ComTech News

If you read this blog then you know I am a hard core internet marketer but that doesn't mean that I don't know the value of high quality business mailing lists, targeted telemarketing lists and accurate consumer lists.  In fact when I worked with Sage Telecom we did millions of direct mail pieces per month for one main reason, it works.  That is why I really like a website I was just asked to review called Guaranteed Lists.

Guaranteed Lists is an exceptional service that offers the largest business database available anywhere, with information on over 13 million U.S. based companies and a total of 57 million companies worldwide, ranging from large public corporations to small privately owned firms. If your business if more of a B-to-C enterprise then you will appreciate that they have over 280 million consumers in their databases with highly targeted information.

The real value of a data base is the accuracy of the data and being able to specifically target the right prospects.  Guaranteed Lists can help you really target very specific prospects for example if you do B-to-B marketing you can target specific business demographics like

• President/CEO/Owner
• C Level Contacts (CFO, etc.)
• Doctors Dentists
• Attorneys
• CPA/ Accountants
• Small Businesses Owners
• Large Businesses
• Public or Private Companies
• And Many Other Options

On the B-to-C side of things you have an equally impressive list of criteria such as…

• Home Owners
• Renters
• Time in Residence
• Age
• Income Level
• Marital Status
• Net Worth
• And Just About Any Other Common Demographic

For the high volume user they even offer a Perferred Customer Program that offers a 25% Discount to any customer then qualifies in one of three ways,

1. Buy more than 25,000 records per quarter
2. Buy lists more than 3 times per quarter
3. Refer 2 or more customers per year

So if you are looking to ramp up your direct mail or telemarketing efforts give Gaurnteed Lists an opportunity to offer you a free quote. 

Popularity: 3% [?]

OK, right off the bat I am going to fess up and admit that this post is mostly me venting about my trip to Best Buy at lunch time today.  I have unfortunately broken the last two cases I purchased for my Blackberry and stopped by Best Buy during lunch to see what I could find as a replacement.  I opted for a case that is really for digital cameras but it does not have that plastic clip that most phone cases have that I always seem to break getting in and out of my car.

So what was the issue?  I knew exactly what I wanted and where it was and I went strait from the front of the store to the section where the cases are located.  I was asked a total of 6 times if I "needed any help" or "was looking for anything in particular".  In fact I felt like I was being attacked by all the knowledgeable and helpful staff, there were blue shirted young people everywhere, I ducked a few on the way to the register.  Now some would say this is wonderful, help everywhere and Best Buy has invested a lot of money in making sure their employees know their products.  

It was all well and good until I got to the register!  Forty odd blue shirts running all over themselves to help people, 12 people in line waiting to pay and 2 registers open.  Finally a manager grabbed one of them to open a register and I drew the short straw and was asked to go to the newly opened register.  The total $9.73 but the young lady apparently missed "cash day" at Best Buy's Cash Register College, .  I handed her a ten and she rang up the order as though I paid the exact amount.  It then took her about 30 seconds along with managerial help to hand me 27 cents and a receipt.

Now it is easy to pick on retail chains and what was probably a new person at the register but there is a business lesson is all of this. What you have to ask yourself in your business is are you using your resources where they are most needed?  This applies to employees, partners, vendors, technology, websites and any other resources you have in your business.  I think it is important to constantly examine your business models and make sure you are always allocating resources in the best possible way.

To be clear I have no axe to grind with Best Buy, I will be shopping there again for sure.  They just happened to be a convenient target for this subject today and got on my bad side for a few minutes. 

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: best buy, blackberry, business, employee management, resource management

Popularity: 9% [?]

Mostly I discuss internet marketing techniques here at Comtech News but that doesn't mean that I don't see the value in off line marketing techniques.  One great way is to us direct mail in the form of post cards to get your message to your prospects.  Well if you want to give this method a try turn to VistaPrint for your  postcard printing needs.

I have used Vista Print in the past for a variety of things including business cards, brochure printing and I would not hesitate for a second to use them to print up postcards if I had the need.  Even in small quantities VistaPrint only charges about a quarter a piece and they go down with volume.

