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Pros and Cons of VoIP For Small Business – Is it Right For You Or Not?

VoIP in a business environment can work very well. A lot depends upon your existing network though. If you have an overly secure network with a lot of traffic then expect the quality to fall. Try and keep your voice traffic on a different network to your data and remember that VoIP/SIP is not as secure as traditional telecoms.

First some of the benefits…. VoIP systems often cost less for recurring maintenance than traditional PBX equipment and are easier to configure when applying moves, adds, and changes. Incidentally, there is normally no configuration change required to move an extension in a VoIP network. Many VoIP systems also let you use the Internet for your outbound calling, which can reduce your long distance bill and displace the cost of a PRI or analog trunk circuits for access to the public telephone network. VoIP also enables Unified Messaging, which integrates email, voice mail, IM, and calendaring.

However there are some drawbacks….. IP phones are more expensive than traditional analog phones and have more stringent requirements for the network to support them than standard email and web surfing. While VoIP systems do generally have a more intuitive interface than traditional PBX equipment, in a company of 20 you’re not likely to see much turnover I would expect.

Additional drawbacks are:

– Voice quality (not all your calls will be as clear as a traditional analog line).

– Reliability. If your Internet or System Network goes down you are left without computers and a phone system.

– Basic Features are sometimes billed a la cart and can end up costing you more per user then a traditional phone system.

– Hosted VoIP solutions require you to buy the phones (and associated routers) and then bill you every month for the service. Where as a phone system (with all its equipment) can be financed over 3 – 5yrs and then you own the equipment and system features & service.

The best approach for determining the viability of such a move would be to have a cost analysis performed for each option and look at the total costs and system benefits, up front, at year five, and beyond.

For a small company, these are conditions that generally would indicate a possible business case for VoIP:

– Your company has multiple sites and pays for Wide Area Network circuits to connect those sites together as well as PRI circuits or Centrex lines for PSTN access.

– You have a number of “remote workers” who work out of remote/home offices, and the company pays for their home phone and long distance as well as their Internet access.

– Your company spends a significant portion of its technology budget on long distance or international calling.

– Your company has high turnover and/or personnel are constantly changing offices.

– Integration of unified messaging and/or advanced calling functions such as on-the-fly conference calls would allow your company to conduct business much more effectively, so much so that it would positively impact your bottom line.

– Your company is getting ready to move to a new facility and would have to pay to run cable.

Outside of those, I would say VoIP may not be your best choice. One option worth considering is a gateway that services traditional analog phones, but converts the call to VoIP when calling external numbers.

Don’t get me wrong I love working with VoIP, but if your current system isn’t broken or costing you an arm and a leg to maintain it, you may not need to upgrade.

How To Grow Your Small Business Using Social Media

Are you a small business owner looking for ways to grow your business? Are you looking to attract more leads to your business, or have heard about Social Media Marketing, and now want to try it?

As a small business owner you face many challenges – limited capital, minimal support staff and having too much to do in what seems like very little time. So, how do you grow your small business without heavy investment in marketing and advertising? Answer – through the use of technology. Web 2.0 provides you with various tools and techniques that help you to generate leads and increase the exposure of your home-based business. Social media is one such tool. Here’s all you need to know as a small business owner to begin increasing revenues using social media.

What is Social Media?
Social Media is a category of online media where people are talking, participating, sharing, networking, and bookmarking online. Examples include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, GooglePlus, and MySpace.

What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is using the above mentioned platforms to reach a new audience of consumers and create product brand awareness. By spreading word of a product from user to user, Social Media Marketing strives to gain greater legitimacy for a message because it is shared between trusted “friends.”

Which Social Media Channels are most popular?
Studies show that Facebook & Twitter are most popular social media channels followed closely by YouTube and LinkedIn, GooglePlus.

Why should Social Media Marketing Interest me?
If you think this kind of Marketing is not for you, think again. These platforms offer a large bundle of benefits to small business owners. Here are some reasons why you should consider using Social Media for your business.

Exposure: As a small business owner you rely largely on network marketing to channel leads to your business – which, in turn relies on your interaction with people. This is the core notion of what Social Media is! But Social Media offers virtually unlimited opportunities to interact with people – millions of them! With this interesting form of marketing, your business is no longer limited to local leads; you will find leads coming in from a diversified geographic market!

