TheCloudTech

What are you really selling

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:06:51 GMT

You cannot write an effective sales letter or advertisement
until you answer one question.

Once you’ve answered this question, your letter will almost
write itself.This question is: “What am I really selling?”

Am I selling cosmetics? Or am I selling the hope of the
reader becoming irresistible to men?

Am I selling clothes? Or am I selling a transformed life
that will lead to romance and success?

Am a selling a car? Or am I selling excitement, comfort,
and an image for the driver?

Am I selling refrigerators? Or am I selling fewer trips to
the grocery store because of all the added space, plus
dramatically
improving the appearance of the kitchen because of the fine
cherry wood paneling?

Am I selling vacations? Or am I selling an experience that
the reader and her children will remember for the rest of
their lives?

Am I selling gym memberships with treadmills and weights?
Or am I selling a new body that will make people more
attractive to the opposite sex and give them a longer,
healthier life?

Am I selling a seminar? Or am I selling a way to give those
who enroll an advantage over their peers and competitors
that will last a lifetime?

Am I selling admission to Harvard? Or membership in an
exclusive club that will lead to a more profitable career
and open the doors of opportunity throughout life?

Am I selling a subscription to an interesting magazine? Or
access to information the reader can’t do without and can’t
get anywhere else?

Is Starbucks selling coffee? Or is Starbucks selling an
experience, a place to hang out, and even a social life?

Are florists selling roses? Or the easiest way for a guy to
get back on the good side of his wife or girlfriend?

Is the phone company selling communications equipment? Or a
way to stay connected to friends and loved ones?

Is Viagra selling a fix for erectile dysfunction? Or a more
exciting, more enjoyable love life?

Understanding exactly what it is you are really selling
will improve the results of your marketing exponentially.

Create a successful marketing campaign

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:54:35 GMT

Your marketing campaign will be successful if it has these
four essential elements:

1. You must offer a product or service that people want.
This may seem obvious, and is just another way of saying,
“You’ll have a very difficult time selling ice to Eskimos
or down parkasto people who live in Ecuador.”

It’s amazing how many business people keep pounding their
heads against the wall trying to persuade people to want
theirwonderful product.Those businesses are not around
long.The greatest marketing plan and salesmen in the world won’t
succeed in selling products people don’t want. This is why
your product development people must also be marketers.

So often I’ve seen brilliant software architects scream,
howl, jump up and down, and treat the client like he’s an
idiot when the client doesn’t like the software.
“This software is great! This software is brilliant!” screams the software architect. “Why can’t they see that?”

The problem is the client doesn’t like the software,
doesn’t need it, doesn’t want it, and wasn’t looking for
it. And there is nothing a marketer can do to change that
fact.

Much better to find out what the customers want first,
and then develop the product tailored precisely
and exactly to what they want.
This is called “market research.”

The product or service you are selling is critical to your
marketing.The #1 rule of successful marketing is: If you
offer people what they want, you eliminate the need
for salesmanship.

2. You must have an attention-getting, compelling
message that distinguishes you from your competitors.
People are bombarded all day long with messages—TV ads,
radio ads,junk mail ads, and Internet ads. You must have a
message that stands out. You must have a message that gets the attention of those who would want your product . . . if they knew about it.

3. You must have a way to find those who want what you
are offering.If you have no way to systematically and
precisely find those who would want your product or service
if they knew about it, your business will have a very tough time surviving. You must match your message to those who will be interested in hearing your message. You must have a “Message to Market Match.”
This is just another way of saying you need a list of qualified prospects or leads, or you need a way of compiling such a list. There
are two ways you can find qualified prospects. You can rent
lists of people who have bought similar products to the one
you are selling.

The mailing list business is an enormous industry. So
that’s one source of names. The other way is to compile
your own one-of-a-kind list. There are many ways to do this, which I will get into later. The point here is that acquiring or compiling a list
of qualified prospects or leads is essential to your marketing.

4. You must have a cost-effective delivery system for
your message. Delivery tools at your disposal for getting
your message out include: direct mail, email, radio ads, TV
ads, newspaper and magazine ads, ads on the Internet, the
telephone, the Yellow Pages, classified ads, seminars, webinars,
teleconferences, books, special reports, newsletters, business cards, bulletin
boards, signs, and even the door-to-door sales calls (which we want to avoid). And there are countless variations within these categories.

You will need to choose the delivery tool that’s
appropriate for your business model, product, and budget. A
hammer is a great tool if you want to drive a nail into a
piece of wood, but a very bad tool if you need to saw the wood in half.

dbdprints
Business Marketing Solutions
877-400-9321

True definition of marketing.

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:51:10 GMT

Let's first understand the true definition of marketing.

Marketing is not sales. Sales are an element of marketing.
But if your marketing is done right, you should never need
to make another sales call. You'll just be taking in orders
and shipping product. Or you'll just be accepting the jobs
you want to do. No more scrambling for work.

No more wondering how the bills for next month will be paid.
Marketing is not really selling at all. Marketing is the
process of putting bait in the water to attract leads, and
then putting your leads into a sifting and sorting system
that will allow you to identify your most likely customers.

You then keep putting yourself and your product in front of
your most qualified leads until they want to buy. You give
your leads great information in the form of newsletters and
emails that will keep them interested-not heavy-handed
sales pitches, but valuable free information that they look
forward to receiving. This, in summary, is how you
transform yourself from being an annoying pest into a
welcome guest in your prospect's home.

That's marketing, not sales.
Yes, sales are the end result of all your marketing.
Certainly you can't make a penny until a sale is made. The
sale is everything in business. The sale is the one and
only goal of all Business. But you are no longer a salesman.
You are amarketer. And there's a world of difference.
Good marketers are rich.

Salesmen are almost all
Poor and struggling, like Willie Loman in Arthur Miller's
Death of a Salesman. Not happy story. You don't want to be
Willie Loman. You want to be Bill Gates, Ross Perot, or
Donald Trump. These men are marketers. These men don't make
sales calls. And neither should you.

Even if you are in a sales position-say, selling cars or
selling houses-never think of yourself as a salesman.
The great salesmen are really marketers. They aren't
pounding the pavement and making cold calls.
Marketing is working smart.

Selling is working stupid. Be a marketer, not a salesman.
Study marketing. Live and breathe marketing. And your life
will be so much more pleasant and lucrative. Marketing is
your strategy. Marketing is your road map. Marketing is
your system. Marketing is all that goes into laying the
groundwork and establishing the preconditions that end in a
sale.

And if the marketing is done right, you don't really need a
sales force. What you need are customer service people and
order takers. What you need is a mechanism, a system, to
handle all the business that pours in, seemingly magically,
seemingly on its own, almost out of thin air.

Except it's not magic, on its own, or out of thin air. The
customers and clients that will line up at your door and
swamp your business are the result of careful planning and
execution of your overall marketing strategy.
Stay tuned for email 2
See you tomorrow

Dbdprints
877-400-9321

Marketing must come first

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:44:10 GMT

The true mission of all business

Most companies have a marketing division, a product
development division, and a customer service division. Most
companies think of these as three separate and distinct
functions.

Very often the product development people never talk to the
marketing people and the marketing people never talk to the
product development people. Meanwhile, the customer service
people have almost non stature in the company and are
thought of mainly as clerks.

There are also administrative people who do things like
accounting and make sure the elevators work and that
everyone has a computer and a desk.

The administrative people often have little idea of what
the company even does, much less any sense of the marketing
strategy.

What catastrophic mistakes these are.
Marketing should never be a “division” or a
“Department” within a company. Instead, the entire company
Should be about Marketing.

Everyone in the company should be involved in
Marketing. A receptionist is not a low-wage worker; he or
She is one of your vital marketers.

Your receptionist and those who answer the phones are the
voice of your company to your customers and clients. Your
accounting people are not bean counters, but should be
integrally involved in making your marketing more efficient
and productive. Everyone in every company should understand
that their paychecks come from one and only one source:
customers.

Without customers, without sales, there are no paychecks.
Everyone in every company should be thinking all the time
about how to create happy experiences for customers.
Everyone in the company should be first and foremost a
marketer.

The chairman of the company should think of almost nothing
else but marketing. The product development people should
think of marketing first when they develop their products.
What good is it to develop a great product or provide a
great service that no one wants?

All products must be developed with the market for the
product at the forefront. “Do our prospects and customers
want this thing we’re making?” is the question the product
development people must always ask.

Meanwhile, the finance people, the accountants, and the
lawyers should not ask, “How can we make our lives easier?”
Instead they should ask, “How can we make it easier for
people to do business with us? Do we really need to require
our customers to fill out all these forms when they buy? Do
we really need to require our customers to sign long
agreements that no one reads? Do we really need these awful
disclaimers in tiny print on our order forms?”

The janitor is not a janitor. A janitor is a key marketing
person whose job is to make sure the place looks neat and
clean—like a company people will want to do business with.
No matter what business you are in, your company should be
a marketing company first—because marketing by definition
means “creating happy customers and clients.”

Dbdprints
Business Marketing Solutions

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:11:59 GMT

Remote PC Support- Small business owners tired of Microsoft and their upgrades? Need more computing power but corporate finances little low? Looking for a better way to track clients and leads at low cost? Need to have you PC maintained to keep you office running smoothly. If you answered yes to any of these questions we can help, call now conversations are still free at dbdcloudconsulting.com

How To build a website in 5 minutes

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:44:35 GMT

You know you need a website for yourself or your organization. Now the only question is how you are going to go about doing it without breaking the bank. But at the same time, you don't want it to look cheap either, it needs to look professional and be easy to change when changes are needed.