One of the neatest things about Vista Print is you have full creative control and you can even use their templates and online design tools to create what need on the fly with no real design or software skills.  

My personal experience is that Vista Print is extremely reliable, I have spoken to many people that have used them and have never heard a complaint.  I first used them in 2002 to order some business cards.  With today being 2008 that is a long time to have been around in internet years.  So the next time you are rolling out a brand new web campaign consider hitting up some of your mailing list with post cards announcing your new product or opportunity and consider Vista Print for your needs.   With the ability to buy low quantities at low prices they are particularly valuable to the small business or individual entrepreneur.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I wasn't always an Internet Marketer, at one time in fact for almost a decade I was a corporate sales manager for a few different major corporations.  In that time I traveled extensively managing sales forces of 20-40 individuals.  Generally you would jump on a jet, fly to a city, get picked up by your local people and be whisked strait to a major client meeting.  Often everything went right and you just got on your plane and made any connections and arrived fresh and looking as good as you can after a few hours in a metal tube.

Then there were the Muphy's Law days, your plan sits on the tarmac with no air conditioning for 2 hours, you have to sprint to make a connection and you arrive very late and must hall butt to make your meetings.  On these days my hair would have that flat and sweaty look, from of course sitting in a hot plane sweating.  Now my meetings had been set for weeks and these were big clients, so you did what you could ran a brush through your and and rocked on.

Well I was just asked to look at a site that offers a special kind of shampoo that you can use totally dry.  The company is called Salon Grafix and I sure wish they had been around back when I was a road warrior.    Now that I run an SEO and Marketing Firm I still have to go meet with clients and I think I might just keep a bottle of this stuff in my briefcase and may be one in my glove box.  You often work really hard to get in front of a client and appearance does matter.    I won't recommend replacing a good old shower with this but in those situations where Murphy interferes and stresses you out this is a great back up.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I just got the news that North Texas won its' bid for the 2011 Super Bowl and I am pretty happy about it with a lot of help from.  A great bid package was presented by former Cowboy Roger Staubach. Now I know this is not a typical post for the Comtech Blog but there is a business lesson here.

Note the title "Make that Arlington"!  Now you may know the Cowboys as the Dallas Cowboys and that will be the name they keep, however, starting in 09 with the opening of the new stadium they really should be called the Arlington Cowboys.  Because just like the Texas Rangers they Cowboys are moving to Arlington and setting up shop in a new beautiful stadium right across from their baseball playing cousins.  Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has already gone on record saying that the new Stadium was "a key factor" in winning the bid for the 2011 Super Bowl and anyone with an honest bone in their body would have to admit that indeed is the case.

Now the City of Dallas was given every opportunity to bring the Cowboys to back to big D after loosing the team to the suburb of Irving in 1971, but decided not to engauge in "corporate welfare". 

The issue went before Arlington Voters about 18 months ago and passed by only a 2% margin.  To close the deal the City of Arlington kicked in 325 million dollars to bring the Cowboys and their new stadium to their city.  So for 325 million Arlington Texas landed the number one football franchise (from a marketing standpoint) in the world.  

The promise was that the team and the new stadium would return far more to the local economy then they cost.  Now the projections for the 2011 Superbowl is that it will alone bring in from 300-400 million dollars to the North Texas area, much of which of course will flow into the City of Arlington.

So with one Super Bowl the return of investment is just about secured!

This may shock you but even as a Arlington Texas resident I am not really a Cowboy's fan in fact I am the arch enemy of any true blue Dallas fan, the evil and dark fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers!  

Yet before everything else I am a business person and I look at a business deal not as a football fan but in simple terms of is the decision the right one financially long term for all of those involved.  Looking at this one it is clear that Dallas blew it and Arlington voters made the right decision.

Think about this concept when you evaluate business deals, think long term and upside potential.  The short term (good or bad) is seldom the way to think about important business decisions,

 ~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: dallas cowboys, super bowl, football, jerry jones, arlington texas, dallas texas, texas

Popularity: 5% [?]

About two months ago I announced the Beta Launch of Marketing ICE and commented on how much work creating a new company from nothing really is.

Well just a few days ago we opened the full live version of Marketing ICE with a new pricing model and a new sales message.  The response has been great so far.  What I want to comment on though today is the mistakes the Beta revealed to us and lessons learned from them.