Zero-cost: While other marketing media would be expensive, this type of marketing is relatively free, or requires negligible monetary investment. It’s a great low-cost way to get your message across.

Improved web presence: Being on popular social media platforms strengthens your web presence. The more people talk about you on Facebook or Twitter, the greater are the chances of your business being found on relevant web searches such as Google, Yahoo!, or Bing.

Direct contact with prospects: These platforms put you in touch with your customers directly. You can have one-on-one contact with them, know what they really want.

Go viral: Such marketing offers you the opportunity to go viral with your marketing. Think about this. You put up a video about your business on YouTube. 10 people like it, and five of them share it with their friends, who in-turn share it with 20 more people. This is known as “viral marketing,” and it can be a very effective method to increase your lead generation.

What is a Social Media “game plan” and why should you have one?
A social media game plan is a process consisting of a few simple steps that can help you achieve your social media marketing objectives. The social media arena is large and you can get lost in it if you don’t play by the rules. There’s a lot of competition and you have to have a clear plan if you want to stand out of the crowd and get noticed.

Your ideal Social Media game plan
A typical game plan for your business should consist of these four steps

Build your network
Propagate your presence
Stay connected
Monitor

Step 1 – build your network: The first step is to search for and add those users to your network whom you think fall into your target audience segment. When placing a request to add users to your network, it is always better to accompany such requests with a personalized message. You can also look for and join groups that pertain to your line of business. For example, if you are a business selling Health drinks and other health-related products, you could join groups where topics such as nutrition, diet or health are discussed. Such groups provide you audience for the products you have to offer. However, when in a group, do remember to ADD VALUE. Answer questions that you are equipped to answer, actively participate in discussions, be subtle and don’t aggressively “push” your products.

Step 2-propagate: The next step is to announce your Social Media presence. You can do this by adding links to your social media pages on your website, e-mail signature line or newsletter, if you have one. You are out there with your business-announce it!

Step 3-stay connected:The third step is to stay connected with your fans and group members. Social media marketing initiative is easy to start, but requires effort to maintain. And like many networking efforts, results are usually not immediate. Acquire permission from group members and others on your network to send e-mails. You can then e-mail relevant content to people on your network. The key here is to send RELEVANT, VALUE ADDING content-not an advertisement of your products/services. If you are a health-drink selling company who is also a part of the diet and nutrition group, you can send links such as ’10 Best Anti-Oxidant Rich Fruits’ and then perhaps add an image and some information about your product, encouraging people to get in touch with you if they’re interested. This approach will be better-received than just sending the prospects an e-mail flyer totally dedicated to your product.

Dos and Don’ts
While social networking is all about human interaction and cannot be strait-jacketed, here are some tips that will come in handy.

What you should do?
Add value to your contacts: Always add value to your contacts. Always! Provide them useful information, tips and other interesting facts that they can use. For example, Jane, a home-based business owner sells health drinks and weight loss products. So, it makes sense for her to provide her audience with interesting articles on the topic of weight loss.

Be consistent in your online participation: It is not a one-time effort. It is about building a relationship… and relationships take time. Be consistent in your social media communication. Have an interesting tweet/post/update at least every day. In some few cases, multiple postings a day are even better-but don’t forget rule#1-add value. Your posts shouldn’t sound like pointless ramblings or advertisements of your product/service.

Pay attention to what’s being discussed: If you have joined a forum or a group, actively participate in relevant discussions. Use your specific, professional knowledge to help others. Contribute to add depth and dimension to a discussion.

Conversation is the key: As mentioned before, social media marketing thrives on relationships. To build a strong relationship with your prospects, you need to engage in a conversation with them. Maintain a 2-way communication between you and your audience. Take genuine interest in what they have to say and follow up on comments or observations that are made.

Thoroughly know the subject you are talking about: Position yourself as an expert on these platforms. But be sure that you know what you’re talking about. Research if you aren’t sure of something. Mistakes on these platforms spread quickly and damage the reputation of your business.

Personalize your interaction: It’s advisable to personalize your interaction with your audience. Inquire about an event or occasion posted on a Wall, such as a recent trip, or “like” their vacation pictures on Facebook.

