged down in stress, tension, worry, and perfectionism. All have been shown to not only reduce productivity, but also damage your health.

So, when you’ve been crunching numbers all day for your new business and all you can see are visions of numbers dancing before your eyes, remember to take a break. What better way to take a break than to find something funny, like these Photoshop Failed attempts.

Or maybe you can set up a messaging system with a co-worker where you send each other funny autocorrect text messages periodically throughout the day. Whatever position you have in a company; be it owner, boss, manager, supervisor, or general worker, you should find ways to lighten the load for those around to keep your department or business energized and productive. Look at some of the most creative businesses around. They sometimes include video gaming centers, skateboards, mini-basketball courts, etc., to keep some of the most creative minds on the planet alert and free flowing. How can you bring that to your workplace?

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Getting Good Or Bad Ratings

Sadaajit — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:49:45 +0000

Today’s market is totally about page rank. There are a lot of ways to get a higher page rank. Having a lot of people come to and like you site is one of the more powerful ones.

There’s a relatively new site available call LinksGage that Indexes the best free websites ! They then allow people to rate the site. When someone does a search in your category, your site will be shown in the listing according to your rank in the thumbs up percentage. The higher the percentage the better your ranking.

It looks like it might be a useful way to reach a group of people who are tired of wading through reams of sites only to find out the one they chose has a bad ranking. I’ve done this a dozen or more times with mail order nurseries. I get all excited, having found what I’m looking for, only to check on the reviews for the nursery and find them horrible. One company actually had a number of lawsuits against it, but it was still able to do business as usual on the web. Hopefully sites like Links Gage will help weed those sites out and bring only quality sites to the web.

At any rate, it might be worth your time to check it out and see if it is a place for your site to be listed.

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Can You Work With Different Work Styles?

Sadaajit — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:31:31 +0000

It is interesting to see different work styles. My husband and I are almost like oil and vinegar. He wants everything in order before he starts on anything. I like to just grab things and wing it. He spends hours making sure every words and graphic is infinitesimally in the right place. I just get them close enough. He likes to read volumes and go to every web site he can find before he starts a project. I take what I know and add to it as I need to. He hates to take classes. I love to take classes. He likes to brainstorm for hours, I’m more of a brain shower type person, usually about 30 minutes max and I’m ready for some action.

I can say that our working together is a little the same, however, we are able to get projects completed and successfully ran a business together for about 8 years, so the answer to the question is, yes! The big thing you have to do is realize the differences and then find the similarities. Then you capitalize on the similarities and use the differences for the betterment of the project. For instance, my husband is great at researching information we might need. I’m great at getting something done before the deadline.

You can’t dwell on the differences. You can’t expect to change the other person. If you do either of those you’ll be dead in the water, or worse you’ll be caught underwater in turbulence. You need to know who is a rower, who’s a caller, who’s can steer, who can be the lookout for big rocks, etc. Once you’ve defined the areas that you’ll be able to work together the real trick is in being able to make the difference work together, too. I think it just takes practice and patience. Also, understand that once in awhile you’re just going to want to strangle them and try to make them do it your way. When that happens, get up, go for a walk (even if it’s only to the water cooler) and regain your composure, get control of your need to micro-manage and then return with the renewed vision of using everything to the advantage of the business.

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From Home

Sadaajit — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:24:57 +0000

The Author of this post is Darius Boone

Working from home means being able to be there when the kids get home from school.

Working from home is really nice for me. I love being able to be home with the kids but also use my clear service providers to stay in touch with the office from any room –sometimes I even email with my colleagues while my car’s in park waiting for the kids to get out of school! My mom always worked so I really wanted something different for my family since I missed her and hated being a latch-key kid. I think it’s great to be able to be there when they get off the bus and I know how nice it is for me to be home when they’re sick and whatnot so I don’t have to worry about taking time off work. I love being a mom far more than I like working but it’s nice to be able to do both and not have to worry about losing one or the other. I think it’s fun to be there for my kids when they need me the most but I’m happy I’m able to work, too.

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