Everyone wants to save money – that is a given. Beware falling victim to false economy however. You do not want to save money in one area of your business only to have that savings cost you more in another. The classic example of this is driving across town to save a few cents on gas. Yes, you saved seventy-five cents on the gas you bought, but you used a dollar’s worth of gas to do so. What you have is a net loss.
Sometimes in business the cause and effect of expenditures are not as direct as buying gas, but they are still there. For instance, many small businesses are tempted to use the least expensive phone service available. The problem is that an undependable phone connection can cause you frustration, lost customers, and give your business a poor reputation. All it takes is one or two clients turning away from you because you are hard to get hold of or the connection is always scratchy to more than offset that savings you gained by using a cheap service.
Another example is the purchase of equipment such as computers, faxes, or printers. Too often the price of the machine is the overriding factor in what is bought. What is left out many times is the needs assessment. If you invest in a new computer without looking at the requirements to run your software, the environment that it will be running in, the number of users it will have, the expected life-span and so on, you will end up either having to buy additional equipment or you will find your operations hampered. If processes take too long to complete, can’t be done, or must be out-sourced, this can result in lost customers, employee frustration, and direct additional expenses.
Finally, and an often neglected area, is training. When you or someone on your staff is not up-to-speed on the software you are using, tasks take longer, errors are introduced, and poor job satisfaction follows which can result in turn-over and poor customer service. Sure training costs money, but I have seen many an example where simply taking a one day class would give a person skills that enable them to shave hours per week off their work. Those hours can be spent doing additional work, building strong customer relationships, or even just enjoying life! Here, a class that cost perhaps two-hundred dollars can pay for itself in time and productivity within a few months. In more than one case I have seen days cut off monthly procedures and outsourced functions brought easily back in-house.
The key to all of these is to think beyond the immediate outlay of cash to what that purchase is really providing to your business. Every expenditure you make is an investment for your business. If using a cheaper alternative costs you even one sale, is it worth it? In some cases the answer may be yes. But in other cases, when you really look at how much it costs you to drive across town for that gas, the more expensive option may be the one that provides the greatest return.
Tags: economy, equipment, purchasing, telephone, voip
Presented here for your approval are a few handy free web-based utilities that will help with some bothersome tasks. None of these utilities is complicated or difficult to use. They are also probably not something you are going to use every day. But, when you need the service they have to offer, you usually need it badly and quickly!
The first is CometDocs which will convert documents from one format to another. The most powerful conversion in my book is the conversion of PDF files to Word or text documents. Not only does this make all those frustrating read-only files editable, but it maintains the formatting and is far less prone to error than OCR. I have tried this conversion on multiple documents and have had consistent success. Beyond converting PDFs, CometDocs can transfer between all sorts of Office and Graphics files. The utility is quite easy to use in that after the free sign up, all you do is upload the file to the service and it is email back to you.
Another on-line utility that I use all the time is WordOff. When you generate html files for a website with Microsoft Word, Word puts tons of extra code in the document that not only bloats the file, but can also mess up the formatting. WordOff just strips all that extra Microsoft Formatting out. Just the kind of utility I like – a one trick pony that does that trick to perfection.
Finally, a service called DialMyCalls is excellent if you need to keep groups of people updated by phone on news, events, or statuses. After signing up, you can record short phone messages of up to 30 seconds and the service will then broadcast that message out to the list of phone numbers you establish. DialMyCalls is free for one message per day to up to 25 people. That would roughly cover a small office or youth soccer team. If you need more people or messages, you can sign up for the pay service at rates of 7 cents per call or less. A great time saver if you have lots of calls to make and also don’t want to get caught talking to lots of people because you have work to do!
So there you have some useful tools that can help solve that one particular problem you might be having. Bookmark them and store them away under “Web Tools” and just pull them out of the toolbox when needed. And don’t forget about DropBox for online file storage and sychronization and Mozy for backups. All free, and all great.
Tags: advice, file conversion, internet, Office, utilities
If you have a Mac and are even the least bit interested in automating the work you do on it, you need to pick up a copy of AppleScript 1-2-3
This is part of the Apple approved training series of books and is written by Sal Soghoian.
Soghoian being the author of this book is significant for two reasons. First, he is the product manager for AppleScript. He has been using and working with AppleScript for years. Simply put, nobody knows more about what AppleScript can do that Sal Soghoian. Second, he is a great teacher. If you have ever heard him speak at a conference or maybe seen one of his podcasts on MacBreak Work, you will already know this. If not, you are in for a pleasant surprise. His style is light and friendly without being causal and silly. He has the rare ability of making technical subjects easy to read – and not a cure for insomnia.
AppleScript 1-2-3 is a large volume of nearly 900 pages that is broken down into three broad sections. Starting with the absolute basics in the first section, Sal and his co-author Bill Cheeseman, take you through the fundamentals of scripting with plenty of examples and explanations. The second section takes what was gone over in the first section and expands on it. This second section goes into more tools, tips, and methodologies to make your scripts both easier and more powerful. Finally, the third section of the book takes you through specific examples of fully working useful scripts that you can use, modify, and make suit your own purposes. This section give you a strong toolbox to start you on way scripting.
Many people who move to the Mac lament the fact that they can no longer use their trusted MS-DOS batch files. The truth is that Apple’s AppleScript is much more flexible and powerful. The problem is, as with using VBScript in Windows, there is a bit of a learning curve to unlocking the real power. This book is the answer to that problem. From automating repetitive actions to performing complex series of actions, the power you need is there. This book can help you harness that power.
Tags: AppleScript, automation, batch files, programming, Sal Soghoian, scripting