Portray your individuality: The biggest advantage small business owners have over large corporations is the fact that they are much smaller and haven’t lost that real-person feel. Let your audience know the person behind the business. Make sure your interactions include a personal side!

Respond to your customers’ grievances ASAP: Did you know that 88% of customers say unanswered complaints on social media sites deter them from doing repeat business? And deleting customer complaints is even worse! So make sure you resolve your customer’s complaints on social media platforms immediately. Even if you can’t resolve them, at least respond so that they know they’re being heard. Acknowledge everything.

Mention your Social Media presence: Advertise your profiles. Always provide links to your social media profile in your website, blog, e-mails and even print materials. For websites and blogs, it’s best to add Facebook and twitter widgets which provide a live feed of what’s happening on your Facebook/twitter page, right there on your website or blog. Provide incentives or value adding information such as whitepapers or articles in order to encourage people to follow you on social media sites!

Monitor & moderate: Monitor your social media presence. Find out where your name’s coming up online and in what context it has been used. A Google alert is the simplest way to do this, though there are many free tools available online to monitor your web presence. Also stay in-control of your social media pages. Read what others are putting up on your page and respond promptly.

Syndicate your Social Media content: Content creation takes time. So why not make the most of the content you have? Post your content on all popular social media sites and don’t hesitate to re-use them. Turn a blog post into a link and put it on Facebook. Convert it into a video and add to YouTube and Facebook or turn it into a presentation and put it up on SlideShare. The aim is to get maximum exposure for your content.

What you should not do?

DON’T overtly push your products/services: Social media is a platform

where you build relationships, to create value. It’s NOT an advertising venue. Your audience

will shun you if all you talk about is the stuff you sell. Think about it, would you talk to your family

and friends about the products you sell all the time? Of course not! Then don’t treat your

social media audience any differently.

DON’T spam your contacts with pointless updates: OK, so now you added two new products to your line-up. While it’s great to share the news, don’t spam your contacts with ads. Put up a link to the new range of products; monitor who is interested and share information on a need-to-know basis.

DON’T have grammar and spelling errors in your posts: You are a small business out to create an impression. Don’t spoil it through spelling and grammatical errors. Use spelling/grammar checking tools, but never rely solely on them. Proofread your posts before putting them up online. If spelling or grammar is not your strong suit, have someone else proofread your work before it goes out

DON’T fail to respond to requests for help in your area of expertise: If you are a part of a group or forum, seize every opportunity to display your expertise. Don’t be a wallflower-actively participate in discussions.

DON’T let your profile get stale: Make sure your profile is frequently updated and that you offer something new. One mistake many small business owners make is creating social media profiles and then forgetting about them. Your social media efforts have to be on-going to bear results.

DON’T get distracted: There’s a lot of distraction available online-especially on social media channels that can make you lose track of your productive hours online. Games, quizzes, forums and live-chats-while these can be interesting tools to attract prospect interest, focus on your goals. Otherwise you’ll find yourself investing too much time and energy into activities that offer no returns to your business.

Securing a Small Business Loan

Insufficient funding is one of the top reasons why 80% of businesses fail within the first year and a half. As a business owner, not only do you have to cover all operating expenses, but the time and effort needed to succeed means you will almost certainly have to bid farewell to your day job and regular pay checks. Unless you’ve saved up enough to pay for everything for at least 18 months, you will probably have to find other sources of funding.

However, here we encounter another problem. A recent survey cited by the Credit Union Times showed that only about one-fifth of small business owners – incidentally about the same rate of successful businesses – rely on a small business loan. The survey showed that 62% were fearful of taking on a loan and almost one-fourth of respondents think they would not be approved for one. A Harvard Business School working paper by Karen Mills (Administrator of the US Small Business Administration until 2013) showed even more discouraging statistics. Banks continue to apply measures that restrict small business lending since the financial crisis hit, since such loans are generally always riskier than those to large businesses. Loans amounting to $1 million or less – the domain of small businesses – have gone down 21% since 2008. These loans made up half of all bank loans in 1995, but only 30% in 2012.

So what can you do to have a better chance at securing a loan?

As the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.” Given the stricter requirements of banks, you will need to come up with a very convincing plan that shows your business will truly make a profit. Each number presented has to be supported by hard evidence or at least some realistic projections backed by in-depth research. There must also be a clear plan as to where the money will go and how it will influence your business’s success.

