Grow your small business with Information Technology

You Can Grow Your Small Business Using The Right Technology

Dan Katz of PSK Supermarkets, a Mount Vernon, N. Y. based chain of Foodtown grocery stores, knew he had a problem: His customers were making fewer trips to his stores and spending less money each time. Facing intense competition for customers from both traditional competitors and newcomers like FreshDirect and Whole Foods, he needed to increase customer loyalty fast. But how?

Dan started with his in-house point-of sale system. The system stores records of all purchases and ties the data back to the individual customer and the SKUs (shopkeeping units, or products) they buy. Using the shopping cards he issues to his customers, Dan created a targeted loyalty program focused on his best customers.

Here’s how it works: customers are divided into 12 loyalty levels, with 1 being the most loyal and 12the least loyal (measured in terms of dollars spent per month). The best customers are rewarded for their purchases with S&H Greenpoints which can be redeemed for merchandise. In the first six months of the program, Dan boosted the average purchase per visit more than 20%; a year later, Dan constantly monitors customers across the 12 loyalty levels. He offers incentives to retain his best customers and watches for “downward migration” if customers suddenly start shopping less so he can send out targeted promotions to bring them back into his stores.

PSK’s strategy is a dramatic example of how business is changing the way it interacts with and markets to customers and prospects. A few important trends make it easier than ever for any company, large or small, to catch this wave and reap tremendous rewards. Data storage costs are lower than ever, and Internet usage is widespread. Most importantly, there are now powerful software programs that can capture, track, manage and analyze customer data. Microsoft Office includes Excel, a spreadsheet program many small companies use to store data on their customers.

Users who upgrade to Microsoft Office Professional for a few hundred dollars more can take advantage of the power of Access, an expandable relational database that can store data on many thousands of customers. There is also software for rent available on the Web from SalesForce.com that can keep track of sales interactions with customers for less than $100 per month per user. In short, a variety of powerful, easy to use, customizable tools are available that can help companies store and capitalize on their customer data.

Any company now has the ability to track the behaviour of every customer and store enormous amounts of data on purchase history, transactions, demographics and interactions. The key to building revenue and profits, though, is to use that data to provide a more personalized, interactive and service-oriented customer experience. How can you get started right now to take advantage of these trends and keep up with your competitors?

Here’s one “big idea” you should come away with: Learn who your best customers are. You’ll maximize revenues and profits by paying attention to your most valuable customers and targeting your marketing and business development efforts toward satisfying their needs. Below are ideas for getting better acquainted with your clients.

Keep track of all your customers. You can start with a simple Excel spreadsheet, or move to a more sophisticated Access database. If you have a large number of customers and want to track transactions, interactions, purchase history, demographics and other data, you can move to an industrial-strength relationship database management system.

Use the Web to interact with and learn from your customers. Think of the Web as a two-way street to gather and transmit information — from your website, via e-mail or in a blog. Give customers a reason to register on your website (to receive a newsletter or take a quiz) so you can capture names, addresses and e-mail addresses. You can then use a program such as Constant Contact to send e-mail on a regular basis to customers. Another idea is allow customers to “chat” or instant message in real time with, for instance, a sales rep, during certain hours.

Calculate a monetary value for each of your customers and update it when additional purchases are made. This can be as simple as updating an Excel spreadsheet once a month with purchase data from your point-of-sale system. If you have it, update your customer history with data on your cost of goods sold, so that you can calculate a net profit per customer. Over time, you can get an idea of how much your best customers are spending with you and a sense of what the “customer lifetime value” is for each of them.

Keep track of how often your customers buy from you (frequency), when was the last time they purchased (recency), and how long they’ve been with you (longevity). Together with the monetary value you’ve calculated, these will help you refine your definition of “best customer” and allow you to concentrate on maximizing total value over the customer’s lifetime.

Ask your best customers how you can do better: If you ask, they’ll tell you. What new products or services can you develop? What changes can you make to your existing products or services to provide customers with a reason to stay with you and bring you more business? If you listen carefully, you’ll learn a lot about what it takes to keep and grow your best customers. One great resource for surveys is Zoomerang.com, which will conduct a survey and analyze the results for you. The company currently offers a small scale study for free.

