Business?

Practical Technologies, Simple Business Ideas

Entries for December, 2008

Happy new years!

Happy new years all!  We at YourStrategy.com.au hope that 2009 exceeds 2008 in your personal goals as well as business goals.
Also, as i found out just recently (as in 2 hours ago) drinking a large percentage of a bottle of 16 yr old scotch isn’t advisable, regardless of the occasion.

Good Point

My boss brought up a good question today:
“Why do people hire commercial premises if they are going to open less than 7 days a week?”
This is a good point because all commercial premises only return as an investment if they are actually being used to conduct business, not when they are closed.  You pay the [...]

Trim the fat

We “trimmed the fat” out of our business about 6 months ago by:
- Automating several of our processes with open source software
- Redesigning our core computer system and business process so that people could work completely from home, eliminating the need for a commercial premises.
- Switching from regular land line telephones to several VoIP alternatives [...]

Hiring a Web Developer? Watch this …

If you are hiring a web developer, watch ze frank’s video on hiring a web developer below.

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I was a web developer for 5 years, so i can tell you (sadly) that the web developer stereotype he parodies in the video is fairly accurate in a lot of cases. Still very funny though.

Rule of Thumb #2

Do not guarantee something you are unsure about.
Many of the sales people we have hired at our business have found this a bit difficult. About 90% of these “unsure” guarantees come back to bite the company and the sales person, costing time and ultimately money to fix something that could have been easily avoided.
Before [...]

Rule of thumb

Fast, cheap, good. You can have any combination of two of these things, but very rarely all 3.
This is essential to keep in mind when outsourcing anything.

Oldie but a goodie

Here is Seth Godin’s Google talk “All Marketers are Liars”.  If you have a business or are a burgeoning marketer, I highly recommend watching this video.
 

 
If you like this video, why not read some of Seth’s books. I suggest starting with “Unleashing the Idea Virus”
 

… because we want it now!

People want stuff, and these days, people want stuff as fast as they can get it.
The TV industry is losing advertising revenue because people have discovered that you can download most TV programs from many places around the net at any time that is convenient for them.  You do not have to wait for your [...]

Save Money - Switch to VoIP!

We managed to save a lot of cash switching our phone lines to PennyTel VoIP.
They have great call rates (At the time of writing: 8c AUD flat rate local calls, 5c SMS and 10.5c per min AU mobiles), good tech support and their members area is easy to use (after a couple minutes exploration).
We set [...]

Constructive Criticism

YouTube has recently added contextual advertisements to some of their videos.  These ads appear at the bottom of video viewing window, a bit like (well, a lot like) typical Google Adsense style ads.
I love YouTube*.  Its great.  But these new advertisements really annoy me.  They pop up out of nowhere interrupting the thing you were [...]