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Online Tools To Help Your Business Accept Payments Faster

July 16, 2012

Maintaining a positive cash flow is often one of the most difficult aspects of running a small business. Even when business is booming, that 30-day lull between sending an invoice and receiving payment can be the death knell for small businesses in perennial debt.

But thanks to relatively recent advancement in business-to-business electronic payments, you can cut the time making deposits at the bank and waiting for checks to clear, as well as streamline processes such as invoicing and collections.

We’ve identified some of the most common online financial tools that can help you keep your cash flow positive by cutting the time it takes to receive and deposit your payments. (more…)

3 Guidelines for Great Looking Emails

July 13, 2012

Putting the final touches on your latest promotion, invitation or newsletter? Here are three simple rules of thumb to make sure your emails look great before they go out the door.

1. Make it yours

No matter why you are emailing, your audience needs to know that the message is coming from you. Recognition not only helps you keep down spam complaints, but if you are trying to make a brand for yourself, it’s extra important. So, make sure that you:

Include your logo. Take the time to put it at the top of your email and resize it to make it fit appropriately.

Match your colors. Whether it’s the colors in your logo or the colors on your webpage, you should make sure that the color scheme remains consistent. (more…)

Why Fun and Profits Go Hand In Hand: 4 Reasons Gamification Is Growing

July 11, 2012
By Ramon Ray –

Recently I wrote about how PunchTab lets you give incentives to your online audience to award them for various actions they take – such as how many times they Tweet or some other action.

Today Fanplayr announced an integration with Constant Contact, quite powerful. But beyond this, Fanplayr continues the genre of “gamification” making a business action fun. For example, match the apples and win a $10 coupon.

“The competition for consumer endorsement is at an all-time high as marketers seek to attract customers to fan pages and increase ‘like’ numbers in pursuit of increased sales and loyalty. However, something more needs to be added to the mix to benefit and engage the consumer as the potential for ‘like fatigue’ also increases,” says Mary Wardley, IDC Program VP CRM Applications Research. “Gamification and suppliers such as Fanplayr offer a mechanism to brands to truly engage with and reward their customers and not merely bombard them with messaging. At the same, time Fanplayr allows brands to control the level of reward for better cost control.”  (more…)

My Favorite Free Anti-Virus Program

July 9, 2012

It seems not a day goes by that I don’t get a question from a reader about what antivirus program to use. This can be a tricky question because every tech-guy you run into will have a different opinion.

Here’s mine:

The necessity to “buy” an antivirus program is slowly going away. Large companies are now adding them in to their software offerings at little or no charge. Sometimes, when you buy a new computer, you will get a “free for a limited time” installation of some program, but eventually they will start hounding you for money.

As of this week, my favorite antivirus program is Microsoft Security Essentials. For my Mac friends, check out iAntivirus.They run unobtrusively in the background and have been very good at finding these nasty digital creatures. (more…)

I Got You Covered from The Legal Edge

July 6, 2012
By Jack Garson

(As seen in the SmartCEO Magazine, February 2012)

Ensuring you have insurance when you need it.

On Aug. 23, 2011, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit the Mid-Atlantic region, causing damage to structures as famous as the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral. The very next month, in September, Tropical Storm Lee thundered up the East Coast, causing historic rainfalls and flooding.

In each instance, countless businesses suffered damage, only to discover that their existing insurance failed to provide necessary coverage.

A variety of other threats can pose risks to your company. You may face anything from injuries to your workers and customers, to fire that destroys your facilities, to lawsuits accusing you and your colleagues of failing to uphold duties to shareholders, clients and employees. (more…)