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It seems like a great alternative is a getting an Authorize.net Payment Gateway. Now I know what you are saying, ‘C’mon man, Authorize.net? They’re in the stone-ages’ (or something similar to that effect). They have really stepped up their game recently. I think they can knock Paypal Website Payments Pro off the block. Best news, most e-commerce platforms support Authorize.Net Payment Gateway right out of the box.

Check out their solutions here: http://bit.ly/9xKVnp

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Maybe your business is doing pretty well considering the circumstances and you see this as an opportunity to gain an advantage over the competition…  I know of a consulting firm that is currently overpaying on a lease.  The fact is, they really don’t need the kind of space they have, It is on the ‘fancy’ side… To impress visitors and make the owner feel good about himself. Don’t get me wrong, nothing wrong with either of those things necessarily.  But now, the owner of the building is looking to get out. They are probably losing money with the empty suites. So the consulting firm wants to buy the building and use most of the space to expand the business into a new direction.  (an untested direction)   Is this the time to go out on a limb like this and risk taking on a big mortgage payment?

Sure, It might be. I am the first to encourage taking risks.  You can not dominate without taking risks. But please make sure you know what you are doing. Make sure your decisions are sound.  Talk them over with your network of like minded business people.   If everyone shoots your ideas down you are either a genius or an idiot.  Do you have what it takes to find out which one?

In the example I gave above the kicker is that there is an easy way to test the market for the new expansion… without the need for the additional space.  The new services could be offered at the clients sites. If they can build the business that way, taking the service to the client then they can work on bringing the clients to them.  But are they doing this testing… Nope.

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Every dollar you shave off the bottom line is a dollar in your pocket

You need to be thinking of ways to cut costs every time you spend money! Again, that doesn’t mean you have to be cheap. But if you have spontaneous tendencies and on a whim decide to go get some embroidered polo shirts or some foam fingers with your logo on them and you run right over to the local t-shirt, trophy and tool rental shop — stop and ask yourself these two things:

1. will this purchase make me money
2. Did I check for cheeper sources. (probably online)

I understand that sometimes you want something for your business even if it will not have a direct return on investment in terms of sales. There could be benefits that are hard to quantify –  such as exposure and reputation. As long as you don’t do this all the time you will probably be ok.  For those times that you choose to spend some money on something silly make sure you are getting the best price. Salespeople are good (sometimes) and we can all be sold… so just be careful.

It amazes me when a client comes to me and tells me about (insert cool thing here) that they just bought and I ask them where thy got it from and I just want to take that (insert cool thing here) and smash it over their head because I could have directed them to a place where they could get it for HALF what they paid.

Bottom line:  Don’t throw your money away. Do your research and talk to others in your network and find the best price.  Chances are that 10 minutes on Google will get you a better price.

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RingCentral.

We used to be huge Ringcentral fans. Even to the point of evangelism. We have recommended Ringcentral to countless businesses as a way to cut costs. Our loyalty was strong, and for good reason. In the early days Ringcental customer service were happy to help is out, they were willing to do what it took to keep longtime, loyal customers happy. Well, it appears those days are gone. There does not appear to be any loyalty in the other direction. When we needed to make changes to our services we knew we could get what we needed elsewhere with more features included and get it all cheaper! But that wasn’t enough to make us jump ship alone. All we needed was 5 more extensions. That’s all… We gave them plenty of opportunity to make a small concession to keep us. But sadly, they stood fast in there position not to work with us…. So, we jumped ship.

On to Grasshopper.

Grasshopper seems to be a great company with even greater potential. All of our dealings with their support and sales reps were fantastic. The only thing that kept us from staying with grasshopper was a lack of some features, or more specifically a limitation of the flexibility of those features. We were coming from Ringcental, with many phone numbers and extensions. The problem lied with our extension numbers. There was no way to Create extensions that matched our Ringcentral ones. That would mean new business cards as well as annoying the people that call us on our current extensions. For this reason we set out once again to find the perfect replacement for Ringcentral. If you are setting up your phone system for the first. Time go ahead and give Grasshoppeer a try… but for us…

On to phone.com

When we got to phone.com we felt like there was a party going on but we weren’t invited. How was it that we didn’t know about phone.com before… That question still haunts us. But what doesn’t haunt us is the decision to switch to phone.com. They have every feature you want and need plus more. They have amazing call routing and automated response system. You can even route calls based on their caller ID so when joe’s client calls it is routed straight to Joe. No prompts, no extension. Awesome. They have so many features we have only begin to scratch the surface. I’m looking forward to giving the conference call feature a try when I get a chance. We wanted flexibility and we got it. Wow. You can do anything you want with this system.
Phone.com gets our vote for sure. Give them a try, here is a link: Business Phone Service – Increase Productivity Reduce Cost

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1. Ringcentral Killer? Stupid Name, Awesome Price!

Many business books and teachings will tell you to make your business name describe what your business does, like “Joe’s Plumbing” or “Farm Fresh Foods”. I feel that strategy is a little dated… We live in a different world now, we live on the web, not in the yellowpages.

There are 3 tools I use when looking for a name.

Domain Search, Google Search, and Business Registration Search.

Domain Search.

This is the place for brainstorming.  It doesn’t do much good anymore to just think about what name you would like to have because they are most likely taken.

If there is a competing business with the same or similar name, you will probably find it here, before you go any further.

Keep domains as short as possible.

Don’t use inappropriate TLDs like .org for your business.  .us is becoming more mainstream, .info is ok for some but it’s still best to stick with .com  (.biz and .ws are still second rate)

Google Search

Search all combinations of your domain for competition.

Look for shorter versions!  if your business name is www.bestplumbingbusiness.com  but someone already has www.bestplumbing.com and they are in competition with you MOVE ON… you will lose business.

You want you name to be distinct, to avoid confusion with the competition.

Business Registration Search

• Once you have made it past the first two steps you can move on to checking if your name is available.
• Most states have an online tool to search for business name availability, check your secretary of state website.
• If you find a business with a very similar name it’s time to go back to step one.

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Sign up below:

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For all of you who are wondering what Ringcentral and Grasshopper are, I’ll tell you.  They are virtual phone systems.  No hardware required… except your existing phone and service (cell, land line, or VoIP).  Did you ever want to sound like a huge company with automated attendants, extensions, and voicemail?  This is the type of service you need to sound like the big guys.c

Click below and check it out, sign up for the 30 day trial.

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1. Ringcentral Vs. Grasshopper Vs. Phone.com

Click below to get the discount!

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1. Pricing.  This is #1 for most people and they have great pricing!
2. Reliability. This is a very close 2nd, cause what good is cheap if your site is down!
3. Support. There are two sides to support.  First there is how easy is it to get a hold of someone and once you got a hold of someone can they actually fix you problem.

Well, As far as we are concerned the guys at StableHost have masterd all three!  They provide reliable web hosting at very affordable (cheap) prices with outstanding support.

Make the switch to them today,  Look at this amazing deal!   Unlimited Domains, Unlimited Storage and Unlimited Bandwidth!!!   Wow!

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