Potentially your biggest business cost savings could come from servers, software, bandwidth, and energy.

Never buy new servers from a brand-name vendor.  Refurbish standard no-name hardware bought from imploding startups or roll your own to spec.  In small and home businesses, server requirements are rarely more than just a central repository for data, connection to the internet (maybe also to the copper telephone system for faxes), and a central user authorisation system.

You don’t need chunky, rack-mounted, or special boxes for that.  Most of the software used for those purposes today, will still run on the server specs I was building 10 years ago - Pentium-I 200MHz MMX cpu with 256 MB RAM and twin hard drives mirrored into a RAID-1 array.  That spec might be a little slow for the demands of the modern internet, but it will still do the job if you run the right server operating system (Windows 2000 or NT 4.0).  You can see from that total spec that you can buy a lot of that for peanuts, although, beware of trying to run NT with todays massive hard drives having 3-digits of GB size - it’ll spit the dummy if you don’t install sector-translation software during the NT install.

If you run multiple printers and they don’t need to be scattered all over your premises, hook them all up to another older technology PC running NT Workstation or non-server Windows 2000 (or Linux or similar), bung in a minimum of 256 MB of RAM (any old RAM - it doesn’t need to be fast) and an old 20-40 GB hard drive.  That’ll be your print server, and it’ll take an unbelievable strain off your desktop workstations and main server, especially during peak printing periods such as first thing in the morning when you’re printing invoices for the overnight sales.

Always use open source and free software when its feasible.  Leverage your own and your developers’ talent in growing homebrew solutions for CRM and infrastructure requirements.  Look for third party alternatives to the money pit of enterprise solutions packages.  Running Linux, FireFox, and Open Office as your core desktop solution will save you around £200 /$400 per desktop.

Instead of buying expensive dedicated bandwith you don’t need 24/7, look at your incoming phone lines.  If you have a line going to a fax machine in reception, convert it to ADSL and run the data side of the splitter to your router as backup bandwidth for your IT network, especially if you can get the line from a different provider to your main connection - it’ll provide redundancy in case your main ISP has a power-outage.  It’ll also be a low cost solution leveraging a little-used fixed expense you already pay.  You can program your server or router to include use of that extra line by default during high internet traffic periods, reducing delays at the desktops and improving productivity from your staff.

Become a total power conservation nazi at every point of your business.  This will become ever-more crucial if you’ listened to, or read the UK Chancellor’s budget speech this month.  Britain is carbon enforcing in every way, from vehicles to business to home.  There’ll soon be legal enforcements of energy efficiency and carbon emmission reduction, so start now.   Hibernate machines after 5 minutes of non use.  Replace incandescent lighting with flourescent bulbs.  Recycle waste heat.  Telecommute or use flexi-time to reduce transport overheads.   Seeing your energy bill drop even 10% will feel like winning the lottery.

Ed

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Buy your hardest working employees computers for home if they don’t already have them

If you have staff who are willing to work an extra hour a day per week, you should provide them with a home computer.  Once you get to three hours of work a week from home you’re at 150 hours a year “bonus” effort.  Invest in equipment if the person is a workaholic or has an aptitude for promoting your business on blog comments or discussion forums - it’ll pay off over time in additional sales leads or contracts.

Often you’ll find that staff complete documents (or similar) far better at weekends, when they have the relaxed environment of working on them from home - the natural distractions of home life create “thinking breaks” where they can mentally revise and structure what they’re working on, without the pressure of feeling they must be seen to be working.

Allow your staff to work flexible hours.  Commuting is a pain and is a waste of time for everyone.  Let them start at 6am, or 11am, if it makes life easier for them, and you’ll cut their commute in half.  I know from commuting into London years ago that changing my start or finish time by an hour used to save up to two hours commuting in each direction, and that at key times of the year it could make the journey 30-40 minutes instead of hours.

Ed

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Any experience small business entrepreneur will be able to explain the cost-creepage associated with a telephone on every desk.

It’s not just about employees making personal calls, it’s also about the uneccesary inter-desk calls that become protracted and due to the loss of face-to-face interaction, can lead to misunderstandings and reduced co-operation.

PBX-type internal telephone systems are not cheap either, even when second-hand.  Apart from buying the hardware, there’s the installation costs and the monthlies for multiple external lines, which for most of the day are idle.  Plus, nowadays, a lot of people are happier using their mobile phone for receiving business calls, than they are about being “tied” to their desks by a traditional handset. 