Tailor your services and products directly to your customers’ expressed needs. Use the customer intelligence you gather to change the way you do business. Focus on the specific products, services and ways of doing business that matter most to your customers. For instance, say your survey showed that customers felt your product was too expensive. Perhaps you could consider manufacturing a version with fewer features and selling it for less money.

Concentrate your efforts first on your top-tier customers, then the next tier, and so on, until you reach your least profitable customers. You’ll be able to spend your product development, marketing and sales dollars on your best customers and not on the customers who aren’t making any money for you.

When you’re looking for new business, attract prospects who are similar to your best customers. This makes sense, doesn’t it? You already know how valuable your best customers can be, so try to tailor your new business development efforts to attract prospects who have the potential to become just like them. If you know where your best customers live, you can target new customers in the same zip code or an adjacent one. Consider purchasing demographic data from a vendor such as Donnelley Marketing or Experian.

Above all, just get started learning more about your customers. Start small, and do a little more each day. Soon you’ll be working with true customer intelligence to build your revenues and profits.

Brought to you by the Darrin Jackson

Written by Tony Correto

VoltagePc –we educate you, support you, protect you Call us and tell us what more we can do for you

www.voltagepc.com

Microsoft Vista Upgrade?

Vista or not to vista that is the question?

Every time new software is released, we get plenty of calls on should we upgrade or not? This time I decided to right a quick column on the theory that is behind a software upgrade and what we usually will tell our clients regarding the topic of software upgrades.

Software's are constantly being upgraded usually for one of two reasons, one is for the software to increase its functionality, and the other is for the software companies to make more money. As the software company receives complaints on specific functions that is does not do well or does not do at all, they will either, a) create a patch or, b) get the programmers to rewrite the software to include the missing functions.(and of course give us a new version) That handles the first reason for upgrades, now as to the second, making more money.

Every one in business understands the need for repeat customers and new customers. Software companies have figured out a perfect solution for repeat customers and that is, yes, you guessed it upgrades. Allow me to spend a little time on giving you a history lesson on computers and software. This information will help you to understand how to choose wisely on when to upgrade because ultimately you will have to. In the beginning of the information age (sounds like the introduction to an episode on the history channel) computers were evolving quickly, so quickly in fact that software developers were making so much money that every investor in the world began dropping there money into anything and everything that had to do with a computer. Software, hardware, web applications, business applications, web based marketing and so on and so on and so on. During this phase of development, it seemed the sky was the limit but like any business market, no matter what it is, there is, and will always be a plateau. In the late 90’s that plateau become apparent with the dot com burst.

Thousand of companies began closing there doors issuing layoff notices, selling off stocks trying to raise money on the dead ideas of the information age. During this time only the real ideas, the real value of the information age remained, and these companies are still household names to this day. Names like Microsoft, Google, QuickBooks, and the like. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on which side of the market you were on, tried and true business principles came back into play, leading to a simple question. How does a billion dollar company continue making billions when the purchase of new machines begins to grind to a halt?

Microsoft’s Bill Gates had the answer long before every one else had, and he has been showing it to us since the beginning. Microsoft began its rise with its first OS, MS-DOS then came Windows 3.1,Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP and currently Vista. With the advent of each of these operating systems came new and improved software, but as we discussed earlier, all business does plateau, meaning if new hardware is not purchased neither is new software. Microsoft may have thought they had the answer to this problem but things didn’t work out quite as they had hoped.

Somewhere between windows 2000 and Microsoft Vista, our information age plateau arrived for Microsoft. For simple proof that this plateau exists all one has to do is look at all the business networks out there that are still running windows 2000. So many in fact, that there are two tracks to the MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) one for Windows 2000 the other for Windows XP also known as Server 2003. What this means is that business applications did not change as quickly as home applications therefore leading to slower Microsoft sales.

