May the Joys of the season fill your heart with goodwill & cheer

May the chimes of Christmas glory add up more shine and spread

New Year is the time to unfold new horizons & realize new dreams.

To rediscover the strength & faith within you.

To rejoice in simple pleasures and gear up for new challenges.

Wishing you all a truly fulfilling 2012.

Happy holidays to you all.

This thanksgiving let us spend a moment in silence to pray for the souls of all the poor turkeys who volunteered to be our dinner for so many years. Have a Happy Thanksgiving day!

Wish you all a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday

There is no magic formula to start or run a successful business, small, big or otherwise.

When you start a business, it is easy to be side tracked, jump into get rich quick schemes that promise an overnight success.

There is no such thing as being successful overnight, or any guarantee that your business will be successful. Do not get disappointed the first time you hit a road block, do not give up just because someone gave you a bad review or not happy with your product and service.

Create a good service, or product, keep your customer’s loyalty and create a great customer service for your customers, it is a good formula to achieve your goals.

Your desire to have a successful business, your determination to learn, improve and continue, and allow your self dedication to your SO-HO to lead you to your own success.

Stand out with your services, stand by your services, empower your customers with knowledge and support, be creative and open to changes.

You will have to work hard to achieve your sucess.

According to Turban et al. (2002), “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.” -on Wikipedia.

We are all familiar with how can customer service can affect our business, but is customer service related or enhanced just by meeting the expectations on products and services. Or does it go beyond?

Working from home is great and it allows you to choose your own hours, be your own boss and give you the freedom to decide which customer to take on board.

As SO-HO owner, we wear many hats and are constantly dealing with keeping the business afloat. While keeping the business running and juggling between marketing, servicing and producing to the customers, we overlook important routines and forget to pay attention to the overall outcome.

Sure, the product is good, and services in demand, but is there anything that could be done to boost the customer service?

Are you paying attention to the noises around the house, when picking up the phone?
Are you organized and ready to answer the questions?
Do you need to fumble to find that price list, or spec sheet?
Are the kids running in and out of the house, or is the dog barking.?

What happens when your customer calls and they get you on the phone under these circumstances?

Maybe you didn’t get to answer the call, or you forgot to return the e-mail or information that was requested, maybe you didn’t call the customer with details that needed to be ironed out before the service was performed.

Customer service will reflect in all areas of your business and professional life. Will reflect and affect on how you conduct your business, how well you know your product the value you add, the attention you pay, the knowledge you share, the way you present yourself professionally.

Customer service starts the second you make the contact with your customer/ prospect and will and should continue as long as your service or product is in use by your customer.

It is said that a customer will form an opinion about the business and owner the first 10 seconds into a meeting or phone call.

Make your first 10 seconds count.

I found that standing up while taking customers calls and looking into a mirror across from where I stand, helps me see how the customer perceives me.

Key things to remember:

• Make a good first impression
• Listen to the customer needs
• Understand and act upon their needs
• Create trust
• Treat them as friends
• Ask for feedback
• Follow up with thank you letter or a note
• Offer incentives: discounts, referrals or rewards

Tell them why they should spend their money rather than with a competitor.
Tell them how you provide better or faster service and why your quality is higher than the leading competition.
What will the customer’s benefit be after doing business with you that they won’t get elsewhere?

Don’t forget to smile and handle the service call professionally.

Next time you connect with a customer or prospect, use your customer service “mode” to conduct your business.

Copyright ©2011 Ramona Szilagyi, places4us.com. Article material is copyright. Reproduction in whole or in part without advance written permission is prohibited.

Please extend a warm welcome to Lilian Robertson with the new web presence at:
http://www.virtual-office-assist.com

Lilian Robertson opens her virtual office assistant services to individuals or small business and helps them organize their busy days.

She has background in Office administration, support and sales.
Services that you can outsource with Lilian are:

Desktop Publishing
Word Processing
Presentations
Administrative Help

      A personalized one-on -one service for your small business needs.

There are thousands of sites, categories, personal, business, media, social, technical, environmental, political. You name it, there is one that you are looking for. The number is overwhelming and intimidating.

Everyone is online, connecting, chatting, asking, selling, training and words are flying.

The basic blog types  I will list here are main 4; social, political, business and media.

Why, where and how would the small business owner fit and deal with this task, more importantly, why bother to have a web site, social media or blog presence.