Aside from this, your entire personal finances will also be scrutinized, so make sure your taxes, mortgages, credit cards, assets and liabilities, and even your credentials are all spotless and in order.

The bottom line is, if you believe in your business idea and do the necessary due diligence in coming up with a sound budget and business plan, there should be no reason to be denied a small business loan. Otherwise, you may want to reconsider quitting your day job.

Top 5 Myths about Small Businesses and Blogging

Myth #1) “Blogs are only for individual.”

Technorati.com currently tracks about 50 million blogs, 10% of which are commercial or business blogs. The majority of blogging is still being done by love sick teenagers or others writing about their own viewpoints of what’s happening in the world. However, with over 5 million businesses already blogging, it is too big to be ignored.

Myth#2) “Commercial blogging is only for big businesses.”

While smart business powerhouses like Microsoft, IBM, and NBC have been blogging for a while, big business in general still does not “get it.” In a recent survey, only 5% of the Fortune 500 companies blog. Blogging today is compared to where the internet was 10 years ago. First movers always have advantages. A smart small business could join the blogosphere today, while it still may take a year for their larger competitor to analyze the blogging scene.

Myth #3) “I can’t blog, I’m not a good writer.”

One of the major advantages small businesses have is customers perceive them as having personalities, hearts, and souls. All one needs to do is write a few paragraphs every week. Write like you were writing a fun letter to a friend, don’t be formal and use lots of business jargon. Hopefully, customers already know the business has a personality, so let them see more of it.

Myth #4)”Business blogs are boring.”

The Blog for The Terra Cotta Inn Clothing Optional Resort and Spa is http://terracottainn.blogspot.com You will see entries about the resort, the resort’s dog, celebrities, what it’s like to stay at a clothing optional resort for the first time, etc.

For another example, a restaurant could blog about special dishes, parties, anniversaries, customers pets, “secret” recipes, etc.

Myth #5) “I’m to busy to blog.”

If a business needs a presence on the internet, then it needs a company blog. It is very easy to set one up. Go to blogger.com or wordpress.com (two of many blogging sites). In as little as 15 minutes, you can create a blog. Add at least 1 article every week. Tell your customers about your blog. They will be glad that you did and so will your bottom line!

Attention, bloggers, journalists, newsletter publishers, etc., feel free to reprint this release.

Survive the Recession – Business Ideas and Recession-Proof Tips For the Small Business Owner

You can thrive in a slow economy! Ask leaders and consultants about recession-proof businesses and you get examples that go far beyond the inevitable death and taxes-related occupations.

But most are also quick to point out that any business can be vulnerable to an economic downturn and any business can take steps to protect itself from a financial roller-coaster ride. “To protect against a recession, a business needs an inventive, flexible team that learns together, practices competitive intelligence together and collaborates together.” said industry consultant and analyst Steve Koss, who specializes in the business of large stadiums and other sports and entertainment venues.

But what do you do to protect your bottom line if you don’t have a naturally recession-resistant business? Besides focusing on your current marketing niche, you may follow the trend of many small business owners by diversifying where your income is coming from. Use your downtime to build a ‘business within the business’. Offering a new service that can be handled online, such as Internet Marketing, can make the best use of your time and build an income that has proved more stable during a recession.

Tom Mulhall, who was an accountant in Chicago for 15 years before opening a small luxury guest resort nine years ago in Palm Springs, says some of the same tricks that inoculate a business like his from economic downturns can help any business. When asked how to recession-proof a Chicago-area business, Mulhall said: “If you are in retail, diversify. If you’re in the suburbs, promote ways to encourage Chicago business, and vice versa. If you are a brick and mortar business, develop an on-line business.” Denise O’Berry gives four general guidelines to help any business keep going and growing even in hard times. “Focus on customer loyalty and retention, minimize debt, involve employees and be visible to your customers, your employees and your community,” said O’Berry, president of The Small Business Edge Corp. in Tampa, Fla. “Success in business is a lot about who knows you and what your company does. Make sure your marketing and public relations is done consistently; don’t just market when business is slow.”

