Update

This post has caused quite a discussion on LinkedIn. Why not see what people are saying…

The announcement of the "new iPad" or the iPad 3 was made this week by Apple. I thought it was about time to review how iPads are being used in the small business world. Will I get excited enough to buy the new iPad? Not sure as my iPad 1 is still working well. Sure it's a bit heavier that the new version and it doesn't have a camera or LTE – though it did load iOS 5.1 and runs just as well as it did before.

I have loaded the new iWorks tools, Pages, Numbers and Keynote all connected via iCloud which is fine for the limited amount of content creation I do using the iPad. 

After all the last couple of years using my 1st generation iPad here are the business tools I use most:

• Evernote – because it captures notes easily, sound records meetings as I take notes and then auto syncs when I am next in a wifi zone
• 1Password – for all those passwords I need to find when I use Safari (I have 1Password on all my devices and find it saves my memory on a daily basis for all those login id's and passwords)
• Safari – for all those browsing needs
• Mail – all accounts are IMAP and so sync up and I don't care which device I use to read my emails
• GoodReader – the companion program I use to read all those attachments on emails too big for Mail and for syncing my documents from Dropbox and a plethora of other servers

In my first article on the iPad I spoke about jailbreaking and loading Frash for running flash apps on the iPad. I discovered an even better solution where going down the jailbreaking path wasn't required

iSwifter – built to play games it can load ANY Adobe FLASH site I have visited. It loads the site very quickly, sometimes awkward to use but it is usable.

Many of the tools I use are also available on the iPhone and for my desktop and so I am always in sync with my data. A great way to ensure you're backed up.

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of useful specific apps you can load and use on your iPad. This is just a list of the ones I use almost every day. Every business has different needs for their work tools and processes. 

Contact KIX to let us help you bring tools like the iPad into your business to make you and your staff work even better.

I trust this has been useful for you. If you find other tools useful for you in your business then please let me know via the comments section.

There’s a lot of hype about the iPad. Great marketing from Apple about its latest wonderful hardware creation. A technological marvel for sure BUT is it useful for business professionals?

To get an understanding both of the tool and its capabilities, I had to get one, which I did after a lot of research on the net, reading magazines and visiting Apple shops. I am writing this article on the iPad on one of the many downloaded tool (apps). I bought a 16GB WiFi model not the 3G model. The base version to my mind has to be capable of delivering a business result. If its not then it doesn’t matter which version you buy, the outcome will be the same.

There are some basic functions that you want on the road:

• Email
• Browser
• Access to your documents
• Create, edit documents
• Access to the internet without the 3G version and now wifi

Before we get too fancy in our requirements lets examine each of these basic needs.

Email:

The built in email system, similar to Apple Mail and the iPhone version, is a good email client. Sure it misses some features from desktop clients but it works well. Especially if you combine it with GoodReader / QuickOffice / DocsToGo or similar programs to work with attachments. There are free versions of these programs which have some restrictions.

There are some paid for email apps, I’ve tried Altamail and found it to have good features. EXCEPT for send mail where it got stuck more often than not. The ability to flag bulk changes is a real bonus in this app.

Browser:

The iPad comes with Safari, a perfectly adequate browser. It can sync bookmarks with its desktop brother and allows you to have many browser windows open simultaneously. Of course it can’t render flash content, the bug bear of many, Many, MANY iPad and iPhone users. I wont rant about this here, but its a major shortcoming from a business and end user perspective.

There area range of browser alternatives on the iPad becoming available from the App Store, Mercury and Atomic to mention just two. The 3rd party apps, all have their own tweaks and focus to improve your browsing experience. To help overcome the Flash limitation, I tried two approaches:

- Access to hosted desktop

- Jailbreaking and installing Frash

There’s a new app on the iPad called iSwifter which does the job very well, not a free app but with the money and even on my iPad-1 its performance is quite satisfactory.

