Why Focused Company Meetings Are Not Useless

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 are. A highly productive work meeting is actually pretty tough to achieve, which is probably why a lot of people thoroughly despise them. Practicing some simple, regular habits and adherence to a structure, however, can turn your meetings from loose, chaotic disasters, into concentrated sessions that really get things done. Once you pinpoint the things that are derailing your meetings, it’s actually not all that difficult to have very productive work meetings, which is exactly what you’ll learn in this article. Unfocused Meetings Are, Indeed, a Waste of Time If you don’t accomplish anything during your meetings, then you’re not just imagining it–your meetings really are a waste of time. It’s …

Clover vs. Square: Top POS Systems Face Off

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 POS system is still another business expense that you have to budget for, but it also gives you some new toys to play with. Clover and Square have both created devices and accompanying software that are beautifully designed and built to be ergonomically smooth and simple, so that you and your team will actually enjoy using the product. It might be the most fun product that you buy for the business. This post will go over all the features and differences between the POS systems provided by Clover and Square, but it’s a really close race, both being exceptional products, so it comes down to personal preference in many ways. Ease …

Types of Virtual Phone Systems

3 Types of Virtual Phone Systems & What to Look Out For

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 small, are moving away from conventional systems and on to greener pastures–and it is greener on the other side. A virtual system is less expensive, more versatile, easier to control and manage, and free of constraints imposed by the traditional systems to which we’re all accustomed. Now that there is a greater demand for them, there is no shortage of virtual service providers. This post, while not intended to go too far in-depth, will give you a crash-course in the 3 main types of virtual phone systems and provide a few cautionary points to help prepare you in your search for the virtual system that best fits your business. Not All …

Why Toptal is the Best Place to Find Developers & Designers

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 a huge inventory of sorts, consisting of professionals in all kinds of design fields, with experts as well, who are there to assist you in the selection process. Toptal is much more than a headhunter service. In addition to a massive network of the most qualified freelancers around the world, Toptal works intensively with you to make a connection between your organization and the individual looking to work for you. Toptal Hires the Top 3% of Freelancers This is the singular feature that sets Toptal apart from similar services because you would be hard-pressed to find a hiring assistance service that puts so many first rate candidates at your disposal. Although …

What is a PBX System and How Does It Work?

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 for offices in the past. It’s still widely used because it’s such an effective system, but there are now other options, including a PBX that is completely virtual. Let’s look at exactly what this system is, and how you can optimize it for your business. The Private Branch Exchange In basic terms, a private branch exchange (PBX) is the underlying infrastructure of a phone system that makes it possible to have multiple lines in an office or other setting, which lines are localized to that specific setting. Anyone who has worked in an office in the last 40 years or so has probably used a PBX. They have been the preferred …

2019: A Year of Promise and Advancement of Technology

  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 enough, to say the very least. At the same time, though, it shaped up to be a year that set the stage for a technological revolution wherein innovators and entrepreneurs stepped up to put the growing power of tech advancement to good use behind their products and services. Small business owners and entrepreneurs of all kinds, for that matter, are in a position, this year, to move into a new phase with the resources that are now available.   Don’t Let the Past Year Discourage You   Many of us didn’t have the best year in 2018 for a variety of reasons. The elephant in the room is that our …

8 Ways a Cloud Hosted Phone System Can Transform Your Business

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 can change the way you manage calls for the better and make it far more simple. Below, you’ll find 8 ways that this type of system can make a very positive change in your small business. 1. Cut Down Your Phone Bill The big phone companies charge way more for an on-site office phone system than you will pay for a cloud-hosted system. A provider like Verizon or Comcast can definitely build a PBX for your business, possibly using the phones you currently have, but they may need to send in technicians to set it up at a not-so-modest price. Using a virtual service provider to set up a cloud-hosted PBX …

How Can You Offer a Lifetime Warranty and Stay in Business?

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 free products to all of their customers, when that really isn’t much of a huge concern if you offer it. We’re going to briefly get into the virtue of a lifetime warranty here, to give you a bit more information about why you would want to offer it for your customers. It Doesn’t Seem to Make Good Business Sense Chances are, if you’re a fairly new small business, you’re probably not financially secure enough to offer a warranty at all, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility that you would want to offer it one day. It’s something you usually only find in large companies. You might think, how can …

Clover Review: Why It Might Be The Best POS System

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 POS systems, which were far more expensive and had to be installed by professional technicians. A new POS system like Clover, on the other hand, costs far less, has a lot more features for small businesses, and can be installed and set up by just about anyone within a couple of hours. Clover has this down to a science, and a wonderfully simple science, at that. Check out this breakdown of how it works and see how friendly their system is to small businesses. On Par with Any Leading POS Payment System There is definitely no deficiency in the payment capability of Clover POS. To ensure that there will never be …

Transfer Live Calls with the Push of a Button

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 way to make due without that feature. The point is that live call transfer is more important than we realize. Customers expect that you have it, and it should always be available and easy to use. Don’t Underestimate the Importance of a Transfer Feature As a new business looking for the right phone system for their company, you may not think about how often you will use live transfer. Even if you only have a couple of employees, you’re going to need to be able to transfer customer calls, as well as transfer calls internally between employees. For one thing, you can’t ask customers to hang up and call back with …