If you feel you really must have a telephone system installed, look for an supplier that remarkets used systems (either from businesses that have upgraded, or those that shut down for whatever reason) you can often save 60% - 90% by using a model that’s one or two generations older than the current technology.  Save additional hardware costs by putting a combined fax-telephone on the office admin, or receptionist, desk.  Despite the e-hype, traditional faxes are not going away, there’s still a need for them.

Call-exchange based systems really only make sense in telesales based small businesses nowadays, and even then, using VoIP systems such as Skype, via the business computer network, are far cheaper solutions, both at installation, and ongoing.  If your business has computers on mosat or all desktops, why not use Skype as the internal telephone system as well as the outgoing call system network?  User-to-user calls are free, and long distance calls can be significantly cheaper than landlines.

Ed

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While attending a recent seminar in Las Vegas, I found myself in a room with horrible Internet connectivity.  As someone who actively monitors and manages hundreds of websites, this used to really panic me.  Yet, I calmly sat through many of the seminar
presentations, knowing that all of my customer service concerns were being handled very promptly.

Let me explain my set-up, and you’ll understand why customer service is so easy for me now.

I should begin though by pointing out that, as your online business starts to grow, keeping up with the customer service issues is often the most challenging part of running your business.

Just keeping up with all of the emails can be nearly impossible!

Like many online marketers, I decided to outsource customer service, but also maintain positive control.  I maintain my own helpdesk (customer service center) where a few assistants take care of 95% of issues within minutes of them arising.

I route a major percentage of communications through my helpdesk because that puts everything all in one place.  I have a threaded record of many exchanges, stored in a secure database, so I can always go back and look up the details later.

I am a bit of a “control freak” so I haven’t put the life of my business totally into the hands of strangers.  I have a few customer support assistants that I know fairly well.  I know that they are trustworthy, understand my business, and have good judgement.

I use a help desk software, called Three Pillars Help Desk, but there are other comparable support desk packages.  At under $100, this is an amazingly feature-rich piece of software though.

The typical customer service interaction is as follows:

1) A customer has a question, lost a download, needs a software install, wants to joint venture with me, can’t get a file to open properly, etc…. they visit my help desk and fill out a help ticket.

I DON’T require them to register.  They just fill out the ticket, and they are entered into the system, receiving an email confirmation.  Actually, before they submit the ticket, they are encouraged to peruse the “frequently asked questions” (FAQ) built right into the help desk.  Often, the answer to their concern is right there and they don’t even need to file a help ticket.

2) As soon as a help ticket is filed, admin assistants assigned to that “category” of ticket, receive a desktop notification that a new ticket has been filed.  They get an audible chime, as well as a desktop icon that tells them how many tickets are awaiting responses.

I have my help desk set up so that I get these same, notifications.  I have it set to check every 15 minutes, so I can see if any tickets go unanswered for too long.  Usually, my tech
support is fairly fast though.

3) Admin assistants log into the admin control panel, using their unique admin log-ins, and respond to the tickets in categories assigned to them.  They don’t see, and can’t respond to tickets in categories not assigned to them.

One of the categories at my helpdesk is “Personal For Willie.”  Naturally, I only want those tickets visible to me.  Three Pillars Help Desk Software allows that option.  Tickets regarding JV’s are also only visible to me, but I could have an assistant assigned to sift through JV proposals, and have all of those tickets ONLY visible to that admin.  Many of my contemporaries do have assistants assigned to screen JV proposals… some using the
very same helpdesk setup that I just described.

4) Many of the help tickets that we get can be responded to with a “one-touch response.” The admin just selects the answer from a drop-down selection of pre-composed answers, clicks “send,” and in a matter of SECONDS that ticket is taken care of.  The precomposed answers are assigned to (and only visible for) specific categories, and the categories are assigned to specific admins.

Perhaps a customer unfamiliar with PDF’s or .zip files failed to download and save one properly, or perhaps they don’t know how to open the file.  Perhaps a customer had a harddrive crash, and needs a replacement copy of an ebook.  If my tech support is provided with proof of purchase, they are authorized to replace these files.  My admins are empowered to make these types of decisions, that I really shouldn’t need to get bogged down with.

5) As soon as the ticket is responded to, the customer gets the response via email, and the desktop notifier, when it next updates, shows that that ticket has been taken care of.

I mentioned earlier that I route most communications through my help desk.  This includes requests for joint ventures, requests for me to broker joint ventures, request for me to review a product, etc.  Details on how I do all of these things are also included in the FAQ, so potential JV partners can see if their product is a likely match before they even file a help ticket.

Email is so unreliable these days.  There is nothing more disconcerting than having a customer upset with you over not responding to an email that you never even received.  You don’t have that problem with the help desk.  The correspondence is stored right in the database, and only visible to appropriate parties.  You can retrieve records by name, email address, and a number of other database variables at any time… even for closed tickets.  So, you have a real treasure of data at your fingertip.

