7 Tips for Working with Slow Paying Customers

Labels: accounting, business, cash flow, small business tips

Management Skills: What Not to Say to Your Employees

Labels: business, human resources

Tips on Reading a Resume

Labels: business, human resources, small business tips

Employee Retention: 5 Tips for Reducing Workforce Turnover

You don’t need to be in business long to understand how costly employee turnover can be. Every time you have to go through the process of recruiting, interviewing, hiring and training it costs your business both time and money (if you want to know just how much, check out this online calculator). So how exactly do you locate and build a team of talented workers that will be loyal to your business and committed to the long haul? Here are a few tips and suggestions to help you reduce employee turnover.

Be selective. No matter how eager you are to fill that role, hiring the first candidate that waltzes through your door probably isn’t the best idea. It’s important to take your time and be thorough, from carefully wording your job listing to taking the time to read through cover letters and resumes to calling references. The more you do your homework, the better your chances of hiring the right person for the job.

Start on a trial basis. It’s completely acceptable in the business world to hire an employee for a specified trial period to see if the role is a good fit for both of you. Implement a time period, such as 90 days, during which you and the employee can get acquainted and his or her performance can be measured. This way you can avoid investing in someone who either isn’t a good fit or isn’t likely to stay.

Provide growth opportunity. While your new employee may be perfectly content with her job duties when she’s first hired, chances are she’ll eventually be looking for the opportunity to grow in her position. Most people don’t want to stay in the same role forever. By providing advancement opportunities for your employees, whether it’s added responsibility within their present role or promotions to new, more challenging positions, your team will be more loyal and more likely to stick around.

Offer flexibility. These days more and more businesses are beginning to offer their employees the option of working remotely or flexible hours. This has been shown to greatly increase employee morale, which directly relates to higher retention rates. Allowing your team to take turns working from home isn’t as complicated as it may seem, particularly with today’s technology. For instance, things like cloud computing and virtual phone systems help everyone to stay connected and on task, regardless of physical location.

Provide good benefits. This means much more than just traditional health, dental and retirement benefits. Employees want to feel valued and respected. Allowing for ample time off and providing other perks such as a weekly free lunch or employee discounts can make a huge difference when it comes to employee turnover. Be creative and think about what you would value if you were the employee. Remember, a team that is healthy and happy is likely to stay with you for the long haul.

To be truly successful in business you have to build a solid team of employees that share the common goal of doing the best they can to see your company thrive. By carefully seeking out and selecting the right candidates and then providing your workforce with a healthy and positive work environment, you’re much more likely to end up with a happy, loyal and focused team that will stick with you for the weeks, months and years to come.

Labels: business, small business, workforce

Synclio Goes International: New Website Launched in China

Exciting news out of the pipeline here at the Synclio HQ.

We have taken our first virtual step across international waters with the launch of a brand new Chinese website. This is part of a continuous effort to extend our awesome virtual PBX services to international communities just as we do to North American markets. We realize it takes different kinds of people to make the world go round (and not only because we happened to hear that song playing on the radio!)

So if you’re a proficient reader of ancient logograms, a curious cosmopolitan, or perhaps simply a Google robot (*wink wink*), we invite you to sail over to www.synclio.cn or http://www.synclio.com.cn/ and enjoy our little slice of the orient.

Feel free to start spreading the word around in any language you can master—sing it, swing it, ring it, ding it, clap it, snap it, yap it... whatever it takes to let your overseas friends know that Synclio's virtual PBX is coming soon into the language near them.

First step China—then, THE WORLD! (*evil laugh*)

One satisfied customer at a time!

Related Posts:

1. Synclio’s Virtual PBX Free Trial: First 14 Days or First 60 Minutes on us!
2. Synclio’s Youtube Channel Goes Live with a Brand New Video!
3. New Code_Swarm Video Depicts Synclio's Software Project Evolution To-Date
4. What’s ‘Your Business, Anywhere’ Anyway?
5. Anatomy of a Virtual Phone System: What’s in it, and why you need it?

