Talkroute Blog
Daily articles to help you start, run, and grow your business.
Talkroute News:
Get Our Latest eBook for Free!
“Building Your Business Blog: an introductory guide to building your business blog and how to succeed at it.”
Talkroute Blog
Daily articles to help you start, run, and grow your business.
Get Our Latest eBook for Free!
Talkroute Blog
Daily articles to help you start, run, and grow your business.
Get Our Latest eBook for Free!
Recent Posts
Why Mastering Online Marketing is Critical for Home Businesses January 21, 2019 - There are a few things that are essential when you run your business out of your home--a good ISP and lots of bandwidth, a dedicated phone line, a good space to work out of, and the usual office trappings. ... 
5 Things That Upset Customers When They Call Your Business January 17, 2019 - It’s tough to know what your customers are thinking, which is basically the whole reason that marketing strategy exists, but you can be sure of a few things. People don’t like to wait, they don’t like to go through ... 
Why Focused Company Meetings Are Not Useless January 16, 2019 - Company meetings are either time well spent to move work along and benefit everyone in attendance, or they are the absolute bane of your existence. Which of these categories your meetings fall into depends mainly on how productive they ... 
Clover vs. Square: Top POS Systems Face Off January 15, 2019 - When you’re running a small business, there are precious few moments when you get to have some honest-to-god fun, and fortunately, this will hopefully qualify as one of those times for you. Yes, it’s true that purchasing a new ... 
7 Tips for Hiring & Managing Remote Employees January 14, 2019 - As more and more small businesses are deciding to use remote employees for a few different reasons, not the least of which is to save money that would otherwise be spent on an office space, we are taking the ... 
3 Types of Virtual Phone Systems & What to Look Out For January 10, 2019 - Thinking about making the switch to a virtual phone system? You’re not alone. Due to a few important factors, such as cost, simplicity, and the ability to run your business from anywhere, many businesses, no matter how large or ... 
5 Ideas to Reduce Your Business’ Fulfillment & Shipping Costs January 9, 2019 - With the many factors that contribute to devising a plan for fulfillment and distribution of your product, as cheaply and efficiently as possible, this can be a real challenge for businesses. If you approach it with a keen eye ... 
Why Toptal is the Best Place to Find Developers & Designers January 8, 2019 - You can drive yourself crazy trying to find and hire the right people for your company, especially if the people you need are in a highly specialized field like programming and development. It helps immensely to have access to ... 
Home Business Websites: Your Virtual Storefront January 7, 2019 - You most likely already have a website for your business, and if you don’t, you probably realize that it’s pretty important. If you’re running a home business, then it’s something that you really can’t do without because it’s going ... 
What is a PBX System and How Does It Work? January 3, 2019 - A PBX is one of those things that a lot of businesses are using without realizing that that’s what they’re using. When a business has at least a couple of employees, it has always been kind of a staple ... 
2019: A Year of Promise and Advancement of Technology January 2, 2019 - This year is looking like it’s going to be an interesting one, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. 2018, with so many cultural shifts in our country and little crises for small businesses, has been interesting ... 
8 Ways a Cloud Hosted Phone System Can Transform Your Business December 27, 2018 - If you have never heard of a cloud-hosted phone system, or a cloud-hosted PBX, and you’re a business owner, then it’s definitely something that you should give a try. Also known as a cloud-based, or virtual phone system, it ... 
How to Cut Your Turnover Rate and Retain Employees December 26, 2018 - It’s hard to find great people to work for your company, and it’s hard to hold on to them. It’s not even the fault of the person hiring an employee. Many times, it just can’t be helped for a ... 
How to Use Your Existing Phones with a Virtual Phone System December 20, 2018 - The best type of phone system is one for which you don’t need to purchase or add anything new to make it work. Every business has different needs, but when you’re gearing up to redesign, replace, or add a ... 
How Can You Offer a Lifetime Warranty and Stay in Business? December 19, 2018 - A lifetime warranty is something that is generally misunderstood, and you won’t find too many businesses who offer it today. Generally, that is most likely because businesses are afraid of it and assume they may end up dishing out ... 
Clover Review: Why It Might Be The Best POS System December 18, 2018 - Point of sale technology has come a long way in the last ten to fifteen years. Before the ultra-simple and sleek, plug-and-play systems that we have available today, there were typically only a couple of big companies that provided ... 
When Should You Incorporate Your Home Business? December 16, 2018 - The first thing that every home business should understand is that incorporating is not something you need to be afraid of. Incorporation is widely misunderstood as exclusive of average small businesses, when it is actually far more routine and ... 
Transfer Live Calls with the Push of a Button December 13, 2018 - For businesses who have traditional phone systems in their offices, the ability to transfer a call is something they take for granted, and for new businesses today who are running their businesses from a cell phone, they find a ... 
Can You Really Benefit from Trade Shows? December 12, 2018 - Trade shows seem kind of antiquated, but if you haven’t considered them as a legitimate resource for growing your business, then you’ll be surprised how helpful they can be to give you ideas and make useful contacts, to start ... 
Should You Be Using Google Analytics? December 10, 2018 - Although Google Analytics is not a new thing, there are still a lot of business owners who do not use it, and that is really unfortunate because it can give you valuable insight into who your customers are and ... 
10 Things You Need to Know Before Starting a Home Business December 8, 2018 - More people than ever before are opening small businesses out of their homes, due mostly to the availability of technology that makes it possible to buy and sell nearly anything over the Internet, and to work remotely with employees ... 
How a Virtual Phone System Can Improve Communications December 5, 2018 - How easily can your team communicate with each other at work? When you take an honest assessment of the system you use for everyone to stay in touch with each other, you might very well discover that you’re wasting ... 
Do You Need a Human Resources Department? December 4, 2018 - Human resources. This is the department of a business that seems more extracurricular than essential, but when certain issues arise with people on your team, HR can absolutely save you. When you’re a new business or still very small, ... 
Why We Love QuickBooks Self Employed December 4, 2018 - QuickBooks has been must-have software of small businesses for a long time, but over the years, they have streamlined it and added features to make the current version even easier to use, to the point where it nearly runs ... 
Why You Need to Commit to Your Blog for 12 Months December 2, 2018 - Everybody wants to see a quick return when they invest their time into something, but that rarely ends up being the outcome. In fact, the strategy that produces an immediate ROI is seldom the best strategy because the investments ... 
Can Your Customers Break Your Phone System? November 28, 2018 - Just like when you open a new website for your business, and you’re testing the site in all sorts of different ways to make sure you can’t get it to “break”, you have to do the same for your ... 
Evolution of Advertising: Past to Present November 27, 2018 - Advertising has been around for a long time, much longer than most of us realize. Technically, the first advertisement occurred whenever was the first time someone told another person that they could get some item for a certain price, ... 
Shopify Review: Is It The Best Online Store Builder? November 26, 2018 - If you’re going to open an online store, or a website for any reason, you’ve got quite a few options to choose from now, as you’ve surely seen from all the different ads going around. We’re looking at Shopify ... 
Guest Blog Posting & Other Ways to Generate Backlinks November 25, 2018 - Backlinks. They are an indispensable mechanism to get a lot of traffic to your website, and without them, it will take you way more time to break free from the nominal amount of web traffic that you gain from ... 
Are Billboards a Good Option for Small Businesses? November 20, 2018 - This question actually has a multi-faceted answer, and to introduce the topic, I unfortunately have to give the always-irritating non-answer, “Well, yes and no”. I hate to start this article off with a non-answer, but by the end of ... 
Should You Be Using Slack for Your Business? November 19, 2018 - Of all the tools that pretty much any business can make use of, this is one of the most useful. All businesses need an efficient way to communicate and send information internally, which is why messaging software like Slack ... 
5 Formats that Work Best for Marketing Blogs November 19, 2018 - Whoever you are, whether your writing experience is in conventional media or blog content (or you’re a business owner trying to put out a blog because you see the value in it), you have to realize that writing a ... 
Why You Should Cut Your Landline Phone Service November 15, 2018 - As much affection as we may have for them, the truth is that businesses don’t absolutely need a landline phone anymore. If you love your landline and still want to hang on to it, then of course they still ... 
