Your Business Advisors - What Should You Be Asking Them Now

If you are reading this blog you have either survived the last year and are ready to ride the next wave, are starting something new and are paddling hard to catch the next wave, or you are sitting on the beach wondering what to do next. In any case it is a very good idea to have a team of business advisors on your wing ready to guide you toward the next big win.

The question we pose here is what should you be asking them, or what should they be talking to you about. What are the important answers you should be getting from your Accountant, Attorney, Tech and New Media experts that will boost your success in the decade ahead?

How Many Customers Owe You Over $5K For Over 90 Days? - "Focus Reports"

You have a loan payment or a big payroll coming up. The cash is not there. You pick up your AR Aging Report, to look at what should be collected and it's 100 pages long. You feel a migraine coming on.

I see this problem everyday. Business owners and managers flooded with computer reports that give them to much or to little information.

Take a simple but essential report like your AR aging report. Given the default paramters, most software packages will just happily print out everything. There has got to be a better way. And, there is.

So ask the question, make the demand, I want an AR aging report that will give me only a list of all customers that owe me over $5,000 for over 90 Days?  While you're at it give me their phone numbers and date of last payment.

Hot Tech at NY 2010 Small Business Summit

Ramon Ray, editor of Smallbiztechnology.com rocked the house, as always, presenting the winners of this year's "sizzling" Hot Tech awards.  With CRM expert, Brent Leary, Ramon showed some of the latest and greatest new technologies.

The seven winners were selected from over 60 entrants.

Small Office Home Office Technology

Many great businesses start in a home office; grow to a small office, and then build to large successful enterprises. Think of Apple, HP, and Google to name a few obvious examples. There are thousands of companies with less recognition who have started small and grown large. You could be the owner and CEO of a large company some day. On the other hand many businesses start small, stay small and are very successful and profitable as well.

In either case, it pays to look at your long term goals when planning the purchase and implementation of technology for your company.

For example, if you are buying a new computer for your office you may be inclined to buy the computer with the lowest price, but that computer will probably be equipped Windows 7 Home Edition which is fine if you are working alone. If a business with employees is in your plan Windows 7 Proffesional is a better choice. That version offers greater networking capability allowing you to connect your computers and share information more easily which is essential to a growing business.

What Is Your Technology Plan?

What are "Patches" and are they important to you.

We often see news reports of Microsoft and other software publishers releasing "Patches" or "Security Patches" for their software.

A few days ago in the news we saw, "Microsoft Fixes Eight Flaws In Excel", or yesterday "Microsoft warns of zero-day IE hole on Patch Tuesday." These can sound pretty scarry and you may be wondering what do these headlines mean and are they important to me?

Simply stated, a Patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems, software bugs.

A Security Patch specifically addresses fixing security vulnerabilities.

Patches can also include updates in functionality, changes is supporting data or help files and are intended to improve the usability or performance of your software. Practically all software publishers release patches, or what they call updates.


However, though patches are meant to fix problems, poorly designed patches can sometimes introduce new problems.  So what is the best way for you to deal with patches?

What is ERP? Not Wyatt?

When I see ERP I think of Wyatt Earp, don't ask me where that comes from. Maybe from watching too many cowboy shows on TV when I was young. While Wyatt Earp and ERP are not actually pronounced the same I see an analogy here.

Wyatt Earp is a legendary lawman of the turn of the 20th century back in the Wild American West. He was noted for his exploits and adventures and was one effective sheriff and entrepreneur. He got things done.

ERP on the other hand is short for Enterprise Resource Planning, the main type of software used for running businesses, small and large. The term and abbreviation was once pretty much reserved for high end tier one systems but now is applied to every thing, from QuickBooks and Peachtree on up to Accpac, MAS 90, 200, 500 or Dynamics.

ERP software should be an very effective sheriff for your business and help you get things done but often it is not. The problem is:

Contemplating Changes In Your Business?

