Small Business Tips - Increase Revenue Through Technology

So you saw our last blog post, How to Manage Your Remote Workers, and it intrigued you to find a way to start telecommuting. One problem, your significant other is already working from home and you're not sure if overall productivity will be affected. Not to fear, thanks to the American Express Open Forum, here are 5 tips to help you keep an "office-friendly" relationship.

Agree on a set of rules. Don’t rely on an unspoken "agreement" or common courtesy to dictate your office-sharing arrangement. Sit down and spell out exactly what both of you expect of the other between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

What do you need in terms of focus time or conversation privacy? What do you want your spouse to do if he or she needs to interrupt you? How are you going to manage conflicting needs?

Due to the advancement in technology over the last couple years and the increasing cost of overhead, many companies have been switching to a cloud management system. In addition to this, companies are looking for more and more ways to limit their expenses, with one of those being getting rid of office space and having employees telecommute. Now this is a wonderful solution if you have a collection of star employees who can get everything done from their home office without any distractions. The key question then comes into play, you are saving money on overhead, but are you losing money due to loss of production? Use the following 5 tips provided by American Express Open Forum, to help you manage your remote workers to make sure they are living up to your expectations.

It’s crucial to make your remote people feel the same sense of community that employees sitting under the same roof enjoy daily.

1. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone.

Many companies are taking any moves necessary to cut expenses. As a decision maker, make sure you look into telecommuting before taking any drastic measures, such as letting employees go.

1. Save Your Company Money

Having telecommuters in your business allows you to cut down on operating expenses by allowing you to rent a smaller office and do away with office supplies.

While doing my daily browsing through Mashable.com, I came accross this article written by June Bower. Although we have talked about similar content already, this just shows how Video Conferencing can be a game changer for your business.

Here are four potential benefits that self-employed professionals and small- to medium-sized companies can realize by utilizing web conferencing.

For a recap of the first three ways to integrate your mobile phones with your business, click the following link.

Integrating Mobile Phones with Your Business Phone System -Part 1 of 2

4. Showing mobile users’ presence

 Another benefit from client software is that it let’s employees know if a mobile user is available to talk...

It’s great for your clients to always have a way to get in touch with you, whether your are in the office or out on a sales call, but having multiple phones can be inconvenient.  Additional phone bills and incomplete call records make it difficult to track all usage from multiple phones, not to mention how expensive it is if you need to call international from a cell phone.

A great solution to this problem is integrating your business phone system with mobile phones.  Each phone systems has different capabilities and based on the services your provider offers, you need to determine what fits your needs best.  Rather than comparing different products and services, it would be easiest for you to focus on understanding the features available and how they can help you.  Here are six features you should become familiar with and when ready, reach out to your phone vendor for further information.

1. Forwarding incoming calls to cell phones

Make it easy for your customers or prospects by giving them one number to reach you at. It can really be a hassle to try to keep track of different numbers to use for different situations...

Telecommuting is becoming much more popular because of the quality of life that it brings to employees and productivity and savings it delivers for businesses.  In fact, according to IDC research firm, the number of remote workers is supposed to grow by over 30% over the next 4 years and at end of 2010, remote workers made up ¼ of the workforce.  The Maynard Group plays a key role in the design, deployment and support of technologies that enable remote workers.  We have learned, however, that it's much more than just the technology alone that makes for a successful remote worker strategy.  Proper management and accountability are needed to ensure that the business and employee benefit from the remote initiative.  With the help of Carol Hacker, we are able to share some insight on running an effective remote worker program.