If you think a virtual phone number might help your organization, here are just some of the benefits of hanging up on conventional phones.

Increased Privacy While Offering Personalized Service

In some business situations providing a personal phone number can be a good strategy to build trust and demonstrate your personal commitment to helping them. It can, however, bring privacy issues as someone could search for your phone number to get more information about you.

If you are using a personal cell phone or operating a home office, you can use a virtual phone number instead of your private number. With a virtual phone number, calls can still be routed to your cell phone without customers gaining access to your personal phone number.

Virtual Phone Numbers Provide Additional Features

Virtual phones give you access to advanced calling features, including IVR (Interactive Voice Response), call recording, conference calling, time-based routing, call stacking, and voice-mail. You can get advanced calling features that Fortune 500 companies have without significant expense. Many providers offer these features for free as part of the deal. Also, many virtual phone numbers can also support texting. That’s something landlines can’t do.

A virtual phone number may also save on long distance calls. Using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which is a cloud-based phone service, with your virtual phone service can save significant amounts of money. There are no more local tolls and no long-distance charges for domestic calls. Most international calls are free as well. Finally, you can also use virtual phone numbers to appear more “local.” If you want to appear to have a local presence, set up virtual phone numbers in all the area codes you serve. With a VoIP system, you can make changes easily through a dashboard. Virtual phone lines with local numbers can be created in more than 100 countries worldwide with virtual number forwarding to any device. If you every need help managing your messages, then consider checking out these texting solutions for small business. 

Flexible Set Up That Increases Calling Capabilities

With a virtual phone number for business, your options increase. As calls come in, they can be automatically routed to multiple destinations based on customized workflow rules. This can help manage when multiple calls come in or help manage different type of leads.

For example, you could have a single phone number you publish in TV commercials, print ads and business cards, then using technology tools, you can send inbound calls with local area codes to one receiving center, and out of town area codes to a different center. This could help you answer their inquiry or business need faster. Alternatively, if you often have too many calls come in at once, when you use a virtual phone number calls can automatically roll over to another line when unanswered or be routed to other locations.

Also, if you already have a business phone number, you don’t have to start all over. If you already have an established phone number for your business, you can switch to a virtual service and keep your existing number. Your provider can help you port your current number over and turn it into a virtual phone number.

Ditch The Landline

Using a virtual phone number can help your small business grow and better serve your customers. Virtual phone numbers untether your customer service team from a single phone or even a single office and allows the team to work nearly anywhere in the world. Additionally, leveraging different tools, a virtual phone number helps your business create a more professional experience or appear to be local to their area code.

Fortunately, even if your business phone is set up on a landline, you can keep your exact number and transfer it into a virtual landline. With so many added benefits and the ability to keep your current number there are really no downsides to a virtual phone number.

The post Top Business Benefits of Using a Virtual Phone Number appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

If you are considering replacing your desk phone, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is one of your best alternatives. All you need is to be connected to the internet to make and receive calls using a business VoIP system.

VoIP is the fastest-growing business communication solution around and for good reason.

It replaces the traditional landline telephone with an advanced and feature-rich phone that establishes calls over the internet. It also enables users to talk to anyone using a mobile phone, laptop, or desk phone. A classic example is “softphones” that enable conferencing over smartphones and conference phones.

Making the Switch 

VoIP vs PBX…which is better for your business? Should you really be replacing your desk phones? Let’s begin with the basics.

PBX

Long before modern chat and collaboration apps came on the scene, all business communication used to happen through a phone system in offices warehoused in a telco room. These rooms were called a private branch exchange (PBX) which were essentially little telephone companies. These used a complex structure of copper wires to transmit signals from the caller to the receiver.

PBX was the pioneer in business-grade, analog phone systems. This traditional telephony system enabled people to have a personal extension to answer phone calls at their desks, check voicemails, put a call on hold, transfer calls, and more.

Over time, the humble PBX evolved into IP-PBX by incorporating VoIP technology.

The IP-PBX could now deliver a broader range of services and more satellite locations — home users, branch offices — by leveraging data and bandwidth of the internet to connect users and offices together.

VoIP

VoIP works by transmitting voice data over the internet and also your office network. A step-by-step breakdown of how a VoIP system works looks like this.

• First, it transforms all analog phone calls into digital signals.
• These digital signals are then converted into IP (Internet Protocol) packets.
• The system then converts these IP packets back into phone signals, which are then received by the phone of the receiver.

VoIP is basically a set of rules and protocols that connects a device (phones) with an IP-PBX, over the LAN (Local Area Network) or the Internet. It uses two different kinds of data packets.

• SIP (Session Initiation Protocol): The point where the call is initiated.
• RTP (Real-Time Transport Protocol): These are small data packets containing the audio files that phones use to make a sound.

Over time, “VoIP phone systems” evolved and added more functionality such as chats, messaging, voice calls, and video conferencing features in an attempt to provide more comprehensive business communication solutions.

They also eliminated the need for purchasing and maintaining an in-house PBX system. Today, VoIP technology-backed web phones have become the backbone of business phone systems that enables businesses with some of the most advanced features in calling, making it an apt alternative to the traditional PBX.

Web Phone vs. Desk Phone

• Call Delivery: The main difference between a desk phone (traditional PBX) and a web phone (VoIP enabled) is in the way they connect people on calls.
  • Web phones deliver calls via the internet, whereas desk phones (traditional PBX) deliver calls via physically connected circuits and phone lines.
• Features: Traditional desk phones and web phones really have no comparison when it comes to features.
  • VoIP-enabled web phones are equipped with the latest technology and multiple options for communicating, for both internal and external business communication needs.
  • Desk phones have a pretty limited feature set.
• Flexibility and Integration: Web phones can easily be integrated with other important systems a business is using whereas a desk phone can’t exactly do the same.
  • Besides, web phones do not require in-house IT support and maintenance.
  • This also gives employees the flexibility to work and make/receive calls from anywhere which is not the case with desk phones.

Why Replace Desk Phones with Web Phones?

Integration with Business Apps

In today’s digitized environment, different business systems cannot work in isolation.

VoIP-enabled web phones enable you to integrate your phone system with software that your business is already using. This is not possible in the case of desk phones.

When switching to a web phone, take a demo to see how these integrations work. You may already be using a CRM, calendaring tool, or other software which you may want to integrate with your phone system.

• Most web phones have salesforce integration features that enable agents to take calls from the sales dashboard itself.
• To efficiently handle heavy call volumes and conference calls (internal and external), integrating your phone system with Google or Outlook calendar can make scheduling meetings a breeze.
  • These smartphone solutions have the ability to automatically update an agent’s status by syncing with their work calendar.
  • This way, other teammates know when a particular team member is available and when busy.

The Rise of the Remote Workforce

Do you as an organization follow a hybrid or remote work culture? Does a sizable percentage of your staff work remotely? It is high time you make a switch to web phones.

The web phone or VoIP technology has been designed to make calls from anywhere making it an ideal fit for your remote team. It enables remote workers to use an office phone number from their laptop or personal smartphones, as long as they have strong and stable bandwidth and internet connection.

Scalability

For a company with a limited budget for technology, no expansion plans, and no hybrid/remote work strategy sticking to desk phones may still work.

However, the hassle of maintaining the PBX system and an in-house IT support team will still be there. What’s more, the lack of ability of traditional systems to integrate with your other technology stack can lead to a significant loss of business.

For a company with plans to grow the team in the near future, using a web phone will likely make more sense.

Web phones provide you with the flexibility to easily scale up or down in terms of phone lines and users as and when you expand your team or downsize it. Contact centers and call centers especially stand to benefit from VoIP technology. These advanced feature-rich phones can give a serious boost in handling high call volumes, identifying, and analyzing patterns in customer calls.

‘Web Phones’ to Consider to Replace ‘Desk Phones’

It’s clear that web phones are clearly a win-win to address modern business communication needs. Now, choosing the one that best fits your requirements is the next step. The market is flooded with various options when it comes to web phones. We have put together our top picks for you to consider.

1. Tragofone

Tragofone is essentially a VoIP softphone app that can be installed on a mobile phone, laptop/desktop, or basically any device your employee is comfortable with. This particular web phone tops our list because of the host of features it offers. It makes it an ideal match for any business that works in the hybrid or remote mode.

• It features a versatile dialer app that enables employees to use the business VoIP number on their personal devices.
• Backed by WebRTC technology it is fairly easy to use. Employees can open it in a web browser they are familiar with to make and receive calls.
• Tragofone is both iOS and Android friendly.
• The advanced feature set comprises call routing, call monitoring, call logging, chat/messaging, fax management, employee directory, and more.
• Other features such as auto-provisioning and white-labeling are an added bonus.

2. FireRTC

FireRTC is a free calling web phone that runs within a browser using  WebRTC technology. The technology eliminates the need to install or buy any add-ons.

FireRTC offers free calling to the PSTN in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also provides users with background information about the person or business they are speaking with.

With features like call recording, this is one of the best web phones available. The FireRTC app is available in the Chrome Webstore.

3. OnSIP Desktop App

The OnSIP Desktop App does not require any downloads or plug-ins. Likewise, it runs seamlessly on Windows and Mac operating systems on both Chrome and Firefox web browsers. Similarly, it also enables users to make voice or video calls at the click of a button. The desktop app is equipped to make calls to:

• PSTN;
• extension dial;
• SIP-to-SIP calls; and
• video calls with compatible devices.

The OnSIP desktop app has been designed keeping in mind the requirements of a call/contact center and is an ideal replacement for desk phones.

It enables both the sales and customer support teams to utilize calling and monitoring features. Additionally, it enables remote workers/mobile staff to log into the app and connect with the company’s phone system. The video call feature enables employees to better assist customers using visual cues.

4. Zoiper

The Zoiper web phone’s ability to integrate your website and web app make it a strong contender as one of the best in the category.

Zoiper web is compatible with all popular browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera on the Windows operating system. Zoiper has the unique ability to discover the browser and install the appropriate plugin.

The web phone enables a user to do unlimited concurrent calls to an unlimited number of users. It boasts of features such as call hold and call transfer. Getting a  license for Zoiper may be a good idea if embedding a fully functional phone on your website or web app is your business requirement. This makes it easy for customers to reach you directly from your website or app.

5. FluentCloud Web Phone

The FluentCloud web phone is a Google Chrome add-on that is compatible with ChromeBook computers, laptops, and desktops.

This device enables users to make and receive calls, messages, chat, check voicemails, read online fax, and more all using a single interface.

FluentCloud web phone has a paid subscription plan which gives the users access to a cloud-based all-inclusive business phone system.

6. Twilio

Twilio web phone enables a user to use a web browser to make phone calls. However, like the other web phones listed here, Twilio’s browser phone is not an enterprise-grade solution and requires a user to install an add-on manually in a terminal window. Additionally, the phone has the capability to call PSTNs, extensions, and SIP endpoints.

Web phones clearly equip businesses with more features when compared to old-school desk phones. Likewise, their ability to work seamlessly across multiple devices and the capability to let employees work from anywhere is something surely to consider in today’s fast-changing remote work culture. The sky’s the limit with these new-age web phones.

The post 6 Web Phone Options That Can Replace a Desk Phone appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Larger businesses may have more than one leader for different areas. However, the productivity of the team, processes, and organization is affected by how good these leaders and managers are at their jobs. You can start working towards becoming someone who can effectively manage and lead a business with ease. This guide will give you all the answers you need.

What Is a Business Leader?

Business leaders are at the heart of the company. However, there can be more than one within any organization.

Despite the obvious business leaders being in positions of power — such as the CEO, director, or president — smaller team leaders and managers are also business leaders. They may be responsible for different elements of the company. However, they are there to motivate employees, set goals, and achieve targets to work towards the overall aim of the company.

5 Key Traits of an Effective Business Leader

Of course, goals and outcomes will differ between business and industry. However, there are some key skills that will be present in all effective business leaders.

1. Excellent Communication Skills

Communication is the foundation of success, not only in business but in most aspects of life. Effective business leaders are able to communicate expectations, goals, and instructions with clarity and assertiveness. Likewise, they are also skilled at creating a space where employees feel comfortable to ask for help and guidance.

2. Creativity

An effective business leader is creative in the way that they approach challenges and problems. They are able to develop innovative ways to improve processes, organization, and productivity within their team. On top of this, they can influence employees to also begin thinking through this critical lens and solve problems for themselves.

3. Ability to Give — and Receive — Constructive Criticism

Nobody is perfect, and a business leader knows this. They have the ability to give constructive feedback to their staff in a manner that is not demoralizing. After all, they want their employees to grow, learn and develop their skills too. However, effective business leaders do not just give constructive criticism. They are also open and eager to receive it, using it to better themselves and their leadership style.