Should You Sell Your Successful Startup? November 13, 2018 - When your company starts doing very well, you may come to the point where you have to make a decision. Do you sell it and cash out, or keep your company and continue building it? There are benefits to ... 
DocuSign vs. RightSignature: Which is Best for eSignature? November 12, 2018 - We’ve already talked about how much we love DocuSign in this blog, but it’s really a toss-up for eSignature services because RightSignature is also a very simplified, efficient service for electronic signature. If you’re not too familiar with it, ... 
The Best Length for Blog Articles & When to Post Them November 11, 2018 - There is unfortunately no magic formula that works universally when it comes to the length and frequency of posts for your business blog. Every business is different, and more importantly, every business has a different customer base, which means ... 
How Small Businesses Can Compete with Big Companies & Win November 7, 2018 - To enter an industry as a business owner where big companies are already operating in the space is a bold prospect and very intimidating. Though it’s not statistically likely that you’re going to be able to jump in and ... 
Why We Love DocuSign November 6, 2018 - Like many other seemingly innocuous tasks that keep your business running smoothly, getting documents properly prepared and then signed is indispensable but doesn’t take up so much space in your mind. Obviously, when it becomes a problem or costs ... 
What Should You Write About in Your Business Blog? November 5, 2018 - Thanks for joining us again! As we continue our new series, Building Your Blog 101, we’re going to get into the meat of a blog and figure out how it is actually written. More to the point, this post ... 
4 Steps to Manage Your Phones Completely Online October 31, 2018 - Today, we are living in a golden era of technology which is making it possible for small businesses to streamline every aspect of their operations with simplicity and relatively low cost. Your phone system is no exception, either, because ... 
Best Practices for Maintaining Relationships While Running a Business October 31, 2018 - Today, we’re going to look into how you can best manage all of your relationships with the people in your professional and personal life when you have a business to run at the same time. Running your own business ... 
6 Reasons Why We Love BigCommerce October 30, 2018 - There are quite a few options out there now, if you’re looking for an ecommerce platform, but there are only a few great ones. BigCommerce is one of the best platforms you will find for a variety of reasons. ... 
Why Does Every Business Have a Blog Now? October 29, 2018 - You most likely already know that having a blog attached to your business’ website is essential and why, but if you aren’t perfectly clear on the function of this kind of blog or don’t even have one on your ... 
What Happens While Your Number is Being Ported? October 18, 2018 - What is the first concern you have when switching phone service providers? It probably won’t take you long to answer. You’re probably going to be worried about what is going on with your long-held business phone number while your ... 
Using Personal Social Media Accounts for Your Business October 15, 2018 - When businesses start using social media to promote their business, they tend to think of it as a free-standing campaign which has nothing to do with their personal activity on social. Yes, the business is a separate entity; however, ... 
How Often Should You Post on Your Business Blog? October 14, 2018 - This is a question that many marketers and business owners tend to struggle with; meanwhile, the answer may be simpler than you think. Chances are, you have a blog attached to your business’ website where you post some sort ... 
How Can You Use Any Phone with a Virtual System? October 10, 2018 - Many virtual phone systems are known for being compatible with any type of phone, and any carrier. That’s a great asset for small businesses, but how is it possible? If you’re unfamiliar with virtual providers like Talkroute, then this ... 
Why Email is the Perfect Way to Reach Your Customers October 9, 2018 - Email is a somewhat unique and interesting form of electronic communication because it was one of the first ways that people utilized the Internet on a mass scale and is still in wide use today. While social media platforms ... 
Business Blogs 101: Why Every Business Needs One October 8, 2018 - There’s no judgment here, whatsoever, but you’re in the minority if you don’t have a blog attached to your business’ website. Watch out next week for a featured post on how to start a business blog for the first ... 
Is It a Good Idea to Use Cloud Backup Services? October 8, 2018 - We’re all familiar with cloud data backup services, but how many of us actually use those services? A lot of us do use them because a variety of cloud backup providers still have quite a few customers. They’ve been ... 
Should You Have a Podcast to Promote Your Business? October 7, 2018 - Podcasts can be very tricky. Like any other up and coming medium, there are a ton of people creating their own podcasts to try and break into the limelight and get an audience to tune into whatever their content ... 
3 Ways to Configure Any Business Phone System October 4, 2018 - One of the things that makes a virtual phone system great is that it is so versatile and adaptable, no matter how many or what kind of phones your business will be using. In this post, you’ll find 3 ... 
Can You Make It Anywhere as a Small Business? October 2, 2018 - At some particular point in your life, you decide that you are going to be an entrepreneur. You thought about it for a long time, maybe discarded the idea a few times, and then one day, you settle it ... 
4 Reasons Virtual Phone Systems Are Better Than Traditional September 26, 2018 - Communications technology is moving into the future, allowing businesses capabilities that haven’t been possible with a traditional office phone system. Furthermore, it isn’t just the new features that make virtual systems superior to traditional; there are improvements to infrastructure, ... 
Why You Should Be Using Twitter for Your Small Business September 26, 2018 - Yes, you should be tweeting about your business. Even though you may have zero interest in Twitter, there is no questioning the amount of influence it has on our culture today, in every capacity. If you aren’t sure how ... 
4 Actionable Steps to Avoid Starting Your Day Late September 25, 2018 - Even the most professional people can have trouble starting their day on time. It typically stems from a couple of wrong moves right at the beginning, causing a domino effect that can set back your entire day. By correcting ... 
Dead Space in Your Phone System and How to Eliminate It September 20, 2018 - Though it’s not usually one of your highest priorities when you’re setting up your automated phone menu, this is something you might want to give some attention to. Your service provider will likely have a system with the preset ... 
Is YouTube a Viable Platform for Small Business? September 19, 2018 - It’s a new age of small business, and the ways in which entrepreneurs approach it are changing right along with it. You may think, if you’re a traditional thinker, that something like a YouTube channel is a ridiculous platform ... 
What to Do When You Get a Bad Review September 18, 2018 - Even if you have an excellent product and fantastic customer service, someone will inevitably leave a bad review about your company at some point. It can be aggravating and concerning when this happens, but you can still diffuse any ... 
4 Things You Didn’t Know a Virtual Phone System Could Do September 13, 2018 - As virtual service providers proliferate more and more, many people are now aware that these systems are perfect for businesses; however, most have no idea what they are capable of. Here are a few of the most useful ways ... 
Can a Business Owner Wear Too Many Hats? September 11, 2018 - It’s a point of pride for business owners that they “wear a lot of different hats”, or have their “fingers in many pies” (insert your cliché of choice here). If you’re proficient at it and are able to manage ... 
Are There Uptime Issues with a Virtual Phone System? September 6, 2018 - If you’re looking into a new phone system for your business, then the first thing you will probably want to know is if you need to worry about the service unexpectedly going down for any reason. Business owners especially ... 
The Best Way to Handle Multiple Incoming Calls September 4, 2018 - It would be nice if your business only received one call at a time, but that of course isn’t always the case. At times, you will inevitably get multiple calls coming in at the same time, meaning you’re going ... 
5 Good Reasons to Ignore Cheap Phone Systems August 31, 2018 - There are now more virtual phone service providers than there have ever been before, which presents an interesting problem overall, as well as a huge advantage for a business owner. The problem is that it takes business owners much ... 
When to Take or Ignore Advice for Your Business August 28, 2018 - When you’re starting a business or have been running one for a while, you can bet that people around you will make sure you know what they think about it. They may be family, friends, mentors, or colleagues, and ... 
3 Reasons Your Call Transfer Feature Isn’t Working August 23, 2018 - Live call transfer is a feature that is essential for many businesses, which makes it pretty scary for a business owner when it doesn’t seem to be working. Before you start to panic, consider these possible reasons that you ... 
Why Do So Many Small Businesses Fail? August 21, 2018 - In a time when more new businesses are opening up than ever, why are so many of them being forced to close their doors, and so quickly? The reasons for the failure of small businesses are as varied as ... 
Using Your Phone System’s Mobile App for Business August 16, 2018 - Not long ago, it would’ve sounded strange to associate a mobile app with your business’ phone system, but today’s virtual phone systems use a mobile app to make call management a lot easier for your company. Here are a ... 