Value of Using Multi-Page Booklets in a Small Business During Tough Economic Times

This is the third in a series of articles on the design and use of print media for value added marketing and advertising during tough economic times. The goal of this article is the same. Use print media for marketing and promotion during tough economic times. It provides the best value for your marketing dollars. Our specific marketing goal is increase the spending base of existing customers and attract new customers.

This article deals with multi-page booklets. They are probably one of the most expensive of the printed promotional tools, but depending on what your business offers, can be one of the most value added. Multi-page booklets can be used as menus in a restaurant, menus in a salon and spa, product catalogs, multi-page brochures and more. When your business needs to convey a lot of information about products or services in a professional and classy style, the multi-page booklet may be your answer.

Dimensions and Paper- There are variations, but the standard dimension are typically 8″ x 9″, 8.5″ x 11″ and 8.5 x 5.5″. Most standard run printers offer booklets ranging from 4 to 32 pages. Printers specializing in catalogs and magazines offer more pages, but that is out of the realm of we are discussing today. scored and folded in the center. Booklets typically are printed on 100lb Gloss Book Paper and come with or without UV coating. Variations in the type of paper and finish will likely cost more. Order quantities range from 100 to many 1,000. The more you buy, the better the value.

Design/Message – As mentioned earlier, the multi-page booklet is the choice for conveying high quantity, high quality, classy offerings. When using the higher cost multi page booklet approach, ensure you know what message you want to convey and how you want to convey it. If your business pays several hundred dollars for booklets and you decide after the fact they were not what you wanted, our value proposition just went out the window. The basic rule of thumb when using them are:

o best for businesses that have many products, each with detailed descriptions that need to presented in an organized, easily read manner.

o best for businesses that are providing a variety of services with complicated descriptions.

o make sure the design and message coincides with the theme, decor and branding of your business.

o As with other printed materials, keep it simple and easy to read. Flowing hard to read fonts in titles and text, tend to lose readers. Make it as easy as possible for your prospective client, but make it look good. Again, design and message is where a good graphics artist is a must.

Uses – we mentioned some uses earlier, but we will go into a little more detail in this area.

Your business includes internet sales of 15 to 18 health and beauty products. Using an 8 page multi-page booklet as a catalog describing the products, manufacturer, availability, ingredients and pricing may be ideal. A catalog can be shipped with some or all orders and provides quick information concerning your other available products.
Your business is a salon and spa that offers hair care, skin care and massage services. Using a 4 page booklet as your menu of services may be your solution. With your graphic artist’s help, you can convey detailed information about services, training and certifications your business has, pricing and present it all in a classy style that coordinates with the decor of your salon and spa.
Your business is a small neighborhood ethnic restaurant that specializes preparing in-house and take-out the way the customer wants it. Your solution may be a 8 page booklet as your menu. The menu would describe your standard meals and pricing along with the specialty items available for the made to order dishes with pricing. This menu would be given to first time customers as a reward for coming in. They can take it home and determine what there next eat-in or take out will be beforehand.

Again, I am going to harp on branding. The most important thing to remember is to keep all of your promotional materials branded to your business for quick recognition. That means use the same logo, colors, fonts, and themes when developing your print marketing materials.

Small Businesses – Web Site Promotion Ideas

You’ve already figured out that your small business needs a web site to compete with the big boys and maintain every aspect of your relationship with your customers. But once you have your web site up and running, you’ll need web site promotion ideas so that people know about your web site. After all, no one will visit your web site if they don’t know it exists. The first of your web site promotion ideas is submitting your web site to all the major search engines. Search engine traffic is a major draw to web sites and most web masters will tell you that the vast majority of their traffic is coming from search engine clicks. Most of the major search engines have a specific page you can use to submit your site. Once it’s submitted, it will usually take a few days to a week before it starts showing up in keyword searches.

Other web site promotion ideas include advertising your web site on internet message boards and discussion forums centered on subjects related in some way to your business. For example, if you run a small business selling pet supplies, you could go to message boards and discussion forums frequented by pet lovers. Other tried and true web site promotion ideas are banner exchanges. You can contact other web sites involved with the same target market and ask to exchange banners on each other’s web sites or you can sign up at a banner exchange portal that will automatically generate banners for other sites on your site and banners for your site on other participating sites. Some other ways of promoting your new web site however, going the route of affiliation. This is a good method of not only promoting your new site but an easy fashion of making some quick money as well.