4. Ability to Self-Judge

Whilst receiving feedback from others is very useful, an effective business leader can notice their shortcomings themselves. They are able to pick up on areas of themselves that require improvements and work on them. Not only this, but they are not afraid to admit when they make mistakes. Mistakes lead to growth and growth leads to better business outcomes.

5. Works to Motivate and Encourage

A good business leader knows their employees’ professional strengths. They set goals and targets that are achievable and realistic, keeping team members motivated and giving them a sense of achievement. Additionally, effective leaders praise and thank their employees regularly. When people feel appreciated and rewarded, they work hard. An effective business leader knows how to use this to encourage productivity, loyalty, and determination.

Becoming an Effective Business Leader

You will not become an effective business leader overnight. The journey is a learning curve that twists and turns the whole way through your professional career.

And you must never forget that you cannot be perfect. There is always something to learn and further growth to be pursued. However, these methods will have you marching down the right path.

Practice clear communication.

The importance of communication cannot be highlighted enough. If employees aren’t sure what you want from them, you are not going to see the results you want.

Whilst communication is a two-way road, as a leader, you have to set the foundations. Organizing regular team meetings where clear goals can be set and people can provide updates on progress is a great place to start.

Communication as a leader is also about picking up on subtle hints and needs of employees, showing empathy, and being aware of your non-verbal communication. Take note of your tone of voice and body language when talking with employees. You want to be encouraging and open to make them feel comfortable and engaged.

Always look for ways to improve yourself.

You can always make improvements! This is true both personally and as an organization.

For example, studying for a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) will give you the advanced knowledge and skills to be able to solve complex business problems and develop professionally. Ashton University’s online DBA course has been designed for business leaders, professionals, and future executives to develop an understanding of processes through links to theory, applied research, and in-depth analyses.

Always take the initiative to make improvements to yourself. No matter how big or small, consistently make self-improvements to work towards becoming an effective business leader.

Listen to others.

Listening is a large part of communication. Honing this skill is absolutely critical. As a leader, listening covers a wide range of aspects.

You have to actively listen and respond to your employees. All of them. Whether they are asking for guidance, voicing their concerns, or putting forward a potential idea. You want them to feel respected and valuable, so make time for them and their concerns.

They are coming to you with hopes of change, improvements, or growth. You need to respond in a way that shows they are heard, their contributions to the company are important, and how they are feeling matters to you.

Lead by example.

Everyone has had or has heard about the lazy manager type that barks out orders to everyone else and then floats around not really doing anything. Don’t be that person.

You are the business leader, and if you aren’t working hard, why should your employees? Seeing you actively taking on tasks yourself, working towards the company vision, and putting in effort sets an example to everyone else. You show what is expected. You motivate them to want to work hard for you.

There are some key skills that all leaders possess. Now you know what they are and how to develop them. You are well on your way to becoming an effective and admirable business leader.

The post A Guide to Becoming an Effective Business Leader appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Help is on the way! Here’s how you can foster a meaningful connection among your hybrid workforce.

How Connections Define a Workforce

The world might get more digital by the day, but the human connection will always be a fundamental part of the business.

Solid relationships between employees, both in-office and remote, can improve a business’s daily productivity and help build a winning culture.

Remote and hybrid schedules can interfere with productivity. A reported 54% of remote employees have difficulty connecting with their co-workers because their work setting leaves them physically and socially isolated. As a result, they don’t get the same engagement, and the quality of their work can slip.

Aside from productivity and quality, inconsistent engagement among your workforce can bring down other facets of your business, including:

• employee retention;
• career advancement; and
• creation of employee networks.

How to Foster Connections in Your Hybrid Workforce

Leaders in human resources say a tightly knit group of employees contributes more to productivity than education, experience, cognitive ability, and personality.

With that in mind, you must find innovative ways to keep your hybrid workforce included and connected. Though you might not see their faces as often, they’re every bit as important to your company’s operations as full-time office employees.

1. Emphasize purpose.

Keep your hybrid employees focused by emphasizing purpose. People who find purpose or meaning in their jobs are more engaged and likely to stay with their organizations. You can instill purpose in the following ways.

• Structure your onboarding program with chapters, checkpoints, and measurable goals.
• Encourage them to share winning stories and the progress they’ve made.
• Let them try new things and tackle new projects as they improve.
• Provide frequent feedback.
• Constantly remind them of the bigger picture (how their job makes a difference).

Since hybrid employees often work alone, they might have to interpret instructions on their own. You should establish clear responsibilities and expectations to help them understand the scope of their position.

The tips above will keep hybrid workers engaged from day one and make them feel like an integral part of the team.

2. Keep your communication lines open.

A major factor contributing to the hybrid workforce’s sense of isolation is the lack of communication with peers and superiors. If you’re not careful, your company can become siloed and develop an informal hierarchy…with hybrid employees at the bottom.

To prevent this from happening, you must keep your ears open and reach out to all employees, so they feel heard.

Check your email inbox, give them your cell phone number, and hold periodic check-ins to see how things are going. You don’t even have to talk about work. Just provide them with the opportunity to speak their minds.

When hybrid workers can confidently communicate with their co-workers, they feel more in-tune with the rest of the office and can establish a network to help them advance their careers.

3. Use collaboration tools.

Communication goes far beyond emails and phone calls these days. You must also include collaborative communication methods so your employees can see each other’s faces and engage in group discussions. The following tools can help.

• Instant Messaging Apps: Apps such as Slack and GroupMe allow your entire team to stay on the same page and give different departments their own group chats.
• Video Meeting Rooms: Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom are platforms where your workforce can socialize remotely. They should hold a video conference bi-weekly or on another regular schedule.
• Cloud-Based Storage: Use Google Drive or Microsoft Office to store all of your business’s work and relevant documents in one place. Your employees can create, edit, and share their work with ease, establishing chemistry and camaraderie.

Connecting hybrid workers through group messaging, video conferences, and easily accessible documents makes them feel less like a separate group and more like part of the team.

4. Establish rituals and traditions.

From inside jokes to holiday parties, company traditions play an important role in creating a vibrant office culture. Since hybrid employees can’t always participate, you need to create alternatives for them. Some examples might include:

• shoutouts in emails and video meetings;
• personalized birthday and holiday messages;
• food deliveries to remote workers’ locations; and
• online multiplayer games.

You should also invite hybrid workers to events outside the office, such as fundraisers and happy hours. Make them feel welcome.

5. Create a mentor program.

Assign every new remote/hybrid hire with an in-office supervisor to guide them through the first few months of the job.

It’s difficult for hybrid employees to mesh with the company culture and day-to-day operations because they constantly change environments. A mentor establishes continuity with their schedules and acts as a helpful resource for them.

The hierarchy of employees can be unclear for hybrid workers, but a mentor solves this problem.

Instead of wondering who they need to report to, they can always look to their mentor for assistance. The mentor can also help them set goals, track progress, and potentially advance within the company.

One close working relationship can make all the difference. Set your hybrid workers up for success with an experienced coach.

Keeping Your Hybrid Workforce in the Loop

Isolation and lack of engagement are the main factors that contribute to a hybrid employee’s lack of productivity.

You can alleviate these problems by instilling a sense of purpose, using various lines of communication, and allowing them to collaborate with other workers seamlessly.

You can also make them feel welcome by including them in company rituals and traditions and giving them a mentor. Make them a part of the office loop, and they will be able to establish meaningful connections.

The post How to Foster Meaningful Connection Among Your Hybrid Workforce appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Small-business owners often send and receive messages for a variety of reasons, including to give direction and text vendors or to schedule appointments.

You probably send more text messages than you realize. Texting is a convenient way to communicate with your customers and manage your business.

If you only use SMS to send one-to-one messages, you may be missing out on some of text messaging’s more powerful features.

Business Texting Definition

A business text is an SMS (short message services) that can be sent using a mobile phone or desktop communications app and a text-enabled number. You can do this in one of two ways.

The first is by signing up for a standalone business texting solution. The second is to subscribe to a UCaaS solution that includes business messaging functionality.

Utilizing Business Texting

These days, business instant messaging should form the core of customer communications.

Surveys find that 93% of respondents want both text and voice options when communicating directly with small businesses. Customers are more likely to respond to text messages if they are relevant, frequent, and come from small businesses.

Text-enabling small businesses is a great way to interact with customers. This, along with other resources, can help you respond quickly to customer queries.

Text messaging with customers and clients is a great way to communicate with them. It also eliminates the need for long phone calls and makes it easy to let clients know that you’re available.

Flexibility: Work-from-Anywhere

Business texting is one tool your team can use to communicate, especially with the focus shifting from in-office meetings, in-person shopping, and on-site meetings to a dynamic, hybrid, and sometimes entirely virtual strategy. Apps are available on the user’s mobile device or their computer.

Best Practices to Streamline Text Communications

Not only do business messaging solutions add value to your company through the convenience they offer customers, but also, when used correctly, can streamline your internal communications. You can share numbers with your staff so that customers’ texts and calls (when combined with UCaaS) are always answered by the person who’s available.

It’s important to use quality business messaging in a way that simplifies rather than complicates business communications.

Communication with customers is a major concern. It’s important to determine how many customer service representatives you’ll need and what issues they will address.

To ensure customers’ needs are met promptly, assign time slots to team members. However, don’t over-staff this role.

You should also establish a single voice that your company will use to communicate with customers via text. It’s better to plan ahead for the questions that will be asked and then create templates that can be modified as needed.

Business texting, while it is a useful tool, can add complexity to your monitoring. It can be combined with UCaaS to provide a complete conversation view through an at-a-glance display that brings together all forms of communication. It’s easy to pick up the thread and reply if you have the right systems in place, such as uniform language and staffing.

It’s What Customers Want

Most consumers want to support local businesses. Many consumers feel that small businesses do not offer the same seamless customer experience as large corporations.

According to the same poll, 78% of respondents said that being able to instant message local businesses makes it easier for them to help. Customers want to communicate with you via SMS. It’s long past time to respond.

Be Considerate of Tech-Averse Customers

Texting will always remain a vital part of business-to-customer communication as well as customer-to-business communication.

Something to remember, though, is the technology resistance that many customers might have. For these people, and others who, for various reasons, may feel shy around newer technology, texting may not be an option.

So it’s important to keep other, more traditional, avenues of communication open for your customers who are not comfortable texting. This can include email newsletters or even a brief personal phone call.

In fact, a phone call to your most loyal customers can increase business, surprisingly. If done in a professional manner, such calls can generate additional orders. It’s always the personal touch that counts!

The post Texting Guidance for Small-Businesses appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Preachers are special in another way. They don’t suffer from glossophobia: the fear of public speaking. Some 25% of the population claim to suffer from that particular malady. It used to be said that people feared public speaking more than anything else. It certainly makes just about all the top 10 lists.

That tracks with another undeniable fact: Most people who attempt to do sales are terrible at it. Sales is really hard and most people are as averse to doing it as they are to public speaking. Sales are often 1 to 1 speaking and sometimes 1 to many. It is more demanding than a sermon because the salesperson has to speak extemporaneously. They have to adjust to the situation and respond to the moment. That is a big ask for most people.

While sermons are seldom interrupted, bible class teachers have to respond to questions and comments that can take them far afield from their notes. Even sermons are not altogether static. A preacher has to know when their preparation just isn’t working. They have to be prepared to abandon their notes and move in a different direction. It is a part of reading the room and understanding when you are not connecting. The purpose of the sermon isn’t to get through your notes. It is to communicate something important to the people who took the time to listen. The ability to read the room is a critical part of delivering a good sermon. Here are a few others that will help your public speaking whether or not it is inside a church building:

Include Emotional Hooks

A hook is something that compels the listener whether or not they want to be compelled. Some things like emotional hooks supersede our will. We react autonomically to certain stimuli. Before applying emotional hooks, study a good guide to giving a sermon to learn the basics like,

• Choosing the right topic
• How to study and practice
• How to leverage your content beyond the initial sermon

After that, you will need to learn the power of emotion, playing off people’s feelings and mood, while also strategically deploying shocks or hooks such as jokes. Laughter is autonomic. Even if you are sad, a funny joke will make you laugh despite yourself. Preachers take control of the room just by making them respond with laughter. They are being conditioned to respond to what the speaker is saying.

Stories carry emotional weight which is why so many preachers use stories. Some are personal. Some are from the morning news. We respond emotionally to stories. This is another way preachers compel the response they want when they want it. Pretty soon, the audience is leaning forward waiting for the next moment they are compelled to respond. You can feel it when that happens. From there, you can deliver your message and know it is being received. The audience literally can’t help but receive it.