Trade in Bad Habits for New Ones to Be More Effective August 14, 2018 - Business owners don’t just need to streamline their company’s operations—they need to streamline themselves if they want to be really successful. There are a lot of things that can hold you back when running a business. Consider these negative ... 
How You Should React to Negative Reviews August 7, 2018 - It’s going to happen at some point, if it hasn’t already happened to you; you’re going to come across some negative reviews or feedback about your business. Your first instinct will most likely be to panic and get angry ... 
Why a Business that Sells One Thing is Usually More Successful July 31, 2018 - A lot of businesses have a kind of multiple personality disorder, so to speak, that makes it really difficult for their customers to connect with them. Even if you are good at producing a lot of different things and ... 
10 Reasons Your Office Phone System Should Go Virtual July 26, 2018 - 1. Trim the Fat & Lower Your Cost Business phone systems can get pricey very quickly, but thankfully the traditional providers are not the only option you have at your disposal. Switching to a virtual phone service provider can ... 
4 Things that Will Keep Your Customers Waiting On Hold July 24, 2018 - Pretty much the last thing that anybody wants when they call into a business is to sit on hold. Be that as it may, callers can reach a level of acceptance, for a few specific reasons, and decide it ... 
How to Stop Spam Calls to Your Virtual Phone Number July 19, 2018 - Spam takes all forms nowadays with the explosion of communication capability by way of email, calls, and even text messages. There’s the occasional solicitation call, and then there’s a whole other category of relentless spamming to your phone number ... 
How to Make Your Business Known for What You Sell July 17, 2018 - One of the greatest ways to make sure customers come to you when they need a certain product is to project the impression that you are the go-to provider or purveyor of whatever that thing is. This post discusses ... 
Top Reasons Why Businesses Are Switching to Virtual Phone Systems July 12, 2018 - Phone service is still very important to small businesses as it is still one of the preferred methods of customers to reach out to a business. All kinds of companies are now reevaluating their phone systems to see how ... 
5 Reasons Your Customers Will Accept a Higher Price July 10, 2018 - One of the most unfortunate mistakes that business owners make is setting their price point too low, even when they know that their product is worth more. They do this because they don’t believe people are willing to pay ... 
The 5 Most Commonly Misused Phone System Terms July 6, 2018 - The first step in any kind of communication is the definition of terms. Not only is it invaluable to effective communication, but in the same way, understanding industry terms such as phone system jargon and even just the names ... 
Email Reputation: What It is, and Why It Matters July 3, 2018 - Email reputation is kind of a buzzword recently, and it’s a good thing because this is something that all professionals and business owners should give some thought to. Email is a form of communication that we all thought would ... 
Why a Talkroute Phone System Doesn’t Require a Mobile App June 28, 2018 - When you start your search for a new virtual phone system, you’ll quickly discover that there are numerous options to choose from. What you have to carefully consider is what type of virtual phone system you want because there ... 
4 Simple Steps to Turn a Disgruntled Customer into a Loyal One June 26, 2018 - To pull a one-eighty with a customer who is already upset for one reason or another takes a measure of skill and a great deal of patience, but this is the epitome of truly taking care of a customer. ... 
5 Steps for Managing Your Forwarding Phones June 22, 2018 - The phones that you use to answer business calls are the most essential element and most valuable point-of-contact you have with your customers. Most of the time, you can pretty much set it and forget it, but then there ... 
4 Tips for Emergency Preparedness in Your Office June 19, 2018 - The motto, “Be prepared for anything,” extends beyond writing everything you can think of into your bylaws. As a business owner, you also need to be ready for practical emergencies which have the potential to cause massive problems for ... 
Is the User Interface of a Virtual Phone System Important? June 14, 2018 - The criteria you use to judge virtual phone systems may not include the user interface, or control panel—but it should. Your control panel, otherwise known as your “dashboard”, is how you interact with your business’ phone system and needs ... 
Essential Strategies for Maximizing Your Workspace June 12, 2018 - The physical space that you use daily to get all of your work done honestly cannot be overemphasized. This is where you spend most of your time, and it has to be conducive to comfort and productivity, among other ... 
How to Get Employees to Do What You Want Them to Do June 5, 2018 - While it is paramount to let your employees be independent to get their best work out of them, you can also use conscientious strategy to encourage the results that you need. Take these suggestions under advisement. There is absolutely ... 
Why Any Business Can Have Perfect Call Quality May 24, 2018 - Connection quality and excellent phone reception is always a top concern for businesses of any size. Unfortunately, if you choose the wrong phone service provider, you may not enjoy the consistent quality that you need because not all providers ... 
How to Handle Losing an Employee May 22, 2018 - Whether it comes as a surprise, or you see it coming from a mile away, losing someone in your employ is a challenge. It can be disorienting, emotional, and stressful. How you deal with the change will determine how ... 
4 Tips to Maximize Your Business Voicemail May 17, 2018 - Voicemail is pretty straightforward. Every business uses it because you just can’t get to every call, but is every business using voicemail to its full potential? Probably not. Put these 4 strategies into practice to get the most out ... 
4 Things Your Audio Prompts Should Never Say May 15, 2018 - The messages and audio that people hear when they call into your phone system should be orchestrated in such a way that informs the caller while keeping them calm and interested. If the message goes off the program even ... 
3 Reasons Your Business Service Provider Isn’t Good Enough May 10, 2018 - Your business depends on consistent communication, and much of your communication relies on quality phone service. It’s for that reason that the service providing you with a phone system cannot give you a barely adequate, shiny product that has ... 
Doing Business in a Direct-to-Consumer World May 8, 2018 - Direct-to-consumer business is putting a lot of pressure on resellers. Until now, manufacturers, artists, artisans, and producers of all kinds have never had the platform to put their product in the hands of enough customers to support a viable ... 
Does a Virtual Phone System Have to Use VoIP? May 4, 2018 - Virtual phone systems for business are steadily becoming more popular and more accepted, but they are still vastly misunderstood. This article is an introductory attempt to dispel some of the misconceptions that people have about virtual phone services. When ... 
What to Do When Your Business Outgrows Your Cell Phone May 2, 2018 - If you’re starting a new business today, then chances are, you’re running it from your cell phone. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and it can work for you for a long time. As your business begins to ... 
How to Pick the Right Phone Number for Your Business April 26, 2018 - How important is your business’ phone number? Outside of your website, it’s typically the first point-of-contact with your business for your customers, so… pretty important. Sometimes you just end up with a random number to serve as your main ... 
Stop Paying Per Minute for Your Virtual Phone Number April 24, 2018 - Your virtual phone service shouldn’t cause you stress. It should give you peace of mind by supporting all of your business phone calls, every day, without forcing you to count the minutes you’re using to make sure you don’t ... 
This is Why Being an Entrepreneur Isn’t Glamorous April 19, 2018 - More and more people are pouring into the arena of small business to earn the right to call themselves entrepreneurs, but how many of them stay in the game and produce a thriving small business? The title has always ... 
Can You Go Analog in a Digital Business World? April 17, 2018 - Technology has enabled us to conduct business way faster and smarter than we ever could before. You’ll find no argument here that technology clearly gives us an advantage; that’s not what’s on the table here. This is about boosting ... 
How to Respond to Bad Word-of-Mouth: Head-On April 10, 2018 - People talk. They always do, and they always have. How you respond to it as a business (if you should respond at all) depends on the nature and severity of what people are saying, and who is saying it. ... 
7 Reliable Ways to Impress Your Customers April 3, 2018 - If you want to really impress your customers, then you have to give them more than what they usually get from other businesses. It’s not necessarily grand gestures that will get their attention; the little things that prove to ... 
Think of Your Business as a Work in Progress March 27, 2018 - Have you had some good success? Been in business for a while? If your business has been doing pretty well for a good amount of time, then you’re likely developing a false sense of security. There aren’t very many ... 
What Makes Your Business Special? That’s Your Key March 13, 2018 - Think of all the businesses in the world as species of fish in an ocean, and then imagine all of the individual fish within each species. In the current corporate climate, there are more species and families than there ... 
