Shrink Your Website Downtime and Get Tech Support Questions Answered Faster

website down, get tech answers fasterEvery second that your business website is down, your software isn’t working, or your hardware is offline costs you money and customers. You need to get back up and running as quickly as possible. And while a lot depends on what you need and the quality of your tech support, you can help make it all happen a little faster.

Here’s how:

Try to Recreate the Problem

If you get an error, or can’t get a feature to work, try rebooting everything and trying again. You may even want to try the same process on a different computer. If it’s a genuine problem that needs fixing, it should happen again.…

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3 Ideas For Ensuring Employee Loyalty

According to a recent MetLife study, while small businesses are quite optimistic with the general economy employee retention may be the next hurdle to overcome.   It’s not enough to make your customers happy so that they will come back to be patrons of your business. Another important factor to consider is how to retain your employees.

Think back to when you were an employee yourself. What were the factors that made you stay with a company for years? Was it really just because of the salary? Let’s face it, other businesses (other companies who want to “pirate” your star employee) can offer more competitive salaries to the best employees out there.…

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Leadership Lessons From 3 Great Business Leaders

Being a CEO of any business is not a walk in the park. Leadership is more than just sitting behind a desk all day,  preparing action plans for employee misdemeanors and clocking out at 6. Tenured employees may know all about business operations but tenure is just one of the factors to be considered for a managerial position.

leadership lesson from 3 great leaders

While it takes time to make any one person a leader, there are some born with the qualities inherent in being an effective business leader. Aside from leadership styles, it is the leadership qualities of a CEO, a manager, a supervisor even, which sets a mediocre operation apart from a thriving, successful business.…

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Promoting Your Business Through Word of Mouth Marketing

word of mouth marketing for your small businessAn effective marketing strategy is vital for any business. When paid advertisements, billboards and brochures were all the rage back in the day, there was a mad scramble to get the best, albeit affordable, designs to get mass attention. Nowadays, social media is at the forefront of marketing that everything and anything which it encompasses seems to be a necessity for businesses to use.

The one thing that past and present marketing strategies have in common is the tools which business owners use in order to grab the attention of consumers and ensure that their brands are the first thing that comes to mind for their target market.…

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Expectations For Your Outsourcer to Reduce Your Risk

5 Expectations For Your Outsourcer

Did you sign up for outsourcing figuring you could forget about IT?

Ignore the management of IT at your own risk. One company outsourced its IT, negotiating excellent rates. Sadly, the outsourcer failed to purchase software, installing the same copy again and again. Horrendous customer service created productivity issues. The company paid a penalty to exit the contract and had to purchase the unlicensed software, taking a serious hit to profitability.

In another case, the organization picked an outsourcer based on a board member’s recommendation. Now the outsourcer is struggling with tasks many would consider standard, including simple tasks like monitoring backups.…

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Does Your Business Need An Emergency Contingency Plan?

having an emergency contingency plan for your businessDisasters can strike anywhere at any time. Whether it is man-made or natural, disasters can be crippling especially to small businesses. When you think about it, what small businesses should be investing in is a feasible emergency contingency plan. But the reality is, 62% of surveyed small businesses do not have an emergency plan in place.

An emergency contingency plan is a plan that is designed for preparation in case things go wrong. It is in effect, a preparation for anything that could happen. Having a contingency plan does not mean that you are dwelling on the negative, it means that you are giving extra protection for you business.…

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Cloud Computing: Keep Your Feet on the Ground or Reach for the Sky?

Apple has recently announced the launch of its own bet for the cloud computing platform, iCloud. It seems that cloud computing is being looked into not only by business owners but consumers as well. Today, it doesn’t matter whether you have a 4GB USB flash drive or an external hard drive. Those gadgets may become obsolete like the floppy disks we used back in the day.

As a consumer, I might not be completely sold on being in the cloud although there are many benefits such as photo storage, video storage, etc.   None of us want to lose those precious memories, right?  …

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Where Is The ROI In Social Media?

social media ROI

If you run a small business chances are cash is in short supply. Money simply doesn’t flow freely around a small business like it does with a large corporate firm. This means that most investment decisions should yield a high ROI, or you could run the risk of putting your company in danger. It often only takes a few bad investments to put a business in choppy waters, so understanding where the ROI is in social media can prove valuable.

Social Media ROI

The hottest topic these days is social media. Social media is known for it’s unusually high ROI (if you are able to measure it).…

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Social Networking Risks and Challenges for Small Business Owners

social networking risks and challengesEveryone knows the benefits of being active members in social networking sites. The huge opportunities brought forth by social media blasts for promotion is almost too good to be true for small business owners. The temptation of free publicity it seems is too much to not give in.

While there are various articles on how good social networking is, there are regrettably, some negative sides to it as well. I am in no way attempting to dissuade anyone from being active in social networking sites. However, it is imperative that every business owner who goes all out in tweeting, posting and sharing know the risks before jumping into the fray.…

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How To Combat And Learn From Negative Feedback

learning from negative feedback

Negative reviews and feedback for a small business can have a greater impact today than ever before due to the increased use and accessibility of the Internet. Unfortunately, one negative review can turn consumers away, but with the right proactive approach, negative reviews don’t need to have a huge impact on your business and can even be viewed in a positive light by incorporating the following into your reputation management campaign.

  • Confirm the legitimacy of the claim. Unfortunately, some do attempt to make other businesses look bad for personal gain, so first confirm the legitimacy of any negative feedback you receive.
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