Offer the Unexpected

Don’t try to walk someone else’s path. Some of the best advice you will ever get is to be cool with being different. This will serve you well in the field of public speaking. As a preacher, you can get people to keep coming to meetings out of inertia. But that should not be the goal. You can always tell when an audience is there just to be there as opposed to being there to be challenged and improved.

If you want to teach nothing from your sermon, just keep saying the same things you always have. We only learn things when we hear something different that challenges us to consider new information. You have to offer the unexpected piece of information that makes the audience stop and think about what you just said.

Again, it is an autonomic response that has nothing to do with will. If you say that 1 and 1 is 2, no one will listen because they already expect you to say that. But if you said that 1 and 1 is 3, everyone would stop, evaluate, and remember how wrong you were. They can’t help but respond to it. The same thing happens when you give them true, but unexpected information. You have to challenge their expectations. Challenge does not mean offend. You can challenge without being offensive. Use your quirky uniqueness to your advantage. Say what they don’t expect to hear and they will hear you whether they want to or not.

Give Away the Takeaway

Whether you speak for 10 minutes or an hour, you want the hearer to take away an important message. Figure out what that message is and give it to them up front, directly, and repeatedly. Don’t make them wonder what you are on about. Give away the takeaway to ensure that your audience actually has something they can hang on to and remember.

When you are first starting out, you will do well to make the takeaway some of the first words out of your mouth. Tell them why you are talking to them right up front and reiterate it after every major point. Do that so that each point you make has a clear connection to what they are supposed to remember.

You will need to make an appeal to someone at some point in your life. That appeal might take a few minutes. Much of public speaking is just making an appeal and pleading your case to the people in the room. If you were able to convince someone to marry you, then you already have the basics of speaking. Find the emotional hook that compels a response. Don’t try to be like everyone else. Be that tickle in the back of one’s head that challenges expectations. And be very clear about your message. Don’t leave the important things ambiguous. Whether for an audience of 1 or an audience of 1,000, these tips will get you to the finish line. And your audience will gladly come along for the ride.

The post How to Make a Speech that People Will Listen To appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

A study into COVID-19 and workplace burnout from TollFreeForwarding.com has found that 37% of people feel their work productivity has declined since the pandemic began. Mental health is being negatively affected, with frustration, anxiety, and stress being the most common health symptoms experienced.

Employee burnout is a key factor in the loss of morale, communication, and productivity in business, so employers must take steps to reduce both the causes and symptoms of burnout.

Here are some of the best steps that businesses can take to avoid employee burnout and ensure communications remain effective while working remotely.

1. Establish Communicative Guidelines for Remote Working

Everyone works in different ways. Some prefer to plan out every aspect of their day and put tasks into a calendar, while others prefer handwritten notes. Some like to leave a consistent email chain, while some will pop over to their colleague’s desk to work out any issues. In an office, this doesn’t pose too much of an issue for work. When working remotely, however, it’s a different story.

When remote working, ensure that the entire team is on the same page to minimize disruptions. Establish clear guidelines when it comes to how your team communicates. Are you using Teams, Hangouts, or Zoom? Should you only schedule meetings at certain times of the day? Do you have specific channels for each team? What should be an email versus a chat message? What justifies a video call? Decide this early on and make it clear to everyone.

2. Provide the Right Equipment

Seventeen percent of those surveyed lack the tools they require to do their job from home. That’s almost a fifth of staff who cannot work productively. It’s the responsibility of each company to provide the correct equipment for staff who are working remotely. You should draw up an inventory of the equipment everyone needs and ensure it is all in good working order. This applies to obvious things like computers and screens, but you should also consider cameras, webcams, mics, and headsets depending on your business.

You should also speak to staff about their work setup – do they have enough space to work effectively? Do they have an ergonomic office chair? While effective working spaces come down to the individual’s circumstances, businesses should do as much as possible to help set staff up with a productive working space.

3. Recreate the Office Environment

For those experiencing remote working for the first time, many find they are missing the office environment. Thirty-eight percent of respondents in the survey said that they’ve developed a new appreciation for the office and the camaraderie it brings.

Face-to-face interaction is key for a positive working environment. It can be difficult to capture the essence of an office when staff aren’t able to interact in person. Businesses should take steps to recreate a social environment wherever possible. Staff will get used to seeing each other over video calls for meetings, but it’s the day-to-day chat element that’s often missing.

One way to get around this is by creating dedicated video chats for breakouts and socializing. If your canteen is a friendly spot, a lunchtime video call that staff can join is a great way to bring people together. If you’re the kind of co-workers who go for a drink at the end of the week, try recreating this over video chat. Spending time with colleagues and not focusing on work conversations is a must to keep a sense of togetherness.

4. Be Over Supportive

The survey also highlights a clear need for employee support. Thirty-seven percent state they don’t think their organization is doing enough to support them through the current crisis. Thirty-two percent want an increase in communication levels across the business, along with dedicated mental health support, https://livingwellnessmedicalcenter.com/klonopin-clonazepam/.

Regular 1:1 meetings and reviews are a must when working remotely as they allow you to check in with staff and see whether they require more support. Consider each individual’s personal and home circumstances, too. Those who live alone or have been personally affected by the pandemic, for example, may require more communicative support from the business.

5. Avoid Micromanaging

Finally, ensure you don’t become a micromanager. If you’re a business that has adapted to remote working for the first time, it can be difficult not knowing what staff are doing day-to-day. However, if this causes you to constantly check on staff and monitor their work, this will undoubtedly lead to lower morale. While staff should know you’re there and available for communication, they shouldn’t feel like you’re monitoring them or don’t trust that they’re getting the job done.

Employees who feel trusted when working remotely will have higher morale and better productivity than those who feel micromanaged. So, place trust in your staff – you hired them for a reason.

Remote working remains a positive thing for employees, offering the flexibility needed to achieve work-life balance. It’s important to ensure morale remains high in situations when employees don’t have the option of face-to-face contact. Ensure your business is providing staff with the equipment they need to work successfully, create clear guidelines for communication, offer support without micromanaging, and take steps to replicate the social nature of the office environment. You’ll soon see remote business communications flourish.

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Remote management puts a lot of responsibility and challenges on managers and employees alike. Running a team of professionals virtually can be tricky, especially if it’s your first time to do so. 

Common Challenges of Remote Management

Managing a remote team comes with its own difficulties. If you’re still struggling to find the right approach, let’s discuss the common challenges you face to determine the right way to overcome them. 

Distractions at home

In the office, employees get to work productively because of the distraction-free environment. It’s challenging for first-time remote employees to maintain their own time table, keep their discipline, and avoid the distractions present in their home, especially if they have kids. What used to be their safe space became stressful, making it hard to separate work and home responsibilities. 

Solution: If possible, offer to cover the cost of a coworking space once or twice a month. 

No face-to-face communication

One of the major work-from-home challenges for companies is holding productive meetings and being aligned due to the lack of in-person communication. Miscommunication or partial communication can create many problems and slow down task or project progress. 

Solution: Instruct employees to document and relay critical information to the respective people, keeping in mind the message’s urgency and importance. 

Lack of access to information from coworkers

Reaching out to coworkers online is more complicated than when you’re working in an office. Even simple questions can make employees feel awkward. 

Solution: Establish a culture where you encourage collaboration and open communication. Be a role model and show employees that they can reach out to you for any concerns, no matter the size. 

Social isolation

Working from home can make employees feel as if they’re working on their own. There are no water cooler conversations, lunch gatherings, or after-work socials. The lack of human interaction may cause workers to suffer from loneliness, affecting their work performance. 

Solution: Require your team to open their cameras during department meetings to create that team atmosphere. You can also hold virtual engagement activities to boost their morale. 

Tips for a Successful Remote Management

Here are some remote management best practices for a successful and smooth-sailing remote set-up to keep your employees productive and happy. 

Avoid micromanaging.

One of the best things you can do as a manager to boost your team’s productivity is to avoid getting too involved in their work. You hired them for their experience, skills, and competence, so show them you trust them with their role by not micromanaging. 

Maintain open communication.

Open and transparent communication is crucial for telecommuting organizations. You should establish clear expectations for the tasks and projects, work performance, business goals, and other important discussions. 

You can use communication tools to streamline your exchanges. For instance, email should be used to properly document tasks, while a chat tool should be used for immediate concerns and other discussions. 

Provide encouragement and emotional support.

Team leaders or managers should lend an ear to the team’s problems, struggles, and anxieties. You have to show empathy and understand where they’re coming from, especially those who faced an abrupt shift to telecommuting or were personally affected by the crisis. 

Do remote team engagement activities.

Just because you work remotely doesn’t mean you can’t bond together. You can still help everyone get together through various activities. Some suggestions include after-work drinks over a video call or dedicating a chat group for mundane discussions like TV shows or movies. 

Remote Management Best Practices: How to Improve Employee Productivity

It’s the organization and managers’ job to ensure that the employees feel involved, valued, and connected even when you don’t get to meet face-to-face. To help you remember the points above and address the difficulties and create a productive remote team, check out the infographic below.

Full infographic available here.

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80% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a company that offers personalized experiences and marketers see an average 20% increase in sales when they deliver more personalized experiences. 

This means your business could make more money and provide a better customer experience by simply altering their strategy marginally.

Unfortunately, most companies are not taking advantage of the crazy amount of data that is now accessible to them.

When creating a personalized experience for your customers, email marketing is a good place to start. It is affordable, easy, and effective.

There is no benefit in spending time and energy creating an email list if you do not create relationships with your subscribers. 

Personalizing emails can help increase open rates and conversions, but this goes far beyond simply adding their first name to the body of the email.

So, what else can you do?

#1 Time Triggers

If you use an email marketing software like ConvertKit, you could set your emails to be delivered at a particular time, which means you could start your email with a simple ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Good Evening’ depending on when it is being sent out. This is a really simple way to add a personal touch to your email and let your subscribers know this is not a piece of text you have simply copy-pasted and sent out.

#2 Automated Behavioral Trigger Emails

Triggered emails are when a customer takes a certain action that prompts an email response. For example, Amazon uses it when you look for a particular product on their online store. 

Sooner than you can second guess the money leaving your bank account, Amazon sends you a list of options they think might interest you. 

This is a great way to capture a potential sale before they change their mind. 

It is not just Amazon that uses behaviorally triggered emails though. You can trigger emails when a subscriber unsubscribes from your email list or if someone is looking for an item that is out of stock. The possibilities are endless.

#3 Event-triggered Emails

This is a trick that works particularly well for clothing companies because there is not a single holiday or season out there that does not have a particular type of clothing to go with it. If Easter, Christmas, the Super Bowl, football season, or Thanksgiving is coming up- recognize that within your email.

This is bound to get more interest than a generic email that is not event focused. 

#4 Ask for the Right Data From the Get-Go

Names are an overused way of personalizing your emails. Frankly, most customers would not care if you addressed them by their first name within the email or not. 

So, instead of simply collecting your customer’s name through your opt-in form, try collecting even more important data.

This could be their birthday (remember what I said about event-triggered emails?), the country they are located in, or even their city if you are a more localized business.

Down the line, you could use this information to send them more personalized emails that they will engage with.

#5 Personalized Landing Pages

There is no point in creating an awesome personalized email if the landing page you are sending your customers to is generic.

The landing page above pulled information from the customer’s email preferences to auto-fill the form and even mention her name in the headline. This impresses customers and makes the buying process easier as well.

#6 Social Media Action Triggers

If someone has followed the company Facebook page or Twitter account, it would be a good idea to send them a follow-up email like this one:

Hey John,

Our team here at company name noticed that you took the time to like our Facebook page. That is awesome and we are so happy you are enjoying our company’s product/services.

You know what? Just to say thanks, here is a 10% discount on your next purchase.

Thanks again!

Simple as that! The customer is going to be more likely to engage with your company again in the future, and you have a potential sale coming your way.

#7 Mention Their Plan and How Many Days They Have Left

If your company provides a digital service, you could send your customers a follow-up email alerting them of your premium package with a potentially discounted rate (for a limited period of time).

This works really well for online learning platforms that provide limited period trials. So, for example, if you are a language learning service like Duolingo or Preply, you could offer a 10-day trial of your services and email your customers when they are nearing the end of the trial.

The above examples prove that personalization gets customers interested and is worth the investment.

With personalized emails delivering 6x higher transaction rates, investing in a better email marketing strategy could do your business more good than some of the more expensive marketing options out there.

