I understand running a business is about managing productivity and being efficient, but there needs to be a balance somewhere so that in the process of being productive and profitable, you are not totally annoying the heck out of your callers.

Most phone trees should be burnt down. Having to listen to 40 department options that don’t even come close to solving your problem, or screaming your reply to a question four times and then some idiot computer says: “I’m sorry I did not understand your answer” and then you get discounted and get to start all over again, is really aggravating! This turns me and most others into a extremely emotionally disturbed consumers.

If I’m going to be subjected to this craziness, at least let me sound off to a real person. If you share this frustration, try these services.

Dialahuman.com or gethuman.com- they list companies and how to avoid the robot operators. Or another free service is Lucyphone.com, here you enter the company’s name or number, hit start. Lucyphone.com connects you to a company line where you pick an option to get a live rep. You then hang up and get a quick call back.

These services are not perfect, after all they are run by humans, but may be worth the call. Also, check your own phone system, is it easy and joyful or is it just as bad these I’ve described?

Don’t forget to check out: Have an AT&T iPhone? Don’t expect service in NYC. You’ll be disappointed.

Being introduced to new experiences can change your perspective on life. They can also change your perspective on how to run your business. Karen Post and the Oddpodz team experienced many new things this past week and we’re sure you’ll enjoy the take-away.

1 – Miracle Whip and Cate Blanchett. What do these two have in common? Differentiating you brand will help you succeed in the long run.
2 – Making history in Saudi and 5 lessons from the experience. Being introduced to global challenges can be very rewarding.
3 – Size can matter. 4 ideas to help your brand impact measure up. Increase your brand memory with objects bigger than life.
4 – Waiting patiently. An oxymoron and opportunity. Don’t wait for your competitors to measure up to you, start creating a masterpiece now.
5 – Have an AT&T iphone? Don’t expect service in NYC. You’ll be disappointed. How some technology can’t always keep up to speed.

If you missed last weeks wrap up, click here.

Also, be sure to check out:
What Jimmy Fallon taught me about marketing.
5 promotional ideas to earn serious visibility for your venture.
Facebook, I’m just not that into you.

Many small businesses, including mine, have opted for Internet phone service. It’s cost effective and works fine for local calls and if you enjoy chatting online to solve your issue.

Today, I had a conference with a UK company and assumed I just dial em up. Well after that did not work and after trying 4 times, my wonderful assistant reached out to customer service, which went round and round with an associate who must have skipped some of the training classes. Come to find out you must set this international feature up in advance. It took over 50 minutes to learn this, another 20 to set this up but then we needed to answer security questions that our phone guy set up and we didn’t know. Very frustrating !!

As I become more tardy to the call, I resorted to True Blue AT&T (my iphone service) hoping they have an operator I can actually speak with. Normally this would be correct, but today the 20 inches of snow everywhere had systems down. This took another 30 minutes. But alas, I can now call Paul McCartney or Bono anytime without any distress and pay only .28 cents a minute. I’m sure the Internet provider is cheaper, but I find value in live operators. Thank you AT&T.

So if you’ve got an international call on your schedule, plan ahead.

Don’t forget to check out: I’m going to Saudi, join me!

1 – In 5 inspirational ideas and 2 revelations from an adventure to Chicago, the Branding Diva, Karen Post, shares with us a bunch of branding principles that hit her while enjoying her time in Chi-town. Among these tips, you will find her insights on concept such as distinction, packaging or the use of metaphors.

Make sure you read Karen’s article here.

2 – In Are you missing a great opportunity, Karen interviews her fellow personal branding expert Dan Schawbel about his international bestseller career book Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future. Together, they go over their thoughts on Personal Branding in one’s career and Dan highlights what’s really important such as finding your niche, empower your interpersonal skills and many other tips that you can’t miss.

Watch the video of Karen and Dan’s conversation here.

3 – In A secret to scoring sales that so many avoid like root canals, Clint Babcock remains us that there is no wasted time in targeting the top in anything you do. To picture this powerful concept, Clint gives us the example of a sales manager and shows us a way to reach your goals aiming for the top. Great insights, thanks Clint!

Learn from Clint’s ideas here.