1.  Our price was a bit high.  Not really because it was a hell of a deal at the price we asked, not a single paying beta member complained, NOT ONE.  Yet the reason it was too high is we figured out we could make more profit by selling for less.  All the metrics got better with a massive price cut.  If something make you more profit and is ethical then do it.  We did.

2.  Our process was clunky and relied on two levels of membership.  Paid and free.  We killed off true membership for free people simply providing them a password if they opt into our email system.  This makes our internal management a lot easier, consumes less resources and above all makes our CTO Benjamin Fitts' job a lot easier.   Oh and it converts to sales better to boot.

3.  Because we put our videos in a pass word protected area they were not getting indexed by Search Engines and we got no deep organic traffic.  Ben is a genius and figured out how to leave the pages open to anyone and password protect just the videos.  So the individual pages can now be indexed and the video is just seen as basicly an image by Google/Yahoo, etc.  

There were more mistakes (many that were technology centric) but the above were some of the bigger ones we corrected that an outsider would have been able to observe.  Now here is the real reason I am posting this, it is not the mistakes we made you should pay attention to, it is that we made them and that we fixed them even though fixing them was painful short term.  It required a lot of extra work and we had to let go of a lot of work we had done the wrong way.  We had a choice, put on the breaks, make the change and rock on.  The other choice would have been to accept the limitations we created and roll with them.

Rolling with the mistakes would have been easier and faster but a huge mistake.  Like my good friend Neil Franklin says, "when things don't work, just change them, there is no reason to stay married to stupid".  Now our mistakes were not massive but as we evaluated the long term health and success of the company they would have had a massive negative impact on the business as a whole over time.  

While the decision to adjust so early caused us to delay bringing in the revenue a new company needs while brand new and we had to delay that inflow of capital and return on our efforts it was worth it.  

I have seen so many companies from small businesses to Fortune 100 corporations stay married to an idea, a message or a purchase they made just because time and money were already invested in it.  Never mind the fact that it didn't work, or had a higher cost then a replacement or was in some cases killing the business.  The mantra of "we are locked into this now" kept them on an often destructive path.

Many people who have worked for big corporations in the past one day form a company of their own.  It can be like Marketing ICE (all online) or a primarly off line business it doesn't matter.  Most of these people bring the "we have to stick with it" and other poisonous ideas into these new businesses.  Let me tell you, it can and often will kill or cripple a new company.

There is just no reason for this to happen.  When your company is small and new it is also nimble.  There is a lot to be said for sticking to your guns when you have to get things done but when a process, message or service is not working change it or kill it, remember there is no reason to stay married to stupid,

~ Jack

Technorati Tags: business, business advice, marketing ice, online business, off line business, technology

Popularity: 6% [?]

Since I first got into Internet Marketing in 1999 I have seen a lot of really talented people specifically from an SEO stand point leave one gaping massive hole in their marketing efforts.  This may sound almost silly but this massive hole is often….

No Sales Process

Crazy?  Yes but true none the less.  I have looked at countless sites that are beautifully designed, well optimized and have exceptional traffic.  Yet the site clearly does nothing to put the visitors into the "sales cycle".

There are several things you must ask yourself all the time about your website.

1.  Do you know the primary and secondary goals of your site? 

Shockingly many site owners don't or they only have one defined goal vs. several.  Such as your site goal may be simply to make a sale of a product or service but what is your secondary goal.  Is it branding, lead collection or something else or all of these things.  You must know those goals before you can be sure your site addressed them.

2.  Does your site make accommodation for people who are at different points in their buying cycle? 

Some people are in research mode (this is why you must generate leads), some are ready to buy, some need one question answered in order to buy.  You must have resources for these people and they must be easy to find for each visitor because unfortunately you can't control which page the person always enters your site on.

3.  How can you make visitors that will never ever buy from you valuable?

Look most websites will convert fraction of traffic to a lead or a sale so almost every site has what can only be considered surplus traffic.  So how do you make that traffic profitable.  Some examples are viral marketing or advertising revenue, both can help turn your extra traffic into something of value.  You simply must be doing something with it if not you are wasting a valuable resource.