The post 7 Email Personalization Techniques That Work Better Than Changing a Name appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

1. Don’t Be A Complainer Or Be Critical Towards Others

If you want to make friends and influence people, it’s important to be seen as a positive person, which you’re not going to do if you’re seen as a complainer or critical of others. If you do have a disagreement with someone, it’s important to try to seek common ground and resolve it as smoothly as possible. Follow Tadam black stock for more business updates.

2. Give Lots Of Praise

Giving praise is a great way to ensure that you’re well-liked, and it’s a great way to build rapport with almost anyone. Make sure that you recognize the achievements of others. Not only can this be a great way to make people feel good, but it also can be a good way to start off a conversation.

3. Always Make Sure That You Remember People’s Names

We all forget the names of people we just met at times, but not remembering someone’s name makes for a much less than ideal first impression. Remembering people’s names the first time helps to foster a stronger interpersonal connection.

4. Be Charming

Being charming comes naturally to some people, but it’s a skill that you can learn to a certain extent as well. In general, it’s important to be seen by others as a positive person, and this will not only make it easier to network but improve other areas of your life as well.

5. Have A Genuine Interest In What Other People Have To Say

In order to connect with other people, it’s important to be interested in what they have to say about their interests, careers, and other aspects of their lives. However, people are often able to sense when someone is simply pretending to be interested. Therefore, you should actually try to get interested in the things that people who you’re trying to connect with have to say.

6. Try To Find People You Have Something In Common With

In order to connect well with others and network, it’s important to make sure that you’re connecting with people who you have something in common with. Not only will this help you to connect with people, but it can also help to foster long-term connections. This can help you to network effectively for your business.

7. Stay Well-Rested

Being well-rested can make you more alert during the day, which can help you with things like remembering names, listening to others effectively, and being better at networking overall. One of the most important parts of getting a good sleep is choosing the right mattress.

8. Allow People To Feel Like They Arrived At The Correct Conclusions

Even if you played a strong role in the conclusions that people came to, allow them to feel like they arrived at the conclusion themselves. This will make people much more likely to enjoy spending time with you, which will make it easier for you to make strong connections with others.

The post How to Influence People in Business appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Over the last two decades, the VoIP industry has matured greatly. Today, VoIP service providers offer businesses unmatched agility.

As engineers improve on voice services technology, entrepreneurs continue to reap ever-increasing benefits. As a business owner, VoIP technology enables you to operate like a corporate giant – without paying giant corporate rates.

Reimagining Business Communications

Because VoIP technology does not rely on a fixed phone line, they give companies the ability to support remote teams around the clock and around the world. Employees can use VoIP services to fulfill their roles using any capable and compatible device.

Typically, VoIP vendors provide apps that allow companies to set up extensions wherever they’re needed. VoIP apps enable remote workers to access essential functions via their mobile devices, allowing them to do more, whether they’re in their home office or out courting clients.

As more enterprises embrace the remote workforce business model, VoIP technology will become an essential tool for remaining competitive.

Shortly, VoIP teleworker companies will use artificial intelligence to perform heuristic scanning that eliminates poor call quality. Resultantly, small business owners can expect that every call routed through their VoIP phone system will sound crystal clear and professional, even when workers are in the field.

The Best Is Yet to Come

Already, technology firms are building the infrastructure for the 5G mobile network. The technology promises to deliver speeds ten times faster than the current 4G standard. A faster network will result in markedly improved call quality.

The new 5G standard promises to empower the remote workforce with more flexibility than ever before. The increased speed will mitigate issues such as echoes, jitter and packet loss. Also, remote workers will have the ability to transfer large files or participate in video conferences, whether they’re in their office or the field.

Today, VoIP service providers make it easier than ever to equip your remote workforce with powerful communications tools. In a matter of days, you can have your entire remote team up, running and ready to do business.

Your Tools, Your Way

VoIP telephony gives you the freedom to make administrative changes on the fly. With a few clicks, you can reconfigure your network to manage resources efficiently. Furthermore, you can seamlessly upscale as your business grows.

It also enables you to pick and choose the tools needed to manage your company’s communications. Most importantly, VoIP technology enables you to unify messaging platforms, such as voice services, video and texting.

Technology enables you to do marvelous things. You can, for example, deploy voice and chatbots to handle common customer inquiries, leaving customer service representatives free to handle complex issues. A combination of the right technologies will enable you to boost your customer service resolution rate and reduce the time that CSRs spend on mundane, repetitive tasks.

Analysts forecast that VoIP technology will soon send landlines the way of Ma Bell. By taking advantage of this cost-effective service, you can future-proof your business with enterprise-grade communications.

The post How Your Business Can Leverage VoIP to Grow appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Its initial purpose was to serve as a workaround to the costs associated with long-distance and international calls.

Although it was still in its very new, experimental stages in the seventies, many felt it was the start of something new, different, innovative, and, at the time, extremely futuristic.

And it was. Heck, it still is, as some people refer to it as one of the 20th-century breakthrough technologies.

Its popularity is on the rise and as it grows more people want to know which are the 5 Best VoIP Apps for iOS and Android devices.

What Is VoIP?

Even with some type of voip systems being around for nearly fifty-years, not everyone is familiar with the term, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), nevertheless, people are using it, they just know it.

Not realizing the association business voip services have with a variety of apps used today, it is often recognized by another name.

If you are an avid Internet user, then chances are, you are among those already using sms solutions for small business.

Whenever you use an app or the internet to make a phone call or text from your computer or mobile device and are not required to use your actual phone number, then you are using, commercial voip phone lines.

A category of hardware and software, VoIP, is similar to that of a phone system.

It takes the audio and analog signals, we make and hear during phone calls, and turns them into small packets of digital data.

As phones traditionally use telephone wires to transmit the audio, VoIP transfers the packets of data, using the Internet, instead.

Why Use VoIP?

There are many benefits to using VoIP, instead of the conventional phone system we grew up with, as it gives people a lot more options.

There are a variety of ways we choose to communicate with one another, and one popular method is the sending of texts or SMS messages.

Over the last decade, the number of text messages sent has increased 7,000%, and in 2018, over 560 Billion text messages were transmitted every month.

That is equivalent to eighty SMS messages being sent out by every person on earth.

It is clear, we are texting with each other at skyrocketing rates, which cannot be done as regularly from a landline phone, or without the right equipment, and phone services are not always dependable.

VoIP offers both, businesses and individuals the option to go beyond making calls and provides the ability to text whenever and wherever there is an Internet connection, either through WiFi or by using data.

It enables you to chat for longer and to feel more secure in knowing your messages are being sent, instantly, as expected.

Additional benefits of using VoIP, include,

Portability: Using any broadband connection, VoIP offers the comfort and convenience that comes with portability. As long as you have an internet connection, you can make phone calls, send texts, and SMS messages, from anywhere in the world.

Multi-Functional: Not only does VoIP offer you the ability to make calls and send messages, to stay in contact with people while on the go, but you can also choose to use it for video conferencing and business meetings.

Flexibility: Companies and individuals can still make regular phone calls with a VoIP system. You are also able to assign VoIP phone numbers to those who travel often. Ultimately, it gives you the flexibility you want when communicating with others, without limitations.

The most significant VoIP benefit is the amount of savings that can come by using it across your devices.

As VoIP turns your Internet connection into a system where you can place free or low-cost phone calls, texts, and SMS messages, it can end up saving you and your company a lot of money.

Due to VoIP already using your internet, you do not need to pay the additional costs that come with having a landline system.

Just imagine the number of dollars you can save from switching your mobile device or employee smartphones, from using a phone system to a VoIP one, instead.

Who Uses VoIP?

Just about everyone.

It is a growing industry, and a recent report forecasts that the number of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) subscribers will increase to approximately $204.8 billion by 2020.

More and more businesses and individuals choose to use VoIP as a way to communicate with colleagues, team members, employees, employers, clients, family, and friends.

As communication is a major contributing factor to the success of every relationship and business, choosing the best app for interacting with others is more important now, than ever before.

As a business, if you decide to use a phone system to communicate internally and with clients at your company, it is essential to consider the recent rise of remote workers, which may make you want to rethink using VoIP.

In 2018, a Gallup study found, 43% of U.S. employees work at least some of the time remotely, and this number continues to grow each day.

As an individual, the website, Flipsy, calculated how your smartphone services can have a significant impact on your financial future.

Based on current unlimited plans, you can expect to spend around $80 per month, which is a grand total of $57,600 over sixty years.

Before making your next call, from your Apple or Android device, first, learn which VoIP apps are the best, to ensure you choose the one that will reduce costs and meet your communication needs.

List Of The 5 Best VoIP Apps for iOS and Android

As the VoIP industry grows, so does the number of Apps for it, but that does not mean all are equal, in quality or the services they provide.

It all depends on you.

1. Nextiva – iOS and Android App

Nextiva is a VoIP App that lets you and your business stay connected to your customers, employees, and partners, directly from your variety of devices, the best part is that they also offer full user’s security.

No matter where your employees are, whether they are in the office or traveling for a work conference, with Nextiva, you can offer a seamless communication experience to clients.

They are able to do what they typically do on their computers, using their mobile phones and tablets, with the Nextiva App.

Offering businesses the ability to efficiently manage unified communications, the Nextiva App, provides features that let you take your business world, around the world, without creating disruptions.

With the Nextiva App, you will never be out-of-the-loop, again.

Its features allow you to use video, voice, screen sharing, video conferencing, chat rooms, cloud sync, instant messaging, and many other useful services.

You can choose to use the VoIP App with one device or create an account to manage your communications across multiple devices, like your tablet, desktop, laptop, and smartphones.

The Nextiva App is currently available for iOS and Android platforms.

2. Viber – iOS and Android App

Viber is a VoIP App much like other online Messenger apps and chat-like boxes, as it lets you make international calls, send text messages, and create group chats.

Express yourself with the GIFs and stickers the Viber Messenger App includes, to add a different element to your conversations.

The App allows you to fully sync it to multiple devices to see all of your old and on-going messages and previous phone calls.

Keeping you organized.

You can also sync contacts from your address book to stay connected with all your friends and family members.

The Viber Messenger App is currently available for iOS and Android platforms.

3. Skype – iOS and Android App

Skype is a VoIP App that specializes in providing video chat and voice calls for Skype-to-Skype users, on multiple devices.

Depending on your purpose, businesses and individuals can choose to communicate between computers, tablets, mobile devices, Xbox One console, smartwatches, and Alexa, by using an Internet connection.

Skype provides instant messaging services where users can share, upload, and download text, files, clips, videos, audio, and images.

It offers a version of its App for Businesses through the use of the software by Microsoft, its parent company, Office 365.

The Skype App is currently available for iOS and Android platforms.

4. Talkatone – iOS and Android App

Talkatone is a VoIP App, which allows you to call via your smartphone and other devices.

You can also text others, as both use WiFi or a data connection without using cell minutes.

You can choose to eliminate the costs associated with having a landline phone and can make inexpensive international calls, as Talkatone can be your home and mobile communication provider.

The App is great for those who often experience poor phone reception or visit places that do.

However, if the internet service works well, you are still able to make calls, as well as, send and receive text messages, for that is all it requires.

The Talkatone App is currently available for iOS and Android platforms.

5. Nimbuzz Messenger App – iOS and Android App

Nimbuzz Messenger is a VoIP App that is relatively new to Google Play, for Android users and is only available on the App Store for iOS devices.

It can be used to make calls, chat rooms, private chats, video calls, and to share files across all of your devices.

Connect your address book contacts to communicate with those you have established relationships with already.

Nimbuzz Messenger also offers sticker packs, chat buddies, and the sharing of music files.

The Nimbuzz Messenger App is currently available for iOS and Android platforms.

Choosing to use VoIP Apps on your iOS or Android devices, is a smart choice as it allows you to easily communicate at work and home, with friends and family members, without high costs or conversation breakdowns.

Whether you are a business or individual, you must choose the best VoIP App for your phone and for you.

The post 5 Best VoIP Apps for iOS and Android appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC has also launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Productivity Roll-up

We use a simple, scrum-inspired email that rolls up through every level of the organization. This email should be the last thing done by team members at the end of their day and have three distinct parts: 1) what they accomplished, 2) any roadblocks they hit and 3) any questions they have. This should be sent to managers from all direct reports and then trickle up through the team. – Nick Eubanks, From The Future

The post 10 Ways to Effectively Track the Productivity of Remote Workers appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Here’s why it’s not relevant for your small business today.

I was at an event recently, and the owner of a karate studio asked one of the expert panelists, how he could use blockchain in his business. I use Digital Asset Management that it’s a cybersecurity company that offers a high-security custodian technology.