As the sales for Microsoft began to slow down, so did sales for everyone else in the computer industry, hardware, and software,Alike. The reasons for this slow down are simple, saturation, and the associated cost of upgrades to large enterprise. How many people do you know today that do not own at least one computer?(saturation). How many businesses do you think will spend a million dollars to upgrade from Windows 2000 to Windows xp at a cost of a million dollars I’m sure not many?(cost). With the current market saturation and this is not to say people aren’t buying new computers but they are certainly not buying them at the rate of the early and mid 90’s, to compensate, rather quickly the new number 1 focus for software companies has become repeat sales. Don’t believe me? Ok then answer me this. How many versions of QuickBooks are there? Why the new Windows Vista version when xp works fine. Why does Act no longer support version 6.0? Answer, to force you, the computer users to purchase new products.

Actually, the software pushes the demand for greater hardware. Look at it this way if you write new software that demands greater hardware resources, you will then boost hardware and software sales together, and doesn’t that make sense from a business perspective. This is business 101 for goodness sake and we, all the computer users worldwide are subject to this law.
That rather long-winded explanation leads to this: do we need to upgrade to Microsoft Vista? NO or better said not at this time.

Although in the not so distant future your upgrade will come, trust me.

In Conclusion,

As was said earlier in this article you will eventually be forced to upgrade, In terms of the operating systems not as quickly as in applications software. Quite simply we are at the will of the software companies as they upgrade there software they simply stop supporting previous versions of the software therefore forcing us into the upgrade process. Here are some simple rules to consider when upgrading.

1. Does the newer version have features that my company needs
2. What is the company’s training time frame for this new application ( new features usually mean the change of the familiar interface and you have to learn where everything is all over again)
3. Are they (the software company) supporting my current version and if so until when. (As long as they support you current application why upgrade?)
4. How long has this new version been offered (whenever a new version is introduced to the population it will always have bugs. The trick is to wait a little while before you purchase the newer version 6-12 months after the release date so the patches can be written to fix the issues the software has. Otherwise your tech support bills can get quite hefty as well as your company downtime, buyer beware)
5. What are the hardware requirements for the new software (new software may mean hardware upgrades make sure you evaluate the true cost of an upgrade)
6. How many technicians are skilled enough to support us after we upgrade. ( A software takes a little time to master so although your technician may be highly skilled in windows 2000 has he been educating in Windows server 2003)
7. What do your I.T. team or support personnel think about an upgrade? ( if you have an I.T. team or a technical support team get there input if not use a consultant it can save you tons of headaches)
8. Don’t listen to the software sales person use your technical support team (anybody who gets paid a commission on your purchase is not necessarily the best person to guide your purchasing decision )
9. If they offer a free trial use it ( a quick and easy way to determine the capabilities of the new software as well as the pitfalls in a controlled environment)

If you follow these rules they will definitely help you gauge when to upgrade and why. As always, I hope this article is helpful to all small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Please post comment or ask your questions @ http://www.voltagepc.com/ we are always here to help.

Our motto: If knowledge is power, then allow us to help you be king!

DarrinJackson The Go To Guy

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Why your website is probably money wasted?

To begin this discussion we must first determine a website’s purpose. There are two types of a web presence the first is a presentational website. This type is to give information to prospects about what it is you do and what you can do to help them.

The second type is an e-commerce website this site is to sell products. There are the variants, those that do both, usually a service based business will go with the variants. Ultimately, no matter which website you use it is a marketing tool. If you cannot gauge its effectiveness and measure its results then you have wasted your money, period.

Let us take this conversation to marketing for a split second. Many of us drive down the multiple highways in beautiful America. On virtually every highway, there are more billboards then we can count. Occasionally you will look at one that will grab your interest. Well now, here is my question, have you ever stopped your car on one of these highways to write down the number of the company you just saw on that billboard? Probably not, but if by some slim chance you did, did you ever pick up the phone and call them again probably not.