How this works is you sign up for an affiliation to a site, generally you will want to find a site that has some relevance to the site you are trying to promote. When ever someone goes to the site you are affiliated with and they link on to your site by pay per click method it takes them to your site and right into the thick of your content. The the unfortunate part of this method is that whenever someone clicks onto your site from your affiliate, you end up paying the affiliate for the transfer of sites. Although this could easily be a very small fee to the affiliate, the point to remember is if they click and you pay the affiliate, there is no guarantee that they will make a purchase from you. For even more web site promotion ideas, there are many online resources dedicated solely to teaching people how best to create awareness of their web site through the internet at large and strategies for attracting more visitors to their web site. There are other resources for web site promotion but then start with these basic ideas and when you’re ready, explore for more! To Your Success.

Why Is It Vital Today for Small Business Owners to Have Their Own App?

If you own a small business today and you do not have an app to promote your business, you should address this now. Apps for smartphone’s have become a way of life. 86% of the time cell phone users spend on their phone is in apps. A Gallup study indicates almost 3/4 of cell users check their phone at least once per hour. I believe this a low percentage based on my experience watch people and particularly 35-40 year olds. Phones are visible everywhere.

Therefore, cell phone apps have become useful as a marketing tool. You can engage with your customers, promote good feeling, build your brand, and show your customers that you are willing to build a relationship with them.

Where is your phone now? In your pocket or your hand? Does your phone like mine, have many different apps that you use for various reasons? If you want to prepare for the future, you should definitely get your company an app.

So, why do I say you should do this? It is my thinking that you must be progressive. You must find new ways to provide more value to your customers. There are so many valuable ways that an app promotes your business – loyalty programs and discounts, messages (Push Notifications) on special offers, building your brand, sell online, accept payments etc.

Starbucks currently uses and app to reward customers with the app. Domino’s created an app for delivery and store pickup of orders. I have a friend who liked Domino’s but hated the annoyance of calling them. Now that they have an app, she told me she has brand loyalty. 52% of online orders are created through and app. Domino’s has experienced a rise of 28% in six months pre-tax profits in the UK alone. This is impressive.

You can use your app to do research. Ask your clients – they are your friends. What do they really want from you in the future? This will help with product development and customer retention. You can collect feedback on your customers.

Find an app developer you trust. Once that accepts a deposit, then works with you to design what you want on your app. Make sure you have a contract indicating the deposit, full price, and time. The time issue must be very clear. Included in the contract should be an over view of the site being created – number of pages, specific pages, how many changes you will receive. If you don’t give your developer the required information, they can’t produce your app in a timely manner. Set dates. Then move forward.

How Can Mobile Software Development Companies Help Small Business?

Today, most of the businesses, be it an eCommerce website, or a bank, a school or a cab service provider, everyone needs a mobile app to expand their reach and grow their business. Even the business owners, who once did not consider having an online presence for their business, are now looking at creating one for it.

Mobile Experience to Users

Mobile apps offer a personal and quick experience to users. Eventually, use of desktops and laptops are getting replaced by tablets and mobile devices, for most of the activities, which people carry out online. Given the busy schedules of people, they prefer to have facilities like to book travel tickets, pay bills, book a cab for travel, or book a table in a restaurant right from their fingertips. Thus, without a mobile app, businesses are incomplete, and are always at a high risk of losing their customers to their competitor, for their businesses.

Role of Social Share in Mobile Software

Social media software has become one of the vitals for very mobile applications now. Anybody who owns an account in any of the social media networks, like Facebook or Twitter, are always on their toes, to share whatever they are passionate about, with their friends on the same social media network.

Social share feature in the Mobile app allows users to like, comment and share. This calls for a very good strategy to get customer feedback for eCommerce business owners. Based on the number of likes and shares for a product, they can easily find out, which are the products that are in high demand.

Apart from the eCommerce websites, social sharing is effective for news and magazine apps also. Even the news and magazine business owners, and bloggers, do prefer to have social sharing integrated into their mobile app, in order to encourage sharing of news and articles among their readers.

In this manner, social sharing plays a vital role in taking a mobile app wider and farther, ultimately increasing the users.