Labels: business, china pbx, hosted pbx, international phone system, ip pbx china, synclio, telecommunications, telephony, virtual PBX, voip

Tips to Improve Voice and Video Call Quality on Skype, Google Voice, and Similar Services

Even the most enduring of cynics must recognize by now that Skype is much more than the cute little video gadget it started out as. With a full set of robust features and functionality that rivals major telecoms—perhaps even surpasses them when video conferencing is taken into account—it’s no wonder many professionals and entrepreneurs have already made it their telephony solution of choice.

What follows equally applies to other VoIP and video service providers, such as Google Voice, iChat, etc.

One thing that might keep more businesses from adopting a similar approach is concerns over consistency and reliability of service. If a home user can tolerate moderate interruptions while chatting with family or friends, a business owner certainly cannot—after all, a dropped call might mean the loss of a customer .

Luckily, by understanding the technology and following a few simple tips, you can eliminate interruptions and ensure the best possible experience for yourself and your clients.

Before we start, Yahoo News featured a great video demonstrating some of the concepts we’ll be discussing. If you’re the ‘seeing is believing’ type, you’ll definitely enjoy their presentation.

Voice quality

There are three common issues when it comes to voice quality: echo, background noise, and distortions (robotic sound/delays/drop-outs/etc)

Echo

Echo results when a microphone on one end of the conversation picks up unintended sounds from the other (such as the other person speaking) via the speakers. So the key to reducing or eliminating echo is ensuring your speakers aren’t ‘heard’ by your microphone. This can be done by bring down the volume, increasing the distance between the speakers and the microphone (at least 20 cm according to Skype’s website), or simply using a headset.

Background Noise

The cause of background noise if pretty self evident, and so is the first solution: try to find a quiet spot for conducting your call (don’t call from the humdrum of a busy downtown street and then complain about the noise). Next, if you have more than one microphone connected, such as your built-in mic and a dedicated headset mic, make sure Skype is using the best one (the headset mic in this scenario). You can check this by following Tools › Options › Audio settings.

Distortions

According to Skype, internet connection is the main reason for this class of problems. While there’s little you can do to increase your connection speed or bandwidth (short of taking matter up with your provider and upgrading your plan), you do have control over how your computer manages these resources. Do you have any streaming video/audio or downloads running while you’re making calls? These three are particularly heavy on bandwidth, so you may want to stop such operations before engaging with the other party.

Lastly, moving closer to your wireless router or plugging an Ethernet cable can improve your connection.

Video Quality

Several factors affect your video call quality. Some, like bandwidth, overlap with Voice quality, while others are particular to video.

Webcams

Not all webcams are created equally. And yet, while Skype recommends using ‘Skype Certified’ and ‘High Quality’ cameras, your setup and environment will have just as much effect on the final outcome, perhaps even greater. A mediocre camera can look good under the right conditions, just as a super-duper camera can perform very poorly under the wrong ones.

Note that you only have control over your own camera. If the person on the other side hasn’t got things figured out you can only instruct them—or better still, point them to this article ;)

Internet Connection

No matter how you slice it, video is a hungry beast and will eat up lots of bandwidth. What we’ve previously mentioned for voice calling applies here just as well—close any data-hungry applications to reduce your computer’s use of bandwidth. If needed, try plugging an Ethernet cable.

Skype recommends the following minimum internet speed for good video quality:

• Audio calls: 60kb/s

• Medium quality video calls: 256kb/s

• Higher quality video calls: 512kb/s

Computer Speed

A slow computer will have a hard time keeping up with video processing. Close any memory-intensive or processor-intensive applications if you’re experiencing problems. Laptops will tone down performance to conserve battery life when on power saving mode. Try switching to AC power or change the settings to maximize performance.

Skype recommends the following minimum system requirements to ensure good quality:

• Medium quality video calls: 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM, Windows XP or higher

• High quality video calls: Intel Core duo or faster, plus a Skype Certified High Quality Video webcam.

Lighting

Video is a visual medium, and there can be no vision without light. Make sure the space is well lit, and mind the direction light is falling from. A small source that’s very close by will throw heavy shadows. On the other hand, a larger source further away will be more diffused by the time it hits your face.