Having a web site today has become a necessity for individuals and organizations alike. Your online presence matters much in the global world we live in, especially if you want to be heard, to make a difference, then having your website is essential.

Making your own website is even more important if you want to do business online, or want to promote your products or services online. An effective website can do wonders in the marketing domain and get you the sales you desperately need. What’s more is that a mere website can change you from having a local presence to having a global one.

So what do you do if you want to have a website? The first thoughts that come to mind are thoughts that will send jitters down your spine. Instantly when you think of making a professional, classy website, with a website design that is catchy, you think of hiring professional web designers, making them understand how you want your website to be, paying them hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to make the website and then paying them more, and possibly having to wait days or weeks, for every change you want in the future. That is sure to make you weary and your pocketbook thin. In the old days (a few years ago) that used to be about the only choice you had unless you wanted to grind it out on your own trying to learn HTML coding from scratch. Yuck!
Now with CSS programming, it's even more difficult to do on your own.

Fast forward to today: Now even a rank newbie can have their own professional website in just a few minutes. There are now some great options to make your very own website yourself with hardly any knowledge of programming or HTML or any of those complicated things. You can make your own website design, choose from a range of website templates and fill out the content the way you want, and, if you get the right website builder, you can make changes any time you want, whenever you want without it costing you anything extra. Making your own website has now become an affordable, do-it-yourself and easy thing to do, if, and I say if, you choose the right one.
But beware: choose the wrong web builder, and it could be a nightmare.
What you are looking for is an affordable, workable, professional looking website building tool preferably with a reasonable monthly fee of no more than $50 (to start) and preferably no contract. If you see them ask for a long-term contract, you should step back and reconsider.
About:
Other options to look for in a web page builder is a user-friendly interface that will take you right through the website designing and website publishing process from start to finish. You want to be able to choose from a range of website templates, and you want to be able to change the writing and pictures on your website anytime you desire, even at 2am in the morning, for no extra cost. With the right website builder, there is no need to buy or master expensive and difficult to learn graphics programs. Less effort, less time, less money and better results can be had with the proper website building program.

Try our web builder tool now free

CrossLoop Badge

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:14:45 GMT

CrossLoop Badge

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:41:12 GMT

VPN for small business productivity

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:03:23 GMT

As workforces get more and more decentralized and telecommuting becomes more widespread, businesses of all sizes have come to depend on virtual private networks, or VPNs. A VPN is a secure, private network that runs on a public network (usually the Internet). VPN's to your network, just as if they were at their desks in your office. If you or your employees are routinely away from your office and need access to your company's network, a VPN is an inexpensive way to increase productivity — without sacrificing security.

The name "virtual private network" gives you a clue about how VPNs actually work. VPN software programs "carve out" a section of the Web, and allow only authorized users to access it. This virtual network runs on top of an existing network and is private. Hence the name.

Users who provide the correct login information are granted access to the VPN gateway at the office. Once they're connected though the gateway, they can access the network just as if they were at their desks — reading and sending e-mail, opening and storing files, or working on specific local applications.

To create a secure link between a mobile user and the network, you need a VPN client and a VPN gateway. The VPN client is a software application that's installed on the mobile computer of the remote user, and the gateway is a program or computer on the network end that lets in authorized users and keeps out unauthorized ones.

To provide additional security, the client encrypts data before it sends it out, and the gateway decodes it once it arrives. This communication between client and gateway is known as tunneling.

Even a one-person company can reap the benefits of VPN technology. Both Windows Server and Windows XP have built-in VPN capability, so if your LAN runs on Windows Server, it's just a matter of enabling and configuring the VPN features. That's easier said than done, but you don't have to be a computer science major to do it, either.

Of course, there are many non-Microsoft alternatives, too — many designed for the home PC user. Many firewall applications also come with VPN capability, as a VPN gateway is very similar to a firewall. Both let trusted traffic in and keep intruders out.

Get Free Computer Consulting and Quotes

6 Tips To Gain New Clients

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:54:49 GMT

6 Tips To Gain New Clients

If you are having difficulty adding new clients to your client list, you need to remember that closing sales is not as difficult as you might be thinking. Here are 6 tips to gain new clients and watch your agency grow and prosper. You'll be a closing sales and generating revenue in no time.

1. You Can't Be Pushy

If you are pushy with your clients, you'll loose them. In fact, that doesn't just apply to insurance sales. Anytime you are selling if you are pushing your client around and annoying them they won't be purchasing anything from you. You've had that annoying salesperson when you're out shopping. Don't be that person.

If you are kind and you are considerate, it will make a significant difference in the number of insurance policies you are actually able to sell. Your client needs to feel like you are their to aid them in improving their life, and help them to secure their health and well-being for years to come.

2. Honesty Is Key

Don't beat around the bush, and don't stretch the truth. Right from the beginning it's important to be honest about what it is, you are offering the client including its pros and cons. You need to be honest about what the product can do for their life. When you do this, you'll come across, as caring, respectful, and honest and your client will appreciate this, increasing the likelihood that you will get the sale.

You want to watch for verbal cues that your client shows to determine how interested they are in the services you are offering. Your client is going to ask you questions about the service you are offering. They might ask if it will be easy to add a family member or they might even criticize previous policies they used to have or maybe even still hold. They might tell you that they are glad you offer such a service or that it had never been offered to them before. Read the verbal cues and act accordingly.

3. Be An Expert

Nothing will send your potential client running faster than if you don't know what services you offer, if you must constantly look things up, or if you simply don't appear authoritative. When you appear as an expert, and when you know your services inside out, the client feels they can trust you and you come across as really having their best interests at heart.

4. Ask Questions To Answer Questions

This is an excellent marketing strategy that actually increases the close rate significantly, because the client is forced to choose your service without ever realizing it. You simply answer a question by asking a question. If the client asks if it is easy to add my family member to their policy, you would answer, "Would you like to add your children now?"

5. Give Your Client Options

An insurance agent that's effective always tailors the insurance plan to what the client wants. It can change at any moment during a conversation, which is where the clues are taken from. When you suggest insurance policies that are based on the clients needs and wants they know you care about improving the quality of their lives.

Clients Need Time To Think

You should always give your client time to think. You can subtly push them in a direction but you never want overload them or come across as pushy. Your potential client is going to need time to think and digest what you have told them.

There you have it - 6 tips to gain new clients quickly and effectively. Use these tips and you'll see a significant increase in your close rate. You should also consider purchasing qualified insurance leads from a company like InsuranceLeadz.com where you'll get leads that are already verified as legitimate leads. It's what can give you the edge over the competition, so why not start gaining new clients today?

Google apps(free) or Exchange Server( $2500)

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:21:11 GMT

Why are so many small companies still dealing with the Microsoft epidemic? We consider it an epidemic because it's a corporate sickness that we have learned to accept even if it cost us thousands per year to deal with. Case in point exchange server, it can be argued why exchange server is a viable option for large enterprises, what I find most amusing is when a company of 20 or less computers will defend there position on the choice of exchange server over free applications like ZOHO or Google. An exchange server is used for email collaboration and calender sharing there are more features but this is the main reason for an exchange server.

Exchange Server first must be configured by a certified server expert, then as adds and changes begin the cost of ownership of this solution begins to grow as well as whenever Microsoft decides they no longer want to support it in lieu of their bigger and better solution you will then be forced to upgrade. Don't believe me? You want proof windows 95, 98, ME, 2000,XP, and soon to come windows 7. There is the proof of the Microsoft epidemic no matter how good a system operates Microsoft will always want more money, your money, and as long you remain under the guise of MS you will be continually pushed to the new product....period.

A New frontier, options like ZOHO and Google apps can create the same functionality as the MS products at fractions of the cost of the MS alternative, this is where the naysayers will have you to believe that somehow these solutions are inferior or not as secure as the MS option to that I say nonsense. Small business owner are consistenly being instructed about the security issues of computing although on the other hand we do internet banking, credit card processing, online purchasing and so much more via the internet. So how is that using a remote solution or cloud solution can be detrimental to your business again utter nonsense.

Using a cloud solution may be detrimental to business, their business so of course major corporations software vendors, and the technicians that install them will not want you to use free or low cost solution. So below is a video on google docs and we are a consulting firm that will steer you in the most profitable direction for your business so enjoy the video and call us if you need a question or two answered. 877-400-9321

Windows server $2500 or My book World edition server $400 you decide

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:59:50 GMT

Recently we had a small home office 5 computers, husband and wife team with 2 employees and a graphic designer. The Problem: they were looking for a centralized storage system were all files could be stored and shared but the owners did not want financial data to be accessible to the entire office. Our client needed to keep cost down but productivity high,this is pretty common for us since many small business owners start out on boot strap funding. Prior to calling us our competitors came in with the traditional windows client server setup at a cost of $5000 to $9000 for this simple office setup.

Our solution: First thing was to go out and get computers that were running Windows XP (we would have preferred to use Ubuntu but our client denied the OS) Quick Note: on software Windows Vista sucks my apologies Microsoft but it is not a good OS no matter how much they spend trying to convince me. Our solution was to install the Ethernet western digital my book as their file server with its simple security feature we were able to make folders accessible with password protection. This enabled the client to have a central storage system and keep the financial data secure from all but the owners (it also has remote access). We recently went back in to add more storage for the client so we just connected another WD World Book to the existing one and presto another 1 tb of storage available.