The “expert” said, well if you had a community of karate enthusiasts, you could use blockchain for the community database. Something like this, the expert explained.

WRONG.

For a small businesses, such as this owner of a karate studio, he doesn’t need blockchain, all he needs is a simple database to keep track of members, hold discussions or etc. SQL or any number of other databases that have been around for years.

Companies such as Salesforce, Netsuite, Zoho, Infusionsoft, Hubspot, SAP, Intuit and Microsoft make all the tools you need to run a great business. With all the other supporting services such as Asana, Monday, and others, you have a full suite of tools and services to help you manage a growing business.

Indeed VERY big companies who want to enhance security, or sound cool, might consider blockchain – banks, Amazon, Walmart, GE and very BIG companies with massive datasets. But for the rest of us, we small business owners we don’t need to think twice about blockchain. For more legal advice talk to a blockchain lawyer and avoid misunderstandings that you don’t need.

• Focus on making a great product.
• Focus on serving your customers.
• Focus on generating awareness for the problem you solve.
• Focus on better marketing and advertising.
• Focus on treating your employees/staff/team well.
• Focus on making a difference in other peoples lives.

Blockchain is nice, it’s cute, it’s the new buzzword, but you don’t need to worry about it for your small business.

The post Blockchain Is The New Hype Machine Small Businesses Should Ignore appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

How to fix bad cell phone reception in buildings

Cell phone signal boosters are ideal if you have reliable signal outside your building, but poor signal inside. This is also true in your home, if you are not getting a good signal outside of your home, a booster likely will not help well in your home. Boosters help get signal through walls and building materials that block the signal. The optus store nambour provides specialist communication services for your personal and business needs.

Working from home on the internet

It’s not just frustrating to have bad cellular reception indoors when you are working from home, it can be detrimental to your work. In 2017 3.7 million people worked from home in the United States. With those numbers expecting to grow, cell phone signal inside homes will become more important to more people.

Although broadband coverage counteracts some of the need for strong in-home cellular signal, for many people taking work phone calls on their cell phones, poor signal can affect work performance. The best way to improve your service is to use these wireless telecommunications systems. however, if you have a phone, it’s always important to keep it protected with https://matchinggear.com/couple-phone-cases these couple phone cases and keep matching with your partner.

People who drive and cell signal is critical for their jobs face the same problems, particularly those who drive in rural areas or areas with poor signal. Dropped calls from poor cell signal also effect:

• People who live in rural areas
• Dead spots in a commute
• RV owners or truck drivers
• Uber of Lyft drivers

The cost of dropped calls

The telecommunications industry refers to the dropped-call rate (DCR) as the fraction of phone calls which were cut off before the speaking parties finish their conversation due to technical reasons related to all calls made.

While this can happen for numerous reasons depending on geographical location, carrier and coverage areas, the problem is the source of loss of revenue for some businesses. Each dropped call wastes someone’s time, can frustrate customers and can mean loss of business. For rural areas, dropped calls can affect tourism, travel and mean a less safe environment when traveling, this is one of the main reason why a lot of people having been using wireless telecommunications services instead of the regular service. 

How signal boosters can help

While signal boosters are limited to boosting the signal that exist in their coverage range, they are helpful for dead spots in urban communities or in a highly dense area with materials blocking signal. (buildings, walls, etc.)

If you don’t have a good signal outside, your only option is a femtocell. Femtocells only work if you have internet connectivity. Another option for improving cell phone signal is to use wifi calling. Many modern smartphones have this functionality built into the phone settings. When using wifi calling, the call is happening over the wifi signal and cell phone carrier coverage is not necessary.

This article published in partnership with Repeater Store

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True work culture stems from four pillars of wisdom that can only be achieved by good leadership. In effect work culture starts from the highest levels of management whose goals can only be envisioned through simple terms “setting a good example”.

4 pillars of wisdom the influence work culture from good leadership

• Practical vision
• Inspiration
• Motivation
• Implementation

In an effort to reach one’s goals, a clear practical path leading to effective implementation is imperative in helping employees understand what is expected of them. Defining business vision helps employees focus without resorting to unnecessary practices or wasted performances.

Inspiration is the mark of true leadership where a positive attitude and an authoritarian directorship tempered with humility is a perfect dose to cultivate work culture. Being emotive and relating to employees needs with a caring attitude instigates an equal measure of respect admiration and cooperation. Todd McKinnon CEO of Okta once echoed such values where he explained how work leaders set the tone for true work culture. Executive leaders need to work as a team themselves where transparency sets a perfect example to the workforce.

6 main influences of work culture

While the ethos of work culture has been widely studied by academics worldwide, one particular breakthrough by professors Edward Deci and Richard Ryan from the University of Rochester rightly pinpointed what drives work culture and what hurts it. The professors defined six points that influence work Culture.

• Play
• Purpose,
• Potential
• Emotional pressure
• Economic pressure
• Inertia

While the first three motives impacted a healthy work culture, the latter three points had a negative impact. Play, purpose and potential defines an employee within whom the ideals of work culture has been rightly embedded because it proves passion and love for work. It proves that the employee is driven by a sense of purpose and does so because of the desire to be recognized for potential. This is the perfect mantra for a healthy work culture driven business.

The latter three motives do not just prove the failure of an employee but an organization’s inaptitude to produce a healthy atmosphere that drives an employee to be productive.

Motivating an employee through emotive psychology

How do you motivate an employee? Is it always incentives that do the trick as most believe? Unfortunately NO!! While incentives are a common feature of any good business, it is cultivating a sense of responsibility to the productivity and welfare of the business that is all important. An employee walking that extra mile just because he wants to is the ideal mentality to achieve that reflects true work culture.

Tapping into the psyche of an employee and understanding human temperament on an individual basis is extremely important in achieving perfect coordination between a team. It helps in cultivating camaraderie, mutual respect and responsibility. It creates a clear sense of focus and understanding of the levels of authority without animosity or enmity. That is perfect work culture.

Work Culture should be harvested not demanded

When implanting the tools of work culture amongst employees, one must never adopt a demanding attitude. Work culture as mentioned earlier can never be demanded. It has to be sown, cultivated and harvested through cooperation and passion. You may get your employees to work extra time but that isn’t work culture. Productivity isn’t measured by quantity but quality. Targets can be achieved in a shorter time span through quality work. Helping an employee understand personal growth and a sense of achievement is a path shared by the company envisioning its own success. This greatly contributes to a high level of work culture in any organization.

Work culture thrives from diversity, not unilateral thought

It is a huge misconception on the part of many that work culture is the result of a unilateral thought process. A team thinking on the same wavelength producing the same ideas breeds monotony and limits creativity. A team consisting of people with diverse thinking produces a myriad of ideas healthy for implentation of new projects and initiating innovative methods of work that benefits client and company alike. Moreover diversity of thought produces healthy criticism and elimination of weak points in any brand building or marketing project.

A perfect example of work culture, its ideals and its cultivation within a workforce is the organizational principles followed by the award winning healthy snack delivery service Snack Nation. It is widely representative of how an organization needs to be run in respect to employee motivation and work culture.

It can rightly be concluded that work culture depends on the perfect coordination of leadership and workforce. It is not coerced nor is it demanded but rather it is impacted by a positive psychology of all concerned thereby instigating an atmosphere that rightly describes “WORK CULTURE”!!

The post Cultivating Work Culture through Emotive Motivation and Leadership appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

1. Appear.in 

In our business, we’ve experimented with a number of video meeting services like Slack and Skype but have found that appear.in is the most dead-simple app on the market. It’s blazing fast, requires no login and even no registration for a truly one-click quick meeting setup. The best part? It’s free. – Corey Eulas, Factorial Digital 

2. Google Hangouts 

At Lawyaw, we use Google Hangouts whenever possible for our video meetings and initial employee interviews (if remote). We find that people are generally familiar with Google Hangouts and it has been very reliable for us, doesn’t require installing a lot of different software, and most importantly, it’s free. Using practical, easy-to-use tools helps us focus on building our own products. – Tucker Cottingham, Lawyaw

3. GoToMeeting 

Since our team is 100 percent remote, it is important for us to take full advantage of communication tools. GoToMeeting is a great option when it comes to video meetings. It features desktop or app sharing, advanced scheduling options, up to six high-definition video feeds and clear audio.

– Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com 

4. Meeting Owl

Owl Labs just launched Meeting Owl, and it has been a fantastic experience. No more tech issues and dropped calls. And all remote participants can collaborate interactively and feel like they are part of — as opposed to looking into — the meeting. Most importantly, it’s easy to set up, and just works. – Erik Bullen, MageMail 

5. Slack 

Slack has a fantastic built-in video chat functionality. They released it fairly recently. If your company uses Slack religiously, it’s very practical and painless. – Ben Lang, Spoke 

6. Skype 

My preference is Skype. Whether you are in town or working remotely, this user-friendly service is reliable, an easy download (if one does not already have it) and even easier to use. – Abhilash Patel, Abhilash.co 

7. WhatsApp 

By using WhatsApp as a suggested video conferencing tool, you are immediately creating an avenue for people to continue the conversation via instant message. If you are not previously connected to the person via WhatsApp, by hosting that first video meeting, you are opening an avenue to maintain an informal, instant communication with that person after the call is done. – Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors 

8. Zoom 

Zoom is my favorite video meeting platform. It’s easy for multiple people to join the video, allows you to create personalized links for your meeting space, and has great picture and sound quality. – Leila Lewis, Be Inspired PR 

The post 8 User-Friendly Video Platforms Entrepreneurs Would Recommend for Meetings appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

The Benefits of a Virtual Team

More and more companies are embracing the virtual worker concept and allowing employees to work from home. Just take a list at the top 100 companies in 2017 that are offering remote jobs. Businesses like Amazon, UnitedHealth Group, Hilton Worldwide, Xerox, Dell, and Intuit understand the benefits, and need, of offering remote work as an option to recruit and maintain the best possible employees.

Some of the overwhelming benefits of having a virtual team include:

• Increased worker productivity: the removal of distractions like impromptu meetings and loud co-workers, remote employees, and their manager’s report a definite increase in overall productivity.
• Lowers stress and boosts morale: 82 percent of remote workers report lower stress levels according to a survey by PGI. In addition, the survey also reported that 80 percent of workers had a higher morale and 69 percent reported lower absenteeism.
• It reduces employee turnover: According to a study published by Stanford University, job attrition rates fell by over 50 percent for a China-based firm with 16,000 employees.
• It satisfies millennial workers who demand flexible benefits and work styles: 68 percent of millennials surveyed by AfterCollege say that the option to work remotely increases their interest in an employer.

Each of these benefits is not only a boost to the overall operation of a business but also has a significant impact on a company’s bottom line. So let’s take a look at what managers need to know about effectively building a virtual team.

Two Keys to Building a Collaborative and Productive Virtual Team

According to an article by Alvernia University, there are two keys to building a more collaborative and productive virtual team that managers and leaders need to know: Structure and Communication.

Having an outlined team structure, especially for larger teams, is essential for ensuring team productivity and collaboration. Harvard Business Review recommends using a flexible, fluid team structure of multiple tiers that include a core (strategy and development), operational level (ongoing day-to-day workers) and outer network (temporary or part-time workers with specialized expertise). Having this type of defined structure brings together team members who need to collaborate for specific purposes.

In addition to developing a team structure, companies are strongly encouraged to have a written telecommuting policy. This allows employees to understand expectations on how they will work.

The second key to building a strong virtual team is communication. However, it is not just about ensuring that you have proper methods in place for facilitating communication, but that you are continually encouraging communication between virtual team members. Non-work communication can buy phentermine pakistan lead to building trust which leads to success. Therefore, managers and leaders should highly encourage both work and non-work communication through team building activities and interactions when in the office and other outside activities.

How your #smallbiz can build the best #virtualteam that is #productive and collaborative.
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Collaboration and Communication Tools for Virtual Teams

Tools play an integral part in ensuring that your team can collaborate effectively and remain productive, regardless of where they are located. Here’s a roundup of some of our favorite tools that assist virtual teams.

Communication Tools

To ease communication between virtual employees, companies can turn to tools like Slack or Skype. These real-time tools allow for individual or group conversations and the sharing of files. Skype also allows for the use of video and screen sharing so that team members can see one another and specific details they are discussing.

Project Management

There is an extensive list of online project management tools that businesses can use to organize their business projects. Two of our favorites include Asana and Teamwork.

File Sharing

Using an efficient file sharing tool not only allows team members quick access to the documents they need but the ability to collaborate by leaving comments and notes. Two great tools to consider are Dropbox and Google Drive.