4 – In Does your business card scream “I’m broke, clueless or stuck in 1980”?, Karen, once again, gives us great pieces of advice concerning business branding. Here, she focuses on the look of a powerful business card. This piece of paper is worth millions if you invest in it. Make sure it is professional and representing you effectively following Karen’s tips.

Create a professional business card from Karen’s experience starting here.

5 – In Supply is infinite, time is finite. Here’s how to leverage both, Thomson Dawson deals with a question that any real entrepreneur and business professional has once asked himself: “How (the hell) will I do all this in one day?”. Thomson tells us that it is not about how many hours you work in your day that truly matters, yet it is the extent to which you release your potential within a given period of time. On personal basis, this post made me think a lot! Thanks Thomson!

Read Thomson’s insights here.

6 – In her Book review – “Tribes” by Seth Godin, Jocelyn Ring gives us her feelings and takeaways after her reading of this must-have book: “Tribes” by Seth Godin. From the definition of a tribe to the role and behavior of a true leader, Jocelyn got it all. One of the best business book of the past decade is given to you in 12 key points.

Make sure you go over Jocelyn’s review here.

A lot of insights have been given. Which one has been the most valuable to you and your business?

Last week I wrote about Oddpodz IT learning in our early days. If you missed the post, See How Two Websites Almost Killed a Baby.

I promised a follow up after the panel discussion.
It was a great night, a full house and lots of solid conversation on how to build a site with the help of the right professions.

Beyond my points, here other highlights from the panel including:
Allen Clary of www.Jibidee.com
Brian Burridge of Agile Nomads

And from event sponsor: Ian Ippolito of Vworker

• Karen’s nightmare is not unique in the IT industry, when you don’t know, what you don’t know
• Call references, not that the vendor gives you, but that they list as clients or that you uncover
• Get referrals from your network, your CPA, your law firm
• Always have someone leading your IT efforts (who really cares about your success or has a vested interest), especially if you don’t come from technology
• Don’t just sign a 20-page contract, especially on projects over $10,000. The devil is in the small print
• Companies like Vworker provide project based IT support and programming and guarantee their work Contractors from around the globe bid on project specs, provide transparent reference checking, thus reducing nightmare like Karen experienced.

I promised to share a good template for A Business Requirement (I found this on DocStoc, a great resource for documents, some free, some for a fee) and the outline of the RFP Oddpodz used in our second site build. If you any any questions, please post them in our Oddpodz Linkedin Group so everyone can learn from the discussion.

Business_Requirement_Document

Oddpodz_2007_IT_RFP_FINAL

Also view: Frequently asked questions about customer win-back.

Monday September 20, I’m participating on a panel discussion “Avoiding Pitfalls in Website Development— Lessons for Entrepreneurs.”

If you are in Tampa you’re invited to join fellow high-tech entrepreneurs the Emerging Companies Network Event (Part of TBTF), which will be co-hosted by Tampa Bay WaVE, a member-based not-for-profit organization of web tech entrepreneurs dedicated to generating and supporting successful home-grown web ventures. The panel will be moderated by  Curt P. Creely of Foley & Lardner LLP and was coordinated Linda Olson of WOMbeat.

The panel of Tampa Bay WaVE members (Allen Clary of www.Jibidee.com, Yours truly–Karen Post of Oddpodz.com, and Brian Burridge of Agile Nomads) will talk about experiences, challenges, and war stories in developing their websites, including selecting and managing developers and getting their sites live, and you’ll also get helpful hints on such topics from a website developer.

If you can’t make the event, please check out my follow up blog on Tues. 9.21.10 for more insight from the other presenters.

As entrepreneurs it’s not uncommon that we refer to our companies as babies. After all, many took over 9 months to create, sometimes the challenges are so great, you want to trade the kid in for a better, smarter model, but in the end, it’s our responsibility to do whatever we can to give this living thing a happy, healthy future. So when their life, your company is threatened, it’s serious stuff.

Oddpodz, my baby has had three near death experiences. all evolved around technology and web site development. I’ve written about these experiences in the past. Which I suggest you check out the last post. I cover the biggest lessons learned.

The good new is,  since then, we’ve actually turned a big corner. And that’s what I will cover today and talk about Monday at the “Avoiding Pitfalls in Website Development— Lessons for Entrepreneurs.”