Clients Final cost is as follows:
5 New Computer @ 400 each from dell $2500
1 TB World Book -$350
Installation-$500
Total Cost $3350

As of this writing our client is also using SaaS as well to keep software cost down and support the 2 employees since those employees now work from home, but we will save that for another writing.

End Note: Technology has transformed the way we work and the entire office structure, unfortunately many computer technicians are not accepting this change due to lower profit margins. If you are a small business owner, you may want to use a computer consultant rather than a technician since most consultants are unbiased because they are getting paid from their knowledge versus the products you purchase.

Software as a Service ( quick tutorial)

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:59:01 GMT

Software as a service is a must have for small business. Using SaaS or Cloud Computing small business owners will dramatically decrease hardware and software cost. Another key benefit to Cloud computing is the power of the applications that are now available to small business owners that were previously only available to larger corporations. If you have any questions regarding cloud computing or software as a service give us a call we are always here to help the small business.
877-400-9321
thecloudtech@gmail.com

Hey Small Business Owner Ubuntu Vs Linux maybe its time for a change (and save money too)

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:57:01 GMT

By Mean Dean

Last Thursday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer created a virtual firestorm when he said the following about the much maligned Vista operating system:

Windows Vista: A work in progress. [Laughter, applause.] A very important piece of work, and I think we did a lot of things right, and I think we have a lot of things we need to learn from. Certainly, you never want to let five years go between releases. Can we just sort of kiss that stone and move on? - Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog, SeattlePI.com

While I’m glad to see Mr. Ballmer’s frankness regarding the ongoing issues with their most recent operating system offering, on the other hand I need to ask the simple question any and all individuals involved in supporting a church or charity’s IT operations needs to ask:

If my office, contact management, presentation, web administration, and other applications are all web-based, then what is the value proposition of sticking it out with Microsoft’s expensive work in progress, versus a more cost effective work in progress such as Ubuntu? - Dean Peters, Heal Your Church Website

In other words, did Steve Ballmer accidentally commit an act of software seppuku through this self-inflicted F.U.D.? Or is this a CEO’s way of cutting Vista losses so more development resources can be relegated to Microsoft’s Singularity efforts?

I can’t tell. Meaning, I am in no more of a position of visibility to clearly see if that’s what’s actually happening here than Microsoft Vice President Chris Capossela appears to have of Microsoft Work’s competition from Google Apps. Such ‘fog of war‘ is never a good thing when making potentially expensive operational decisions.

What I can tell for now is that:

Ubuntu, also a work in progress, offers a platform that won’t require expensive hardware and software upgrades in the short to mid-term;
Online office suites such as Zoho and Google Apps allow me to work collaboratively and concurrently across diverse locations and computer platforms; and
Microsoft continues to move the goal posts, perpetually engaging in long-standing practice to radically change applications, operating systems and programming languages.

In other words, if good stewardship means making decisions that won’t cost my church or charity in terms of money, man hours, and madness, then why stick with Vista? Especially when a majority of the work is occurring not just in a single office, but also in the homes and office desktops of the various laypersons and volunteers whom shoulder the brunt of the workload and expense?

What about you and your organization? Can you afford to feed dollars and hours into a work in progress that will likely require upgrading not only hardware, but a number of the residing desktop applications … or is it time to consider moving off the desktop and into the web space?

This one has been buggin’ me all weekend, so comments and opinions please …

… meanwhile, some additional links on the Ubuntu vs. Microsoft Vista topic:

Vista versus The Gutsy Gibbon - Ubuntu 7.10 - ZDNet
Information Week - Ubuntu Linux Vs. Windows Vista: The Battle For Your Desktop
Ubuntu vs. Vista, Information Week vs. Ubuntu News - Ubuntu News
DesktopLinux.com - A Vista vs. Linux Matchup
Operating System Showdown Ubuntu Vs. Vista

Small business owner use SaaS to save money and increase productivity

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:18:20 GMT

Small business owners SaaS may be the next thing you need to decrease cost for inter office productivity. Microsoft has although slow to the coming and overpriced has entered the SaaS arena. Luckily for you the small business owner you have far more (free) options then dealing with the monopoly giant. Some great services to look at are ZOHO which is truly designed for the Small Office Home Office or Google Apps designed for the same target market. After reviewing the video below hopefully you will have a great idea on what the services can do to decrease your IT cost. Contact us if you have any questions on a cloud implementation for your office the call is free so call now 877-400-9321

Why small business should use a CRM software.

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:40:29 GMT

CRM system contains a vast depositary of data, data that can be exploited in your marketing campaigns to allow relevant and targeted literate to be distributed. While CRM systems can be hugely beneficial to your marketing campaigns, some have integrated features that are designed specifically to allow marketers to extract the useful data held with in the system. Some systems such as Sales Logix have specifically designed marketing modules to add extra functionality to marketing departments.

Generically these add-ons are divided into various features encompassing; campaign management, Email marketing, dynamic segmentation, campaign reporting and lead capture. Utilising each of these features can add an extra dimension to your Marketing Mix and have a real impact on the success of your marketing campaigns.

CRM systems can be excellent organisation tools, allowing members of staff to keep track of tasks, to-dos and targets. Campaign Management sections in marketing modules allow marketing staff to track every stage of the marketing process from budgets and released material, to generated leads and follow through sales.

CRM systems can help to ensure that marketing proposals stay on track and are delivered on time, and in budget. Essentially marketing modules can reduce the amount of time spent setting up and maintaining marketing campaigns. Campaign management functionality can be of huge benefit to marketing personnel and can improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

The real marketing benefit of a CRM system is the wealth of information that is stored with in it. Names, contact details, purchase preferences and location can all provide marketing departments with an edge. Without the means to extract this information, it is essentially useless. Good Marketing modules can automatically create contact groups based on preset criteria to allow you to send only the most targeted and relevant information.

Furthermore, some CRM systems have the ability to create dynamic groups, groups that are updated automatically as and when user preferences change. This feature can be especially useful to marketers who market in the consumer rather then the business-to-business market due to the constant changes in purchase preferences.

Some CRM systems now include features to allow E-marketing materials to be sent to the contacts held with in the database. Utilising segmentation functionality, marketing modules can allow high quality HTML emails to be sent to groups within the companies' database. Some marketing CRM programmes will also take care of unsubscribe and send to a friend features offering a real alternative to more expensive email marketing programmes.

Marketing modules, such as the one within Sales Logix allow marketing personnel to analyse the success of their marketing campaigns. Using the campaign reporting functionality to check click through, opening and response rates can provide marketing departments with a real insight into what they are doing well and what needs to be improved. Good quality campaign reports provide a real repository of information that can prove invaluable to businesses across all sectors.

There can be little doubt that the majority of businesses will benefit from marketing modules attached to their CRM systems. Integration with CRM products allows for useful data to be utilised to its full potential, furthermore the organisational benefits that campaign management features offer will be invaluable to the majority of marketing departments, no matter how large or small.

Microsoft Office vs Open Office

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 01:12:48 GMT

My take on the new Microsoft Office? They've made steady improvements to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint - although I don't believe folks are going to rush out and upgrade as soon as possible (especially with an unrealistic price point). There are plenty of free Office-like application alternatives out there, including OpenOffice and ThinkFree Office Online. You can get away with using any one of them to create, edit, or view these basic formats. How often do you use your word processor, spreadsheet, or presentation programs? 90% of the time, you use 10% of their features. The only Microsoft Office app that I use constantly and consistently is Outlook, for the very reason that there's no other usable PIM on the Windows platform (although I have recently moved to thunderbird) for my email. I was hoping that the next version of Outlook would win me over from Outlook 2000, but I fear my hopes were dashed. I really don't like the new Ribbon-driven interface, and there's no falling back to “classic mode” (according to them). I'll reserve final judgement for the final Office code release, naturally. The Outlook team could only win me over by improving the client's non-Exchange performance, UI snappiness, and general layout esthetics. I'm not holding my breath.

WWW.BIZMANCONSULTING.COM

Understanding cloud computing

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:54:16 GMT

Small Business Consulting

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:35:30 GMT

The Power of Personalization

Use these 3 smart tactics to personalize marketing messages and increase sales.

By Kim T. Gordon | September 12, 2007

Marketers have found a new opportunity for more intimate and direct communication with consumers. Not so long ago, families gathered around the TV; now individuals surf the web and watch video on personal, handheld devices. Consumers have grown comfortable with--and even come to expect--a one-on-one dialogue with marketers. And personalized marketing messages are a smart way to get customers' attention and deliver communications that increase sales.

As a small-business owner, you're in the enviable position of interacting with customers you know on a first-name basis. You can more easily maintain a database with in-depth customer information than larger businesses. The key is to use this important data to ensure your communications strike a personal chord with customers.

Personalization is a powerful marketing tactic that's easy to incorporate. Here are three ways to create messages that personally appeal to customers.

1. Transform mass e-mail into one-to-one.
E-mail is an exceptional tool for small businesses thanks to its low cost of implementation and high return on investment when sent to an in-house, permission-based customer or prospect list. While e-mails range from product promotions to soft-sell e-newsletters, in some instances, a one-to-one approach can have a more powerful impact.

For example, a coaching client of mine, Porro & Associates in Washington, DC is headed by Jeffrey Porro, Ph.D., a talented and experienced writer who specializes in crafting op-ed pieces and speeches for organizations and top executives. His prospect list consists of public relations and grassroots advocacy groups as well as major associations. Not only does Porro send them a monthly e-newsletter, but he also regularly sends personalized e-mails with examples of successes he has achieved for clients. Each e-mailing of this kind generates Porro & Associates several meetings and continues to bring in high-level work.