By taking the right steps to implement the proper tools and best strategies, business leaders and managers can take advantage of a remote workforce to increase their business operations and bottom line. For those looking to improve their skill level and knowledge of today’s business functions and processes, consider pursuing an online MBA through an institution like Alvernia University.

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By leveraging cloud UC, employees can be kept in the loop no matter their location or device they choose through advanced features of some of the best systems. This winter, businesses can ensure productivity with the following cloud UC advantages:

No Reliance on Equipment

While employees may not necessarily want to answer the phone while skiing down a mountain or gathered around a warm fireplace with family, they can still be accessible should there be a dire emergency at the office. All employee business communications can be accessed easily no matter the location through cloud-based UC systems, where the entire platform is available on desk phones, PCs, smartphones and tablets. A system that is operated 100 percent in the cloud has the unique ability to store all individual user profile information in the cloud, including their designated phone number, extension, contacts, voicemail and speed dials, eliminating any reliance on equipment on-site, and empowering businesses with true mobility. This means that all calls, messages, emails, chats, voicemail, presence and even video conferences can be hosted, scheduled or started from virtually any device and from any location an employee travels to. Additionally, mobile access to UC features like soft phones, empower employees to make and receive calls on their mobile device using their business number to remain professional.

Seamless Communication & Collaboration
With winter creating an influx of employees traveling, working remotely or home sick, collaborative mobility tools are essential for businesses to function at their highest levels. The most sophisticated video conferencing solutions allow employees to securely connect and collaborate with colleagues, customers and partners from anywhere in the world at a second’s notice. For example, start a video conference on an iMac in the office, pick it up on a smartphone while on the plane headed towards a vacation destination and share the recording with the team once settled at a hotel. The best platforms allow users to host online meetings, HD video conferences and audio conferences for as many as 100 people, enabling employees to jointly review and edit files, share screens, run webinars and interact seamlessly, all with end-to-end encryption for full security.

With a cloud UC system in place, business owners don’t have to worry about how the next big ice storm will impact productivity because employees can take their desk wherever they go. To work more efficiently and effectively, employees can take advantage of company-wide chat to send a brief message and provide a quick and easy method for others to response. There are plenty of chat apps on the market to choose from, but it’s important that the platform chosen meets all of the organization’s needs and works across all platforms, anything less is sub-standard. In addition, some UC systems can also integrate with existing productivity apps like Google apps, Skype, Microsoft Office365 or Salesforce, which further allows for unification across departments, no matter which device being used.

 Prevent Security Threats
This winter and beyond, it is imperative that mission-critical communications are safeguarded. The best cloud UC systems are designed to store critical data in a place that is secure, monitored and backed-up 24/7 X 365. Ensuring the highest level of security, a 100 percent cloud-based UC system prevents any information or data to be stored on local servers or phones on-site where they can be vulnerable to security threats. Having a good managed security service means that databases are also stored on secure servers in a protected cloud infrastructure. When moving a business’s infrastructure to the cloud, the chosen service provider should be able to provide a written guarantee called a service level agreement (SLA) that details its reliability. Having all business apps – not just some – supported and secured reduces the amount of time it would take for a business to recover from a potential security threat, as well as the amount of time essential and confidential data is exposed to any risk.

Businesses that make the move from traditional phone systems to cloud-based UC systems can rest at ease while the workforce is on the move, as they will be better equipped to overcome lower attendance and barriers to productivity – not only this winter, but throughout the year.

The post Using Technology to Keep Employees Connected and Productive through the Winter appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Let’s give Microsoft credit. It is NO longer the company of 10 or 20 years go, launching, software installed on a PC – those days are over. Seeing Satya Nadella on stage at Microsoft’s press conference, launching Microsoft Teams, was big. Hear a snip of his presentation here.

Microsoft Teams is yet another successful push by Microsoft to provide frictionless services for enhanced collaboration and communication, on the Office 365 platform. I use Asana, Zapier and many other tools. But the ONE thing that Microsoft continues to provide is a comprehensive suite of products that offer some of the best collaboration and communication solutions available.

Furthermore, Microsoft offers support, constant improvements, security and an ecosystem of supporting partners.

There’s been so much press comparing Microsoft Teams to Slack and I get it. But think about this. Slack and other companies are a premium model. For those who don’t want to pay, and want free, they’re going to go to Slack or some other free version. But for those companies who want a premium offering, they’re going to want to consider Microsoft. It’s all about investing in your business as well. Comparing “free” to a great fee based product is not “apples to apples”.

For companies who are standardized on Microsoft, Microsoft Teams will be highly compelling. For companies who are not using a Microsoft product, Microsoft Teams might give them a reason to do so.

What’s also nice about Microsoft Teams, like with other Microsoft products, is that it’s open to bringing in and sharing data from other sources – including Asana and Zapier and many others.

From Microsoft’s press release:

• Chat for today’s teams. Microsoft Teams provides persistent, threaded chat to keep everyone engaged and informed. Team conversations are visible to the entire team by default, and the experience also offers private chat capabilities. A library of emojis, GIFs, custom stickers and memes gives people a fun way to express personality within their digital workspace.
• A hub for teamwork. Microsoft Teams brings together the full breadth and depth of Office 365. People can start voice and video meetings, as well as work with Microsoft Office documents, directly within the Microsoft Teams experience. The Microsoft Graph enables intelligence to help with information relevance, discovery and sharing. Microsoft Teams is also built on Office 365 Groups, the cross-application membership service that makes it easy for people to move naturally from one collaboration tool to another, preserve their sense of context and share with others.
• Customizable for each team. Because every team is unique, Microsoft Teams offers the ability for teams to customize the experience to meet their specific needs. Team members can create channels to organize conversations by topic. They can customize channels with a feature called Tabs, which provide quick access to frequently used documents and applications. Tabs can be created for Office 365 services like OneNote, SharePoint and Planner, or third-party solutions, such as Zendesk and Asana coming soon. Microsoft Teams supports the same Connector model as Exchange to bring notifications and updates from third-party services, such as Twitter or GitHub available Wednesday, directly into the experience. In addition, it supports the Microsoft Bot Framework to bring intelligent first- and third-party services into the team environment, including sharepoint permissions management. The preview of the Microsoft Teams Developer Preview, also announced today, gives developers the opportunity to start building integrations with Microsoft Teams right away.
• Security that teams trust. As part of Office 365, Microsoft Teams offers the global scale and advanced security and compliance capabilities provided by the Microsoft Cloud. Data is encrypted at all times and covered by a transparent operational model with no standing access to customer data. Multifactor authentication provides enhanced identity protection to help ensure data stays safe within the team. In addition, Microsoft Teams will support key compliance and data protection standards, such as the data processing terms with European Union Model Clauses, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act business associate agreement (HIPAA BAA), ISO 27001, ISO 27018, and SSAE 16 SOC 1 and 2 report.

The post Microsoft Teams: How Microsoft Is Changing and Evolving Business Collaboration & Communication appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

My dentist is amazing however, when I want to make or change appointments I have to call his office. Why? Why can’t I do it all online? There are MANY great online scheduling services available and Microsoft recently released one of its own – Microsoft Bookings.

Integrated into Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Bookings helps small business owners ensure they’re customers can book appointments with them – 24/7. Not just book the appointment but also change and update it.

Each new customer that schedules an appointment with you is added to the customer contact of Microsoft Bookings as well.

If you work with customers, who need to schedule appointments with you – enable them to manage their own online bookings.

The post Microsoft Bookings – Enable Customers To Make and Amend Their Appointments Online appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

What’s one tip for making the most of your freelance tech talent?

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

The post 13 Ways to Make the Most of Your Freelancers appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Slack has the BRAIN SHARE of collaboration amongst so many. Other tools include Jive and of course Google Apps and Microsoft’s Office 365.

You can get the full details about Facebook Workplace here.

Facebook Workplace appears to be quite robust. Integrating Live Video, Chat, Search and an overall News Feed – it’s a way for teams to keep in touch and updated.

I like that Facebook offers it free for 3 months – plenty of time for every company to try out.

At only $3 a month per user – it’s pretty darn cheap.

The post Facebook Workplace: Now Collaborate With Your CoWorkers Using Facebook appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Often times with doing video conferences with a group it’s a hassle. People can’t hear (or see) and there are wires strung here and there. Skype and Logitech have teamed up to create the Logitech Smart Dock which is an appliance integrating audio and video.

What’s also nice about the Smart Dock is that it can swivel so everyone around the room can be seen and heard.

There’s no need to have all meeting participants bring their laptops the next time you have a meeting.

From the press release, “With Logitech SmartDock, people can start meetings on time with one-touch join, then instantly project to the display in the room and share to remote participants via their Skype for Business clients on a smartphone or laptop. The Skype Room System also includes the ability to place or join an audio-only call. Now with the new Skype for Business meeting experience, users can leave their laptops behind, walk into a SmartDock-equipped conference room, and work together as if they were in the same room.”

The post Get Rid of The Wires and Hassle: Use Skype Better with New Logitech SmartDock appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

This webinar is part of Comcast Business’s “Connections to Growth” series – “a year-long series designed to help you transform your business and drive growth in your company.” Each week the Connections to Growth website is updated with new blog posts on business topics like leadership, culture, training and technology. The series also features special live webinars like the one I’m telling you about today. Here are the important details:

Topic: Building, Growing and Keeping Your Team

Date: Tuesday, August 2^nd

Time: 12-1 PM CDT

SIGN UP FOR THE COMCAST BUSINESS WEBINAR HERE

This is a FREE webinar, so I hope you can join me! I will be participating on the panel, along with Julie Wilson (the Executive Director of the Institute for the Future of Learning) and Gene Marks (founder of the Mars Group.) During the webinar we will discuss what it takes to build a great team, including training the team, retaining your best team members, and creating a team that helps you with your current and future needs as a business.

The webinar will include lively discussion, best practices, and thought-provoking questions and answers. Secure your spot by registering today. After registering, you’ll get a confirmation email with the information you need to join the webinar.

This Comcast Business webinar is perfect for small business owners who want to cultivate a team that will make their business strong and successful! See you on Tuesday, August 2^nd.

The post Comcast Business Webinar on August 2 – How to Build a Strong Team appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Smart Hustle Small Business Community Launched

Smart Hustle is proud to serve the small business community by providing informational articles and inspiring stories. Earlier this year, we conducted a survey to find out what other things our readers would like to see, and an overwhelming majority relayed their interest in more community activities. This week, Smart Hustle answered the call by launching a small business community on Facebook. Everyone is invited to join this group, where you can ask questions, give advice, discuss small business topics, participate in live video chats, and even win prizes!

Click here to join Smart Hustle’s Small Business Community

Peter Shankman Joins Smart Hustle

Peter Shankman is the epitome of a smart hustler. As a successful entrepreneur, Peter created HARO (Help a Reporter Out), a service that helps journalists connect with small business owners (who can then benefit from free marketing). He is also an author, speaker, consultant, and an entrepreneurial investor whose projects include SCOTTeVEST.  This week, Smart Hustle announced that Peter will be joining the Smart Hustle team as an advisor and contributing expert. Stay tuned for great things – Peter Shankman and Smart Hustle will be an unbeatable team!

Click to read Celebrity Author & Entrepreneur Peter Shankman Joins Smart Hustle Magazine as Contributing Editor & Advisor

The Little Steps that Lead to Success

Have you ever given up on a dream because you were intimidated by the journey you would have to take to reach that dream? It’s true: our biggest goals are the hardest to reach, taking countless days, months and even years of our blood, sweat, and tears. That shouldn’t stop you, though. In this interview with Chris Capehart, you’ll learn about his new book that breaks down the ‘proverbial mile’ to your goal into smaller, achievable steps. As Chris explains, if you focus on the small steps instead of the long journey, you can reach any goal you have.

Click to read Pursuing Your Dreams One Small Step at a Time – An Interview with Chris Capehart

Team Collaboration with Intraboom

Today’s technology has made it easier than ever to collaborate with your small business team members. The problem is that there are so many collaboration tools to choose from that it can be difficult to know which will work best for your business. In this article (and video interview) we learn about a new collaboration tool called Intraboom which offers features such as messaging, calendars, file sharing, a main dashboard and more.

Click to read SXSW 2016 Interview: How Intraboom Is Changing the Way Teams Communicate

As I mentioned, it was a very busy week for the Smart Hustle team! In addition to the articles and announcements listed here, there were several other articles and interviews, including what you need to know before starting a business, how to create a positive work environment, Kevin O’Leary’s 3 rules for giving a perfect business pitch, and so much more! Check out the Smart Hustle website to catch up on these and other stories.