3 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Second Business March 6, 2018 - When a business owner finds that they have a successful small business, they have a tendency to look beyond it and consider opening up another one. That can either turn out to be a massive triumph or a dismal ... 
Don’t Let Adversity Throw You Off Your Game February 20, 2018 - Maintaining a successful small business is fraught with battles every day, that threaten to compromise what you’ve worked so hard to build, and it is enough to injure your confidence or even make you feel as if you need ... 
Is Greater Technology Becoming a Distraction? February 14, 2018 - Do you ever get the feeling that you’re not operating at full capacity? It’s difficult to pin down what the reason for that is, and though there is sometimes an event or personal hardship that takes you down a ... 
How to Be Calm When Dealing with Customers February 6, 2018 - Do your customers ever make you angry? It’s pretty much guaranteed that it will happen sometimes, which is why it’s imperative that you have a plan to manage it. Some CSRs have a talent for this, and some do ... 
How to Write the Subject Line of a Marketing Email January 30, 2018 - How much time do you spend thinking about the subject line of your emails before you send them out? Hopefully, you spend a good while thinking about it because it’s more important than the body of the email, by ... 
When the Luster of Your New Business Wears Off January 23, 2018 - The dictionary literally defines luster as “a period of five years”. That’s one of its definitions, anyway, but the point is that it is temporary. When you open a new business that is well-planned out, there’s a good chance ... 
7 Ways to Keep Resistance from Killing Your Focus January 16, 2018 - The idea, or interpretation of “resistance”, as it is used in this post, was originally authored by Steven Pressfield in his book, The War of Art. What is Resistance? For the purposes of this article, think of resistance ... 
The #1 Mistake We Make When Choosing a Phone Service January 9, 2018 - Whether you’re choosing your phone system for a new small business, or updating your existing system, there are a lot of factors to consider. Is a traditional wired system more appropriate, or is your business structure better suited for ... 
3 Reasons Why Millennials are Good for Your Business January 4, 2018 - It’s easy to discount their generation because it’s the majority opinion that Millennials have an undue sense of entitlement and are not willing to work for success. To believe this is to buy into a stereotype as unfounded as ... 
Read This Before You Switch Phone Service Providers December 28, 2017 - First of all, if you are moving to a new service provider but do not need to keep your existing phone number, then there isn’t much to it—you cancel your old service, and start up with your new one. ... 
Is Technology Really Helping Us to Get More Done? December 21, 2017 - Generally speaking, it is counterproductive to limit the use of technology for a business, but at the same time, it is absolutely valid to limit your use of technology, personally, to increase productivity. It’s a big pill to swallow ... 
All Your Work Doesn’t Matter Unless It’s Effective December 19, 2017 - Our time is short in this life to get done what needs to get done. That’s why we constantly think about what we can do better to achieve success in our field, to create a profitable business that we ... 
Future Capital: Set Money Aside To Build Wealth December 12, 2017 - What you’ll see in this post is not groundbreaking by any means. It’s simple, it’s elementary, but it may be one of the most important practices that you employ for your business. It may even save your business one ... 
Stop Making Excuses and Attack Your Goals December 7, 2017 - How comfortable are you with your current professional position? Whether you already have a large company, a solid small business, or are only aspiring to start a business—it’s imperative that you ask yourself this question because if your answer ... 
Carriers & Service Providers—What’s the Difference? December 5, 2017 - Most people typically use these two terms interchangeably, and though the carrier and the service provider are in some cases one in the same (this is explained later in this post), it’s important to make a distinction between them ... 
How to Stay Productive, Even When You’re Overwhelmed November 30, 2017 - The problem with being afflicted with burnout when you’re a business owner is that you can’t exactly stop and smell the flowers for a while, and then come back when you’re refreshed and re-centered. The business isn’t going to ... 
Veteran vs. Rookie: Who is the Better Entrepreneur? November 28, 2017 - There is a lot to be said for entrepreneurs who have experience with running a business and know the right move to make in a variety of situations. It really helps to know what to what to watch out ... 
How to Stay on Schedule and Be Uber Productive November 21, 2017 - “The best way to effectively use time is to schedule it.” —Sunday Adelaja Write All of It Down First of all, don’t underestimate the power of physically writing things down. The greatest benefit of writing down all of ... 
For Business Owners Who Don’t Play Well with Others November 16, 2017 - When we think of someone who runs a business, we get a picture in our mind of a person who is always wheeling-and-dealing, shaking hands and putting on a smile during meetings—generally impressing everyone they encounter. It’s easy to ... 
22 Tips for Running an Exceptional Small Business November 14, 2017 - No matter what level you are on, this comprehensive list of tips can provide a foundation for running your small business in a growth-minded fashion, as well as help you to avoid many of the pitfalls on the road ... 
Inside the Mind of Your Customer: Why They Lash Out November 9, 2017 - The first step to improving relations with your customers is to understand where they are coming from. This article isn’t necessarily about customer service, but at the same time, improved service is a byproduct of knowing what motivates your ... 
What They Don’t Tell You About Running a Home Business November 7, 2017 - It seems pretty straightforward, right? You start a business, do all the business owner stuff, set up your home office, and run everything just like you would if it were housed in a separate building. Yes, that’s exactly right, ... 
Top 5 Questions You Should Ask Your Job Applicants November 2, 2017 - To make your interviews a little more potent and find the right people more quickly, you just have to ask the right questions. You’ll see below that some of these are pretty straightforward, but to gain real insight about ... 
What to Do When You Make a Mistake with a Client October 31, 2017 - No matter how careful you are, mistakes will be made from time to time. Whether it’s a low-level representative of the company or upper management, someone will eventually make an error that affects a customer, and there should be ... 
6 Things You Should Never Say to a Customer October 26, 2017 - Any professional who works with customers on a regular basis is bound to say something off-putting or not quite appropriate to a customer, sooner or later. The difference between a normal statement and one that is offensive to a ... 
How to Resolve Customer Issues in One Email October 24, 2017 - Serving customers by communicating through email is one of the most common channels for customer support today, as well as the generally preferred method of companies. While it is a great way to answer questions and solve issues, the ... 
Proactive vs. Reactive: Which Strategy is Better? October 19, 2017 - There are two kinds of people in this world. There are those who are perpetually motivated to act in real time as things happen to them; and there are those who pay attention to what’s coming and act accordingly. ... 
Too Much, Not Enough: How to Manage Your Inventory October 17, 2017 - The problem business owners run into with inventory is simple: As the demand for each product rises and falls, it can be difficult to order just the right amount of product, especially if it’s perishable. This drives owners mad ... 
Everything You Need for a Professional Phone System October 12, 2017 - Setting up the right phone system for your business does not have to be complicated, and it doesn’t have to be expensive. By utilizing and applying these key elements, you can set up a system that provides everything that ... 
5 Reasons Your Team Doesn’t Trust You October 10, 2017 - Do you get the feeling that your team is murmuring behind your back and cursing the ground you walk on? Well, you might just be paranoid; but you also may be doing things that you’re not even aware of ... 
How to Handle Your Toughest Business Decisions October 5, 2017 - We all dread it; that day when we’re forced to choose one of two paths that each might lead to an unforeseeable future. Those choices are especially scary when it applies to your business, but even so, you can ... 
Do You Communicate as Well as You Think You Do? October 3, 2017 - We stress the value of communication in this blog, and there is good reason for that. It is, first of all, something to which people normally don’t give much thought; and secondly, everyone thinks they are good at it. ... 
Why it’s Better to Be an Imitator than an Innovator September 28, 2017 - There is a problem that business owners have to face when they start a new business, and the problem is that they have to decide if it is worthwhile to introduce a brand new product to the market. We ... 
Why There Are Some Customers You Shouldn’t Listen To September 21, 2017 - Any respectable business is driven to listen to its customers—all of its customers, if possible—because that’s how you know what you should change about your product or service and what the shortcomings are that you need to address. The ... 
How to Come Up with a Simple, Attractive Business Name September 19, 2017 - It’s possible that you have already lost or missed customers because of a difficult or confusing company name. At the very least, there are two main problems with a poorly-conceived name: It either makes it harder for your customers ... 