When Porro landed an op-ed piece in the Chicago Tribune for one of his advocacy clients, he e-mailed copies of it to his prospect database, personally addressing each individual by name. The e-mail had a simple lead-in introducing the article as something of interest, followed by a suggestion that the prospect meet with him to talk about doing similar work for their organization, and closed with Porro's e-mail signature.

For this e-mail tactic to work, the simpler, more direct and less "crafted" your message appears, the better. Avoid graphics and other advertising design elements--including photos--which you might use in less personal forms of e-mail solicitations.

2. Personalize your offers.
Whether you're a retailer, e-commerce merchant or direct-mail marketer, if you sell merchandise, you need to know your customers' purchases, how much they spend per sale, and when or how often they buy. Knowledge of past behavior is a valuable tool for predicting future purchases. Not only can this information guide your business and merchandising decisions, but it's also critical for creating personalized marketing messages that increase sales. For instance, suppose a customer purchased jogging pants out of a wide range of clothing from your website or catalog. By customizing an e-mail or direct-mail follow-up based on this purchase history, you could successfully sell this customer additional exercise attire and related products.

The key is to look at how Jane Doe shops and then personalize your offers to her based on her past purchases and preferences. Make your marketing follow the customer--not the other way around--and truly customize it to her needs. If you address your customer by name and make relevant product offers, the one-to-one relationship you develop will keep her coming back for additional purchases.

3. Put it in writing.
What better way to make your message stand out than to express it in a handwritten note? After all, with fast online and mobile communications the norm, a handwritten note emphasizes that you've taken the time and thought to communicate something in a special way.

Entrepreneurs nationwide swear by the effectiveness of personal, handwritten notes for making a strong, positive impression. Send anything from thank you notes to meeting confirmations, depending on the type of business you operate and what you market. A financial management company in Norcross, Georgia, for example, markets primarily via networking, and its president follows up every contact with a handwritten note. It's a tactic that pays off, as the company boasts revenue growth of 25 percent year after year.

If you're in an industry where it's critical to build one-on-one relationships with prospects, it's a good idea to print fold-over notecards with your company logo to follow up with customers. Hand address the envelopes and apply real stamps--rather than run your cards through a postage meter--for a personal look that will get past screeners. If the first task of effective marketing is to get noticed and stand out from the clamor of competing advertisers, then handwritten notecards and other personalized messages will achieve the goal. dbdprints 500 business cards full color front and back $19.98

Small Business Consulting

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:14:30 GMT

76 Smart Tech Solutions

Increase productivity, keep your tech safe, and spend your IT budget smarter with these business technology tips.

With all the hustle and bustle of running a business, you may have fallen out of touch with what's hot in technology and which of the latest and greatest gadgets can help you in your business. But never fear--from hardware to tech services, we've compiled these tips to bring you up to speed.

Start Controlling Your Tech--Before It Controls You
1. Increase Communication With Far-Flung Employees
It sounds basic, but the first step in setting up a technology solution for working with offsite employees is to figure out just what you need to do with your extended work force. Most growing businesses with multiple work sites will have two particular needs at the top of their list: the ability for employees to talk with each other on a minute-by-minute basis and the ability to have access to files away from the office. To add to the challenge, these needs have to be met at a price point that won't strain the budget.

Meeting these requirements doesn't require deep secrets or complex technology. Basically, it's about e-mail, telephones and IM. For e-mail, outsourcing can provide extra features, higher security and web access. For IM, you can use the many free solutions offered online. And if you want access to customers no matter what IM platform they're using, try chat clients like Trillian that allow you to cross platforms. And for that pesky file-sharing problem? Look for in-house servers that offer secure web access and online file sharing.

2. Use Wiki to Ease Collaboration
Chances are, you may be familiar with wiki by way of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia fed by contributions from thousands of people. A wiki is a web page that multiple users can collaborate on--it's generally basic in design and easy to use. Now, like the blogging phenomenon, wikis are starting to work their way into the business arena.

Ross Mayfield, CEO and co-founder of Palo Alto, California-based Socialtext, a group productivity and wiki solution provider, says wikis have two main benefits: They boost group productivity and also act as a business knowledge base where information is logged and easily accessible. The constantly-changing nature of wiki means it may never be completely finished, but it does remain up-to-date. Mayfield says candidates for wiki use include companies that generate a lot of documentation through groups, are team-project-oriented or seek a collaborative writing environment. Just freeing your inbox from the heaps of cc'ed e-mails and boosting productivity can be worth the investment.

3. Create a Continuity Strategy
You never know how much you depend on technology until you don't have access to it anymore. If a disaster strikes, you may not only suffer direct losses of data and hardware, but indirect losses due to downtime. But with some foresight and planning, you can avoid sustained downtime--and lost profits.

First, create a broad, holistic plan to ensure business continuity, not just disaster recovery. This plan should involve every part of your business, such as processes, operations, assets, employees and so on. Your overall goal: to prevent business disruption--then minimize it if it does occur. To this end, you should:

Conduct an impact analysis. How much downtime, loss of productivity, loss of data, loss of revenues and so on can your company sustain? For how long?
Develop a plan for dealing with mission-critical (revenue-impacting, customer-facing) functions and business-critical (back office, supply chain, e-mail) functions under various disruptive scenarios. Determine which business technologies to employ.
Educate your workers about the plan before a crisis occurs.
From time to time, revisit the plan to make sure it remains practicable and viable.

4. Do You Really Need That Tech?
Before you make a large tech expenditure, make sure you actually need whatever new technology you want to buy. Inventory all your current PCs, printers and software, and look for opportunities to consolidate purchases, standardize configurations and root out duplication. A recent study of IT purchasing by New York City consulting firm McKinsey & Co. included one example company that had 30 percent more printers than it needed. The company was also able to reduce PC configurations from 10 to three. To continue spending smart, pick a team of people--be sure to include at least one IT expert--and meet with them regularly to discuss what they need and how to save on it.

Protecting Your Business and Your Data
5. No More Passwords
Biometrics is the use of body measurements to identify people. These technologies rely on the uniqueness of the human body to identify individuals, literally measuring your biological features and behaviors. The technology can scan your fingertips, hands, face, iris, retina, voice pattern or even behavioral characteristics. Eventually, passwords may become unnecessary since biometrics provide a convenient replacement and don't require memorizing obscure combinations of letters and numbers.

Fingerprint identification is making its way into portable devices like cell phones, PDAs and laptops--hardware that's vulnerable when lost or stolen. Since businesses can't afford to lose their data, fingerprint readers make more sense than password protection. The appearance of fingerprint readers in cell phones is the most recent development (coming soon to the US), but they already exist on some laptops and PDAs. External fingerprint scanners have been available for a while, and are growing in popularity.

6. Protect Yourself From Identity Theft
What can you do to make sure your business information isn't stolen? How can you make sure that no one charges personal purchases to your accounts and ruins your business credit history? Limit the employees who have access to sensitive information, screen outsourcing companies thoroughly, and always encrypt sensitive data on your computer network. One form of business ID theft happens when criminals forge payroll checks against your business accounts, so always guard check stock like cash. And don't use preprinted check stock; instead, encourage direct deposit, and shred sensitive documents on a regular basis.

7. Catch 'Em on Camera
Wherever you need an extra set of eyes, a wireless video surveillance camera can help. Don't expect to see sharp details, especially in poor lighting situations, but do expect cameras you can monitor remotely via internet. Just plug them in wherever there's a power supply (although cameras without power cords are on the horizon). Just don't forget to enable your Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and password protection to keep your video signal away from wireless snoops.

8. Don't Let Power Surges Wipe You Out
A power conditioner is a device that hooks up between an electrical outlet and your electronic equipment to keep the flow of electricity constant. A UPS device, or uninterruptible power supply, is basically a battery back-up. It buys you time in case of a catastrophe because if the power goes down completely, the UPS kicks in and gives you a few precious minutes to save your work and shut down your computer. Higher-end UPS devices often come with handy software that automatically saves your work and shuts the computer down as needed.

Besides protecting you against full power outages, a UPS also acts as a surge protector, guarding against the sags and spikes that can cause equipment headaches. For added protection, look for a UPS with a phone jack. Running your modem line through a UPS protects your computer from "back door" damage. Don't forget that lightning strikes that cause sudden electrical spikes can travel through phone lines as well as electrical lines.

9. Back It Up Daily
It's crucial that you back up your business data every day. If you have a small amount of data (less than 1 Gigabyte), recordable CDs are inexpensive--you should be able to buy a year's supply for less than $200 at most office supply stores. You can save even more money by buying CD-RWs that can be erased and re-recorded over and over again.

Regularly check to make sure that you can actually recover data from your backup disk, tape or CD-ROM. Try downloading specific files from the disk onto your home PC or a computer that is configured differently from your office server. And make at least two backup disks, tapes or CD-ROMs, and keep one in a secure offsite location, protected from natural disasters and theft.

One more thing: Don't forget that whoever hosts your website may also suffer a disaster. If the computer server on which your website is located is destroyed, your site is gone. Make sure that your ISP or web hosting service gives you a CD-ROM containing all the HTML, Java scripts and other software code for your site. Whenever you update or change your site, be sure to get an updated CD-ROM for the entire site.