The FAQ file shows how many views a given question has.  That can show you potential problems, or indicate that you need to cover a product feature more thoroughly on your sales letter.  Just paying attention to something like that could easily double your sales of a given product.  The fact is that most prospect, who have a question, won’t bother asking.  So you need to really pay attention to those who do, and assume that many more had the same question

Anyway, I’ve just shared with you how I handle customer service for the hundreds of websites that I actively manage in mere minutes per day.  I haven’t actually tracked how much time my admin assistants spend responding to tickets.  They haven’t asked for raises in a long time, so I assume that it’s not very much.

If you want to spend more of your time working on growing your business, rather than putting out customer service “fires,” then I highly recommend that you set up your own help desk.  My helpdesk of choice is Three Pillars: http://ThreePillarsHelpDesk.com but there are others. You can get as fancy as you want to with a help desk with them ranging from free to several thousand dollars in price.  Three Pillars Help Desk was designed specifically for Internet marketers which is why it was a natural choice for me.

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eBay UK have announced today that they’ll be delaying the introduction of the Safe Payments Policy scheduled for introduction in February, and introducing it in March instead.  (Glances at calendar and rolls eyes  )

The announcement further cautions that, “The changes we announced around requiring sellers to offer PayPal in certain cases will now go live in late March 2008 instead of February 2008, as previously stated. Sellers who will be affected by these changes should register with PayPal and update their listings to include PayPal as a payment option as soon as possible.”

I’m guessing this is yet another instance of the sellers telling eBay to take a running jump and have words with themselves about the impossibility of the dreamworld deadlines they set.

Ed

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HAPPY NEW YEAR & BEST WISHES TO YOU ALL.

 As you all recover from the festivities of seeing out the old, and pondering whether or not your new year resolutions are maintainable, I thought it might be a good idea to write something about the subliminal idea that a new year is a clean slate.

For many people in business, ask what the first week of the year means to them and they’ll almost certainly respond with “January Sales”.  This annual phenomena is supposed to handle two dilemmas of the retailing industry - clearing the last season’s remaining stock, and boosting sales in what is otherwise a low point in the retail calendar.  Yet for almost everyone in business, it should be a lot more than that.

The psychological boost of a new year should be a time to shrug off old thinking and plan for the next twelve months.  Examining last year’s market data and innovation trends can open opportunities and new directions for the forthcoming campaigns.  For retailers there are a rapid sequence of events to profit from - Scotland’s Burn’s Night, Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and the Spring season.  For manufacturers, recognition that many employees will have overspent for Christmas gifts should be a nudge that extra working hours (overtime) will be welcomed and accepted more eagerly.  Hospitality and Tourism businesses may be in the full flow of taking bookings for summer, as should wedding related businesses, but this week may be the time to give staff a quick break before the workload increases.

For business owners, with the pressures of the holiday season gone, now is the time to research your industry and look for new ideas, markets, suppliers, and partners.  Here are some such events and landmarks from history …..

1st January - New Year’s Day in today’s Gregorian Calendar

This week in history - effects on business and innovation

The Julian calendar, which was created in BC 45, preceded today’s Gregorian one, and was adopted around Europe between 1522 & 1578.  The Gregorian calendar was created in 1582, but Britain and it’s dependant American colonies retained the Julian one until 1752 causing plenty of confusion to historians.  Scotland only adopted the Julian calendar in AD1600.

The Gregorian calendar as promulgated in 1582 did not specify that January 1st was to be either New Year’s Day or the first day of its numbered year.  Back then, England began its numbered year on March 25 (Lady Day) between the thirteenth century and 1752, January 1 was called New Year’s Day, which was a holiday when gifts were exchanged.  In this respect (the start of the numbered year being close to Easter) it held similar alignment to the traditional Buddhist New Year.

Birthdays of famous business people & innovators

•  AD 1643 - Sir Isaac Newton, English mathematician & natural philosopher (d. 1727)
• AD 1727 - James Wolfe, British general (d. 1759)
• AD 1745 - Étienne Montgolfier, French inventor (d. 1799)
• AD 1813 - Isaac Pitman, British inventor (Pitman shorthand) (d. 1897)
• AD 1863 - Pierre de Coubertin, French Olympic Games initiator (d. 1937)
• AD 1888 - John Garand, American inventor (d. 1974)
• AD 1892 - J.R.R. Tolkien, British author of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
• AD 1895 - J. Edgar Hoover, American FBI director (d. 1972)

Business Moments - lost, noted, or seized

• AD1660 - Samuel Pepys began keeping his diary.
• AD 1800 - Dutch East India Company ceased to exist.
• AD 1882 - John D. Rockefeller unites his oil holdings into the Standard Oil trust.
• AD 1919 - Edsel Ford succeeded his father, Henry Ford, as president of the Ford Motor Company.
• AD 1942 - Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to have a flight go around the world.
• AD 1946 - The first civil flight from London’s Heathrow Airport occurs.
• AD 1974 - Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum US speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo.