You especially want to avoid backlight, as it results in a silhouetted effect and no one likes talking to a shadow (well, perhaps except for that gal in the film with Alec Baldwin)

Compression

Video calling must deal not only with the nature of video, but also with the nature of internet streaming. The key word here is ‘compression’.

Since only so much data can travel down our virtual pipeline at any given time, and since both video and audio pack lots of data (not to mention the two together), data must be compressed. The software must pick and choose selectively what data must be kept to convey a coherent representation of the source, and what data can be discarded without detracting too much.

The way it’s done, in a sentence, is by flagging several frames each second as ‘key frames’ (how many would depend on the level of compression). These frames are kept intact with all their data. The software then analyzes every subsequent frame for changes against the key-frame. Data identified as changed is kept, while data identified as unchanged is discarded.

Fewer changes result in better compression, smaller packets, and ultimately higher video quality. In contrast, more changes are harder to compress and achieve the opposite result.

(For more info, check out this Video Compression Overview)

To put this into context, if you’re sitting at your desk with a stationary bookcase for a backdrop, the bookcase isn’t going anywhere, so the software can render most of the area once and use the same data thereafter. However, if you sat with a TV set behind you… you get the picture.

For best compression:

• Use stationary background and try to avoid objects moving behind you.

• Try to avoid intricate patterns (such as checkers, spirals, etc) on clothing or in the background, as these take harder to compression as well.

• Ensure plenty of light. Overexposure reduces detail in dark areas, making compression easier. Those details would probably be lost either way.

Conclusion

Keeping these things in mind will help you create an optimal environment and reduce interruptions to a minimum, so that you can enjoy the convenience and savings offered by virtual telephony without sacrificing any of your professional service and appeal.

Related Articles:

1. Use Synclio’s Virtual PBX with a Skype Number

2. Use Synclio’s Virtual PBX with Google Voice

3. Why Did Microsoft Buy Skype, and How Might it Affect Current Users?

Labels: background noise, business, call quality skype, distortions, echo, google voice, ichat, improve skype, improving skype call quality, skype improve video quality, voice quality, webcam

Do You Have a Solid Business Model or are You Building Your Castle in the Air?

It can be tempting to think that you’ve got it all figured out; that your business is ticking like a Swiss clock, or that your new idea is the best thing since sliced bread. Falling in love comes naturally to us humans. But as in Shakespeare, so in business, love has a way of distorting proportions. That’s why we must be careful when flirting with muse and hold up a mirror once in a while to make sure that we’re not being misled.

While many factors contribute to the value of your business model, the bottom line is your bottom line: Profit.

This Doesn’t Apply To Me

Before we start, you know what they say: evasion is often the first sign of a problem.

No human being is infallible or omniscient. We all have something we could learn, and any one of us is capable of error.

If you think you’re out of the woods simply because you’ve managed to secure funding or go into operation and it’s only the young and the inexperienced that fall prey to elementary mistakes—think again.

One needs look no further than Pandora's tell of woe for an example. Here’s a company that’s been around for some 10 years, whose earnings and operations run up millions of dollars, who’s got a great service everyone has raved about at one point or another...and yet, who still hasn’t made it out because they cannot become profitable (more on this later).

It’s not an isolated case either. Recent history is full of companies that went up and under, all the way back to the dot com bubble. So it never hurts to re-examine your math. A reality check now can save a lot of heartache later.

One Golden Rule: Profit is Fundamental

People can go into business for various reasons: thirst for challenge, need for a diversion, scratch an itch, or simply to put the kids through college. These are all equally valid from a personal standpoint. But economically, a business can only have one purpose: to turn in a profit. Anything else, by definition, is not a business.

Investors’ money will do you no good if, at the end of the day, all you can do is spend it. The term ‘investment’ presupposes a return, as distinguished from a ‘charitable donation’.

So look carefully at your business model and ask yourself how it’s going to be monetized. Make sure that your strategy is viable. The best idea or innovative service will be worthless if you can’t make it profitable.

Take Groupon and the social buying concept. It sounds like a great idea on the face of it, but the numbers tell a different story. Sure, some such ‘new ideas’ can generate enough hype and sell for millions of dollars even without having the right foundation—fulfilling their originator's dreams of early retirement—but that sort of scheme always depends on a ‘greater fool’ to come around.