Ditch the Wires
10. Say No to Dead Spots
Antennas and repeaters are the two most popular ways to stretch your signal on the cheap. Directional and omnidirectional are two terms you'll hear a lot. The omni-directional antenna boosts the signal for 360 degrees, while the directional antenna focuses the extended signal in one direction. There are also Wireless PC Cards with antennas for laptops and desktop antennas that attach to a desktop wireless network card. When selecting range-extending hardware, check with your hardware's manufacturer to avoid compatibility snags.

Repeaters are usually more expensive than antennas. A repeater acts as a relay station to pick up your wireless signal and bounce it along into those hard-to-reach corners and dead spots. Keep in mind that repeaters effectively cut bandwidth while expanding range, so use them sparingly.

11. Mesh Networks
The next step in wireless networking may be mesh networking. Also called multihop networking, it extends the range and strength of a network by using multiple access points. The more nodes you have interconnecting, the better. Each node acts as a router and can talk to other nodes instead of having them all talk back to a main base station. That's a boon for flexibility and reliability: If one node goes down or is too busy, the rest can reroute the traffic. Mesh networking can be used to cover big areas, like an entire city, or older office buildings that give regular Wi-Fi setups fits. It can also extend networks without setting up new base stations.

12. Use Wi-Jacks
While Wi-Fi is a convenient advance, installing a large wireless network can be costly. Large offices and older buildings require special care to extend the network to every nook and cranny. Wi-Jacks are the latest hardware offering aimed at making Wi-Fi easier and cheaper for businesses. Wi-Jacks are Wi-Fi wall outlets that fit an access point into a standard data wall outlet (the kind you're familiar with for Ethernet use) so you avoid installing costly access points on the ceiling. Lower installation costs permit more of a grid approach to building out a wireless network--good news for larger networks, where getting adequate coverage is an issue. Small businesses will still be content with standard hardware, but if you're considering upgrading to wireless or moving into a new building, check into Wi-Jacks.

Great Data Storage Solutions for Your Business
13. Increasing Memory the Easy Way
If you're running a one-person show, your network probably consists of just your computer and printer. If you're hitting memory capacity on that one PC, your best storage solution is an external hard drive that connects via USB or Firewire cable. Installation is a snap since most USB cables now install themselves, and they're easy to use since they just appear on your computer as another drive. You can use your new external hard drive to back up your files or simply to save memory-intensive files and graphics. And at less than $200 bucks for 200GB, they're a bargain.

14. DVDs--Not Just for Movies Anymore
Want a quick and easy way to store data? For periodic backups, DVDs are still cost effective. DVDs with DL (double layer) technology allow you to burn up to 8.5GB of data on each disk, up from the standard 4.7GB. And while double-layer DVDs may be slightly more expensive and have lower burn speeds, they make up for it in capacity.

15. Access Stored Documents Online
Web-based storage services allow business users to store their documents and other digital files on third-party servers and are usually subscription-based. This helps businesses continue to operate if there are any outages, crises or disasters at the main office. It also allows convenient sharing of large files and real-time collaboration between a business and its partners without clogging company e-mail systems and servers. Online storage services also provide access to content from anywhere there's an Internet connection. They reduce the cost of maintaining, storing and managing hard-copy documents on-site and reduce the risk of lost or misfiled paper documents. They are also scalable as your business grows. One important caveat: Your business must use a broadband connection to take advantage of these online solutions.

16. Share--and Protect--Data
Network attached storage (NAS) devices are dedicated storage that hook up to any available Ethernet port, so they're on a LAN rather than a server. It's an easily scalable solution for storing, organizing and sharing data among users on one or several interconnected networks. A big portion of NAS hardware is made up of hard drives so they're ideal for backing up data. And if they're RAID-ready (Redundant Array of Independent Disks), that's a plus because RAID management software allows you to share and/or duplicate your data across multiple disks, so if one goes down, you can make a quick recovery.

17. Memory on the Go
External flash memory comes in all shapes and sizes, one of the most popular being mini USB drives that are about the size of a thumb and plug into your computer's USB port. Their small size makes them extremely convenient for transferring data and files from one computer to another and they can even be attached to your keychain. For these devices, memory capacity averages 512 megabytes, but can scale all the way to 16 gigabytes. Other flash memory formats include SmartMedia, Compact Flash, Memory Stick and Secure Digital cards.

Communicate Better With Technology
18. Automate Your Customer Communications
In a world where fewer and fewer customer interactions actually take place in person, implementing CRM technology can be an excellent way to provide a more personalized touch when working with your customers.

Sales force automation tools help track your pool of prospects as they move from interested leads to paying customers. Customer support automation improves the process of handling customers so you can better satisfy them while minimizing your costs. Whether you support your customers through a call center, in-person or online, applications range from live online help, searchable knowledge bases where customers can look up answers to previously asked questions, and case tracking to ensure no inquiry gets lost.

19. Reduce Your Phone Bills
VoIp (Voice over Internet Protocol) allows you to make phone calls over the internet. It's an increasingly popular tool that can help growing businesses save on their communications bills and it offers some enticing features. Find me/follow me services can forward phone calls to wherever your are and employees located in home offices can be hooked up with in-office extensions, so dialing is the same as if you're calling somebody two doors down in the same building. For frequent travelers, IP softphones can allow you to call from your hotel room.

Choose a provider based on call features, its experience with growing businesses, network quality and price. Check in with your in-house IT person or IT consultant about getting all your various offices onto the same VoIP page.

20. Simplify Your Life With One Inbox
Getting your voice mails, faxes, e-mails and instant messages in one inbox is now possible through unified messaging (UM), also known as unified communications (UC). You may already get e-mail forwarded to your handheld or smartphone, as well as use these devices to access your voice mail and to send text messages. But vendors are also now offering services that combine your voice, e-mail and fax inboxes into one account, accessible via a mobile phone or internet-connected computer. You can listen to your voice mail on your computer or your faxes and e-mails via telephone using text-to-speech technology. All this functionality costs around $10 a month depending on where you live and your messaging needs.

21. Choosing the Right E-Mail Provider
E-mail is considered the number-one productivity application for business owners, so choosing the right e-mail provider for your business is crucial. Like any other technology acquisition, e-mail must enable the specific goals of your business. So before approaching e-mail providers, first understand your business objectives and internal capabilities by considering the following issues:

The number of employees you have
Whether your business has a centralized or distributed structure (i.e., do you have any telecommuters or satellite offices?)
The applications you plan to operate with e-mail, including the size and types of anticipated attachments
The volume of interaction expected with customers, partners and suppliers
The frequency of use, time-of-day usage and other expectations
Whether you have enough in-house expertise to implement and manage an internal system or if you need to outsource that function

Finding the Best Tech Consultants and Service Providers
22. Finding an E-Mail Service Provider
Every business needs e-mail, but there are a wide variety of offerings on the market. So take your time, ask the right questions and conduct a thorough investigation of what's available. It's worth the extra effort to select the e-mail provider that's right for your business.

When searching, you'll want to interview several potential providers. Although the questions you'll ask them will be specific to the needs of your business, this list should provide a good starting point:

How long have you been in business?
What features do you support beyond basic send, receive, reply and forward?
What kinds of security do you offer?
What is your pricing structure?
How are backups and restores handled?
What kind of service level agreement (SLA) do you offer to ensure e-mail reliability and availability?
Can e-mail be accessed remotely?
Is live customer support available?

23. Choosing a Web Host
Selecting a web host can be tricky. Thousands of services charge countless fees, make all sorts of promises and raise seemingly endless questions. To help choose one that'll get the job done, here are key questions to ask:

How reliable is your service?
What kind of performance do you offer?
How good is your support?
What will it cost?
How do you handle security?
How much control do I have?
Can you handle the technology I'm using?

Actually comparing hosts can be difficult, so a good policy is to quietly set up an account and test the host--kick the tires, so to speak--for several weeks before announcing your presence to the world. Isn't that expensive? You bet, when setup fees are factored in. But more expensive--and embarrassing--is to make a big push for traffic, only to have your host drop the ball and leave you with cranky visitors who can't quite make it in. Better to know your host is operating smoothly before inviting guests to the party.

24. Doing Due Diligence
Here's a word of caution: Finding a website consultant can be tricky. Although the web continues to grow at a rapid pace and has become a useful tool for both buyers and sellers, it's also quite unwieldy. As a result, very few organized associations or websites exist to help people find reputable web design firms. So when you do locate a potential design partner, make sure the company you want to work with is reputable. Just how can you do this? Check out a list of sites the company's worked on and look closely at its own site. Ask about arrangements for maintaining the site, and make sure your new designer is interested in your company and its goals.

25. Getting Your Website Built
Countless small businesses rely on web consultants every day to design and build their websites, enhance existing sites, and put together the pieces of each company's distinctive e-commerce strategy. If you're trying to get your company's site up and running, you can choose among independent site developers, web design shops, technology consulting firms, system integrators, traditional advertising and PR firms, and interactive agencies. Some of these outsource the website hosting and site promotion functions, while others keep these functions in-house. In addition, web design and strategic consulting are often provided by web hosting companies.

And like the web consultants themselves, the variety of prices that consultants charge for their services are extreme: They can charge several hundred dollars for a simple site consisting of a few pages to $1 million or more for a more sophisticated e-commerce site with such features as easily updated product databases, search engines, animated product demonstrations, secure online transactions, and audio and video enhancements. In addition, web consultants vary in how they price their services: Some consultants, typically individual designers, charge by the hour; others, usually web design firms, charge by the project. In general, however, experts say that consultants or web hosting companies can put together a basic, professional-looking website for $1,500 to $5,000 (not including monthly hosting charges), and an e-commerce site for about $10,000 to $50,000.