Find a Perfect Toll Free Number with (833) Area Code September 14, 2017 - Have you dreamed of registering the perfect toll free number for your business? Well, the realization of your dream may be closer than you think—just not in the form that you might expect. On June 3, 2017, a massive ... 
Insider Tricks for Using a Virtual Phone System September 12, 2017 - You know when you get a new stereo, and then months later, you figure out things that you didn’t even know it could do? It’s a lot better to know those tricks beforehand, which is why this article contains ... Recent Posts
Why Mastering Online Marketing is Critical for Home Businesses January 21, 2019 - There are a few things that are essential when you run your business out of your home--a good ISP and lots of bandwidth, a dedicated phone line, a good space to work out of, and the usual office trappings. ...
5 Things That Upset Customers When They Call Your Business January 17, 2019 - It’s tough to know what your customers are thinking, which is basically the whole reason that marketing strategy exists, but you can be sure of a few things. People don’t like to wait, they don’t like to go through ...
Why Focused Company Meetings Are Not Useless January 16, 2019 - Company meetings are either time well spent to move work along and benefit everyone in attendance, or they are the absolute bane of your existence. Which of these categories your meetings fall into depends mainly on how productive they ...
Clover vs. Square: Top POS Systems Face Off January 15, 2019 - When you’re running a small business, there are precious few moments when you get to have some honest-to-god fun, and fortunately, this will hopefully qualify as one of those times for you. Yes, it’s true that purchasing a new ...
7 Tips for Hiring & Managing Remote Employees January 14, 2019 - As more and more small businesses are deciding to use remote employees for a few different reasons, not the least of which is to save money that would otherwise be spent on an office space, we are taking the ...
3 Types of Virtual Phone Systems & What to Look Out For January 10, 2019 - Thinking about making the switch to a virtual phone system? You’re not alone. Due to a few important factors, such as cost, simplicity, and the ability to run your business from anywhere, many businesses, no matter how large or ...
5 Ideas to Reduce Your Business’ Fulfillment & Shipping Costs January 9, 2019 - With the many factors that contribute to devising a plan for fulfillment and distribution of your product, as cheaply and efficiently as possible, this can be a real challenge for businesses. If you approach it with a keen eye ...
Why Toptal is the Best Place to Find Developers & Designers January 8, 2019 - You can drive yourself crazy trying to find and hire the right people for your company, especially if the people you need are in a highly specialized field like programming and development. It helps immensely to have access to ...
Home Business Websites: Your Virtual Storefront January 7, 2019 - You most likely already have a website for your business, and if you don’t, you probably realize that it’s pretty important. If you’re running a home business, then it’s something that you really can’t do without because it’s going ...
What is a PBX System and How Does It Work? January 3, 2019 - A PBX is one of those things that a lot of businesses are using without realizing that that’s what they’re using. When a business has at least a couple of employees, it has always been kind of a staple ...
2019: A Year of Promise and Advancement of Technology January 2, 2019 - This year is looking like it’s going to be an interesting one, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. 2018, with so many cultural shifts in our country and little crises for small businesses, has been interesting ...
8 Ways a Cloud Hosted Phone System Can Transform Your Business December 27, 2018 - If you have never heard of a cloud-hosted phone system, or a cloud-hosted PBX, and you’re a business owner, then it’s definitely something that you should give a try. Also known as a cloud-based, or virtual phone system, it ...
How to Cut Your Turnover Rate and Retain Employees December 26, 2018 - It’s hard to find great people to work for your company, and it’s hard to hold on to them. It’s not even the fault of the person hiring an employee. Many times, it just can’t be helped for a ...
How to Use Your Existing Phones with a Virtual Phone System December 20, 2018 - The best type of phone system is one for which you don’t need to purchase or add anything new to make it work. Every business has different needs, but when you’re gearing up to redesign, replace, or add a ...
How Can You Offer a Lifetime Warranty and Stay in Business? December 19, 2018 - A lifetime warranty is something that is generally misunderstood, and you won’t find too many businesses who offer it today. Generally, that is most likely because businesses are afraid of it and assume they may end up dishing out ...
Clover Review: Why It Might Be The Best POS System December 18, 2018 - Point of sale technology has come a long way in the last ten to fifteen years. Before the ultra-simple and sleek, plug-and-play systems that we have available today, there were typically only a couple of big companies that provided ...
When Should You Incorporate Your Home Business? December 16, 2018 - The first thing that every home business should understand is that incorporating is not something you need to be afraid of. Incorporation is widely misunderstood as exclusive of average small businesses, when it is actually far more routine and ...
Transfer Live Calls with the Push of a Button December 13, 2018 - For businesses who have traditional phone systems in their offices, the ability to transfer a call is something they take for granted, and for new businesses today who are running their businesses from a cell phone, they find a ...
Can You Really Benefit from Trade Shows? December 12, 2018 - Trade shows seem kind of antiquated, but if you haven’t considered them as a legitimate resource for growing your business, then you’ll be surprised how helpful they can be to give you ideas and make useful contacts, to start ...
Should You Be Using Google Analytics? December 10, 2018 - Although Google Analytics is not a new thing, there are still a lot of business owners who do not use it, and that is really unfortunate because it can give you valuable insight into who your customers are and ...
10 Things You Need to Know Before Starting a Home Business December 8, 2018 - More people than ever before are opening small businesses out of their homes, due mostly to the availability of technology that makes it possible to buy and sell nearly anything over the Internet, and to work remotely with employees ...
How a Virtual Phone System Can Improve Communications December 5, 2018 - How easily can your team communicate with each other at work? When you take an honest assessment of the system you use for everyone to stay in touch with each other, you might very well discover that you’re wasting ...
Do You Need a Human Resources Department? December 4, 2018 - Human resources. This is the department of a business that seems more extracurricular than essential, but when certain issues arise with people on your team, HR can absolutely save you. When you’re a new business or still very small, ...
Why We Love QuickBooks Self Employed December 4, 2018 - QuickBooks has been must-have software of small businesses for a long time, but over the years, they have streamlined it and added features to make the current version even easier to use, to the point where it nearly runs ...
Why You Need to Commit to Your Blog for 12 Months December 2, 2018 - Everybody wants to see a quick return when they invest their time into something, but that rarely ends up being the outcome. In fact, the strategy that produces an immediate ROI is seldom the best strategy because the investments ...
Can Your Customers Break Your Phone System? November 28, 2018 - Just like when you open a new website for your business, and you’re testing the site in all sorts of different ways to make sure you can’t get it to “break”, you have to do the same for your ...
Evolution of Advertising: Past to Present November 27, 2018 - Advertising has been around for a long time, much longer than most of us realize. Technically, the first advertisement occurred whenever was the first time someone told another person that they could get some item for a certain price, ...
Shopify Review: Is It The Best Online Store Builder? November 26, 2018 - If you’re going to open an online store, or a website for any reason, you’ve got quite a few options to choose from now, as you’ve surely seen from all the different ads going around. We’re looking at Shopify ...
Guest Blog Posting & Other Ways to Generate Backlinks November 25, 2018 - Backlinks. They are an indispensable mechanism to get a lot of traffic to your website, and without them, it will take you way more time to break free from the nominal amount of web traffic that you gain from ...
Are Billboards a Good Option for Small Businesses? November 20, 2018 - This question actually has a multi-faceted answer, and to introduce the topic, I unfortunately have to give the always-irritating non-answer, “Well, yes and no”. I hate to start this article off with a non-answer, but by the end of ...
Should You Be Using Slack for Your Business? November 19, 2018 - Of all the tools that pretty much any business can make use of, this is one of the most useful. All businesses need an efficient way to communicate and send information internally, which is why messaging software like Slack ...
5 Formats that Work Best for Marketing Blogs November 19, 2018 - Whoever you are, whether your writing experience is in conventional media or blog content (or you’re a business owner trying to put out a blog because you see the value in it), you have to realize that writing a ...
Why You Should Cut Your Landline Phone Service November 15, 2018 - As much affection as we may have for them, the truth is that businesses don’t absolutely need a landline phone anymore. If you love your landline and still want to hang on to it, then of course they still ...
Should You Sell Your Successful Startup? November 13, 2018 - When your company starts doing very well, you may come to the point where you have to make a decision. Do you sell it and cash out, or keep your company and continue building it? There are benefits to ...
