Raivin Fire » Business

Hosting your business website

Rai — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 13:06:04 +0000

When your business really depends on internet hosting providers that are reputable, dependable, and offers 24/7 support you really need to shop around. There is certainly a company out there that will fit your budget, needs, etc but at what cost to your internet operations?

Most hosting providers offer 99.9% uptime and some even guarantee that. To have true 100% uptime you’ll pay dearly for it so take that into consideration. Inevitably a customer service question will come up so being able to contact the the hosting provider is important. I currently have to email mine and whom are in England so questions get answered in 24 hours. Can be days though for difficult problems.

Unless you know what you’re doing or willing to learn and make mistakes while your web site grows then partner with a small business hosting provider.

Concentric SMB Business Solutions not only offers shared web site hosting but reviewing them they also offer so much more. The package prices they offer are in align with market price for hosting but the added functionalities of blogging and pod casting is great. The have the 24/7 phone/ email technical support and do have a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Concentric is someone I would say is worth checking out.

Accent Reduction

Rai — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 15:54:23 +0000

So we have a couple of General Managers at our stores with very thick accents. Not sure exactly where one of them is from, and one is from South America, but I do know that at times it is difficult to understand them. I heard that one of them was interested in taking some English courses to improve her vocabulary.

Improving vocabulary is great, but sometimes the accent is so think that you still can’t understand their perfect English. There’s a website that offers courses that would help so much. It’s geared towards professionals and executives who want to improve their speech and enunciation to help further their careers. They will teach you based on your own personal needs, whether you need basic English as a second language or if you just need to Americanize your accent.

Try the Spanish language course.

Long Day

Rai — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 12:27:13 +0000

Well, I’m getting ready to head into work for a really long day. I have all kinds of paperwork to do this morning and I’m gonna start setting up my training room. Maybe unpack the new filing cabinet and start switching folders over to it. Then this evenig I’m keying. I get to play manager. The only bad part about it is I don’t get to fire anyone. Needless to say I’ve tried, they just won’t leave. Go figure.

Lead Generation

Rai — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 23:31:26 +0000

Being an on-line business means traditional means of Lead Dogs Sales Lead Generation is out. Not really it just means finding new ways to do business. Certainly networking at the weekly meetings is still acceptable within the local area and makes a greater impact because it’s face to face meetings. You could also go the direct marketing route and send out brochures or even lump mail. That can be rather expensive though. Globally it’s difficult.

What if found really works is dedicated professionals that are willing to take on the responsibility to find me leads. Those who only receive payment for said lead or sale are the best. That’s because it’s in their best interest to produce as many as they can. It great for the business owner because with the right company those leads/sales are solids.

Bank robbery by our bank

Rai — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:41:43 +0000

I had a corporate business account with Bank of America while I was operating online. They would raise hell if the pay to wasn’t my business name and that would leave me to go get another check from the client. They would spout this law or that if I even tried to talk them into taking the check. Yes I had a negative balance with them for several months and that was because business dropped off, hence the reason I got a full time job.

I just checked our personal account which is at the same bank and wouldn’t you know it they took all of the negative balance out of the personal one. How dare they recover from a personal account into a corporate account, the two do not mix!

To disclose or not!

Rai — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:35:35 +0000

I’m sitting here watching American Inventor on ABC. The premise is that people have judges decide on whether or not the person’s invention is marketable enough. I said marketable as in mass market. Not considering governmental.

My question is why on earth would you go to this show as an inventor? Sure you can compete to win a million dollars. Do you really believe that people waiting and capable of stealing your idea are not watching this show? Seriously if you do not have a patent on your idea and they show it then consider it lost.

OMG $44,000.00 for a cake cutter that resembles an ice cube tray. That is a dream?

Traveling Advertising

Rai — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:07:03 +0000

One effective means of advertising for those who are constantly running from place to place is to have Car Magnets on their vehicles. These are an excellent choice over painted or stickers as they can be removed.

There are many reasons why removal is needed. I know of one person who has a home based business and the home owners association dis-allows advertising; quite simply the magnetic sign is removed when at home. Another is for personal vehicles that can quickly have the magnetic sign attached for continued advertising.

Online business

Rai — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:00:15 +0000

I’ve been thinking lately that I should write about my experiences with running online stores. There’s definitely lot’s of places to find out “how” to run a business but I haven’t found and in the trenches sort of place. Because of this I had to learn the hard way so to speak.

I’ll gather my material to begin.

Getting business cards online

Rai — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:34:43 +0000

I’ve always found ordering business cards online was a cheaper way to go that heading to my local printers. The variety of templates to choose from and cost are far superior to locally printed cards. I have found a site that holds to the norm of business card templates choice and even offers more than the site I was using.

GreatFX Business Cards as I have found offers something that the others don’t, tips/tricks and a very informative blog. The articles in the Business Card Tips and Small Business Buzz are really something I found quite useful. One of the neatest things was the tutorials which included how to download a template and in Photoshop modify it to truly customize a card.

I’ve always enjoyed doing business with websites that offer not only services but reach out to their customers by providing these extra bits of information.

Even with the free email accounts you can share files.

Rai — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 10:10:31 +0000

Running an online business means having to deal with tons of email and file attachments. The free email accounts such as gmail, or yahoo’s has a limit on how big an attachment can be, but also hosted email accounts may also have these restrictions. I have come across a web site at Driveway - Online File Sharing and they can make it a whole lot easier to share files.

What’s really nice about the ability to have files uploaded there is that you can specify files that are for read only or edit. Whe edit feature is great for drafting proposals and such where two or more need to make changes.