26. Hiring IT Consultants
You wouldn't dream of tackling your accounting on your own, so why take on your IT strategy by yourself? Fortunately, there are thousands of service companies dedicated to helping with that problem. IT consultants, or technology solutions providers, can decide which hardware and software you should use, where to host your website, or how to protect yourself from hackers or viruses.

How much can you expect to pay a solutions provider? It depends. An electrical contractor asked one consulting firm to troubleshoot problems with its billing system. The firm found that the contractor's tape backup wasn't working, its antivirus software was outdated and its network printer was not set up efficiently. The proposed solution cost $3,000. Another small company, a seven-person firm that helps larger companies outsource HR functions, invested in three high-powered servers with a firewall with the same IT consultant. Such solutions can start at $5,000.

Improving Your Website
27. Use Autoresponders
Autoresponders are pre-written e-mails that are automatically sent on your behalf so they'll help you provide great customer service and free up your time to do other things in your business. You can use autoresponders to confirm orders placed online, as well as to notify customers when their order ships, so customers are reassured that their order's been placed and processed without problems and they won't have to call or e-mail to check on their order.

You can also fulfill orders through autoresponders if, for example, you sell downloadable software, subscriptions or e-books, you can set up your system to automatically send e-mails that allow access to a password-protected area of your site via a link in the e-mail or by including a password to access the content. This "instant gratification" factor is a great incentive for impulse buyers and impatient online shoppers to purchase your product. You can also send follow-up e-mails like thank-you notes, one of the most effective after-sales techniques. Sending individual e-mails to customers thanking them for buying from you and inviting them to come back would be too time consuming to be efficient; autoresponders can make it happen with little effort from you.

28. Easy Navigation
Make it easy for site visitors to find what they're looking for by making navigation on your site simple. Make sure the following information is easy to find:

Wireless Business

1. Contact information, such as phone numbers, e-mail addresses and physical location.
2. Product information, including detailed descriptions of your products or services, including prices.
3. Samples of your products or previous work.
4. Support, including product information, troubleshooting help, FAQs, etc.
5. Shopping, so customers can buy the products online or find a physical location where your products are sold.
6. Company information, such as background information on the business and the management team.
7. News and announcements, including press releases and updated product or service enhancements.
8. An easy way to get back to your home page. The home page is where all paths begin in the customer's mind, and they want to be able to get back to your home page easily.

29. Use Web Analytics
Web analytics track the behavior of your site's visitors. What pages do they visit most? What are the popular paths through your Web site? On which pages do they leave? When customers visit your website, they want information and they want it now. If they can't find what they're looking for, they can get frustrated pretty quickly and leave, or worse--they could wind up looking to one of your competitors for what they need. Site-surfing patterns will show you what pages to modify to better serve the interests of your potential customers.

Web analytics solutions can also usually track search engine positioning, e-mail campaigns, banner ads and other promotional programs. Some solutions provide sales data in addition to visitor data. This enables you to enhance ad campaigns and the corresponding site pages for maximum sales, not just traffic.

Beefing Up Your Company's IT Security
30. How Secure is Your Wireless Network?
The use of wireless networks within many organizations and businesses is becoming more and more widespread. This includes banks, manufacturing assembly lines, airports, restaurants and one-person home offices. What's not so widespread, however, is the employment of information security measures in these wireless applications and networks.

Constant monitoring of access points is one of the best ways to keep a wireless network secure. The most basic security measure you can take with your wireless devices is to immediately change their factory-set passwords and enable encryption keys (commonly known as WEP) so that data transmitted through the wireless network is more protected.

31. Use a Firewall
A firewall is a software application that controls access to your network at the "perimeter," i.e., where it connects to the Internet. This "controlled access" ensures that internet users only have access to particular services provided by your company's network (web servers, e-mail servers, etc.). Any attempts to access unauthorized information or services are blocked.

You can also use your firewall to block employees from accessing some outside information services, such as non-business-related websites or internet chat. Other common firewall add-ons include antivirus capabilities and privacy protection services to block proprietary information from leaving the building in any electronic form (e-mail, file transfer, virus activity, etc.).

For an added measure of protection, you can also add intrusion detection to your firewall. When a firewall allows internet users access to a company's website or other services, system vulnerabilities can also let in hackers. Intrusion detection systems can detect this type of activity and block the would-be hackers before they can do damage or steal vital company information.

We Print and Design

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:06:14 GMT

(13 Costly Marketing Mistakes Part 1) Business Management Solutions

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:04:21 GMT

13 Costly Marketing Mistakes Part 1

To be successful and profitable, you must 'START' using the most effective marketing strategies possible within your overall marketing plans.

Less obvious, is the fact that you must also 'STOP' using the most ineffective, money-wasting marketing strategies.

I call them The 13 Costly Marketing Mistakes. While this list doesn't cover 'all' of the possible marketing mistakes, it does describe some of the most expensive, destructive and most 'common' made by many owners of traditional and home based businesses.

1. ONE-STEP MARKETING

The 'One-Step' marketing strategy is the most common marketing strategy used by most small business owners today. It's everywhere -- and it's a big money waster.

It consists of an ad, flyer or other marketing vehicle that simply 'announces' the business name, possibly lists a few basic features of the product or service and ends with an address and phone number.

The prospect is now expected to respond to this type of marketing piece by immediately purchasing the product or service.

Unless you are offering an extremely 'high-demand,' 'hard-to-get' product/service (an original Van Gogh painting for $100, Super Bowl tickets, etc.) this marketing strategy 'almost always' results in little or no response.

This strategy totally disregards the 'psychological buying sequence' of consumers. It's very much like walking up to a stranger at a party and asking 'Would you marry me?' What do you think the response would be?

2. NOT KNOWING WHICH EFFORTS ARE WINNERS OR LOSERS

Not knowing for sure which of your marketing efforts are producing results and which are big 'money-wasters' is a guaranteed way to minimize your results.

Even new businesses are investing in up to a 'dozen' marketing devices at any given time. Not only are we talking about traditional media, like newspaper or Yellow Page ads but 'many' others that may not be as obvious.

These marketing devices are either contributing to your business profit or destroying it. Most business owners don't have a clue as to which is which.

If they did, they could easily guarantee increasing their profitable results by investing more in the winning devices and eliminating the money-wasting, losing devices.

3. NOT TELLING YOUR PROSPECTS WHAT TO DO

Expecting your prospects to 'know' exactly what you want them to do guarantees low results.

Never, never, never assume. Take a look at most small business ads and you'll see that the business owners are almost always 'assuming' that the prospect will know exactly what they want them to do . . . without telling them.

At the bottom of the ad there will be a phone number and an address. Usually nothing more. Ask one of these business owners what they 'wanted' the prospect to do after reading their ad and they will most likely reply, 'Buy my product! Isn't it obvious??'

The answer is a resounding 'No!'

For one, there is rarely enough information in the typical marketing piece for a consumer to make an 'immediate' buying decision. Therefore, that can't be the action expected from the consumer.

Second, the marketing competition for the prospect's consumer dollars is fierce. The prospect is usually exposed to dozens of ads for basically the same product/service. Obviously, he or she is not going to take 'action' on every single ad.

How do 'you' insure that they will respond to 'your' marketing piece and take the specific action you intended?

Certainly, not by 'assuming' that they will 'know' or 'figure out' what you want them to do.

In order for a business owner to tell prospects exactly what action to take next, the business owner must know what that action should be. Once you know the 'psychological buying sequence' the next expected action becomes obvious.

4. CALL FOR MORE INFORMATION

Closely related to mistake number 3, is the marketing piece that again simply 'announces' the business name, lists a few basic features of the product or service, ends with an address and phone number . . . and then asks the prospect to 'Call for More Information.'

One of the last things a prospect wants, is to feel dumb. What information should they ask for? Does this mean that the business doesn't have a brochure or any other literature? Are they going to have to take notes?? Will there be a test?

The other thing 'no prospect' wants is to feel pressured. Whether it's true or not, the average prospect 'assumes' that they'll get a 'high-pressured' sales pitch if they call. Most do not want to risk this pain.

Therefore, the 'Call for More Information' tag is almost always ignored.

While 'some' prospects may not have a problem responding to this 'vague' directive, the majority do. If you doubt this . . . try putting it at the bottom of your marketing pieces. You'll soon be convinced that few prospects, if any, respond to the 'Call for More Information' marketing mistake.

5. FOCUSING ON YOU INSTEAD OF YOUR CUSTOMER

It seems natural to tell your prospects about you and your company. We're proud of what we do and how we do it and we 'assume' that our prospects will be impressed and motivated to take action.

'We've been in business for 16 years...'

'We are an award winning, cutting-edge organization...'

'We are equipped with the latest micro-techno, laser-guided, nuclear-activated widget-gizmos...'

Too often these phrases evoke the following responses from prospects:

'So what?'

'Big deal.'

'Who cares?'

Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that your marketing materials shouldn't include background information about you and your company and/or specifications about your product/service. I'm saying that this should be 'supportive' information, not your 'primary' marketing message.

It's a costly marketing mistake to think that prospects 'care' about the same things you care about.

They rarely do.

However, they do care deeply about something entirely different. Once you know what that is, and you address it powerfully and clearly in your marketing, you will begin to draw prospects to you like a magnet.