To be continued…

The debate over the safety of mobile phones hots up again. New studies (reported in the Sydney Morning Herald) have shown just how hot the phones get when held to the head. The mobile/cell/handy is a tool we use daily, in fact since the iPhone came it's a way of life to some and with how hot the Blackberry get (maybe we should call it the "hotberry") those heavy business users might want to take head of the warnings.

The question then remains if this is such a great business tool how can we use it safely?

How about: – use it less – use a corded mike/earphone – use a Bluetooth headset (hopefully they are ok) – use your desk phone or IP phone with a headset/mic

Just be careful and like most things, use in moderation is rarely bad for your health.

In a recent article on short linking I spoke about how you can use Pretty Link, a WordPress blog plugin, to effectively be a bit.ly or other commercial short link service which YOU control.

The creator of Pretty Link, Blair Williams, has recently posted an article on how to make short linking even more effective.

Essentially, you register a very short domain name, point it to your top level site, add a small amount of code into you .htaccess file (and if you don’t know what that is then just contact me for more details) which you need and Blair explains clearly the how and where and why.

Magic, all done. Well apart from one thing there’s a very reasonable one of charge for the pro version of the pretty link plugin.

So, if you want to build your brand, have effective links used for your brand in twitter, facebook and all forms of social media and save space at the same time then this information will be very useful for you.

Want to know how you can have your own short link service like bit.ly, tr.IM or tinyurl, built in to your own WordPress posted website? I have spoken before about the importance of links to help build your online business presence.

If you have a WordPress site then read on to find out about the power you have in your hand.

What is a link shortening service?

Many links to your website, your articles might be very long. Not that suitable for advertising, or for use in Twitter or Facebook either. A link shortening service is used to reduce the length of the link, but still when someone clicks on it, it goes to the same place you orginally wanted.

The trouble is the search engines rank the short link and the user who's going to click on the link doesn't really know where it's going to go.

How to improve this situation?

Why not have a short link service that uses your own domain name. Now admittedly this isn't going to work so well if you have a long domain name, but if you have short one, it's a great opportunity for you to keep your website address visible to everyone including the search engines. While some sites like Twitter have the “nofollow” attribute set on links, at least your domain name will appear in the search engine rankings, but also in the eyes of the tweeps = twitter followers. This is a great bonus. I have been using this technique on a number of websites and it's showing great results.

To manage this service you just need to install the pretty link plugin. Configure it, there are plenty of tutorials on this, then use it.

This plugin has a free and paid for version, but for this simple task, the free version is enough.

If you would like assistance in setting this up then contact me!

If visitors to your website don’t stay and read what you have to say or offer, is that useful? You can spend money on advertising to get them there but if they don't stay then you are just wasting your money and time.

For your site to be successful, selling things or capturing the details of prospects you have to do more than get visitors (traffic) you have to get them to take action. You turn a visitor into a buyer from a tyre kicker. After all the internet is not different to other business, it’s a numbers game. So converting them is easy…right?

It can be easy when you do the right things. Here are twelve tips on how to convert traffic. You don’t have to be an expert to do this. Just follow the tips.