DocuSign vs. RightSignature: Which is Best for eSignature? November 12, 2018 - We’ve already talked about how much we love DocuSign in this blog, but it’s really a toss-up for eSignature services because RightSignature is also a very simplified, efficient service for electronic signature. If you’re not too familiar with it, ...
The Best Length for Blog Articles & When to Post Them November 11, 2018 - There is unfortunately no magic formula that works universally when it comes to the length and frequency of posts for your business blog. Every business is different, and more importantly, every business has a different customer base, which means ...
How Small Businesses Can Compete with Big Companies & Win November 7, 2018 - To enter an industry as a business owner where big companies are already operating in the space is a bold prospect and very intimidating. Though it’s not statistically likely that you’re going to be able to jump in and ...
Why We Love DocuSign November 6, 2018 - Like many other seemingly innocuous tasks that keep your business running smoothly, getting documents properly prepared and then signed is indispensable but doesn’t take up so much space in your mind. Obviously, when it becomes a problem or costs ...
What Should You Write About in Your Business Blog? November 5, 2018 - Thanks for joining us again! As we continue our new series, Building Your Blog 101, we’re going to get into the meat of a blog and figure out how it is actually written. More to the point, this post ...
4 Steps to Manage Your Phones Completely Online October 31, 2018 - Today, we are living in a golden era of technology which is making it possible for small businesses to streamline every aspect of their operations with simplicity and relatively low cost. Your phone system is no exception, either, because ...
Best Practices for Maintaining Relationships While Running a Business October 31, 2018 - Today, we’re going to look into how you can best manage all of your relationships with the people in your professional and personal life when you have a business to run at the same time. Running your own business ...
6 Reasons Why We Love BigCommerce October 30, 2018 - There are quite a few options out there now, if you’re looking for an ecommerce platform, but there are only a few great ones. BigCommerce is one of the best platforms you will find for a variety of reasons. ...
Why Does Every Business Have a Blog Now? October 29, 2018 - You most likely already know that having a blog attached to your business’ website is essential and why, but if you aren’t perfectly clear on the function of this kind of blog or don’t even have one on your ...
What Happens While Your Number is Being Ported? October 18, 2018 - What is the first concern you have when switching phone service providers? It probably won’t take you long to answer. You’re probably going to be worried about what is going on with your long-held business phone number while your ...
Using Personal Social Media Accounts for Your Business October 15, 2018 - When businesses start using social media to promote their business, they tend to think of it as a free-standing campaign which has nothing to do with their personal activity on social. Yes, the business is a separate entity; however, ...
How Often Should You Post on Your Business Blog? October 14, 2018 - This is a question that many marketers and business owners tend to struggle with; meanwhile, the answer may be simpler than you think. Chances are, you have a blog attached to your business’ website where you post some sort ...
How Can You Use Any Phone with a Virtual System? October 10, 2018 - Many virtual phone systems are known for being compatible with any type of phone, and any carrier. That’s a great asset for small businesses, but how is it possible? If you’re unfamiliar with virtual providers like Talkroute, then this ...
Why Email is the Perfect Way to Reach Your Customers October 9, 2018 - Email is a somewhat unique and interesting form of electronic communication because it was one of the first ways that people utilized the Internet on a mass scale and is still in wide use today. While social media platforms ...
Business Blogs 101: Why Every Business Needs One October 8, 2018 - There’s no judgment here, whatsoever, but you’re in the minority if you don’t have a blog attached to your business’ website. Watch out next week for a featured post on how to start a business blog for the first ...
Is It a Good Idea to Use Cloud Backup Services? October 8, 2018 - We’re all familiar with cloud data backup services, but how many of us actually use those services? A lot of us do use them because a variety of cloud backup providers still have quite a few customers. They’ve been ...
Should You Have a Podcast to Promote Your Business? October 7, 2018 - Podcasts can be very tricky. Like any other up and coming medium, there are a ton of people creating their own podcasts to try and break into the limelight and get an audience to tune into whatever their content ...
3 Ways to Configure Any Business Phone System October 4, 2018 - One of the things that makes a virtual phone system great is that it is so versatile and adaptable, no matter how many or what kind of phones your business will be using. In this post, you’ll find 3 ...
Can You Make It Anywhere as a Small Business? October 2, 2018 - At some particular point in your life, you decide that you are going to be an entrepreneur. You thought about it for a long time, maybe discarded the idea a few times, and then one day, you settle it ...
4 Reasons Virtual Phone Systems Are Better Than Traditional September 26, 2018 - Communications technology is moving into the future, allowing businesses capabilities that haven’t been possible with a traditional office phone system. Furthermore, it isn’t just the new features that make virtual systems superior to traditional; there are improvements to infrastructure, ...
Why You Should Be Using Twitter for Your Small Business September 26, 2018 - Yes, you should be tweeting about your business. Even though you may have zero interest in Twitter, there is no questioning the amount of influence it has on our culture today, in every capacity. If you aren’t sure how ...
4 Actionable Steps to Avoid Starting Your Day Late September 25, 2018 - Even the most professional people can have trouble starting their day on time. It typically stems from a couple of wrong moves right at the beginning, causing a domino effect that can set back your entire day. By correcting ...
Dead Space in Your Phone System and How to Eliminate It September 20, 2018 - Though it’s not usually one of your highest priorities when you’re setting up your automated phone menu, this is something you might want to give some attention to. Your service provider will likely have a system with the preset ...
Is YouTube a Viable Platform for Small Business? September 19, 2018 - It’s a new age of small business, and the ways in which entrepreneurs approach it are changing right along with it. You may think, if you’re a traditional thinker, that something like a YouTube channel is a ridiculous platform ...
What to Do When You Get a Bad Review September 18, 2018 - Even if you have an excellent product and fantastic customer service, someone will inevitably leave a bad review about your company at some point. It can be aggravating and concerning when this happens, but you can still diffuse any ...
4 Things You Didn’t Know a Virtual Phone System Could Do September 13, 2018 - As virtual service providers proliferate more and more, many people are now aware that these systems are perfect for businesses; however, most have no idea what they are capable of. Here are a few of the most useful ways ...
Can a Business Owner Wear Too Many Hats? September 11, 2018 - It’s a point of pride for business owners that they “wear a lot of different hats”, or have their “fingers in many pies” (insert your cliché of choice here). If you’re proficient at it and are able to manage ...
Are There Uptime Issues with a Virtual Phone System? September 6, 2018 - If you’re looking into a new phone system for your business, then the first thing you will probably want to know is if you need to worry about the service unexpectedly going down for any reason. Business owners especially ...
The Best Way to Handle Multiple Incoming Calls September 4, 2018 - It would be nice if your business only received one call at a time, but that of course isn’t always the case. At times, you will inevitably get multiple calls coming in at the same time, meaning you’re going ...
5 Good Reasons to Ignore Cheap Phone Systems August 31, 2018 - There are now more virtual phone service providers than there have ever been before, which presents an interesting problem overall, as well as a huge advantage for a business owner. The problem is that it takes business owners much ...
When to Take or Ignore Advice for Your Business August 28, 2018 - When you’re starting a business or have been running one for a while, you can bet that people around you will make sure you know what they think about it. They may be family, friends, mentors, or colleagues, and ...
3 Reasons Your Call Transfer Feature Isn’t Working August 23, 2018 - Live call transfer is a feature that is essential for many businesses, which makes it pretty scary for a business owner when it doesn’t seem to be working. Before you start to panic, consider these possible reasons that you ...
Why Do So Many Small Businesses Fail? August 21, 2018 - In a time when more new businesses are opening up than ever, why are so many of them being forced to close their doors, and so quickly? The reasons for the failure of small businesses are as varied as ...
Using Your Phone System’s Mobile App for Business August 16, 2018 - Not long ago, it would’ve sounded strange to associate a mobile app with your business’ phone system, but today’s virtual phone systems use a mobile app to make call management a lot easier for your company. Here are a ...
Trade in Bad Habits for New Ones to Be More Effective August 14, 2018 - Business owners don’t just need to streamline their company’s operations—they need to streamline themselves if they want to be really successful. There are a lot of things that can hold you back when running a business. Consider these negative ...
