Information Technology

At first, determining whether or not you need a SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate might seem like a daunting task. What do they do? Do I really need one, and if I do, why? When do I attach it to my site? Don’t worry — just about every small business owner launching a website for the first time asks the same questions.

The whole concept of SSL might seem like a mystery, but it’s actually fairly clear-cut. Here’s the lowdown:

What is SSL? 

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is a security mechanism that works between a user’s Web browser (like Firefox® and Google Chrome™) and the website the user is connecting to. The website’s software includes a SSL certificate issued by a trustworthy authority. When confidential info needs to be exchanged, SSL is used to encrypt the information before it is sent, and then to decrypt it at the other end, when it has been received.  (more…)

Rhonda’s 21 Must-Have Apps for Small Business Travel

Rhonda teamed up with Marriott and Visa to create the Small Business Smart Travel Guide, on which this blog post is based.

Traveling for your small business is crucial for growth. But it can also be stressful.

As the owner of a publishing company and as a public speaker, I’m out there every month meeting with clients and distributors or attending industry events, such as the America’s SBDC Conference. Fortunately, technology makes it easy for me to prepare for meetings, work efficiently while I’m away, and manage my business on the road.

These 21 apps have helped me be a Smart Small Business Traveler.  (more…)

With a friend, I built kitchens and bathrooms. That was fun, and almost a hobby rather than a business — though not intentionally so. We would wait for money to come in, spend many unhealthy hours with a phone seemingly stuck to the side of our heads, and pay multiple visits to customers before jobs to plan, discuss and change plans again.

If only I knew then what I know now.

It wasn’t that we didn’t know about technology — hey, we had mobile phones and used email! And as fast as technology moves, even that short time ago there were tools that would have made our lives so much easier. But we did things the hard way.

We would sketch designs until we ran out of paper, rather than use any of the many free online planning tools widely available. We’d trip over duplicate emails because we weren’t synced up. (I replied to the email; he replied to the same email. How professional is that? Not so much, I agree.) We chased payments. On foot, sometimes.

So would I do it again? Absolutely. But I’d do it so much better.

Knowing what I now know about all the amazing productivity tools available to small business owners (from GoDaddy and other companies), I’d work smarter — using technology to save time and money (not to mention the environment), communicate more effectively, and get paid faster. Here’s how.  (more…)

As an SMB owner, you want to maximize the investments you’ve made in your business. You want to get more done in less time. And you want to ensure you’re communicating effectively with customers and employees. The right technology can help you do both. Here are three ways you can ensure you’re making the right technology decisions for your business.

1. Know that “free” often comes at a cost. The old saying is true: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Saving money in any way possible is a top priority for most small business owners, but when it comes to choosing technology, it pays to think through the downsides of free solutions before they end up costing your business in the form of frustration and lost productivity. A free software program may have some of the features you need, but getting it to integrate with separate business applications can be a huge challenge.

“Free” also often means you won’t have access to tech support when something does go wrong, and you’ll be on your own to learn the ins and outs of the technology as well. If you want to learn how to use a solution, and get professional help integrating it with other applications and fixing issues when they arise, a sound alternative to free is to pay a reasonable monthly or annual subscription for cloud solutions.  (more…)