So why do I think this way?  Why is this so important to me, that I have taken the time to post about it?

Because for the first 10 years of my professional career I was not in marketing, nor in web development or design.  No, I was a sales person who sold everything from cable installations, to Ethernet hardware to high end test equipment.  In this period of my life I worked like crazy and became quite successful and eventually discovered the web and realized that it was a whole new world.  A way to sell to billions vs. the handful a single sales person could reach.

Now I would love to tell you from day one I took the sales process and put it online, I should have, it sure makes a lot of sense but I didn't.  No, like most new online marketers I started out with affiliate marketing and simply did what ever I could to push traffic to my affiliate sites.  I actually had a moderate amount of success nothing stellar mind you but I made some good extra money and sold myself on the fact that this "web thing" worked.  If I could make 20K a year well then hell I could make a lot more, right?

Then one day I sat down to do some "work" online and I realized I did not really know what I should be doing next, I might do a bit or work on ranking a site or clean up some copy but I did not really have an agenda in mind.  I was just cranking our new sites and new niches and making money with sales when they happened and was popping a bit of ad revenue as well.  

So I decided to look at all my sites the way I managed my sales people.  I asked each site, what is it that you do for me?  What are your goals?  Who are your prospects?  How well are you achieving them?  and What can we do to make you better?

I then realized something many of my sites had the problems I pointed out in the beginning of this post and to this day in some areas I am still back peddling  and tying old sites together and linking them to new sites.  It is a long hard process and some of my content will never be fully integrated because the effort to do so is better placed with new projects.

However, whenever I fix a problem I think about how much better it would have been if I thought of each site in fact each section of a site like a sales person from day one I realize how much better it could have been.  

When you create web pages you should try to line them up with sales and/or marketing positions of the off line world. 

Some are like outside sales people.  -  Closing the deals

Some are like inside sales people.  - Answering stock pre-sales questions or  just filling orders.

Some are like sales managers.  - Linking the efforts of all the other sales people together. 

Some are like marketing directors.  Building lists of leads and pumping them into the sales cycle.

In fact that is how I look at it today but I could have saved massive amounts of time and money had I done so from the beginning.  So that is my challenge to you.  Are you treating your sites and pages like what they are, sales and marketing entities with a goal and judging them on their success or failure and tying their synergies together as a team. 

In short are you treating your sites and pages like a sales and marketing team and acting as their sales and marketing manager?   If not, you may want to rethink a lot of your efforts.  Then sooner you make the change the easier it will be, 

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: sales, marketing, internet marketing, sales cycle, online sales, sales force, business, seo, sem, search marketing, search engine optimization

Popularity: 6% [?]

I really tried to be a fan of the Trump Blog, I mean I really did but I have just removed his feed from RSS reader.  It is a shame too, I really admire Trump as a business person, I loved a few of his books like,

• Why We Want You to be Rich
• The Art of the Deal  and
• Think Like a Billionaire

They are great books and belong on the shelf of any would be business owner along with many of his other books.  I enjoyed a few seasons of hit TV show The Apprentice but have not watched the last two seasons, I have just been too busy.

Trump is an arrogant jerk at times, however, I do believe he really wants you and me and anyone that wants to have it all, to take the shot and is happy when someone makes it.  He is a guy that ticks me off at times but he is also one of my real heroes.  So why do I say his blog sucks?  Simply because it SUCKS! 

The question then is why does it suck and what can others learn so that they don't make their blog suck too.   There are several reasons his blog blows, here are the big ones.

1.  The posts are devoid of any real "voice".  They are written by MBAs in "proper English", probably each post is labored over for hours, debated around a table and then finally approved for publication. While some 17 year old blogger is makeing 10K a month with a few crappy sites and blogs, Trumps folks are debating syntax and sentence structure of one line in a post that no one will actually read anyway.

2.  99 times out of 100 every post on the Trump is nothing but a big blantant sales pitch for his business school.   Look people don't mind being sold to a bit on a blog some of that is expected but people read blogs for opinions, unique commentary and ideas.  It is ok to do some selling in a blog but you have to blend it with something unique and different.  When blended with the first reason, well it just gets worse.