Vowing to all the aforesaid reasons, the earlier exclusively web development service providers, are widening the scope of their service offerings, by adding Mobile software development to them. These companies usually specialize in mobile technologies, which help in developing cutting edge mobile apps for every business requirement.

From business perspective, these companies very well understand how mobile apps can rightly complement with the existing web application or portal of a business, in order to increase the leads. They also do understand that social sharing is one of the enticing features, which should not be missed out on a mobile app at all.

They usually follow the right procedure for their mobile development process. They clearly understand your business requirement, and come up the best solution for the mobile. Of course, there are a few limitations, But there are many advantages as well that lack on the other platform. They analyse the most important functionalities within your website or online portal, which are most likely to be used by your site visitors on the mobile app.

Importance of Online Business Data Listing Management for Small Business

The entrepreneur who really wants to be successful with his or her small business should be ingenious to look for new and innovative ways to advertise products and services to reach a wider market share. It has been found credible by many research studies that it is worth the time of any creative entrepreneur to build his or her business online. Particularly, the Internet has today offered remarkable ways an entrepreneur can build any business online and generate revenue.

Recent available statistics speak positive about the fact that, over 81 percent of small business owners are reported to have their presence known online and over 30 percent are reported to generate over 25 percent of their revenue online. The ingenious entrepreneur cannot therefore ignore the fact that the Internet has been found in many important ways to help improve the image of small enterprises in a greater scale. Company websites, for instance, have been found relevant by most businesses and does underscore the importance of online business data listing management.

Essentially in this respect, the Internet has become a way of proven enterprise management for small business development and growth through which an entrepreneur can also provide information about products and services online. Online business data management listing has become a very efficient way entrepreneurs provide good customer service and support that help businesses retain customers and build the enterprise with increased customer satisfaction and profitability.

Benefits of a Wider Market Share

Further importance of online business data listing management is the possibilities it offers by growth in terms of a wider range of market share and the ability to promote products and services at any given time. Other benefits associated with online business data listing management are reflected in the effective use of low startup costs to build an enterprise online and the ability an entrepreneur has with no-cost social marketing advertising. With online business data listing management an entrepreneur can literally benefit from small business branding on a limited budget. An entrepreneur’s business name and logo are tools he or she can effectively use to project the visible face of the products and services the entrepreneur is going to provide to potential clients.

Benefits of Small Business Apps

Also, there are small business apps an entrepreneur can integrate into his or her online business data listing management framework to enhance enterprise development and success. Some of these capable business applications focus on financials and accounting fundamentals an entrepreneur can use to manage business general ledger data, accounts payable and receivables.

There are also business apps with the principal focus on tracking billable work processes and productivity. With productivity apps an entrepreneur can generate and organically manage documents with business data in a very efficient way and can secure sensitive and high profiled data sufficiently protected within the company’s virtual domain.

Also, the utility and support in communication and collaboration among employees, customers and external contacts can be a resource within any online business data listing management framework.

There is also availability of the more traditional business apps such as office suites online, payroll and small business accounting software or invoicing and expense software-all are varied enterprise applications a capable online data listing management framework can be built upon as business solutions tailored for successful business management and growth. In this case, there are leading business accounting software packages such as QuickBooks and Peachtree which can make business accounting and tax filing purposes simple for any entrepreneur. These software applications can also allow import of data into one or more tax preparation programs.

There are as well free accounting applications such as GNUCash software-a free open source accounting program with a simple interface but with load-full of in-depth accounting functions and features; and BizFusion which is another accessible online small business accounting system with nine modules all on a single interface that works just like Microsoft Outlook 2007 and focuses on inventory, project and asset management with a full built-in small business accounting solution that can provide the entrepreneur with a more complete business picture (including an analysis of competitors) in a single system.

Any entrepreneur can therefore be resourceful and ingenious to implement an online business data listing management for his or her business to improve business efficiency and effectiveness. Even with smaller steps an entrepreneur can take over time to build a full online business data listing management program for his or her small business will see growth benefits accrue. Auspiciously, hardware and software costs are today quite affordable and the processing capacity and performance for both servers and networks have literally opened up a variety of opportunities for small business automation entrepreneurs looking to start their own business and small business owners that have limited budget can work with to build and grow their businesses.