How You Should React to Negative Reviews August 7, 2018 - It’s going to happen at some point, if it hasn’t already happened to you; you’re going to come across some negative reviews or feedback about your business. Your first instinct will most likely be to panic and get angry ...
Why a Business that Sells One Thing is Usually More Successful July 31, 2018 - A lot of businesses have a kind of multiple personality disorder, so to speak, that makes it really difficult for their customers to connect with them. Even if you are good at producing a lot of different things and ...
10 Reasons Your Office Phone System Should Go Virtual July 26, 2018 - 1. Trim the Fat & Lower Your Cost Business phone systems can get pricey very quickly, but thankfully the traditional providers are not the only option you have at your disposal. Switching to a virtual phone service provider can ...
4 Things that Will Keep Your Customers Waiting On Hold July 24, 2018 - Pretty much the last thing that anybody wants when they call into a business is to sit on hold. Be that as it may, callers can reach a level of acceptance, for a few specific reasons, and decide it ...
How to Stop Spam Calls to Your Virtual Phone Number July 19, 2018 - Spam takes all forms nowadays with the explosion of communication capability by way of email, calls, and even text messages. There’s the occasional solicitation call, and then there’s a whole other category of relentless spamming to your phone number ...
How to Make Your Business Known for What You Sell July 17, 2018 - One of the greatest ways to make sure customers come to you when they need a certain product is to project the impression that you are the go-to provider or purveyor of whatever that thing is. This post discusses ...
Top Reasons Why Businesses Are Switching to Virtual Phone Systems July 12, 2018 - Phone service is still very important to small businesses as it is still one of the preferred methods of customers to reach out to a business. All kinds of companies are now reevaluating their phone systems to see how ...
5 Reasons Your Customers Will Accept a Higher Price July 10, 2018 - One of the most unfortunate mistakes that business owners make is setting their price point too low, even when they know that their product is worth more. They do this because they don’t believe people are willing to pay ...
The 5 Most Commonly Misused Phone System Terms July 6, 2018 - The first step in any kind of communication is the definition of terms. Not only is it invaluable to effective communication, but in the same way, understanding industry terms such as phone system jargon and even just the names ...
Email Reputation: What It is, and Why It Matters July 3, 2018 - Email reputation is kind of a buzzword recently, and it’s a good thing because this is something that all professionals and business owners should give some thought to. Email is a form of communication that we all thought would ...
Why a Talkroute Phone System Doesn’t Require a Mobile App June 28, 2018 - When you start your search for a new virtual phone system, you’ll quickly discover that there are numerous options to choose from. What you have to carefully consider is what type of virtual phone system you want because there ...
4 Simple Steps to Turn a Disgruntled Customer into a Loyal One June 26, 2018 - To pull a one-eighty with a customer who is already upset for one reason or another takes a measure of skill and a great deal of patience, but this is the epitome of truly taking care of a customer. ...
5 Steps for Managing Your Forwarding Phones June 22, 2018 - The phones that you use to answer business calls are the most essential element and most valuable point-of-contact you have with your customers. Most of the time, you can pretty much set it and forget it, but then there ...
4 Tips for Emergency Preparedness in Your Office June 19, 2018 - The motto, “Be prepared for anything,” extends beyond writing everything you can think of into your bylaws. As a business owner, you also need to be ready for practical emergencies which have the potential to cause massive problems for ...
Is the User Interface of a Virtual Phone System Important? June 14, 2018 - The criteria you use to judge virtual phone systems may not include the user interface, or control panel—but it should. Your control panel, otherwise known as your “dashboard”, is how you interact with your business’ phone system and needs ...
Essential Strategies for Maximizing Your Workspace June 12, 2018 - The physical space that you use daily to get all of your work done honestly cannot be overemphasized. This is where you spend most of your time, and it has to be conducive to comfort and productivity, among other ...
How to Get Employees to Do What You Want Them to Do June 5, 2018 - While it is paramount to let your employees be independent to get their best work out of them, you can also use conscientious strategy to encourage the results that you need. Take these suggestions under advisement. There is absolutely ...
Why Any Business Can Have Perfect Call Quality May 24, 2018 - Connection quality and excellent phone reception is always a top concern for businesses of any size. Unfortunately, if you choose the wrong phone service provider, you may not enjoy the consistent quality that you need because not all providers ...
How to Handle Losing an Employee May 22, 2018 - Whether it comes as a surprise, or you see it coming from a mile away, losing someone in your employ is a challenge. It can be disorienting, emotional, and stressful. How you deal with the change will determine how ...
4 Tips to Maximize Your Business Voicemail May 17, 2018 - Voicemail is pretty straightforward. Every business uses it because you just can’t get to every call, but is every business using voicemail to its full potential? Probably not. Put these 4 strategies into practice to get the most out ...
4 Things Your Audio Prompts Should Never Say May 15, 2018 - The messages and audio that people hear when they call into your phone system should be orchestrated in such a way that informs the caller while keeping them calm and interested. If the message goes off the program even ...
3 Reasons Your Business Service Provider Isn’t Good Enough May 10, 2018 - Your business depends on consistent communication, and much of your communication relies on quality phone service. It’s for that reason that the service providing you with a phone system cannot give you a barely adequate, shiny product that has ...
Doing Business in a Direct-to-Consumer World May 8, 2018 - Direct-to-consumer business is putting a lot of pressure on resellers. Until now, manufacturers, artists, artisans, and producers of all kinds have never had the platform to put their product in the hands of enough customers to support a viable ...
Does a Virtual Phone System Have to Use VoIP? May 4, 2018 - Virtual phone systems for business are steadily becoming more popular and more accepted, but they are still vastly misunderstood. This article is an introductory attempt to dispel some of the misconceptions that people have about virtual phone services. When ...
What to Do When Your Business Outgrows Your Cell Phone May 2, 2018 - If you’re starting a new business today, then chances are, you’re running it from your cell phone. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and it can work for you for a long time. As your business begins to ...
How to Pick the Right Phone Number for Your Business April 26, 2018 - How important is your business’ phone number? Outside of your website, it’s typically the first point-of-contact with your business for your customers, so… pretty important. Sometimes you just end up with a random number to serve as your main ...
Stop Paying Per Minute for Your Virtual Phone Number April 24, 2018 - Your virtual phone service shouldn’t cause you stress. It should give you peace of mind by supporting all of your business phone calls, every day, without forcing you to count the minutes you’re using to make sure you don’t ...
This is Why Being an Entrepreneur Isn’t Glamorous April 19, 2018 - More and more people are pouring into the arena of small business to earn the right to call themselves entrepreneurs, but how many of them stay in the game and produce a thriving small business? The title has always ...
Can You Go Analog in a Digital Business World? April 17, 2018 - Technology has enabled us to conduct business way faster and smarter than we ever could before. You’ll find no argument here that technology clearly gives us an advantage; that’s not what’s on the table here. This is about boosting ...
How to Respond to Bad Word-of-Mouth: Head-On April 10, 2018 - People talk. They always do, and they always have. How you respond to it as a business (if you should respond at all) depends on the nature and severity of what people are saying, and who is saying it. ...
7 Reliable Ways to Impress Your Customers April 3, 2018 - If you want to really impress your customers, then you have to give them more than what they usually get from other businesses. It’s not necessarily grand gestures that will get their attention; the little things that prove to ...
Think of Your Business as a Work in Progress March 27, 2018 - Have you had some good success? Been in business for a while? If your business has been doing pretty well for a good amount of time, then you’re likely developing a false sense of security. There aren’t very many ...
What Makes Your Business Special? That’s Your Key March 13, 2018 - Think of all the businesses in the world as species of fish in an ocean, and then imagine all of the individual fish within each species. In the current corporate climate, there are more species and families than there ...
3 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Second Business March 6, 2018 - When a business owner finds that they have a successful small business, they have a tendency to look beyond it and consider opening up another one. That can either turn out to be a massive triumph or a dismal ...
Don’t Let Adversity Throw You Off Your Game February 20, 2018 - Maintaining a successful small business is fraught with battles every day, that threaten to compromise what you’ve worked so hard to build, and it is enough to injure your confidence or even make you feel as if you need ...