3.  Trump does not post enough, most of the posts are by his team.  That is not all bad, Ben Fitts and Mark Barrera both post here at times, but when they do they do with the voice that is lacking on Trumps Blog.  Besides Ben, Mark and I are not big names like Donald. People read this blog to learn about tech and search marketing, they read Trumps to HEAR TRUMP and they seldom do.   In fact on the few occasions when Trump himself posts, it is actually pretty good, and seldom a sales pitch. Like this post on Experience vs. Education. 

There is a lot to learn here as more and more CEOs, Top Executives and Company Presidents, etc. start blogging.  There is such a tendency to have a marketing person ghost write their posts or for them to write what I call brochureology.  Most of these blogs are written like typical sales copy or academic articles with no feeling, no true voice, no passion and that makes them suck and honestly not worth producing.

So how do you make your blog rock?  In the words of my friend and client Val Riazanov, "you are what you are, be what you are".  Be yourself!  That is the key, if you knew me personally, knew what I sound like when I talk you would be able to hear my voice when you read my posts, I simply write like I talk.  That is the key to good blogging, be original and write with you own voice.  I don't care if you are some bigwig, some superstar even to the magnitude of Trump, if you are going to blog, do it right, write your own stuff and write it in your personal voice.

I just love the morons (yes if you spell check my blog you are a moron), that insist on critiquing my spelling on my blog!  They write like an English teacher but no one ever reads it!  Want to see a great example by a rookie blogger, a guy that "got it" the day I set up his blog for him, check out British Entrepreneur Neil Franklin's Blog.  Neil is very successful, has a lot of things "done for him" and has plenty of employees.  I have worked with him to get him up to speed with his blogging but every post is his post in his words.  When I read it I can "hear him" refined British accent and all.

That is the key to be a good blogger, blog, don't write prose or sales copy or brochure style text.  Let people hear you and let them feel who you really are.  

Donald Trump has a lot of things that you would do well to emulate, but his blog is not one of them.  Keep that in mind as you build and post to your blog, the sad thing is Trump's blog does not have to suck, he could kill off his MBA poster, post himself twice a week and it would have a lot more and far more loyal readers.

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: donald trump, trump blog, blogging, blog, blog voice, sales, marketing, seo, sem, search marketing

P.S. - I actually think Donald Trump has a pretty good blog, despite the issues pointed out in this article.  To be fair I have since posted an article about the positives and the improvements at the Trump Blog.  That post is called,  -  Why Donald Trump Has a Great Blog that is Getting Even Better

Popularity: 16% [?]

My company Cerion Optimization Services just issued press release on the impact of under optimized wireless networks to carriers, customers and investors that states that wireless network optimization could increase revenue for carriers like Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, Alltel, etc. by over 3 Billion Dollars annually.  

The release mentions a downloadable report on Wireless Network Optimization on the Cerion Website.  I read the report and found it to be a mix of high level engineering concepts along with enough information for investors that would like to better understand the impact of this issue financially.

And if 3 Billion sounds like a huge chunk of change to be loosing, according to the report Globally the loss is about 36 Billion.  I would this is enough money to even make people like Bill Gates and Michael Dell squirm.  The soulution is to optimize the networks at the core and we have been quite successful in revovering lost revenue in fact on the "About Us" page of our website we state that, "our business model has been so successful that we guarantee our initial service offering, or we refund the fee".

If you want to know more about wireless network optimization  and request a copy of the report,

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, Alltel, network optimiztion, wireless network optimization, telecommunications, telecom, wireless networks, technology investing, communications, cellular, cell phone service, global wireless networks

Note: This Was a Sponsored Post 

Popularity: 5% [?]

Last night we beta launched MarketingICE.com which is an Internet Marketing Training system that I put together with Ben Fitts and Mark Barrera.  We had a good launch with a ton of free opt in members and quite a few that took advantage of our discounted beta rate.  So far the platform has been stable with very few bugs popping up.  What I learned though is priceless.

I now have a new respect for people that build businesses.  I have been involved with the formation of a few businesses, helped take one public, helped to sell another  I have technicly owned my own company for a long time yet I have never "created a business" this way before.  From designing the product, building the product and creating the message around it.  Down to things like the agreements with partners, working like crazy to make an idea real and more.