If your goal is to build a long-term sustainable business that would bring real value rather than start passing a hot potato around, you can’t do it without profit.

This might sound elementary—but it’s been the breaking of many enterprises, large and small.

There is no ‘New Economy’ where the old rules no longer apply

This comes up time and again in different manifestations. The basic idea is that some new technology comes around, or a new environment is created, and people start thinking that all previous knowledge is irrelevant. But that’s just typical pragmatism.

Fundamentals are Fundamental. They do not change with new fads any more than the laws of physics alter when you adopt a different style of architecture.

What held true in the past will hold true today—otherwise, that knowledge isn't fundamental.

For an example of this today, look at the App Store Gold rush. Here’s what author and independent telecom consultant Tomi T. Ahonen had to say about it in his blog:

"The free apps hysteria is totally a repeat of the previous tech bubble, the dot-com bust of year 2000-2001. Suspending all market realism, believing that magical billion download numbers of free content somehow have created an alternate economy where normal rules do not apply."

It’s easy to fall into this trap, especially with pressures mounting all around to stay relevant and get noticed in our increasingly virtual world. But unfortunately the first thing out the window in this case is profit.

Growth CANNOT Substitute Profit

The notion that ‘Growth’ can substitute Profit was particularly popularized during the dot com bubble, and still persists today.

Back then, as the internet grew popular and online presence peaked—a new objective emerged: to garner new users. Companies came up with dozens of free schemes, products, and services aimed at attracting new customers, with not a thought given to how this mass of users will be converted into a profitable bottom-line. The implicit idea was that, once users have been accumulated, profit would somehow magically appear (not unlike the half-naked Indian in the movie ‘Wayne’s World’ saying ‘If you book them, they will come’—perhaps just as hallucinatory)

Today, with the popularity of social platforms and the heavy investment in online marketing, it’s perhaps more important than ever to keep this in mind. Sure, you want to have presence and get noticed—but not if it's going to cost you your arms and legs!

This is not to say that building a strong base of dedicated users can’t be a powerful auxiliary on your way to realizing wealth, only that you must have a clear idea of how you’ll manage the conversion.

Earnings vs. profit

It’s also easy to get lost in figures. In order to really evaluate the health of your business, it’s not enough only to look at your earnings. It’s important that you factor in all your costs and expenses to ensure your bottom line remains profitable. In fact, not only profitable, but profitable enough to realize your long term personal and business goals.

If you look at Pandora, their business model did account for revenue streams by incorporating ads into free accounts and offering ad-free premium accounts. But, according to SoundExchange spokeswoman Laurie Anderson as quoted on Cnet, they miscalculated the ratio of the revenue generated by this scheme to their operating costs (primarily the per-spin copyright license fees), and failed to make growth count. That is, to translate ‘more users’ into ‘more revenue’. This suggests a flaw with their initial business model.

Conclusion

So whether you’ve just began exploring a new idea or already headlong into running your new venture, it’s never too late or too early to re-evaluate your plan. Just like a navigator keeps consulting his charts with an eye on the horizon, so you'd be wise to do keep rechecking your course if you're to arrive at your desired destination.

Did you account for viable revenue streams? Are they enough to get you profitable? Did you get caught up in the rush to subscribe new users and forgot to cover your own bases?

These are just a few of the questions that can help you stay on course.

If there’s one thing history has taught us is that it tends to repeat itself, and perhaps the fact that it does means some of us can’t learn even that. But you can avoid this vicious cycle by simply learning from the past.

Good luck!

Related Posts:

1. Mobile App vs. Mobile Web: Which is Right for Your Business?

Labels: app store, business, business model innovation, creating a business model, groupon, growth vs profit, hosted pbx, pandora, profit, solid business model, virtual PBX

Mobile App vs. Mobile Web: Which is Right for Your Business?

Many business owners must’ve scratched their heads to a premature bald spot considering this question—and with good reason: there are an estimated 5.3 BILLION mobile subscribers worldwide (77% of the world’s population), with smartphone sales exploding. That’s a big audience, and who wouldn’t want in on such action?

The promise increases when we hear stories of basement developers who have struck gold overnight in the app store gold-mine, and the pressure escalates still when, looking around, it seems that everyone is coming out with a cool new app.