Interestingly enough, companies spend millions on these billboards and ultimately they do not work. That is, if you are gauging the effectiveness of how well these billboards work, by how often they make your phone ring. This is because these billboards are for brand awareness not to increase immediate sales which is why only the large corporations with money to burn should even think about using this form of marketing

That story was to help you see what many of the SOHO websites are like. They are nothing more then billboards on the information highway. This problem is easily fixed once recognized, but our web designer is usually concerned with his Michelangelo masterpiece, not the effectiveness of your website. The SOHO owner understands the need for a web presence but usually does not stop to think about how his/her client will use the website.

A web site correctly designed, is designed from the client side first not from the business side first, allow me to explain. Client side first simple means what we want our client to do once the get to our site. Many sites show off the company, this is what was meant by business side first. When a client comes to you website they are listening to WIFM RADIO (what’s in it for me... radio). As business owners, we are usually very proud of our business, especially if it is profitable, so much, so that sometimes we forget we are to be of service to our clients. The point is, when you go to a website are you looking for a company or a product? Chances are your clients are looking for a product too. With that being said, spend more time showing off the products and trying to retain precious client information i.e. name, phone, and email. Then displaying the pretty pictures of the office building, the conference room, and your exquisite staff because ultimately your clients don’t really care. All they care about is getting the service that you offer as cheap as possible with as much quality as you present it to be.

Web Traffic- More then likely as a small business you will have to generate your own web traffic with all the information on the web and all your competition on the web, it will be difficult for you to get to the top 10 ranking without a sizable investment (don’t worry all is not lost keep reading ). So what do you do? You begin by redesigning your website to become a functional marketing tool not just a billboard. As an example if you were an insurance company give them the opportunity to request a quote by filling in there vehicle information (lead generation). If you were a real estate agent have a form for there information so you can call back with apartment availability. This will produce a functional website, one that you can capture prospects information and enhance your chance of turning a billboard into a functional marketing tool!

Drive Your Web Traffic – Chances are you are already engaged in some form of marketing for your companies’ product or service. What we do now is push our marketing efforts towards our web campaign. To drive web traffic, in our previous example of the real estate agent, all of his marketing pieces should now read “go to www.someoneneedsrealtor.com for free apartment availability search” now anybody looking for an apartment in his area will be able to put there information in and check availability while you, as the real estate agent will have generated a new lead.

In conclusion, if you are a small business you will need a web presence no question. The only question you should have is, what is the website for and how will it be used? Once you have answered those questions then you can have your web designer create his Michelangelo and your marketing tool.

www.voltagepc.com

www.Darrinjackson.livejournal.com

Finally affordabe I.T. solutions

Our Clients- Voltage pc has been designed for the small business owner who is looking for technical synergy and low cost solutions. Our client usually is a small business owner who realizes the need for an Information Technology department but unfortunately does not have the capital for such a team (until now). Due to recent advances in the world of Pc support., many companies are now able to offer remote pc support. This breakthrough is leading the way for low cost Pc support and regular system maintenance. What this means to you as the SMB, (small medium sized business) is simply cost reduction.

Common Task- Many SMB's do not really understand what an I.T department’s job really is and why it is beneficial to have such a department. One of our biggest jobs in the I.T. department is maintenance, many of the computer problems we deal with could be simple avoided with regular routine maintenance. Unfortunately many SMB’s only deal with there computers on a break/fix basis we have all heard the phrase “if it aint broke don’t fix it” s although this mentality in the world of computers will surely cost you.

The most important job of your I.T department should be guiding you into your technical maturity. Simply put, where are you now and where are you going technically is the I.T departments greatest task.

An example may be best for a clear understanding.

We will use a mortgage broker as our example. Many small businesses begin in the home and with any luck, will prosper, and out grow the company’s birthplace relatively quickly, usually 1-2 years. Now when our client first began his business at home he/she felt that a network is not necessary and they can probably use something like Microsoft outlook to manage their contacts. Although this may be true, the cost for the company when it moves from its birthright will be far more costly and time consuming then if our client would have installed a network and the proper software from the beginning. Many mortgage bankers also used web-based software, which will also lead them to believing there is no real need for a network.