More of gory details are in the past post. Here’s the condensed version.
2006 had an idea and business plan.
Raised over $750,00
We (company leadership) didn’t know poop from apple butter concerning technology
Social media was like wild west in the 1800s, open source solutions were like the pioneers, just a handful

Site 1 – built in .net (cost $400,000, hosting costs $2,000 a month)
Hired a big company to lead us through the journey, they over sold
Should have hired an in house dedicated  IT leader
We did not have a business requirements document for site
We did not have a clear financial model
Our balance of design and functionality in the site dev was out of whack
Should have had a fixed price, scope creep killed us
Should have started in a simpler plan, we had too many ideas
Should have had a penalty for missing deadline, time to market was a defeat
Developer contract left no protection for us, we did not figure this out until it was too late, at the end, should have been at beginning
Bad decisions are a lot worse than the price you pay for them, they cost the new time needed to fix up the mess, plus the cost in professionals and related costs (hosting, ad server)
Once we realized our site really sucked, it took another 7 months to improve

Site 2 – built in .joomla 1.0 (bartered $30,000, hard costs $15,000)
Hired an experienced IT person to write our Business Requirement Documents ($5,000)
Planning and BRD took 60 days
Procurement of new firm took another 60 days
We engaged a smaller firm to built site 2, they needed us and we needed them
The site was much better, but still very dependent on the web dev company
Many solutions were cobbled, combinations of off the shelf and custom apps
There were data migration issues from changing platforms
After the new site was up, the smaller company had staff turnover, our design team vanished
Our low spending with this dev company was impacting the ratio of attention we were getting
Traffic is much harder to get than you think
Still were not generating income from the site
Cost to maintain site 1500-2000 a month, just to keep up with industry
Joomla was not longer supporting Joomla 1.0 and to upgrade was going to cost time and money
I attended a Joomla class and got some names of smaller Joomla specialist
Interviewed many, selected 1 that said they fully examined our site and to make the Joomla upgrade $3,000 and a couple months
BIG FAT LIE – they didn’t look under the hood and when we switched servers most of our apps did not work
They submitted a real bid for $20,000 to make the upgrade and it would take another 3 months
After much thought and RIO on upgrade investment, I could not convince myself that we could earn this back in the short term

Site 3 – built in WORDPRESS MU  (Programming  $2,500, design $2,000, hosting 20.00 month)
Hired two flaky programmers that went MIA
All my hair turned gray
After 3 months, via someone I met on Linkedin, ProTech Assist a veterans and small business IT support company jumped in, built our new site, three blogs, an e commerce store. They also provide monthly support for a nominal fee.
85% of the site updates can be managed by me and my team
We have started generating income from our learning products and coaching

Today
Our burn rate is low
Social media has matured and it is embraced by the world
Open source is wonderful thing
50% of our raised equity was forgiven, due to an aging investor
Our traffic is up 200%
We have a clear business model
We are leveraging our core assets
My other businesses are having record breaking years
This is fun again and we are confident we have a bright future

Also, check out: Finding inspiration in new places. An experienced dog meets new pups.

The peak summer vacation season is still in full swing. And with it comes the dilemma small business owners have been facing since the beginning of the Industrial Age: Take therapeutic time off to clear your mind and recharge, or make the choice and fear that you’re not going to be available when an urgent client need arises.

Fortunately, these days it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing choice. There are technologies available that can help you stay in contact with the office and/or your customers while still allowing you to get away from – well, if not all, at least most.

Virtual phone service for small business – These services are the most significant vacation-enablers, because they offer so much flexibility and mobility at such a low cost. A virtual phone service provides businesses with a single phone number for the entire business. The service then allows you to assign extensions to different people in the organization, both inside and outside of the main office. A virtual receptionist greets callers with a professional greeting and provides a dial-by-name directory, generally helping get callers get where they need to go.

Where they really pay off come vacation time, though, is with their smart call forwarding capabilities. You can set your office phone to forward all of your calls to your mobile phone, allowing you to answer them just as though you’re in the office. You can even specify when the phone rings and when it goes to voicemail if you want to keep normal “business hours” while you’re basking in the sun or climbing that mountain.