But the question remains—do YOU need one?

First, a few basic questions

There are different ways to reach the new mobile frontier, so it’s important to ask a few preliminary questions before you set out.

In an interview with silicon.com, principal analyst at Forrester, Ian Fogg, suggested starting by taking a hard look at your clients and asking yourself:

1. How many of them are using smartphones?

2. How likely are they to use them for your service?

For instance, say you own a local bakery. It might seem like a cool idea to get a nifty little app that would let people run a finger through your menu and place orders—but these things can just as easily be done over the phone or through your website (more on that later).

Even if most of your clients use smartphones, it’s not very likely they’ll go out of their way to use your app, or that it would greatly enhance their experience if they did. Contrast this with an interactive service that can benefit from the enhanced integration with phone features, and you start seeing the difference.

Don’t go about it backwards

Next, you need to identify your objective, needs, and the available options. It’s been said time and again that an app represents a mobile tactic, not a mobile strategy. Tactic is a specific course of action aimed at achieving a given end. It comes at the culmination of a strategic process. But to formulate a solution, one must first articulate the problem. That’s where the following questions come in handy:

1. What do you hope to achieve by going mobile?

2. Who are your customers? What are their habits, social/financial standing, computer literacy, etc?

3. What will the app offer clients? How will it enhance their experience?

4. What available solutions can help you achieve that?

Your Options

Once you’ve answered the first three questions you'll be ready to assess your options. The three commonly available means of reaching a mobile audience are:

1. SMS/MMS

2. Mobile Website

3. Mobile Apps

SMS and MMS are geared at people who communicate predominantly (if not solely) via text messaging, either because they do not own a smartphone and/or data-plan, or because they prefer it that way. If that’s your audience, you might very well have to look no further.

But since we’re writing primarily for the data-hungry North American audience, we’ll assume you have your sights on a more feature-rich experience and focus on the last two.

The Financial Post featured a one-page brochure designed by Buy Sell Ads Inc. that did a great job of pinning them against one another in a visually simple and concise manner.

Mobile Apps

Mobile apps are all the rage now. Popularized by Apple’s iPhone and App Store, who’ve since become the poster-child for Mobile Apps in general (even though many other players—from manufacturers like Samsung, Nokia, and HTC; to alternate platforms like Google’s Android and Windows 7—hold a significantly larger market share)

As outlined by Aaron Maxwell at Mashable, Apps fall into two categories:

1. Apps built for revenue generation (i.e. the App is your business)

2. Apps created as a marketing tactic, to improve branding, or to provide a service. (i.e. the App promotes or enhances your business)

In the first case the app is sold and the revenue makes up your pay check.

In the second, apps are usually offered for free download, as the goal is to maximize market penetration.

Since this article assumes you are a business owner thinking of branching into mobile rather than a developer venturing to join the App Store gold-rush, we'll limit the discussion to the latter.

For the first, we’ll just say that—unless you have a truly fresh concept that’s relevant and needed, or unless you require the specific technology (GPS, motion sensors, etc) to realize your vision—you may find hitting gold much harder than it sounds. At the very least, read Tomi T. Ahonen’s excellent analysis of the subject before you take up your pickaxe—or worse, start committing capital. It may be a year old, but it’s still very relevant.

Pros:

• Use more robust and engaging graphics

• Incorporate unique phone features (such as GPS, motions sensors, etc)

• Native phone environment enables faster response time and overall an enhanced feature-rich experience.

Cons:

• Expensive: $15,000 - $35,000 (for iPhone) + updates & maintenance

• Different platforms require separate apps

• Exclusive: Picking one audience means shunning another, unless you develop an app for every platform.

The strength of mobile apps is that they reside on the phone and can therefore offer a level of performance and interactivity a mobile website simply cannot match. However, this comes at a price—a steep one. So make sure you really need the advantage of those benefits before marching ahead.