6. NOT USING EFFECTIVE FREE/LOW-COST MARKETING METHODS

Ask the typical small business owner what marketing is, and he/she will probably reply, 'Advertising.'

What kinds of advertising?

'Yellow Page ads, newspaper ads, magazine ads, radio ads, television ads, billboards, bus cards, Val-Pak mailings, etc.'

While all of these advertising devices can certainly be a 'part' of a successful marketing strategy, there are also dozens of 'low-cost' and 'no-cost' marketing methods available to the small business marketer.

By simply discovering and applying these simple 'low-cost,' 'no-cost' methods, you will be able to significantly stretch the effectiveness and profitability of your marketing efforts.

Business Management Solutions

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:50:04 GMT

8 Tips for Increasing Your Average Sale

Getting a few more dollars out of each customer can put startups on a fast track to success.

By Brad Sugars | March 27, 2008

Walk into any McDonald's, order a Quarter Pounder, and the clerk will invariably ask, "Do you want fries with that?" Each affirmative answer adds $1 or more to that particular sale. If just a fraction of McDonald's' 54 million daily customers say yes to that question, that's millions of extra dollars in the burger biggie's pocket.

The same strategy is important for startups. You haven't yet built a large customer base, so you need to coax as much money as possible from each person who does show up. It's the old story: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

The issue at this stage isn't market share but wallet share. Boost the dollar value of your average sale, and you boost your cash flow and bottom line. Here's how you can bring in more of those sales.

Entrepreneur.com

1. Crunch the numbers. Begin by figuring out the dollar value of your average sale. If you have 20 customers and total sales of $1,000 on a typical day, your average sale is $50. Then you can set a new target and plot your strategy to hit it.

Depending on your business, you might also want to calculate your average sales per hour, day of the week, employee, location, marketing campaign or other variables. Frequently the answers will lead directly to a plan of action. If your numbers are low on Mondays, for example, you can plan special Monday promotions. If one ad typically brings in a $2 sale and another weighs in at $12, you can adjust accordingly.

2. Change your product or service mix. Adding or subtracting to what you sell can help grow your typical ticket size. Take the case of a bakery that had an average sale of just $5. The problem was they offered virtually no higher-priced items. When they added specialty cakes and other premium goods, that figure jumped to $14.

The same effect can sometimes be achieved by dumping lower-priced products. If you sell three different toasters, drop the $35 model and the customer will spend $45 or $55 instead.

3. Bundle your offerings. Encourage customers to spend more by giving them a package deal on multiple products or services. At McDonald's, the bundles are Extra Value Meals that include an entrée, fries and a drink. At a car repair shop, it might be a tune-up and lube job rolled into one visit.

You can also bundle your time. One computer repair company that wasn't making enough money charging by the hour started selling services in 10, 20 or 30-hour blocks. That new option yielded higher average sales and ensured return business.

4. Go for the add-on sale. "Do you want fries with that?" is a textbook example, but the same approach works for any business. One attorney I know started asking whether every client had an up-to-date will. Two out of three didn't. The result was an extra $4,000 in average weekly billings. Later he repeated the feat with living wills.

Another way to drive add-on sales is to create a checklist of related products for a particular kind of purchase. If you're a hardware store, a paint customer might also need brushes and drop cloths. Hand him a checklist and he'll likely walk out with more than a can of Antique White.

5. Create weekly or monthly sales challenges. Focusing your sales team on a particular area for a week or a month can also generate add-on business. When I owned photocopy shops, we pushed colored paper one week and banners the next. Some grocery stores offer specials at the checkout counter to trigger impulse sales.

6. Take hidden products or services out of the shadows. I once coached an insurance broker who sold only 1.27 policies per customer despite offering more than 14 types of insurance. A survey revealed that most clients didn't know he sold those products. He was failing to show his entire hand. Signage, newsletters and other tactics can help.

7. Train your staff to make the higher dollar sale. Sometimes simply making personnel aware of your target sale value will help you get there. If they're just selling what the customer came in for, you're not going to hit your numbers. Tell them what you're looking for, and then give them the tools to achieve it.

8. Raise your prices. If you're just opening your doors, price your products or services on the high side and figure out how to offer more value. Being the cheapest isn't necessarily going to pay the bills, and you'll be left high and dry when a competitor beats your price.

If you've been in business for a while, don't be afraid to bump up your prices by 5 or 10 percent. Most customers won't care (You don't stop going to your local Starbucks or your hair salon when they raise their rates.) and you'll increase your margins, so a few lost customers won't make a difference.

By using tactics like these to maximize every transaction, you help keep the cash flowing while you're getting your business off the ground. Once you're airborne, these same strategies can develop your flight plan for generating peak profits. Master the art of supersizing your sales early, and it will pay off many times over.

100 Free Business Cards

Promote Your business

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:22:43 GMT

12 Months of Holiday Promotions

Year-round, holidays are great hooks for all types of marketing promotions, provided you think outside the box.

By Kim T. Gordon | February 14, 2007

If you think holiday marketing begins just after Halloween and ends on New Year's Day, think again. For most small businesses, holidays from Father's Day to Administrative Professionals' Day provide terrific hooks on which to hang marketing promotions.

To get you thinking outside the gift box, here are 12 months of holidays to consider--plus creative ideas for using less traditional holidays to grab your customers' attention.

February
Valentine's Day is a bonanza for restaurateurs and jewelers, but other entrepreneurs also can use the day to tell customers they're appreciated. Show your company's love by sending letters with special rewards, such as money off a purchase, to your best customers or clients. Rewards at this holiday, rather than just at the more traditional times of year, will grab attention and be appreciated.

Also in February are Groundhog Day, Mardi Gras and Presidents Day. Want to be inventive? A professional services firm could enhance its client relations (and loosen an otherwise stiff image) by throwing a Mardi Gras-themed party, while an air conditioning and heating contractor could send a direct mail piece using Groundhog Day as a hook, offering customers a special discount on heating maintenance services to help them get through six more weeks of winter.

March
The two biggest holidays on my calendar in March are St. Patrick's Day and my birthday. Granted, my birthday may not be of any interest to your customers, but they'll definitely enjoy being appreciated on their own birthdays. Include a field in your customer database for birth dates, and depending on your type of business, send a gift, card or reward.

As for St. Patrick's Day, there are many fun tie-ins--from the color green to the luck of the Irish--you can develop into marketing hooks. And the first day of spring is March 21. Traditionally, this is the kick-off for major spring retail promotions.

April
Ah, April Fools' Day. Businesses large and small have used this day as an opportunity to draw public attention. In one well-publicized April Fools' hoax, Taco Bell placed ads in major newspapers announcing it had purchased the Liberty Bell to help reduce the federal deficit and was planning to move it to Irvine, California. Americans were furious. There were more than 400 TV mentions and thousands of newspaper and radio mentions worth millions in media coverage, though Taco Bell sent out a news release announcing the hoax just a few hours later. The smart promotional gambit resulted in a $500,000 sales increase for the company on April 1 and a $600,000 increase on April 2.

Easter will be celebrated on April 8 this year with traditional spring sales at most retailers. Earth Day is on April 22, and you don't have to be a green company to take on an environmentally friendly promotion, such as planting trees and letting your customers know about it. And let's not overlook Administrative Professionals’ Day (formerly known as Secretaries' Day) on April 25. This holiday is prompting small businesses to take action: The Vermont Teddy Bear Co., for instance, has added a page to its website to sell gifts for the occasion.

May
The two biggest holidays in May are Mother's Day on May 13 and Memorial Day on May 28. Small businesses in the hospitality, consumer services and retail categories typically realize the greatest gains from Mother's Day promotions. Husbands and daughters make the bulk of all Mother's Day purchases, and consumers spend more on this holiday than most others, including Father's Day. The most popular service given as a Mother's Day gift is a half-day spa treatment. To promote your Mother's Day offerings this year, consider using e-mail as a low-cost, high-return tactic to promote everything from jewelry to flowers.

June through September
While not the big spending holiday Mother's Day has become, Father's Day on June 17 is still a terrific hook for small businesses looking for an early summer boost. Since women make the most purchases for fathers and husbands, create promotions that appeal to their desire for convenient, easy shopping and cost savings.

Summer officially begins on June 21, but long before that, the season can provide a wonderful hook for specials or promotions that tie in to warm-weather vacations and fun. Campground owners, for example, can ramp up marketing campaigns that target families with RVs looking for affordable vacations.

Since the Fourth of July is a major retail marketing holiday, smaller businesses may want to stay out of the fray and concentrate promotional dollars on less-crowded holidays. If you offer products related to back-to-school promotions, August is your month. And retailers should plan a marketing push for Labor Day sales on September 3.

October
Trick or treat! Halloween is more popular than ever, with many adults attending costume parties and even sales of pet costumes seeing a dramatic upswing. For small nonprofits and fundraising organizations, Halloween provides a wonderful marketing opportunity. You can create a haunted event, get other local businesses involved as sponsors or partners, and sell tickets in multiple locations.

Halloween is also a smart hook for businesses promoting child safety products and services. You can win media coverage, including newspaper and radio interviews, by producing a fact sheet with safety tips along with a pitch letter to send to targeted editors and journalists.