WHY

Considering that the Internet today is the best and cheapest advertisement tool available, just like having your own sales person working 24/7 around the globe without having to pay a dime.  No salary, no benefits, no commissions.
Having a presence on the Internet means that your business gets exposure, your service and products are displayed to anyone and everyone that comes by. Depending on how well you planned out your presence is how fast and how many visitors/ customers you will acquire. 

WHERE

There are plenty of free services available and perhaps already have or familiar with. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Photo bucket, Google, available with just a simple creation of ID and password and you have a tool to blog and connect online. More so, some of these services allow you to create a blog, but also a profile, pages with info you can upload about you, your company, hobbies and anything you would like to share with the entire world, becoming a big and happy family.

HOW

Some services have comprehensive video and learning tools to take you through first creation process. As a member you will also receive tools to optimize your blog with keywords, links to feeds, news and community information.
If you know your way around the Internet, it is a pretty simple process to start a blog and available tools to create mostly any content, via quick links and resources.

My favorite blogging site is Word Press. Wonderful themes and a variety of layouts. Great community and helpful people.

How do you get started.
Click on the icon to take you to the site for training videos and support to help start your blog site.     
Go to http://wordpress.com to create a log in ID ( this will be your blog name, so careful what name you choose, since once the blog site is created, you cannot change the name) enter a password. Voila, you are the owner of a new public blog site.

You will receive a confirmation link to the e-mail address you created your account. When received, confirm the link and now you are ready to proceed to the dashboard where you will be able to choose your settings for your blog account.

In the dashboard you can choose the theme, the way your pages will show to visitors, keyword tags, color schemes and more.

Once you have decided what look, how many pages, what content, pictures to upload, you are ready to blog and share your thoughts.

To answer the question regarding how though it is to create a blog, as you can see, if you have Internet connection, you know how to follow directions from a tutorial and have any information to share, it is a fairly simple process.

You can also check out www.blogspot.com and check out features and available video tutorials, for yet another great blogging place.

Have fun with your new blog!

Whether you start the business on your own, with a family member or friend, some things you should consider:

What is the reason you are starting the business?
Is this because someone mentioned you are good with some service or product
Because you want your financial freedom
You have a hobby that you can turn into income
You want to be your own boss
Want to work specific hours without supervision

Why you think you will succeed?
You researched your service or product and found that is a demand for it
Have the background and settings to run your home office
You are prepared financially to keep afloat until you have a steady flow of customers
Willing to deal with difficult people and tasks
Ready and eager to learn new things, keep up with technology and training

What do you expect from your SO-HO endeavor?
To be financially secure
Become successful and recognized
Run a business that you enjoy and good at
Take vacations, enjoy time off and spend more time with family and friends.

If any or all these reasons are driving you to start your business, before you take action, present it to your family.

Why should you do this?
Your family is your main support in starting a SO-HO business. They need to understand the reasons that you have taken this decision and to help you with your new endeavor.

Your family will have and must take a role in this journey. Unless they understand and support you, your journey, instead of being a pleasant one, will be filled with road blocks.

Mark a date and time on your calendar, invite them as you would set up an appointment with a client. Make your presentation as professional as you would present it to your toughest client.

Gather all your information, your business plan, and create a presentation, list all the pros and cons for starting your SO-HO.

The presentation should include work hours, time off, expectation of income and expenses running this business. What to expect from you, what you expect from them, how can they be involved or help with your SO-HO business.

Explain to them how much more interaction you can achieve by working from home and doing what you like. Tell them how this will make you achieve your dreams, how much happier you can become, and how much you can all learn from this experience.
Explain to them the financial steps that will impact your household. Ask their support while you are still at start up and their patience to run your own business to create success. Let them know of any concerns, questions or difficulties you would all encounter along the way by starting a SO-HO.
Discuss with them options and support that you can get.
By creating a family acceptance, you will have a powerful ally and fun while operating your SO-HO.

The better you educate them, the better the support and involvement will be.

A customer relationship management is a program that allows you to keep your contacts, inquiries and communication open with your prospects and customers.

Think of it as a database of all pertinent contact, history, tracking manager for your company’s customers, prospects, a system that automates your PR, campaigns and data management and provides a clear picture of your ROI (return on investment)

Many online companies offer for a membership/ user fee comprehensive and easy to use solutions.

You as a small business owner, can benefit by using a turn key solution with step by step instruction on how to use, manage and track your customers, but also as a small business owner you are constrained by your budget and time to learn to use these solutions.

Salesforce,com, Zoho.CRM.com, are some of the leaders in CRM solutions, but did you know that you can create your own CRM tracking with just a good e-mail program.