The post Smart Hustle Recap: Small Business Community Launched, Peter Shankman Joins the Team & More! appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Facebook Messenger used to be just a tool to “chat” back and forth. For many it’s replaced email, Skype chat and other forms of rapid-fire communication. For businesses – it could be a powerful support tool.

For many it’s replaced email, Skype chat and other forms of rapid-fire communication. For businesses – it could be a powerful support tool.

Facebook Messenger is quickly evolving into a tool, a service, to provide enhanced customer support to the over a billion active users on Facebook who might want to interact with your company.

Techcrunch has a great overview of Messenger’s evolution here.

Some of the highlights:

• Get your vanity business name – NOW. A Facebook vanity business name is JUST as important as a traditional domain name.
• Educate yourself in HOW to use Messenger for business and not just chatting with your nieces or a colleague
• Facebook has tools enabling your customers to quickly open a Facebook Messenger chat session

Customer support will never change – serve your customers. The METHODS of customer support is changing with the rise of digital support tools.

This truly is “The Age of the Customer“, as penned by Jim Blasingame in his latest book.

The post 5 Ways Facebook Messenger Customer Support Can Help Your Business appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

While I’m happy that Slack has raised more money and indeed Slack is a great tool, you still have to check “something” – that something being your Slack threads.

My beef is NOT with Slack or any of the other great communication tools on the market.

My beef is that people think they can REDUCE their communication clutter by shifting to a new tool.

That’s not the case.

Here’s what I’ve found is the best way to reduce information overload and have a SANE inbox.

• Rob Hatch of Owner Magazine shared in a talk at Social Media Tulsa that he a) gets rid of social notifications so he’s not distracted b) plans his day and c) as thoughts come into his head he writes them down so we won’t forget.
• Asana is my tool of choice for organizing teams around projects and tasks. Using it enables you to not forget what needs to be done and ensure you know who is doing it. It’s also a great tool to keep track of the conversations around projects – like Slack does.
• My inbox is carefully managed. Like Seth Godin, I have  zero email policy. Meaning before I go to bed at night, there’s no emails (or at least not more than 10 or so) in my inbox. I saw someone’s inbox yesterday and they have THOUSANDS of emails. Ouch. I also use filters. My email newsletters automatically go to one folder, for example.
• Last, I have a little yellow sticky note I use to keep track of a few key points that might come to my mind or that I need to remember from a phone call.

How do you organize your day?

The post You Don’t Need Slack To Be Productive. You Need Discipline. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Slack

We switched over from Skype to Slack, and it’s worked wonders for our team. You can divide the conversations into specific channels with their own members and use the “@” function to notify multiple members at once. It keeps our communication organized, and having the app on our phones makes it easy to communicate from wherever.

– Micah Johnson, GoFanbase, Inc.

2. iDoneThis

iDoneThis is a tool our team has used for years because of its simplicity and accountability. iDoneThis will send you and your team an evening email reminder to ask what you did that day. The team replies, and the next day everyone gets a digest with what everyone on the team got done. It’s very simple, and allows remote employees to celebrate and stay on top of team successes.

– Brett Farmiloe, Marketing Auditors

3. Sococo and Slack

Our team uses a combination of Slack for chat, and Sococo, which is a virtual office. It has offices, conference rooms, chat, video and screen sharing. The combination of these has drastically improved our remote team’s communication and productivity while supporting Revel’s culture. These encourage information sharing and keep everyone in the loop without too much noise.

– Kayla Wagner Faires, Revel Interactive

4. Wrike

Most of our team works remotely in various parts of the country or around the world. Wrike is awesome because it lets us collaborate on projects without having to email progress updates; it has real time notifications. It centralizes the information so employees can start working instead of trying to figure out what’s been done since they worked on the project. It has sped up our development process a lot. There are great business communications solutions offered in the industry.

– Peter Daisyme, Hosting

5. Trello

We have found Trello to be a helpful platform. We can communicate easily through the site in an organized fashion. It keeps track of what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process. It also allows for checklists that keep you updatedon how much work, percentage wise, you have done.

– Stanley Meytin, True Film Production

6. Screenhero

Screenhero is an incredible tool that promotes effective collaboration remotely. The technology enables you to hold conference calls and screen-shares, but also goes a step beyond by allowing team members to actually control one another’s screens as needed. It’s a very powerful piece of software, and we have started to use it daily to collaborate across multiple time zones.

– Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

7. Asana

We have all our projects organized in Asana, and use it to communicate on projects every day since we’re a virtual team. My team loves the massive checklists in Asana, and we use the thread for each task to chat and give feedback if we need to. We’ve tried a lot of systems, and this is the one that has worked best for us and allowed us to cancel three other tools. Asana does it all!

– Natalie MacNeil, She Takes on the World

8. Salesforce

Salesforce allows me to watch what each employee does on a daily basis. It tracks each representative’s activity, sales, steps, etc. I am always checking in on this to make sure I am up to speed on everyone’s progress.

– Jayna Cooke, EVENTup

9. Teamwork

In dealing with clients and team members remotely, using a cloud solution like Teamwork is essential. Owning a web development company, it’s important to have privacy with your team members with the versatility of including and excluding the client when necessary on communications, files, etc. In testing all of the solutions out there when trying to find the best software, we chose Teamwork.

– Vinny Galiano, Galiano Brands

10. DoneDone

Although DoneDone is the most effective for development and software teams, it really can be used for company-wide communication and collaboration through one central hub. This platform easily detects issues in process, no matter what department you are a part of, and helps teams come together to solve said problem. DoneDone is extremely easy to use and team members adapt to it quickly.

– Miles Jennings, Recruiter.com

11. 15Five

The beauty of 15Five is its directness and simplicity. Employees answer questions ranging from what is and isn’t working to where they need help. The opportunity to answer specialized questions on a weekly basis keeps teams agile. You’ll find that sometimes you’ll receive a greater level of honesty or thought when your team is able to respond outside of the typical meeting or stand-up environments.

– Zach Robbins, Leadnomics

12. Projectplace

If you’ve used a platform like Trello and want to step it up a little, then you’ll like Projectplace. Just like Trello, it uses the Kanban method of project management (with Kanban boards). You get tools like Task Management, Project Overviews, Issue Management, etc., and it’s all visual so you won’t feel too overwhelmed.

– Cody McLain, SupportNinja

13. Confluence

There is no better way to collaborate with a remote team than with an internal wiki. With Confluence, you can upload files, document business processes, interlink pages, as well as tag specific team members to projects and comments where they need to address an issue. You can also set up email notifications for yourself and your team so that everyone is aware of new updates made to pages in the wiki.

– Brian David Crane, Caller Smart Inc.

14. Whatsapp

Most of my team is spread out around the world. The best way to check up on them is through whatsapp. It’s really awesome to know when someone you contact has seen your messages. Whatsapp does just that, and with over a billion users, calls can be made instantly anywhere. Even Facebook’s messenger (acquirer of whatsapp) adopted the message received feature. Pro tip: When it’s urgent, I use both.

– Robert De Los Santos, Sky High Party Rentals

The post 14 New Ways to Check in With Your Remote Team appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Box

Box is a UK-based file sharing service that has both personal and business options. It offers unlimited storage on business accounts and it integrates with Microsoft Office 365. It’s simple to use, secure and affordable.

– Jonathan Long, Market Domination Media

2. Google Drive

We use Google Drive for file sharing among our team and also clients. It is free till 15 GB for each user and get 100 GB is only $2 a month. We can share any type of file and also create Google office files and share. It comes with apps for desktops and smartphones that we can download and synch from there. It maintains the versions. Also, many people have Google accounts, so we can share easily.

– Piyush Jain, SIMpalm

3. BitTorrent Sync

BitTorrent Sync is the best file sharing solution we’ve used by a mile. For most use cases, it is completely free no matter how many users you have via a torrent. It has higher security because it never gets stored in the “cloud.” It’s also fast, especially within a local network, precisely because it goes directly between the users rather than uploading and then downloading on other cloud services.

– James Simpson, GoldFire Studios

4. Slack

People think of Slack as a chat, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s a perfect solution for a remote-working and mobile-friendly team to search, share and store files that need to be ready at a moment’s notice.

– Brennan White, Cortex

5. Copy

Copy is a great service that I’ve used over the past couple of years. It works basically the same as Dropbox, but you get a few more bells and whistles while spending around half the yearly price as most other services like it.

– John Rampton, Due

6. A Shared Server

All of our computers are connected and have a shared folder via Wi-Fi. This method is very low-cost and secure.

– Andrew Namminga, Andesign

7. Hightail

We have a unique Hightail upload link that makes it easy for employees and clients to send bulk files all at once, without dealing with multiple emails. Since our business heavily relies on receiving photo and video content from clients, Hightail has made our lives much easier.

– Micah Johnson, GoFanbase, Inc.

8. Dropbox

I find Dropbox relatively inexpensive for what you get, and with the new functionality of being able to comment on files, it makes my life much easier. If I were to pick a negative, it would be purchasing more storage for your account, which can get pricey for multiple users.

– Jayna Cooke, EVENTup

9. WeTransfer

I love Google Drive for many things, but for sharing it doesn’t always work right. Wetransfer.com is my go-to solution for quick, free and painless sharing for anything up to 2 GB. You don’t even need an account to send anything, and I’ve used it at least 200 times over the years.

– Josh Sprague, Orange Mud

10. OwnCloud

The available SaaS file–sharing services aren’t always a great fit: they have limited features, aren’t easily customized and security is a coin toss. OwnCloud is a self-hosted file–sharing and collaboration solution with great encryption. It’s hosted on your own servers, in a data center or in the cloud. The major benefit is that your IT department has full control over where and how data is stored.

– Vik Patel, Future Hosting

11. Chatter

If you’re already a Salesforce customer then you may be familiar with Chatter, what we describe as our internal social network. We communicate in department groups and often share relevant information — such as training material or marketing collateral — by posting it directly to the group. Chatter shows a PDF preview of uploaded files and allows people to like, comment and download a copy.

– David Ciccarelli, Voices.com

12. MediaFire

If you have a lot of files to share but not a huge budget, MediaFire is a great choice for you and your company. There is no limit on storage space and the interface is extremely easy to work with and show to your teams. There is no limit on how many users can dial in to this tool, and it is a great space for team members to communicate, share files, bounce ideas back and forth and more.

– Miles Jennings, Recruiter.com

13. Streamfile

With Streamfile, you can send and share files up to 300 MB for free. No registration is required, and your files are encrypted. You also get 1 GB of bandwidth each month, and premium accounts are available starting at only $79 per month.

– Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

14. Seafile and OwnCloud

Seafile and OwnCloud have seen some some good success, are actively supported and offer community editions that are free. They also have paid versions that are reasonable and low-cost compared to more mainstream big tech companies.

– Kevin Conner, Vast Bridges

The post 14 File Sharing Tools Perfect for Growing Teams appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Calendly

We’ve had great success using Calendly. You include your link with available meeting times in an email, and the client schedules their own appointment from there. It eliminates the back and forth of trying to find a time that works for everyone and is super easy to use.

– Micah Johnson, GoFanbase, Inc.

2. ScheduleOnce

Since using ScheduleOnce’s MeetMe for scheduling meetings with clients, there’s been a vast improvement in organization and a reduction in the back-and-forth emails that normally ensue when trying to set up an appointment. It’s easy to use, reduces admin effort and removes headaches.

– Thomas Smale, FE International

3. x.ai

Amy, the virtual artificial assistant from x.ai, is really sophisticated and has handled a number of my complicated scheduling requests without fail. Most of the time, the other side has no idea that they are interacting with a computer-generated program.

– Reza Chowdhury, AlleyWatch

4. Google Apps

Google Calendars is tried and true for a reason. It syncs with nearly every phone, computer and email account, allowing me to have constant access to my calendar and add appointments wherever I am. While there are other options out there, this is easy to use and virtually everywhere.

– Matt Doyle, Excel Builders

5. Mixmax

Mixmax is a Gmail integration app that has a feature that really takes the hassle out of scheduling meetings. You just add calendar spots to your email and the person you send it to just clicks on the time that works for them and it’s booked. There is no back and forth. It easily saves me hours every week.

– Thomas Cullen, LaunchPad Lab

6. Pick.co

Scheduling should be an easy task but tends to have the most complicated solutions catering to it. Most of them often miss the point: getting the appointment set quickly. Pick.co makes it so easy to set your preferred times and connect with your existing calendar. Then you’re good to share your calendar link with the world.

– Rahul Varshneya, Arkenea LLC

7. Sunrise

Sunrise is a great calendar app. The way it handles invites and meeting dates/times is beyond what others do. It’s a fusion between Google Calendar and Doodle. In addition, the mobile app is wonderfully executed as well. It’s a real time-saver.