November through January
November 1 officially marks the start of the holiday selling season, so why not put a new spin on Thanksgiving promotions? Instead of focusing on holiday decorations or falling retail prices, make an effort to help others while enhancing your company's image in the process. You can sponsor meals for the homeless. Or you and your staff can engage in a visible community improvement project. Work to enlist other businesses in your area, and share your story with the local media to aid your cause. Then you can proceed with your company's traditional winter sales promotions with a strong PR lift and community goodwill. And retailers can keep the momentum rolling into January with New Year's Day sales, followed by special promotions tied to the chilly weather.

www.bizmanconsulting.com

How To Reinstall Windows Without Losing Your Data

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:12:55 GMT

How to Reinstall Windows Without Losing Your Data

Over time, Windows loses stability. If you keep a computer for more than two years, at some point you're going to have to bite the bullet and reinstall Windows from scratch. But contrary to popular belief, you won't have to reformat your hard drive (with one exception, discussed below). The bad stuff you need to get rid of is all in your Windows folder.

Before you begin, gather your Windows and application CD-ROMs. Back up your data files (just to be safe), and then clear two days off your calendar. If everything goes smoothly, you can reinstall Windows in a few hours. But you have to assume something will go wrong: You may not be able to find a necessary CD, or data won't be where you thought it was, or something will simply refuse to work.

There's a difference between a repair reinstall and a complete reinstall. Though a repair (also called a refresh) will let you keep your current settings, a complete reinstall will give you a truly fresh version of Windows. Repairs are fast and easy, but they don't fix anywhere near as many problems. The instructions below are for total reinstalls, except where noted.

Your Vendor's Restore CD

Most computers ship with a vendor-specific restore CD rather than with a Microsoft Windows CD-ROM. (If your PC came with a Microsoft Windows CD, or if you bought a retail copy of Windows, skip to the section for your version.)

Some restore CDs give you all the options of a full Microsoft Windows CD, but with better instructions and the convenience of having all the right hardware drivers. Others can do nothing except reformat your hard drive and restore it to the condition it was in when you bought the PC. (This case is the exception I mentioned above that requires a reformat.)

If your restore CD is reformat-only, back up your data files to a network or a removable medium before reinstalling Windows. If you use Windows 98 or Me, back up C:\My Documents, plus the folders inside C:\Windows discussed in the 98/Me section below. If you have Windows 2000 or XP, back up C:\Documents and Settings. Also back up any other folders in which you store your data files.

Windows 98 and ME CDs

These Windows versions keep some important data inside your soon-to-be-erased Windows folder, so you need to copy several of its subfolders to another location. Right-click My Computer and select Explore. Double-click the C: drive icon (in Me, you may then have to click View the entire contents of this drive). Right-click in the right pane and select New, Folder. Name the new folder oldstuff.

Go to the Windows folder (you might have to click View the entire contents of this folder), hold down Ctrl, and select the following subfolders: All Users, Application Data, Desktop, Favorites, Local Settings, Profiles, SendTo, and Start Menu. If you don't see them all, select View, Folder Options (Tools, Folder Options in Me), click the View tab, select Show all files, and click OK. (If you still don't see them all, don't worry about it.) Press Ctrl and drag the folders to C:\oldstuff (see FIGURE 1).

Restart Windows with a start-up disk in your floppy drive. (To make a start-up floppy, insert a disk, select Start, Settings, Control Panel, double-click Add/Remove Programs, click Startup Disk, Create Disk, and follow the prompts.) At the Startup Menu, select Start computer with CD-ROM support. While the drivers load, insert your Windows CD-ROM.

Unless you're doing a repair reinstall, type the command c:\windows\command\deltree /y c:\windows and press Enter. Deleting your old files could take time, but the /y switch suppresses confirmation prompts, so take a break.

When you're back at the A: prompt, type x:setup, where x is your CD drive letter (it's likely one letter past what it usually is in Windows, so if it's D: in Windows, it's probably E: here). Press Enter and follow the prompts.

Once you're back in Windows, reinstall your graphics card driver. If you have Windows set up for more than one user, you'll also have to re-create each account. Select Start, Settings, Control Panel, Users to do so. It's important that the user names match those in the old installation. If you're not sure, open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\oldstuff\profiles. There you'll find a folder for each registered user name (see FIGURE 2). Don't worry about passwords. Log off and log back on as each user. When you're done, log off and back on one more time, but instead of choosing a user name and a password, press Esc to enter Windows without being a specific user.

Select Start, Programs, MS-DOS Prompt (in Windows 98) or Start, Programs, Accessories, MS-DOS Prompt (in Windows Me). Type xcopy c:\oldstuff\*.* c:\windows /s /h /r /c and press Enter (if you want to know what the xcopy switches do, enter the command xcopy /?). When xcopy asks if it should overwrite a file, press a for All.

When xcopy is through, reboot and log on (as a particular user, if necessary). Open My Documents to make sure all your personal files are where they belong, including your Internet Explorer favorites and your custom Start menu shortcuts.

Now skip ahead to "Finishing the Job."

Windows 2000 and XP CDs

Boot your computer with your Windows CD-ROM inserted. When you get the 'Press any key to boot from CD' message, do so. (If you don't see that message before Windows starts, restart Windows, press the key you're prompted to enter for your PC Setup program, and change the boot order so your CD drive is first.)

At the 'Welcome to Setup' screen, press Enter. The R (repair) option takes you to the Recovery Module, which is useful if Windows won't boot, but it's no help with a reinstallation. Soon you'll be told that there's already a Windows installation on the computer. Press r for a repair reinstall or Esc to begin a complete, destructive one. For a complete restore, select your C: partition and press Enter. When you get the warning that says an operating system is on that partition, press c. When you are asked your partition preference, select Leave the current file system intact (no changes). When you're told that a Windows folder (or Winnt folder for Windows 2000) already exists, press l ('ell') to delete it and create a new one. Follow the series of prompts. When the installation program asks for your name, enter temp.

Once the installation is complete, your system will reboot into Windows, and you'll be logged on as user Temp. If the screen is difficult to read, reinstall your graphics card driver.

If you are reinstalling Windows XP, skip to "For Both Windows XP and 2000."

If you're reinstalling Windows 2000, log off as Temp and back on as Administrator. Now log off and on again, this time as Temp. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Documents and Settings. One of the subfolders will be named Administrator. Another will be named something like Administrator.computername.

Select Start, Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt. Type cd "\documents and settings" and press Enter. Then type xcopy administrator\*.* administrator.computername /s /h /r /c, replacing computername with the last part of that folder's name (after "Administrator.") in Documents and Settings. Now press Enter, and when you're asked about overwriting files or folders, press a for All.

If you have any users on the old installation besides Administrator, continue with the "For Both Windows XP and 2000" section. Otherwise, open Windows Explorer and make sure your data files are where they belong. Then go to Control Panel's Users and Passwords applet and delete the user Temp before skipping to "Finishing the Job."

For Both Windows XP and 2000

Reopen Windows Explorer. Select your C: drive (you may have to click Show the contents of this folder). Right-click in the right pane and select New, Folder. Name the new folder oldstuff. In the left pane, choose the Documents and Settings folder. It should have subfolders for each user from the previous install, plus one for Temp and a few others. Move the folders for your previous user names to oldstuff.

Select Start, Control Panel, User Accounts (Start, Settings, Control Panel, Users and Passwords in Windows 2000). Create an account for each user who was registered before the reinstall. Be sure to use the exact names. They are the same names as the folders you just moved to oldstuff (as shown in FIGURE 2). In Windows XP, at least one user must have administrator privileges.

Log off and back on as each user, before logging back on as Temp. Make sure that you select Log Off and not Switch User at Windows XP's Log Off dialog box (this isn't an issue in Win 2000).

Log on as Temp, select Start, Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt (in XP, Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt), type xcopy c:\oldstuff\*.* "c:\documents and settings" /s /h /r /c, and press Enter. Press a when asked if you want to overwrite a file. Log off Temp and log on to each restored account to make sure everyone's documents and data are where they belong. Log on as an administrator and run Control Panel's User Accounts applet again to remove the user Temp.

Finishing the Job

Now you've got Windows going, but not much else. You may have to reinstall your printer, sound card, and so on. Luckily, if a driver for the gadget came on your Windows or vendor restore CD, it was probably reinstalled automatically.

You'll have to reinstall your applications to reintroduce them to Windows. Some of their settings will not be changed by the reinstallation, but those that were stored in the Registry were wiped out.

Once your Internet connection is running again, browse to Windows Update and download all critical updates for your version (see FIGURE 3). Then visit the sites of your hardware vendors to update your drivers.

After the reinstall, some of your data may not show up where it should. Search for it in both your Application Data and oldstuff folders, and see if you can move it to the folder in which Windows or your apps are looking for it. If you find a folder called Identities with two subfolders whose names are long and indecipherable, try moving the contents of one to the other and see if your data reappears.

You've probably guessed that the final step is deleting the c:\oldstuff folder--and the Administrator folder in Windows 2000. Make this the very last step, however. Wait a couple of days, weeks, or even months until you're confident that all of your needed files are accessible.

Send your questions to answer@pcworld.com. We pay $50 for published items. Click here for more Answer Line columns. You'll find Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector's humorous writing at www.thelinkinspector.com.

More on Sudden Reboots

Reader Robert Mazzeo of Royersford, Pennsylvania, points out that the "Sudden Reboots" tip in my July column missed three common causes of sudden computer reboots. A bad power supply, a faulty video card or driver, and a failing RAM chip are often the source of these boots out of the blue. Also, if you follow the column's suggestion to use a can of compressed air to clean out your computer's insides, wait at least 2 hours before turning your system back on.