 Deaths of famous and not so famous people

• AD 404 - Last known Gladiator competition in Rome.
• AD 1748 - Johann Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (b. 1667)
• AD 1795 - Josiah Wedgwood, English potter (b. 1730)
• AD 1852 - Louis Braille, French teacher of the blind (b. 1809)
• AD 1877 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, American entrepreneur (b. 1794)
• AD 1894 - Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, German physicist (b. 1857)
• AD 1992 - Grace Hopper, American computer pioneer (b. 1906)
• AD 2007 - Momofuku Ando, inventor of instant noodles and cup noodles (b. 1910)

Discoveries that changed the world

•  AD 1493 - Christopher Columbus leaves the New World, ending his first journey.
• AD 1896 - An Austrian newspaper reported that Wilhelm Roentgen discovered a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
• AD 1927 - The American astronomer Edwin Hubble announces the discovery of galaxies outside the Milky Way.
• AD 1930 - The first diesel-engine automobile trip is completed (Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York City).

Ideas that opened new industries

• AD1772 - First Travellers’ cheques (valid in 90 European cities) go on sale in London.
• AD 1818 - Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is published.   Believed by some to be the birth of the Science Fiction age.
• AD 1871 - Henry W. Bradley patents oleomargarine.
• AD 1888 - Marvin C. Stone patents the drinking straw.

New Market & Opportunity Discoveries

• AD 1673 - First regular postal mail deliveries between Europe and America.
• AD 1788 - First edition of The Times of London, previously The Daily Universal Register, is published.
• AD 1801 - Legislative union of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland is completed to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
• AD 1865 - The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street in New York City.
• AD 1877 - Queen Victoria of England proclaimed Empress of India.
• AD 1900 - John Hay announces the Open Door Policy to promote trade with China.
• AD 1901 - The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia.
• AD 1958 - The European Community is established.
• AD 1993 - A single market within the European Community (EC) is introduced.
• AD 1994 - Not to be outdone by the EC, The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect., and the EC reciprocates with the European Economic Area (EEA).   The International Tropical Timber Agreement also comes into effect.
• AD 1995 - The World Trade Organization (WTO) comes into effect.
• AD 1998 - The European Central Bank is established.
• AD 1999 - The Euro currency is introduced.
• AD 2002 - Euro banknotes and coins become legal tender in twelve of the European Union’s member states.
• AD 2008 - SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) due to come into effect

Start-up businesses that became famous

•  AD 1907 - Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome.
• AD 1939 - William Hewlett and David Packard found Hewlett-Packard.
• AD 1977 - Apple Computer incorporated.

Technology inventions

• AD 1496 - Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.
• AD 1838 - Samuel Morse first successfully tested the electrical telegraph.
• AD 1847 - Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government.
• AD 1890 - First use of football (soccer) goal nets in England.
• AD 1937 - Safety glass in windshields became mandatory in Great Britain.
• AD 1959 - The first artificial satellite to orbit the moon, Luna 1, is launched by the U.S.S.R.
• AD 1970 - Unix time begins.
• AD 1983 - The ARPANET officially changes to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.
• AD 1985 - The Internet’s Domain Name System is created.
• AD 1985 - The first British mobile phone call is made by comedian Ernie Wise to Vodafone.
• AD 2004 - Spirit, a NASA Mars Rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.

Just a few of the momentous events that can happen in a week when you might be thinking of free-wheeling your business along, waiting for trade to pick up.  Events like the trade-bloc politics can sneak up on you if you don’t use this time to look at the opportunities and threats coming your way.  Technological change can leave you behind the competition if you don’t know where it’s going, and plan accordingly.  It could also wipe out your innovation if the spin-offs from the Mars missions come at anything like the pace that they came from the Apollo series.

 Will you be the next Montessori, Hewlett-Packard, or Apple?  What aboutthe next Anita Broderick or Richard Branson, Vanderbilt, or Wedgewood?  One thing’s for sure, nursing a hangover won’t get you there … unless you use the time to do some research .

Happy New Year everyone - I hope it’s as successful and profitable as your efforts deserve.

Ed