– George Morris, The FRAMEWORK

8. Front Desk

Front Desk is the most reliable, simple and flexible solution that I’ve used for scheduling within my team, company and clients. The software adapts to my company’s unique workflow and does not force us to schedule in ways that we are not used to. The entire team adapted to Front Desk immediately, and it makes communication flow easily and successfully.

– Miles Jennings, Recruiter.com

9. Assistant.to

We all hate the back and forth that happens when trying to set up a meeting. Assistant.to is a lifesaver in that department, and its integration with Gmail is nothing short of beautiful. With just a couple clicks you can send your availability, which stays up-to-date in real time. Then, people can select their time and book. It’s automatically added to both calendars. Done!

– Christie Kerner, Launch MiE

10. Keeping It Old School

I prefer the old school method of having a secretary or personal assistant to take over once a connection has been made. This way makes us different compared to everyone else using online apps and provides a personal touch when scheduling that brings us back to the days when folks would connect much more in person.

– Engelo Rumora, Ohio Cashflow

The post 10 Apps That Take the Stress Out of Scheduling Appointments appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Intro.JS

If you like open source, Intro.js is perhaps the most flexible and cheapest option on the market. While there are many tools that allow you to create onboarding tours for your customers, they are either limited by functionality or flexibility. Conversely, as an all-encompassing tool, intro.js is incredibly easy to set up, 100 percent free forever and also allows you to retain your brand identity.

– Pratham Mittal, VenturePact

2. Google for Work

We’ve since left more robust applications, like Confluence and Basecamp, behind. And although we still use JIRA for project management functionality, we’ve found that a simple collection of organized documents is much more intuitive for our new hires than a fully featured Wiki site with lots of unnecessary text, interface clutter, and ancillary application integrations.

– Blair Thomas, First American Merchant

3. Screencast-O-Matic

We have recently started using this online tool to video record every single process. So far it has worked like a charm and instead of spending 2-3 weeks answering questions about the particular role, we now get every new hire to spend 2-3 days watching all of the videos and asking any questions during that time. It also serves as a great reminder when we forget a particular process.

– Engelo Rumora, Ohio Cashflow

4. Trello

While there are many specific tools available, we’re a huge fan of creating Trello cards for all new hires to ensure everything is completed. It’s a simple, yet powerfully effective way to streamline onboarding.

– Nick Genty, Iconic Solutions

5. Zoom

While several programs are necessary to keep my agency team running smoothly, for face-to-face onboarding chats, Zoom streamlines video conferencing and cross-platform chat into one platform so it’s easier for me to connect with my new clients and employees.

– Nicole Munoz, Start Ranking Now

6. Zenefits

We switched to Zenefits in October, and it has streamlined our hiring process and nearly eliminated paperwork. One of our new employees said using Zenefits was the easiest onboarding he’s had yet. New hires often spend their first day filling out paperwork. With Zenefits, we email everything to them beforehand. Because it’s connected to our payroll company, you only have to input information once.

– Joshua Dorkin, BiggerPockets

7. Streak

I just recently stumbled upon Streak.com, but I am already hooked on its possibilities. Streak lives entirely within Gmail which works perfectly for our company (90 percent of our onboarding process is done through email). The system is extremely flexible, so whether you are onboarding clients or doing blog outreach, you can manage the process easily.

– Mark Daoust, Quiet Light Brokerage, Inc.

8. Asana

We use Asana for project and task management throughout our company. For onboarding, we have a “template” project which contains all tasks that a new hire should take on in their first week, ranging from reviewing our annual plan to getting a key to the office. We add to and edit the template based each new hires experience, so the onboarding process gets better over time.

– Bhavin Parikh, Magoosh Inc

9. Basecamp

Basecamp is an old guard at this point in the SaaS project management space. Yet its flexibility and simplicity make it an excellent tool for streamlining an on-boarding process. There is a template feature that lets us build out new projects and assign roles to key people then track progress. It’s also great for managing documents during this process.

– Lane Campbell, Creately

10. Slack

With our team spread all over the world, the most important part of the onboarding process is feeling like they are part of the team. With the ability to create a watercooler-like experience on the mobile or desktop app, Slack helps new employees immediately be looped in on all our team communications. Rookies can ask questions, understand our culture, and have access to important documents.

– Matt Wilson, Under30Experiences

11. LegalZoom

One of the most critical aspects on on boarding new employees is making absolutely certain that you put in place basic legal agreements. I recommend a subscription to LegalZoom.com as a cost-effective alternative to hiring an expensive attorney. LegalZoom offers access to all the legal forms you’ll need to onboard, including employee agreements, non-disclosures, stock options, and non-competes.

– Obinna Ekezie, Wakanow.com

12. Flowdock

Flowdock is both a team chat app and a stream of activity across other services such as GitHub, UserVoice, etc. The first thing we do during onboarding is bring them into Flowdock so they can meet the rest of the team and get some context on what has been happening within the company in recent days, weeks or months.

– James Simpson, GoldFire Studios

13. Confluence

As a small business begins to scale, it is essential to have standard operating procedures (SOPs) during onboarding — whether that’s for new employees or clients. We use Confluence to document all of our SOPs. Using a combination of written instructions, images and videos it has significantly streamlined a number of our processes and also allows us to make continuous improvements at all stages.

– Thomas Smale, FE International

The post 13 Best Tools for Streamlining Your Company’s Onboarding Process appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Intel Small Business Advantage Features

To learn more about Intel Small Business Advantage, I recently interviewed Chad Constant, Director of Business Client Marketing at Intel Corporation. With over 17 years’ experience working at Intel, Chad is particularly excited about this latest offering for small business owners.

According to Chad, Intel Small Business Advantage has been developed to help small businesses better connect with their employees while better understanding the security and health of their computers and devices. It includes:

• A built-in chat feature for inter-office communications.
• File sharing and screen sharing to assist with employee collaboration.
• An array of security features including data backup, a PC health center and a software monitor.

As you can see, some of these features will help you boost the productivity of your business by simplifying collaboration and communication through a single platform. Other features will boost your business security. For example, there is a feature that allows you to turn off the USB access ports throughout the business, and a central backup system that will protect your files if something happens to an employee’s computer or device.

An added benefit is that Intel Small Business Advantage is designed to work on any device that you are carrying. It is mobile compatible, so you can download the companion apps for Android, Apple and Google devices to access the system.

Want to learn more about Intel Small Business Advantage? Grab a cup of coffee and sit back while listening to my short 8-minute interview where Chad Constant explains more about the new software.

Many small business owners love the technological solutions that are available today, but they are sick of having to go to different applications for all their main business functions, like chatting, file sharing, and data security. If you are looking for a simple solution that just sits on your desktop and helps you run your business more productively, Intel Small Business Advantage may be the solution for you.

The post Intel Small Business Advantage: A One-Stop Solution to Boost Productivity and Security (Interview with Intel’s Chad Constant) appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

How to Get Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Small busineses can fork over a lot of dough for marketing, but arguably the most effective type of marketing is free: word-of-mouth marketing. This article is based on an interview with Olga Kay, owner of a business that makes fun socks for millennials, called MooshWalks. Olga has successfully engaged her loyal customers and social media followers to do the marketing for her company. This article combines advice from that interview plus extra tips so you too can activate word-of-mouth marketing for your business.

Click to read Simple Ways to Get your Customers to Do Your Marketing for You.

Just in Time for Filing: Tax Tips for Small Business Owners

Small business tax filing is not something that most of us look forward to – but once again, we find ourselves nearing the deadline for 2015 tax filing. If you are still gathering your documents, you will appreciate these small business tax tips from Candace Klein of Dealstruck.

Click to read 5 Solid Tax Tips for Filing as a Small Business.

Become a Better Manager Today

When you start a small business, you inevitably throw yourself into the role of ‘manager,’ whether you are leading a small team of employees or working with freelancers online. How the manager handles employees and work situations can greatly impact the success of the business operations – and no matter how good you are, we could all stand to improve our managerial skills. This article shares advice from Michael Riley of Vayner Media – ten tips that will help you successfully lead a team of workers.

Click to read 10 Tips for Becoming a Better Manager.

Marketing, managing, tax filing – what is on your small business to-do list this week?

The post Smart Hustle Recap: Word-of-Mouth Marketing, Tax Tips & How to Become a Better Manager appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

SmallBizTechnology has a long history of promoting technology use among small business owners. In the years since our launch, we’ve covered small biz tech tools for just about every aspect of businesses, and we love to spread the message that leveraging technology can help you pull ahead of the competition.

Okay, you read the news everyday and follow how things are going on around the world. You go on holiday and see some beautiful hotels in other countries. But, most likely you haven’t experienced other parts of the world like Digital Nomads do. As the experience of living somewhere is very different than taking a vacation in the same place.

Luckily, all that changes when you become a digital nomad blog. You travel to any part of the world to feel how living in other countries feels like. Once you do that, you either confirm some of the many things you may have heard about a country and its people, or totally realise that all that you heard (or maybe most) are rarely true. You are given the opportunity to learn a lot of languages and live with a lot of people that will reshape how you see the world. Indeed, the Digital Nomad Lifestyle really opens your eyes to a bigger world outside the places that you already know.

Yes, we Digital Nomads work, and often work hard, sometimes harder than in an office job. But on our days off we don’t have to visit every birthday party, mow the loan, clean our houses and fix the long waiting tasks. We go and climb mountains, volcanoes, see one of the world wonders. We go and explore new cities, in my case I go and look for abandoned houses to explore. There’s a whole new world in front of your doorstep, a world which needs to be explored.

In this week’s Smart Hustle Recap we have an amazing article covering the top 50 small biz tech tools available – no more searching and wasting time trying to find out what works, this list has taken the guess work out of the equation so you can dive right into the technology that will help grow your business. Our other stories feature creative marketing ideas and tips for using market segmentation to grow your business. Check out our top Smart Hustle stories below.

50 Small Biz Tech Tools

Stop wasting time on dead ends – this list provides the ultimate small biz tech tools that have proven effective for small business owners like you. The list is broken down into:

• Productivity Tools
• Collaboration Tools
• Project and Task Management Tools
• CRM & Email Marketing Tools
• Financial Tools
• Website Design Tools
• Social Media Sharing & Management Tools
• Webinar Tools
• Video Creation & Sharing Tools
• Travel Tools
• Hiring & Outsourced Help Tools

Just choose the area you most need help with to learn about the best tools that will help you reach your goals.

Is there a ‘Right’ Kind of Marketing?

Our next story will have you rethinking the type of marketing you think is ‘right’ for your business. Each business may rely on its own type of marketing, but sometimes when you expand beyond your comfort zone you can achieve bigger results. This article has three examples from the Business Circle solutions that will jumpstart new ideas on how you can market your small business.

Market Segmentation Can Help You Grow Your Business

Segmenting your market involves looking at all the different types of customers you serve and trying to find other ways to reach them and drum up extra business. This article will give you tips on developing a strategy so you can understand your market segments and use that information to grow your business.

So which article will you explore first this week? Get more information via the links above, and for other current stories visit Smart Hustle here.

The post Smart Hustle Recap: 50 Small Biz Tech Tools & Other Hot Stories appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

What I’m referring to is the on-demand economy, which is also called the gig economy. This is a general term for the growing group of independent contractors who work ‘gigs’ instead of regular full-time jobs. The on-demand economy includes freelancers and consultants who contract out their work as well as workers who do service-based gigs like drive for Uber or make money by renting out their home with sites like Airbnb.

The on-demand economy touches many of us in the small business realm. I’m sure some of you reading this are on-demand workers yourselves, while others may have hired on-demand workers for anything from getting a ride to getting help on your business website.

A recent Smart Hustle article explores what we know about the on-demand economy today. It includes:

• Statistics from a recent Intuit survey which looks at this part of the American workforce including who they are, how they like their work and what challenges they face.
• Government initiatives to learn more about this group in terms of labor laws and classifications.

In terms of government interest, the article points out that the U.S. government is questioning whether these workers should be classified as ‘independent contractors’ or not. I see many sides of this:

• Independent contractors are important for our economy.
• Yes, some companies might be abusing or misusing the classification.
• However, independent contractors often WANT to be contractors because of the freedom it gives them.
• Either way, the government should be VERY careful about reclassification.

The article gave me a lot to think about in terms of the on-demand economy and the ever-changing American workforce. I urge you to check out the article – then come back and let me know your opinions in the comments.

Click to read The On-Demand Workforce & the Changing Face of the American Workforce.

The post The American Workforce Is Changing – Will the Government Step In? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.