As a business owner or manager you are no doubt contemplating changing the way you do business. You're wondering whether change is really necessary. I think the answer to that quesion is certainly yes for at least these three obvious reasons.

1. The economy of the United States, the entire world for that matter, has changed. we will never go back to the money traffic of the last decade.  That is not to say there are not plenty of opportunities for success and prosperity. In fact for many there will be greater opportunities than ever before.

2. We are now in what I call the post Web 2.0 era, a time of vast change. So rapid that, for many what was called Web 2.0 passed by without them ever knowing what it was. We are now in what some call the era of "Social Web",  "Network Culture" or "Mobile Web." Frankly, they have not really come up with a good name yet.  But what is happening as a result of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and their hundreds of offspring is nothing short of amazing. These mediums are taking business in directions we never conceived of before. It begins to be explained in this article, What's Next After Web 2.0? Here's What You Told Us... Also, the people  of Gen X,Y & Z are charting their own course, as a result the world of business has become a very different place. And don't forget Generation Alpha.

How Valuable is Technology Training for Your Employees?

I think we could all agree that, in theory, specific job related technology training should increase productivity and result in better business performance.

Yet, so many business who are ready to invest in new hardware, are willing to consider upgrades and better software seem reluctant to spend on employee training. I wonder why.

One reason is that business owners/managers are frustrated because many employees just don't feel they can learn, this translates into thinking that they just don't want to learn. It is unfortunate. But there are things you can do about this.

Another reason is that the training is over the head of those seeking to learn. The material is filled with jargon, starts at too high a level, or is just badly presented. Again this can be corrected.

Smart Phone Wars

The battle in the smart phone wars took a new turn this week as Apple, the creator of the iPhone, among many other great products, announced a major law suit against an exciting new innovator in the smart phone field HTC. Apple Starts ‘Nuclear War’ in Patent Fight With HTC

HTC has obviously struck a nerve with Apple with their great new and well priced phones. I think it is a shame that given the huge size of the smart phone market that Apple would seek to stifle competitive innovation in this way. Apple says they are just seeking to protect their intellectual property.

Nevertheless, experts say that this suit really has no impact on individuals and buyers interested or currently using HTC phones. Apple vs. HTC: What the experts say.

"A ruling that would call on HTC to kill the whole phone does seem highly unlikely, especially given the prominence of the companies involved." reports Nick Bilton in What Apple vs. HTC Could Mean


So if you like what you see in the new HTC phones using Google's Android operating system we think you are safe to buy one.

The Business Software Alphabet

The technology field has also been rife with acronyms like any sophisticated subject. Some are useful and communicate well others tend to confuse.

Here are some of the business technology acronyms you may need to know.

B2B, Business to Business, refers to activity of business selling to other business and the software systems that facilitate this process. I went on to a B2B web site to orders some widgets.

BI, Business Intelligence, software that transforms business data into useable information. My BI alerts help to act on problems quickly.

ERP, Enterprise Resource Planning, a software system that facilitates your business process across your entire enterprise. This ERP system by Sage is really great.

CRM, Customer Relationship Management, software systems that help you manage all aspects of customer development, service and retention. My sales reps are cautious about adopting this new CRM system.

EDI, Electronic Data Interchange, an electronic system for processing transactions with large companies electronically. We could not our orders from Costco today because our EDI was down.

SaaS, Software as a Service, SaaS is the abreviation for Software as a Service and is usually pronounced as Sass. Simply stated, SaaS works like this. You rent the software instead of buying. You run the software on the provider's server not your own.

VAR, Value Added Reseller, an IT company that sell software and hardware with services to provide a complete and valuable solution. Net@Work is a great VAR.

VIP, Very Important Person, what you are when your are a Net@Work client.

VOIP, Voice over IP, a very popular method of providing telephone/voice services over the internet. We are saving a lot of money with our new VOIP system.

Here is a great website that defines most acronyms www.acronymfinder.com/