It takes a special person to really build a business and we still have huge mountains to climb, I still work a job and that job actually has me building several other companies at the same time.  It can certainly put stress on you, yet I really love what I am doing.  I would have to say I am enjoying myself more then ever before.  If you have ever thought about really creating a business from the ground up, this is my advice.

1.  Surround yourself with great people.  With out Ben and Mark I could not have created MarketingICE they are full partners and also good friends that makes me a lucky man.  Find great people and take good care of them it is the only way you can succeed.

2.  Don't expect it to work the first time out and don't think it is going to be easy.  That is going to make the failures a much bigger deal then they are.  Stuff will break, "great ideas" will fail, don't worry drive on and adjust.

3.  Don't wait!  Do it now, you are not getting any younger.  Life and the market reward those that risk and work hard.  If you are going to fail get it done right away so you have enough time left to try again. 

I think I have learned more in the past 70 days then in the past 7 years!  I plan on taking this weekend off and spoiling my wife good!  She has earned it,

~  Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: business development, seo, sem, internet marketing, marketing videos, seo training, sem

Popularity: 5% [?]

I recently discovered a service called IBackup - Online Backup and Storage that I think a lot of business owners from small to medium brick and mortar businesses to the work at home entrepreneur can all benefit from.If you work or ever have worked for a well run corporate environment you know that most companies have employees save company documents to a shared drive rather then individual PC hard drives. 

This way if one PC goes down or is damaged the files worked on by that employee are not lost.What many don’t realize is that shared drive is usually backed up to yet another drive.  This will usually happen by an automated process each night when bandwidth is not being used for daily activities. 

This way the maximum data at risk of loss is only one days worth of data.  Smart companies use an “offsite” back up meaning the data is transmitted over the internet via a secure connection.

 Why do they do this?  Well what happens if the building catches on fire and your back up drive is in the same building.  What if there is a hurricane, flood or tornado and the entire site is lost.  Now the company has not just lost their facility, they have lost their data too which is usually their most valuable asset.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could have this type of back up service for your small business and even your personal files?  I talk to small business owners all the time and whenever backing up files comes up they tend to tell me they rely on an external back up hard drive.

Such drives are a great tool and can be had for about one hundred to two hundred dollars for up to 500 Gigs of space.  But think about this; let’s say you are a small work at home business.  You have a home office and your business is like most a second income for you.  You pull onto your street and are shocked to see fire trucks and flashing lights and watch what is left of your house being soaked in water by the local Fire Department.

This is an awful tragedy and now you have a lot of hard time ahead.  This may be a time when you are really glad you have that second source of income.  However with out off site back ups not only did you loose your house, you just lost all your data as well, all your files, what may have been years and years of work and data!

Clearly that would make a bad situation worse!  With IBackup it would be one problem you would not have.  Each night while you slept those critical files would be backed up to an offsite location insuring your data was safe.

So what does a service like this cost?  Try 9.95 a month for up to 5 Gigs with pricing based on space going up from their.  Now since you won’t be backing up your stolen content off of YouTube etc, 5 gigs for most small business people is a lot of space.

For most businesses today, your data is your life and you just can’t afford to loose it.  If you are not already backing up your critical data off site I recommend you visit IBackup right away to learn more about their very affordable service.

Popularity: 5% [?]

One issue that is prominant in many offices is the need to manage meeting rooms so they don't get double booked by different users.  It really is a head ache to have a client, partner or vendor show up for a meeting and find someone else in that meeting room your reserved a few weeks ago.

NetSimplicity offers Scheduling Software that helps companies to better manage their office space.  The product provides visability for the entire group as to which rooms are reserved and when.  You can even get a free trial at their web site. 

They also provide a Visual Asset Manager that can inventory facility, operational and IT assets. Scan and print barcodes; track leases, maintenance, depreciation repair history and fair market value.  There is also a free trial version of this software available.