1. Know your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and really know why your service or product is different from your competition.  In what way is it special, special enough, different enough that it’s purchased? When you get this you know your USP and define it into a couple of sentences.
2. Remember you are building a relationship so put your message across in an appropriate way .  There’s no need for a pushy sales pitch. Treat your potential clients like you would like to be treated, telling a story about it. High pressure selling is a thing of the past.  
3. If you need assistance from your market, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Create a survey about what you currently do or about an area you would like to expand into. This will help develop the relationship and deepen loyalty towards both your company and the product or service.
4. Make the offer simple.  If you are selling four different products, advertise them on four websites.  Do not use one website to offer all products as this will be confusing for the consumer.  Whilst this might work for the bigger retailers they are already established in the marketplace.  
5. Make your page clear and easy to read.  Use wide margins and don’t feel you have to fill every inch of the page with copy.  If you leave white space it allows the reader to focus on reading the copy rather than being bombarded with too much information.  
6. Do brag about your product especially if it has received good endorsements and ratings from your satisfied customers.  Let them do the bragging for you. Testimonials are great and whatever you do – don’t make them up.
7. Writing good sales copy is an art. Give your audience plenty of reasons as to why to buy your product or service.  Use a sales letter and squeeze page that contains lots of valuable offers and repeat this over and over again.  It is much better to have too many offers, as long as they are valuable and reasonable, than too few and leaves your audience in no doubt as to what your offer is and its value.  
8. Look for problems and solve them.  Once you have completed your sales page, have a good think about any other issues your product could help to solve.  Asking buyers for more information might help as they might have found ways of using the product that you never considered.
9. Use moderate highlights in your copy.  These highlights help to attract the reader’s attention.  Don’t use too many though as too much colour or highlighting can just annoy and confuse your readers.  
10. Package deals are very popular.  Once you have presented your USP, offer a special package that includes a free bonus/gift when customers choose to ‘Buy Now’.  If you advertise the offer is available for a limited time this creates an air of urgency and entices the buyer to act immediately. Don’t just say it, believe it.  
11. Request an order.  One of the oldest principles of generating sales is never to ignore orders.  Ask for an order and keep asking.  You can never ask too many times. In Internet Marketing terms this is referred to as a call to action. Use them liberally throughout your sales letter.  
12. Be polite and say “Thank You” to your customers.  This is most important and good manners will get you a long way even on the Internet. Remember we are building a relationship. Your buyers will feel appreciated and will be more likely to come back to you. 

Here’s a bonus tip:

- Be genuine, offer a meaningful guarantee about your product or service, something you can stand behind. Make it something that you know you can do.

Selling online, whether the sale is for money or a persons contact details, remember it’s about building a relationship. Think not just about this sale but also abou the ones that follow and know the lifetime value of the customer.

For any activity or project to be successful there’s one key ingredient – ACTION. While to make it useful it has to be the right action(s) otherwise any action step is meaningless. One of the best Internet Marketers James Schramko makes this point in a recent article.

So whether it’s organising a party, the deployment of a new process or technology, the development of an internet strategy, they all rely on a series of tasks. The tasks form the basis of you and your team taking ACTION.

Action Method

There’s nothing new in all this, everyone knows it. It’s whether we do anything about it is the biggest different. There are a lot of project management tools and methods available. From the simple todo list all the way through to the big guns, like Catalyst, Prince2 etc. There are lots of complex tools to aid and support the project also, probably the most popular is Microsoft’s Project. At KIX we’ve utilised all these methods over the years but found them too heavy for many projects. We’ve tested many and found most fall short. Until we came across Action Method from Behance. There’s more to be found on the what and how of Action Method on our site. Feel free to have a look.

It wont be for everyone, but it will be useful potentially for some people and organisations.

We wanted just to share this with you to help get you into the 2010 spirit of doing.

Take Action Now!

Working on this wordpress blog has taught me a great lesson. Not heeding this lesson might cause you untold problems, wasted hours and lost productivity.

Some moment between going to lunch and returning from it saw a pack of malicious byte devils enter my site and gobble up a file. One simple little 18 line file, INDEX.PHP

I went and typed in the website address and saw nothing except a file and diectory list. My heart sank while beating just a little faster.

“I have a backup. It will be fine”. Only to find the backup wasn’t what I thought it was…essentially useless. “Ok, so what next? Where to get another copy of an index.php?”

Fortunately for me I had another wordpress blog site I could look at, so I copied the file across and re-entered my site URL and fortunately all was fixed. I had been VERY lucky.

My next step, I made a complete backup of my site. Better late than never right!

Backups are important, but only when you need them. Until then they are an administrative PITA. My advice to myself is make them regularly. My suggestion to you is to follow my advice. Not doing so maybe at your peril.

Working Hard

Sitting at the keyboard for hour after hour, staring at your wonderful BIG monitor, checking keywords, building products, making posts and watching the money flood in. Can you see yourself in this picture. Think how much activity you do other than in your brain. Got that picture in your mind? Great!

This might be you view of your ideal day. Working for yourself, sitting there doing what you love. Just think for a moment…are you loving your body and is it loving you back?

