Dot Net Dreamer Business Technology Blog
Latest Tips, Tools, & Technology to Build Your Business
Strategic Plan In One Line
Jan 9th
Play your "chips" right and you could have a winning business.
In preparing to start new businesses, it’s not a bad idea to talk to friends, relatives, and acquaintances about their experiences. Find out what worked well for them and what didn’t, so you don’t have to make the same mistake over again.
Recently my husband and I were talking to a friend that has had a business for over 20 years. We asked him about what software he uses, etc., but the best bit of information he gave us was the one line strategic plan idea.
When you start up a business More >
Useful Rewards
Jan 6th
A beautiful desk water set reward like this would be useful as well.
Over the years I’ve received a number of rewards for various things, employee of the month, contribution rewards, etc. Most of them have been inexpensive wooden plaques that I wouldn’t hang anywhere, so really they were a waste of money.
When considering offering your employees some sort of reward think about something they could reuse, or something that is like a work of art. For instance I saw these beautiful Art Glass Trophies online. They are really stunning pieces of art that I would have enjoyed having on my desk More >
Keeping The Books Straight
Jan 5th
Now you can know your bottom line with a click of the mouse.
One of the most, if not the most, critical part of your business is its financial stability. Without that you can have the greatest customer service, superb products or services, and the best location or most beautiful offices and you can still fail miserably.
Many people who go into business don’t have any accounting background, heck a good portion of them probably don’t even balance their checkbook every month. Lots of people, especially young adults, keep their financial standing in their head. During college days that might not be More >
Assessing For The New Year
Jan 2nd
Time to explode into 2012 with creativity and perseverance.
Over the last week of 2011 I was contemplating what’s next in 2012. I have two businesses in the process of being opened and wanted to look at what I need to really make them happen in the next 30 to 60 days.
One of the things I realized is that I wasn’t used to working on my own, setting my own schedule, etc. I wrote about that a short time ago. However, I was thinking of what I could do to remedy the fact that I’m constantly finding myself spending more time More >
Choosing The Perfect Web Site Name
Dec 30th
Well, I’m starting to figure out what name I want for my business, or at least what web name I want. Today it is imperative that you pick a name that a lot of people are searching for, but also that you include something that will make you stand out for a particular group of people you are trying to reach.
For instance, maybe you want to sell cameras online. Well of course you’d try to have “camera” in your website name, but what other special features could you include to hone it down, so that you’ll pop up on the More >
Preparing To Be CRM Savvy
Dec 26th
OK, we’re at the starting gate. My husband and I are just finishing up getting all our piles of papers entered into the computer, so that we can manage tasks and information. As we settle in to complete our business plan, we’ll be looking at Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications.
One thing we’ve always had a hard time with was keeping track of our clients/students. After you reach a certain number, which was around 100 for us, you just lose the ability to keep track of who you’ve done what with. So, instead of trying to figure out a way to More >
The True Dollar Signs of Business
Dec 23rd
Just remember we're all one big, happy family!
During the holidays many businesses go crazy promoting buying their stuff. I have been getting at least one email a day from several companies trying to get me to buy something from them this holiday season.
Here in the west it seems that the holidays have turned into a buying frenzy with everyone, especially children, coming up with more and more elaborate and expensive gifts they expect to receive.
The true dollar signs for businesses are in repeat customers. I received some great words of wisdom from my sister recently. She’s been extremely successful in More >
My Own Biz
Dec 19th
Guest post written by my buddy Aldo Mays
I love having my own business and I really love working with food. People are my second passion so having this coffee shop is just the best thing you can ever imagine, you know? I get to spend all day talking with people about what excites them and what kind of food they eat and I also get to be really creative when it comes to making things in the kitchen and coming up with new menu items. There’s a lot of back of the house stuff, too, like going to smallbusiness.xo to look More >
Some Decisions Finally Made
Dec 16th
We're trying out Task Coach for organizing all our to-dos.
For the past two to three weeks my husband and I have been looking at programs to manage our budding businesses. We had some pretty strict requirements and it took a long time to find one that came close to meeting our needs.
The first thing we looked for was a task management program. We were very intrigued by Toodledo, but a little leery of having all our information on the cloud. We live out in the country and every once in awhile we’ll have an outage in our Internet carrier from More >
10 Ways To Win Customer Loyalty
Dec 12th
Customers fear there'll be nothing but a skeleton left by the time their questions are answered.
It’s the peak of the holiday season. Most retail businesses make upward of 75% of their profit from black Friday to the end of the year. If your business isn’t raking in the dough right now, it might be because customers are frustrated and having a hard time getting what they want, be it products or service. Here are ten ways you can make it smooth sailing for customers to easily get what they want.
- Really fix the top ten complaints by customers. If you aren’t More >