Is Greater Technology Becoming a Distraction? February 14, 2018 - Do you ever get the feeling that you’re not operating at full capacity? It’s difficult to pin down what the reason for that is, and though there is sometimes an event or personal hardship that takes you down a ...
How to Be Calm When Dealing with Customers February 6, 2018 - Do your customers ever make you angry? It’s pretty much guaranteed that it will happen sometimes, which is why it’s imperative that you have a plan to manage it. Some CSRs have a talent for this, and some do ...
How to Write the Subject Line of a Marketing Email January 30, 2018 - How much time do you spend thinking about the subject line of your emails before you send them out? Hopefully, you spend a good while thinking about it because it’s more important than the body of the email, by ...
When the Luster of Your New Business Wears Off January 23, 2018 - The dictionary literally defines luster as “a period of five years”. That’s one of its definitions, anyway, but the point is that it is temporary. When you open a new business that is well-planned out, there’s a good chance ...
7 Ways to Keep Resistance from Killing Your Focus January 16, 2018 - The idea, or interpretation of “resistance”, as it is used in this post, was originally authored by Steven Pressfield in his book, The War of Art. What is Resistance? For the purposes of this article, think of resistance ...
The #1 Mistake We Make When Choosing a Phone Service January 9, 2018 - Whether you’re choosing your phone system for a new small business, or updating your existing system, there are a lot of factors to consider. Is a traditional wired system more appropriate, or is your business structure better suited for ...
3 Reasons Why Millennials are Good for Your Business January 4, 2018 - It’s easy to discount their generation because it’s the majority opinion that Millennials have an undue sense of entitlement and are not willing to work for success. To believe this is to buy into a stereotype as unfounded as ...
Read This Before You Switch Phone Service Providers December 28, 2017 - First of all, if you are moving to a new service provider but do not need to keep your existing phone number, then there isn’t much to it—you cancel your old service, and start up with your new one. ...
Is Technology Really Helping Us to Get More Done? December 21, 2017 - Generally speaking, it is counterproductive to limit the use of technology for a business, but at the same time, it is absolutely valid to limit your use of technology, personally, to increase productivity. It’s a big pill to swallow ...
All Your Work Doesn’t Matter Unless It’s Effective December 19, 2017 - Our time is short in this life to get done what needs to get done. That’s why we constantly think about what we can do better to achieve success in our field, to create a profitable business that we ...
Future Capital: Set Money Aside To Build Wealth December 12, 2017 - What you’ll see in this post is not groundbreaking by any means. It’s simple, it’s elementary, but it may be one of the most important practices that you employ for your business. It may even save your business one ...
Stop Making Excuses and Attack Your Goals December 7, 2017 - How comfortable are you with your current professional position? Whether you already have a large company, a solid small business, or are only aspiring to start a business—it’s imperative that you ask yourself this question because if your answer ...
Carriers & Service Providers—What’s the Difference? December 5, 2017 - Most people typically use these two terms interchangeably, and though the carrier and the service provider are in some cases one in the same (this is explained later in this post), it’s important to make a distinction between them ...
How to Stay Productive, Even When You’re Overwhelmed November 30, 2017 - The problem with being afflicted with burnout when you’re a business owner is that you can’t exactly stop and smell the flowers for a while, and then come back when you’re refreshed and re-centered. The business isn’t going to ...
Veteran vs. Rookie: Who is the Better Entrepreneur? November 28, 2017 - There is a lot to be said for entrepreneurs who have experience with running a business and know the right move to make in a variety of situations. It really helps to know what to what to watch out ...
How to Stay on Schedule and Be Uber Productive November 21, 2017 - “The best way to effectively use time is to schedule it.” —Sunday Adelaja Write All of It Down First of all, don’t underestimate the power of physically writing things down. The greatest benefit of writing down all of ...
For Business Owners Who Don’t Play Well with Others November 16, 2017 - When we think of someone who runs a business, we get a picture in our mind of a person who is always wheeling-and-dealing, shaking hands and putting on a smile during meetings—generally impressing everyone they encounter. It’s easy to ...
22 Tips for Running an Exceptional Small Business November 14, 2017 - No matter what level you are on, this comprehensive list of tips can provide a foundation for running your small business in a growth-minded fashion, as well as help you to avoid many of the pitfalls on the road ...
Inside the Mind of Your Customer: Why They Lash Out November 9, 2017 - The first step to improving relations with your customers is to understand where they are coming from. This article isn’t necessarily about customer service, but at the same time, improved service is a byproduct of knowing what motivates your ...
What They Don’t Tell You About Running a Home Business November 7, 2017 - It seems pretty straightforward, right? You start a business, do all the business owner stuff, set up your home office, and run everything just like you would if it were housed in a separate building. Yes, that’s exactly right, ...
Top 5 Questions You Should Ask Your Job Applicants November 2, 2017 - To make your interviews a little more potent and find the right people more quickly, you just have to ask the right questions. You’ll see below that some of these are pretty straightforward, but to gain real insight about ...
What to Do When You Make a Mistake with a Client October 31, 2017 - No matter how careful you are, mistakes will be made from time to time. Whether it’s a low-level representative of the company or upper management, someone will eventually make an error that affects a customer, and there should be ...
6 Things You Should Never Say to a Customer October 26, 2017 - Any professional who works with customers on a regular basis is bound to say something off-putting or not quite appropriate to a customer, sooner or later. The difference between a normal statement and one that is offensive to a ...
How to Resolve Customer Issues in One Email October 24, 2017 - Serving customers by communicating through email is one of the most common channels for customer support today, as well as the generally preferred method of companies. While it is a great way to answer questions and solve issues, the ...
Proactive vs. Reactive: Which Strategy is Better? October 19, 2017 - There are two kinds of people in this world. There are those who are perpetually motivated to act in real time as things happen to them; and there are those who pay attention to what’s coming and act accordingly. ...
Too Much, Not Enough: How to Manage Your Inventory October 17, 2017 - The problem business owners run into with inventory is simple: As the demand for each product rises and falls, it can be difficult to order just the right amount of product, especially if it’s perishable. This drives owners mad ...
Everything You Need for a Professional Phone System October 12, 2017 - Setting up the right phone system for your business does not have to be complicated, and it doesn’t have to be expensive. By utilizing and applying these key elements, you can set up a system that provides everything that ...
5 Reasons Your Team Doesn’t Trust You October 10, 2017 - Do you get the feeling that your team is murmuring behind your back and cursing the ground you walk on? Well, you might just be paranoid; but you also may be doing things that you’re not even aware of ...
How to Handle Your Toughest Business Decisions October 5, 2017 - We all dread it; that day when we’re forced to choose one of two paths that each might lead to an unforeseeable future. Those choices are especially scary when it applies to your business, but even so, you can ...
Do You Communicate as Well as You Think You Do? October 3, 2017 - We stress the value of communication in this blog, and there is good reason for that. It is, first of all, something to which people normally don’t give much thought; and secondly, everyone thinks they are good at it. ...
Why it’s Better to Be an Imitator than an Innovator September 28, 2017 - There is a problem that business owners have to face when they start a new business, and the problem is that they have to decide if it is worthwhile to introduce a brand new product to the market. We ...
Why There Are Some Customers You Shouldn’t Listen To September 21, 2017 - Any respectable business is driven to listen to its customers—all of its customers, if possible—because that’s how you know what you should change about your product or service and what the shortcomings are that you need to address. The ...
How to Come Up with a Simple, Attractive Business Name September 19, 2017 - It’s possible that you have already lost or missed customers because of a difficult or confusing company name. At the very least, there are two main problems with a poorly-conceived name: It either makes it harder for your customers ...
Find a Perfect Toll Free Number with (833) Area Code September 14, 2017 - Have you dreamed of registering the perfect toll free number for your business? Well, the realization of your dream may be closer than you think—just not in the form that you might expect. On June 3, 2017, a massive ...
Insider Tricks for Using a Virtual Phone System September 12, 2017 - You know when you get a new stereo, and then months later, you figure out things that you didn’t even know it could do? It’s a lot better to know those tricks beforehand, which is why this article contains ...