Let’s analyze the use of Outlook Express and MS Outlook as a CRM program to integrate with your SO-HO.

If you only have a few customers and prospects, and do not have the budget, consider these options before you dive into a yearly contract.

How can I set up and use these programs (already on your computer and paid for) to implement my own CRM.

Before you start creating your CRM, have e-mail accounts created for each marketing need (ex:info@yourdomain.com; help@yourdomain.com) also please create our own website along with your domain name which you can can create here: ”http://www.ipower.com/join/index.bml?AffID=657904“ to present a professional image to customers.

First, add a new folder to your contacts and name it CRM (for this example).

Next, create a new “Rules and alerts” from “Tools” , the wizard will help set up the rules, and how to manage these alerts. Example: Set a rule that all e-mails coming from a specific e-mail address, subject line, or from people in your contact list to be moved (deleted, copied, added—) to a specific folder (in the example above, Folder called “CRM”) and apply how to manage these.

Next create a distribution list and select all e-mails that come from the specified rule that you just created. Name this list CRM inquiries (example only)

Create an e-mail template with subject and information regarding the inquiry you would like to respond to.

Set up folders, distribution list and rules for all type of inquiries and e-mail responders to these.

As you will receive these inquiries, from Web site, from blog, from where you have set your e-mails to contact from, will be automatically added to the folder assigned and you can now send out to these lists the response to inquiry in a timely and professional way.

You can use settings to send newsletter subscriptions, trade show info, product information, news, alerts you can also set these messages to leave at certain dates, times by marking the e-mail responders with recurring and options set for time and date, also tracking receipt for those.

Apply this system only if you have a small database you work with. If you expect 1,000′s of inquiries, best to use the professional versions online, or outsource this service.

With a little effort and imagination you can create your own CRM at no extra cost.

Some people are familiar with and have a personal computer and tools, others, used to work with these tools at their place of business, and not familiar with specifications or set ups.

Regardless if you are selling product or services or both, a phone system, computer, fax, printer are vital to run your business.

With the various choices and prices, it is hard for the non technical connoisseur to make a decision.

Keeping in mind that the SO-HO owner does not have a big budget, here is a list of equipment and tools that would benefit specially at start up.

A business computer (registered as an asset and for business use only) with plenty of storage (hard drive capacity to store all the programs and files)

You should look for systems that have at least 80-120 GB HD capacity, 4GB RAM (random access memory speed up monitor refresh rate), DVD-R (DVD player and recorder), high resolution monitor and plenty of USB ports. High speed internet access, web camera and a back up drive.

This system can be a PC or netbook depending on what type of business and where you are conducting your business. Look for Energy saving equipment to save on utilities as well.

If you go for a netbook, buy an external monitor that you can use when at office to be easier on your eyes while working on files, design, or just surf the web.

Programs that you should have on your computer depend on the type of business, however here are the basic ones to have in order to run your business efficiently.

Virus protection, Word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, calendar, e-mail, bookkeeping or accounting.

Most computers come with preloaded software, some included with the purchase of the computer, other with offers to purchase the license.

If you work with a small budget, consider using an open source, free package including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, similar feel and look to MS office suite. http://www.openoffice.org/ This package can read and open all type of files.

These E-mail programs are easy to manage and have plenty of great features to run your e-mail campaigns, keep in touch with customers or prospects. If you are a Windows user, use Outlook Express which comes as a free program with Windows XP and earlier versions, in WIN 7 use Windows Live Mail from Windows Essentials. If you already own MS Outlook use this to keep your calendar and notes as well.

Windows Essentials has a great virus protection program, a blog writer and the Messenger for free, that allows you to connect and video conference online.

A great bookkeeping program, easy to use and affordable to SO-HO owner is Quickbooks by Intuit.(you can try here: http://quickbooks.intuit.com/?priorityCode=3969702399&kbid=17379 ) Set up your customers, vendors, reports in minutes and ready to customize to your own company needs. If your business requires to build product and need a program that will allow you to create BOM (bill of materials) then check out Peachtree by Sage. Both programs are easy to learn and both have options for payroll module if you have employees.

Invest in a good backup system and keep your computer up to date with your virus protection program and an automated back up plan.

If you foresee using fax, copy and print in your daily work, consider buying an All in one color printer, fax, copier, cost around $100.00 and create professional looking output.

Automate your office by adding a VoIP phone (800#, with VM, e-fax- optional service) and a fast internet connection to handle all your processing needs.

And remember, an efficient office is a successful office.