~ Jack Spirko 

Technorati Tags: asset management, scheduling software, netsimplicity, office management, software, free trial

Note:  This was a sponsored post.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Like most marketers/entrepreneurs I am a pretty busy guy.  I work a job, I am an owner of one company and a partner/owner in another one.  With this type of life, you often find yourself needing to collaborate and meet with partners, clients and coworkers.  Like most people in this world I rely on technology to stay in touch and get more done.

Recently I blogged about Google Documents and how it was helping my partners and I go though the tedious process of launching a new company.  Today I want to tell you about another free service I have been using for a very long time. (about 3 years)

The service is called Free Conference and let me just say it rocks.  The first question I get when I recommend it is always, "is it really free?".  The answer is yes, you can set up calls, schedule them and invite members all for free.  You can also set up groups that you commonly have calls with and invite groups vs. individuals to save time.  Should you make a time change to your call the system automaticly notifies all your members also, for free.

So is there any catch?  No not really, of course there are ways they make money.  First the free calls require dialing a long distance number for each caller.  They only pay their standard long distance rate so this is not some back door charge or anything.  As we all use unlimited service or broadband phone this is really no issue for our team.  But if you want an 800 toll free line that is available for a small fee per line.

The other way they make money is by selling recordings of your call in MP3 for 10 dollars a call or you can get a transcript of the call for another fee.  I can't really comment on the paid options as I have never needed to use them.  Yet for just making a call with 4-40 people I can not recommend them highly enough.

It is really amazing the amount of leverage available to small companies, I mean with Google Documents, Google Analytics and Free Conference any small company has access to free technology that many companies are paying really big bucks for. 

What other technology services that are free can you recommend for small or even large companies to leverage their efforts.

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: conference calling, free technology, free conference calling, conference calls, business advice, business resources, broadband phone, voip, telecom, telecommunications

Popularity: 5% [?]

A lot of our readers are small business owners.  They are either smaller companies looking for SEO advice for do it yourself marketing efforts.  Some are small SEO/Consulting firms and still others are just people that like techy stuff but also own businesses.

So I think this new blog I found that gives, business advice for smaller companies may be worth checking out.

They have a lot of great information; one post I found particularly useful was one on changes in the tax law for 2007.   As a person that runs just about all my business operations online for instance I do not ring up a lot of milage but I do have some each year.  Thanks to soaring fuel costs I just learned the standard milage deduction for 2007 is going up to 48.5 cents.  

Even with high fuel costs, as I drive a Jetta TDI this makes going places profitable!  Perhaps I should find a few more reasons to travel in 2007?  In any even give these folks a visit some time,

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: small business, business advice, business blogs, tax law, 2007 tax changes, millage deductions, business news

Note: This was a sponsored post.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

BuildDirect who is the world's leading online wholesaler of building materials just announced that Ellen Siminoff has been appointed to their Board of Directors.  Strait from the press release

"Siminoff, who is currently President and CEO of Efficient Frontier, the leading provider of paid search engine marketing (SEM) solutions, has an extremely impressive educational and work history. Siminoff graduated from Stanford's Graduate School of Business with an MBA and also holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Princeton University.

Siminoff was part of the founding executive team at Yahoo! and spent six adventurous years with the company. During her tenure, she led business development (VP, Business Development and Planning), corporate development (SVP, Corporate Development) and eventually ran the small business and entertainment business units (SVP, Small Business and Entertainment)". 

Over the past few years we have seen quite a few high level employees from the big search engines leave to join eCommerce companies.  One has to wonder what gems these individuals carry in their knowledge base and in their contact data bases.  It is quite probable that in time many empolyes of firms like Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN, etc could be offered compelling reasons to make a move.

This was brought out quite well recently when Jeremy Shoemaker simply asked if anyone would hire the infamous Matt Cutts of Google, offers are being publicly made now for Matt (who never even asked for this to happen) that include one from Pepper Jam for " SALARY: $250K Base + Profit Sharing + Stock".

One has to wonder what retention programs companies like Google and Yahoo have in place for key personal?

~ Jack Spirko 

Technorati Tags: builddirect, yahoo, google, employee retention, matt cutts, job opportunities, seo jobs, internet marketing jobs, search engine marketing, sem,   Ellen Siminoff, msn, microsoft, ask.com, key employee retention

Popularity: 3% [?]