If you don’t want to be disturbed at the moment but want to stay on top of things, you can set your virtual phone service to send all calls to your business voicemail, then receive an email telling you when you have voicemails waiting. It’s a great way to organize your time so you can both participate with the family and service your customers.

Internet fax service – If your business relies on faxes, having an Internet fax service is indispensable during a vacation. After all, if you’re vacationing hundreds or thousands of miles away from the office it’s going to be a little tough to pop in just to check faxes. Of course, even if you’re enjoying a “staycation” you probably want to avoid the office so you don’t stop by for a few minutes and wind up there all day.

With an Internet fax service you can send and receive faxes anywhere you can get an Internet connection. And on any device – a laptop, smart phone or even one of those hotel lobby PCs. You have a choice of using your email account or a secure online portal so there’s no worries about how to get connected.

If the fax requires further action from someone else, forwarding it is as easy as forwarding an email. You can even add comments before you send. With most Internet fax services you can even have the fax sent to one or more partners’ or business associates’ emails as well as your own – just in case you’re having too much fun to take care of it right away.

Technology has definitely added to the sense of urgency in our everyday lives. But the right technologies can also help restore some order.

So as you enjoy the nearing final days of summer, make sure you have the tools that will allow you to keep your business running while you are taking some time off. It’ll make getting away from the office a literal day on the beach.

Steve Adams is the vice president of marketing for Protus, a provider of communications tools for small-to-medium-businesses and enterprise organizations, including the MyFax (www.myfax.com) internet fax service; my1voice (www.my1voice.com), a virtual phone service; and Campaigner, an e-mail marketing service. He can be reached at sadams@protus.com.

Too busy to answer that phone? The modern world of virtual assistants, technology can now take that call.

The world of receptionists, communications and staying connected has changed a lot since the early days of switchboard operators.  In fact, the whole process of connecting people via telephones has improved drastically.  Once only able to connect two phones by underground wire, today’s telephone advancements make possible services which would seem unimaginable to those living in the early 20th century.  The idea of a “virtual receptionist, a cell phone or text messaging” would probably have seemed like something from a Ray Bradbury novel.

So, in honor of Ray Bradbury’s upcoming birthday (August 22nd), below are some fun telephone, receptionist and communication facts to add to your overall knowledge and (most importantly) to impress your friends at the next boring get together.

1. The earliest switchboard systems required a generator which needed to be cranked by hand.
2. Because the first switchboards went from floor to ceiling, the first operators were boys, chosen for their ability to continuously move up and down a ladder connecting necessary phone jacks.
3. Some famous people who have purportedly done stints as receptionists are civil rights activist Rosa Parks and singer/songwriter Naomi Judd.
4. The term telephony refers to the ability to reproduce sounds at a distance from their origins.  The simplest telephony experiment can be accomplished using two paper cups attached in each center by a long string.
5. Currently, remote answering services (virtual receptionists) are able to route calls to home and/or cell phones using a web interface, and provide caller information via email.
6. The City of Portland, in Portland, Oregon, has implemented the use of Portland Online (a program utilizing a playlist of talented local musicians) to hipafy the on-hold experience.
7. There once was a band called the Receptionists which featured a xylophone, along with a large dose of penny whistling.

Although the days of three digit phone numbers are gone, the need for people to be connected to one another over long distances continues.  Today, people are lucky to have technologically advanced phones and answering services (some that even have handy iPhone apps for updating “whereabouts” from remote locations) available to them.  And, let’s be honest, I think we’re all pretty glad that the days of rotary phones and long twisted phone cords are a thing of the past.

Have you had an interesting phone experience recently? Ever hired a virtual assistant, would you recommend the  service to others? Please share.

Your email signature can be used to communicate tons of good (and important) stuff. Make sure your name, contact information, phone, fax, email, URL and everything is in there. Make it easy to download into an address book so that people don’t have to go hunting for it. Also include any special credentials, awards, or offers you are currently running or reminders of upcoming events. Include links to landing pages or interesting content on your site.

It’s easy to implement and edit, and you’ve got another channel to remind people about important information.

Lots of people can’t spell your name and many can’t type. Some may type too fast and end up somewhere on the Web miles from your address.

Don’t miss a new customer!

Secure your Web address in several versions: spell it correctly and with commonly typed errors.