Now let’s look at the above scenario and see if an I.T department could help. First, we will discuss… to network or not to network. Unfortunately, this is not an easy answer. As for me, I believe in hosted solutions and for many mortgage brokers they use a solution called calyx, which is a hosted solution. Now for a single seat using the calyx software it will cost you $350, for each additional seat, it will cost you another $100 www.calyxsoftware.com . Calyx is great software with many features that are difficult to duplicate but with the right software installed, you really don’t have to

If you start with a client server setup for a single user you would pay anywhere from $2000-$5000 for all the necessary hardware, software and installation (there are many who will try to charge you more than quoted). Next you would need a good contact management software, in this case act premium for real estate $369.99 (single user license) www.act.com Now many of you are looking at the price difference between the client –server setup and the calyx setup and thinking its more cost effective to use calyx then the client server setup. This is simply not the case as our client expands beyond the home based business.

The client server setup will allow five users to share files and emails, as well as all contact information, calyx will not. Furthermore, the cost of the client server is a fixed cost for at least 3 years closer to 5 years. The calyx cost will continue yearly and will grow as your company grows. Once you grow to the point where you need the calyx data server you will now spend another $2000 plus you’re per seat licenses below is the table breakdown to show as your business grows your cost grows.

Calyx

Server $2000

Seat License 5 $750

Total $2750 (yearly)

5 year total $13750

Windows 2003 Server $1902

Act 5 User License $1999

Installation $1000

Server maintenance $2000

Total (5 year) $6901

The point of this break down is to show you the importance of an I.T department you see over a 5-year span the calyx solution will cost you 13,750 while the client server with an estimated maintenance cost of 400 per year will cost you almost $7000 less then a calyx solution. Does that mean client server is a better solution? Possibly but the point here is that a good I.T. solution provider should be a liaison helping you to understand your technical goals through every step of your growth process. There are too many unanswered questions in the above scenario to say which is the better solution but wouldn’t you want a technician to answer that for you considering there may be a difference of $7000 dollars over 5 years.

In conclusion, with the reduced cost associated with using remote support solutions, many I.T. companies can and should produce greater support for small business at rates that are affordable. At Voltage pc, we can support your entire office and help guide your technical growth for less then what you probably pay now for your current break/fix support.

At Voltage Pc most small business with 5-10 computers can be supported for approximately $1188 per year or less

For More Information on VoltagePc please visit us at www.voltagepc.com

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Technology Sucks…...AND I AM A COMPUTER TECHNICIAN.

I am sorry had to get that out but its true every word of it. Technology is great no denying it and at this point, who could live without it. This is exactly the point of this article. If you lose your cell phone, you have lost all your contacts. Computer crashes no business today. On the road forgot your laptop have to go back to get it. Gets home Cable/DSL router down no web surfing? Where does all this end, has our dependence on technology invaded our very life's to the core, unfortunately…...yes it has.

Let's talk about cell phones as our first example. I consistently hear people complain about the cost of a cell phone or the amount of the bill itself. Our problem is we only see the phone in our hand not the labor that went into it.

First, we have the assembly of the cell phone that we all know is pennies on the dollar due to foreign labor. (Foreign labor definitely another blog waiting to happen). Although the manufacturing of the phone itself may be inexpensive, what about the engineering of the phone, some electrical engineer (yearly salary $48,010) somewhere had to be paid to sit there and design that little black or silver phone in your pocket.

Secondly, we have the software designer (yearly salary $60,000) who has to design the software that allows voice dialing, surfing the web, speed dialing and the myriad of other features we find in our oh to familiar cell phones.

Finally, we have the network that our wireless signal travels on, this includes the towers that are erected, the many network technicians to keep it running, the satellites that try to prevent our dead spots and of course the many salespeople, marketing teams and top brass who think of the next innovation to keep us purchasing their products. Although I could not find an exact number for this cost, I am sure it's in the millions yearly.

The purpose of the cell phone breakdown is to open you mind up to the cost of technology. Many people believe that computer technician’s prices are extremely high and this is what leads me to write this article on why technology sucks.