As mentioned in the Buy Sell Ads brochure, an app can only serve three purposes: utility, content, or entertainment. Of the three, utility and entertainment are worthy candidates that can indeed benefit from the added features, but content can almost always be enjoyed just as well from a mobile website. (As a case in point, most big newspapers offer both mobile apps and mobile websites, and while I’ve downloaded the respective mobile apps on my iPhone 4, I find that I'm still more likely to use the mobile site than launch the app)

Further, with an app you target a niche audience that represent a mere fraction of all mobile users. In 2010, the 80 Million or so iPhones in use represented a mere 13% of all installed smartphones. This means that, if you designed an app for the iPhone, you automatically excluded 87% of the worldwide market (97% when considering featurephones and SMS/MMS capable devices in addition to smartphones) [Source]

Now, it may be that the audience for your particular product or service happens to favor the iPhone. With that knowledge, making an exclusive iPhone app can be perfectly sensible. But that’s why knowing your audience and formulating a strategy is so crucial.

You could, of course, create a dedicated app for every platform—but that can run into prohibitive costs (as much as $100,000 and upwards), so again, just be sure you’re prepared and know ahead of time what you’re getting yourself into. The last thing you want is to start a development project that will never see it to completion (that's more in the vein of City hall)

That said, here are a few more reasons you might decide to opt for an App:

• You or your team members have the skills to develop a professional app. This can certainly cut your costs and make it a worthwhile effort.

• Your customers have expressed the desire to have one (this at least warrants some consideration).

• You’re big enough so that it will be noticed if you don’t have one.

• You want to be perceived in a certain way (just make sure you can afford the impression)

Mobile Websites

A mobile website is a streamlined version of your regular sites, specifically designed with mobile use in mind.

Pros:

• Cheaper to develop: ~$3,000

• Usable across platforms

• More than adequate for most content based use

Cons:

• Limited features and graphics

• Can run a bit slower than an app

• Depends on web connectivity

A mobile website is an excellent alternative to apps in many cases. By all accounts, while individual figures vary, mobile websites are significantly cheaper to develop—but even assuming the cost of initial development would equal that of a mobile app, just the fact that it's accessible by all platforms makes it a far more affordable choice down the road.

In some cases, if your service requires special features or interactivity, a mobile site might not do—but be sure that you really do need those features.

In the quoted blog, Tomi T. Ahonen suggested you start from the broad market, and proceed to zero in as needed. That is, start with a mobile web app to reach the widest audience for a relatively low investment, and then develop dedicated apps to target specific platforms if deemed necessary.

This certainly sounds like a sensible approach.

Build your own using do-it-yourself tools

Lastly, if you’re the owner of that local bakery we mentioned at the beginning and find it makes no economical sense for you to have a dedicated app professionally developed, you might still feel an itch to test the water. That’s where tools like AppMakr ($199 according to Cnet, though the website says Free so the terms may have changed since the 2010 review), My App Builder ($29/month), or iBuildApp (Free!) can come in handy.

These products basically let’s you choose from several templates and incorporate different features. The good part is that they require no programming skills and no (or very little) capital investment. The not-so-good part is that reviewers are not always raving, and you should obviously manage your expectations (don't set yourself to failure by thinking you'll end up with a state-of-the-art ultra-sophisticated virtual gadget—this is more for the 'simple and functional' approach)

But still, if you wanted to try building an app by yourself without risking your pants—this definitely can’t hurt. At the very least it would help test the demand—and if things pick up, you'll always be able to into professional development.

Check out this post from dailywireless.org for a great rundown of app building tools with summaries and videos.

Conclusion

So while the decision would ultimately depend on your individual circumstances, you definitely shouldn't jump on the mobile app bandwagon simply because everyone seems to do it, or because it’s cool, or because you feel like you have to...

Do your research, ask questions, come up with answer, and formulate your strategy.

If you still find at the end that app is the way to go—by all means, go ahead and develop one. If you find that your goals can be achieved with a mobile site or that you needn’t really go mobile at all, you might just save yourself a hunk of change.

It's understandable that you want to keep your business on the cutting edge—just keep in mind that those plastering the poster boys are in business too so you don't fall easy prey to marketers.

Labels: android, AppMakr, business, google, iBuildApp, iPhone, mobile, mobile app or mobile web, mobile app or mobile website, mobile app vs mobile web, mobile app vs mobile website, My App Builder