One of the best business tools around is the simple diagram or chart – nothing makes it easier to communicate a new process, structure or idea than a simple picture. But creating those diagrams or charts isn’t so easy.  I’ve always found the complexity and cost of Microsoft Visio overwhelming.  I know that Visio has [...]

  Have you ever thought “that website would be better if it had this or that…”?   Maybe you’d like to try some rearranging or a new design on a web page, but perhaps you don’t know HTML or don’t have admin access to your website?  Small businesses are often without full-time web design help, [...]

A new company named Square has just made it easy to take credit card payments on your iPhone.   Many small businesses rely on credit cards for most of their customer payments.  Until recently, most were limited to accepting credit cards via their website or their retail store.  Square frees up the small business to [...]

If you’re a busy professional, chances are that you have a LinkedIn profile and use it to keep up with your professional contacts.   If you’ve got a busy social life, chances are you’ve got a Facebook profile that you use to keep in touch with and meet new friends.   A hot topic that [...]

As I mentioned in my previous post, Windows 7 has good benefits but it’s hard for some small businesses to determine if it’s worth the investment of upgrading to this new version.   Here is a simple guide for small businesses to consider. Who should consider upgrading to Windows 7: Those running Vista.  If you happen to be using [...]

You’ve no doubt heard a lot about Windows 7 over the last few months; it’s the fastest selling operating system in history. You may be wondering if it has something new and compelling that you may want or need at your small business. Here’s what you need to know: Evolution, not a revolution. That’s how [...]

Vistaprint recently did a survey of 1,100 of their Micro-business customers – 1 to 10 employees in size – and found that the top reply to a question about where they got their marketing advice was “friends/family”. Yikes! I’m all about tapping into your network for advice, but unless your friends and family are marketing [...]

You may have heard that LinkedIn recently launched a new service called Signal that is designed to make LinkedIn a more socially relevant application.  The service is only available on a very limited basis right now, but will probably roll out to the general LinkedIn population pretty soon. What is Signal?  It’s a simple way [...]

American small business spend billions of dollars each year on IT support, yet most of them don’t have a thoughtful IT support strategy to ensure they are getting the most bang for their buck.  The following seven tips will help you get the most from you provider of technical support. Establish a relationship with a [...]

If you’re like us, you’ve got a gazillion meetings throughout the week, and finding a time when everyone can meet can be a nightmare. A really cool online appointment scheduling software service called Tungle.me makes this nice and easy. Online scheduling is perfect for small businesses and busy professionals that need to have meetings and [...]