Archive for February, 2009

Does your website need a tune-up?

Friday, February 27th, 2009

With the current economic downturn, we are seeing more and more companies turning to their websites for more business exposure. I recently watched a seminar as a part of my Vistage membership where Michael Milken, Chairman of the Milken Institute said “Your most valuable real estate in the world is found on the Internet – YOUR ADDRESS.”

Is your website representative of what you want people to see and know about your business? Is the information on the site current? Do you have any services that you do not offer any more listed on the site? If any of these answers is yes, you need to correct it now.

You would not send out an invoice with a wrong phone number or address on it. Your sales people do not go out and quote old prices (at least not on purpose). So if this information is not accurate, why would you want any visitors seeing bad information – especially since you only have 30 seconds to capture them when they come to your site?

Take a fresh look at your site. Visit your site as if you had never seen it before and ask yourself a few questions:

1. Is there anything on the home page that grabs my attention?

2. Are there any errors or bad information on the home page?

3. Is there anything on the home page that makes me want to go to another page?

If you see issues, deal with them immediately. Check your stats and see what is going on behind the scenes. For example do they visitors enter and exit from the same page. If so, they did not see anything of interest.

Give your website a tune-up so you can take advantage of the most valuable real estate you have – that can be seen from anywhere in the world.

Twitter Updates for 2009-02-27

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
  • I just discovered in LinkedIn that my brother-in-law knows someone that I need to know in the medical field. #

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Twitter Updates for 2009-02-27

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
  • I just discovered in LinkedIn that my brother-in-law knows someone that I need to know in the medical field. #

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Twitter Updates for 2009-02-24

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
  • working on setting up bandwidth monitoring for my customers so when their internet is slow, I will get an e-mail and can fix it for them. #

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Twitter Updates for 2009-02-24

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
  • working on setting up bandwidth monitoring for my customers so when their internet is slow, I will get an e-mail and can fix it for them. #

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Small businesses need Big business tools – too

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

For many years small businesses have just gotten by when it came to computer systems and preventitive maintenance. They could not afford the nice tools and programs that the big shops can buy. $3,000 – $6,000 was not a capital expenditure they wanted to make, often that could be the amount they have in their entire system.

Now days, the $5,000 +/- small businesses have in their computers is a small part of their investment. Now they have data that is irreplaceable and can put them out of business if it is lost. Backups help if there is one, and it is not too old. But it is better to catch the problems before a backup is needed, this is where network monitoring comes in to play.

Whether you have a company that handles your computer servicing or you handle it yourself, you need a tool that watches the system 24/7 and lets you know what is going on inside the network. The things that you cannot see by just looking at the system include hard drives reporting errors, memory peaks, security breaches or attempts and many other issues.

The key to a good monitoring system is reliability and costs. You want a system that involves no capital expenditure, no annual maintenance fee and requires no labor costs to install but is comprehensive in it’s monitoring capabilities.

Small businesses have a computer resource

Friday, February 20th, 2009

If you run a small business with 15 computers or less, it is generally hard to get the attention of the big support companies. They usually want to deal with the big stuff and handle the small jobs when they have time – or send their junior tech out.

If you are running a small business, you want a company that can be there when you need assistance and that will give you the attention you need. Small businesses have special needs that require a little “hand holding” that the larger companies don’t offer or don’t have time for.

For instance, if you had a company with say, 4 employees and you needed some technical advise on what computer to buy your girl friend, would you call your large supplier for the advise or would you rather call the small company that is always there when you need them, that you know by name and trust – even with the keys to your office. That is the kind of support small businesses need and want.

These support companies exist but they are usually on their way to one of three destinations. The first destination is that of a large company that gets there on the backs of the small companies they learned on as they grew. The second are the companies that have just started and are looking for anyone they can help – they just don’t get it and don’t make it. The third are the companies that get big and sell out to someone else or that buy other companies.

Saunders Business Solutions has been in the business of helping small companies for 20 years – since 1989, and we know what these companies need – we are one of them – by design. We stay small for two reasons, first is we want to be able to relate to what our customers need. The second is we need to be able to shift and change as the industry changes. Every 2 or 3 years the industry makes a major direction change and we are ready to respond. That is easy to do when you are small. But being small does not mean that we have limited or less qualified personnel, quite the contrary. We have excellent staff and support personnel and state of the art support equipment and tools to help your company succeed.

So when picking a support company to handle your computer needs, make sure they are focused on your needs and are equipted to respond quickly to the usual and unusual requests you may have.

New Saunders Business Blog now available

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Saunders Business Solutions has added a new blog to their new web site. We are now working with companies on Social Networking and Network Monitoring