First of all obviously I don’t think technology sucks if I did I would not have invested 12 years of my life into it. What I do think sucks is that over the years it has become a thankless profession in which people feel there are being robbed instead of helped.

When I first began my career in Information Technology the help desk position was almost as good as being superman. You would have a problem with your pc, call help desk then we would put on our geek cape swoop down to your floor, fix the problem, and walk away with the thanks and appreciation due to all who celebrate geekdom.

What I realized after starting my consultant business is the reason we were all so well loved back in the good ol’ days is that our cost was transparent to the users. In today’s day and age as a consultant my cost is anything but transparent. Look at it this way if you work for a fortune 500 company they have all the computer staff you will ever need on the payroll, but if you are running your own company you have the cost of pc support and maintenance to absorb, which means no more happy faces when we come.

Sad but true, we are now looked at like an unavoidable evil instead of an important part of day-to-day business. Fortunately, there are multiple levels of computer users and as the computer user becomes more informed, the better a client he becomes. Lets look at the stages of pc user how they evolve, and how and what, a technician deals with in each step.

Level 1 –novice user, There are not many of these left these days considering a child born in 1980 would actually be 27 years old today. (gees I’m getting old) which means that they have no memory of a life before computers so almost everyone today at least knows what a computer is and knows how to use one…or do they?

The novice user usually has the knowledge of how to use a computer but do not know the best practices on how to keep it problem free. They may download programs or install programs and never delete the temporary files that every program will install during the installation process. They may never use the defragment program that is in every windows based operating system to keep the hard drive contiguous. (If you don’t know what contiguous means you must be the novice user we are talking about). They may never run a virus scan or download the patches offered to keep there system up to date on the last virus definitions. This is the novice pc user, his face has changed over the years but the habits haven’t.

Let’s discuss the problems as technicians we face with the novice user. Problem number one is if you don’t do regular maintenance on your computer, it’s an awful mess by the time we get there. Time equals money, so when you see the bill after we have performed our services you are usually very unhappy. Worse yet is our other problem, this problem I have named Johnny power user. Our power user is not quite a technician but pretty far removed from the novice user, this is the person usually called upon by our novice group to fix the simple pc problems. Unfortunately for all us techs worldwide he usually doesn’t charge for his service so the novice user has become quite use to the idea of having his/her pc fixed free.

Level 2-power user (Johnny) The power user is a far better client in the world of consulting. You see for us he/she has fixed so many other peoples computers over the years that he has gained the understanding that this (a computer technician) is really a job. Although maybe not a technician in his own right, he has gained the insight into the world of a pc tech that our novice user never sees.

She/he may know how to keep there computers up and running and problem free but have also realized that there core competency is far more important to there bottom line, then fixing and maintaining there own computers. At this point they prefer to use outside resources then to be bothered with the day to day maintenance of there own pc’s F.Y.I this is when your power user stops answering your calls when you need him to fix your pc.

Level 3 Power user extraordinaire-This is a tech without the certifications and our favorite client. This client understands networking, client server relationships, the difference between operating systems, Lan/Wan requirements the difference between a Linksys router and a Cisco router and overall could do my job if he wanted to. Why are they our best clients simple they value the cost of our knowledge they understand that a pc is a tool much like your vehicle. Your vehicle needs regular maintenance to provide a nice safe ride to and from work, school, soccer practice etc. Your pc also needs the same attention and our power users know this.

In conclusion- technology is here to stay and you will consistently need people to work on it. Although technology is often overlooked as in the cell phone analogy, it cannot be ignored. The best one can hope for in the world of Information Technology is that you will consistently educate yourself and find a firm that can bring you forward one step at a time affordably and consistently. We are one such firm www.bizmanconsulting.com and we have a entire page devoted to free and low cost solutions to keep your pc running at its best. We at Voltage pc hope you have found this article educational and will continue to post regularly on our blog darrinjackson.livejournal.com please feel free to leave comments its been our pleasure to serve you.