While the alure of being an internet marketer is that you are your own boss, keep your own hours, and do whatever you want whenever you want it, is an attractive proposition. Can you honestly say you doing enough exercise to be healthy? I thought I was okay until I changed my routine and made a slight adjustment to the food I was eating.

My day now looks like this:

Wake at 6:30 and take some time to enjoy waking, exercise for 30-40 mins from 7:30-8:15, a nice warm breakfast after your exercise, from 9-1 get stuck into the major things you have planned for the day. By the time 1 comes around I have drunk lots of water but I barely notice the time. The I realise that I am hungry again and head out for a balanced lunch, just not sandwiches or other wheat products, lots of vegetables, then I am recharged and ready for the 2-5 push getting all the small tasks done. Now around 5 I take a break before having dinner around 7. This could be family time, read a book, talk to your partner, even go and socialise (just don’t exercise heavily). Eat around 7 then around 10 head off to bed for a good nights sleep.

I’ve been doing this routine now for coming up to 3 weeks. I have not felt as healthy and as full of energy for a very long day.

I realise some of you are saying that this is too structured. My experience is that the structure is good for me and I am getting more done.

Just wanted to share this with you. Try it – find your own rhythm for your body and mind, you might also be surprised!

(disclaimer – I am not a health professional, just a normal guy trying to make my life better)

What am I trying to do with my communications; at work or at home?

On an ongoing basis, typically monthly, your communications costs are likely to be in the top three if not the top charge. Think about it, you have a home phone, a mobile or two or three in the house (if not more), an internet connection (ADSL or cable), maybe even cable television. That all adds up pretty quickly to a recurring few hundred dollars a month for a typical household.

That’s a fair amount of services just for one house!

What about when you are running a business? For businesses the costs can be from a few hundreds to many tens of thousands of dollars, which is significant, no matter what currency you use. The collection of services used in a business will vary of course to the household in both type and quantity of services. For example, multiple lines for the office staff into a PABX (PBX), data services for internet, email, inter-office communication, mobiles for your mobile field, sales and executive staff.

It’s not that you are just paying for services, there are all sorts of technologies, like mobile phones, computers, email servers, data links, modems, handsets, PABX’s, gateways, servers and all manner of gadgets in between. Even for those working in the IC&T industry it’s bewildering to know everything there is to know about all the possibilities.

In the end it comes down to a simple question.

What am I trying to do with my communications? As a business owner or a householder, the question is valid, just the scale is likely to be different.

You might be wondering, what do you mean by “what am I trying to do with my communications”? Let me answer that briefly by giving some examples.

•    do we mainly receive calls
•    how any SMS text messages do I send a day
•    when I call family, we speak for a long time and they are in Europe
•    I miss more calls than I answer
•    my daughter monopolises the phone
•    we make more calls than we receive
•    the coverage at our place is bad
•    there are more interesting things on the internet and I need to make it more affordable

For businesses the questions are largely those of “what type of business am I in”.

•    we mainly make calls to our clients, usually to their mobiles
•    or internet is great though I would like to get more sales through it
•    how can we make the calls between our offices and staff more cost effective
•    is it time to consider IP telephony yet?

The questions will or should relate to, and not be limited by these considerations:

•    your strategy for the type of business you are in,
•    the volume of your transactions,
•    the value of each transaction,
•    the location,
•    the type of communicating you do during the day, e.g. sales, customer care, support, complaints, general enquires, servicing, surveys;

Knowing the answers to these will help define:

•    technology
•    service type
•    redundancy
•    charges
•    functionality
•    resilience

These are a lot of questions to absorb and begin answering. Just remember a phone is not just a phone, a call is not just a call. There are options, it’s just a matter of weeding through to find the package that’s right for you, at home or in your business.

Doing this right will not only save you money it will also improve the what and the how you are communicating. If you need help with the content…well that’s a different topic

In the next topic we’ll start looking at discussing one of the most asked questions…

Section 2: Should I get rid of my landline?