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4 Steps To Increasing Customer Retention

By Errol Allen

This week’s article is by my long time friend and customer service guru Errol Allen.  Customer Service is the key to retain those hard gained customers. More about Errol:

Internationally known speaker, author and customer service expert Errol Allen provides practical advice and solutions garnered from over 25 years of hands – on experience. He possesses a multi-faceted perspective of organizations through the various positions held during his corporate tenure with companies such as ADT Security Systems, TCI Cablevision, The Houston Post, Excel Communications, e-talk and GEICO Insurance. From the phone to the field, Errol has serviced customers himself and  understands that a “systems” orientation is crucial to providing excellent customer service.

Continue reading “4 Steps To Increasing Customer Retention”

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The Stress Ninja!

By Shane Hennesey

This article is part of an ongoing series of guest posts by people I have found to be tops in their area of expertise. Todays article is by Shane Hennesey who is a licensed therapist and a practitioner of Buddhism and Buddhist meditation techniques. Stress has been my nemesis for most of my life. I worked exclusively for telecom startups back in the day and for 5 years owned my own telecom distribtorship! It was not unusual to be told “Welcome aboard. Here’s your desk. You have 90 days to prove yourself!”  Over the years stress took it’s toll on my mental and physical health. Shane has been very helpful in helping me overcome my companion “stress”

Listen to his podcast  MindfulX. Available on iTunes. Visit his website:www.risingtideslifecoaching.com

Entrepreneur Stress Optimization

We work for ourselves.

We are the boss.

We have stress.

There’s no getting around it.

What we do about it is where we can create gold for ourselves. Taking care of business in regards to our stress ripples out to everything we touch. The body reflects the head.

If your head is a mess, the business will be too.

Stress does not go away. It is part of our biological design. What we can do, is optimize it and our relationship to it. For that, I’m giving you 2 suggested practices, 1 bonus practice that will supercharge the first two and some app suggestions to help you along the way. In the instructional video, I will walk you through the details. Continue reading “The Stress Ninja!”

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Bananaaaa! (tag) Bananatag/Mailtag Email Tracking

Ever send an email and wonder if the person read it? Was your strategy dependent upon that email being read?  For example if they didn’t read it, or if they did read it and didn’t reply, time to move on. What if they read it immediately?  Whether an email is read or not and how long it takes to get a reply can be very important information for creating your strategy with that client.

Fortunately there are some very good options for email tracking. Bananatag, which works well with Gmail/G Suite, and Outlook and MailTag which is limited to Gmail/G Suite., are two options. Both offer a free version. Bananatag’s free version is limited to tracking 5 emails a day.  MailTag has a more powerful free version, and though it works well, the down side is a “Sent with MailTag” footer. Both options offer paid versions.

Continue reading “Bananaaaa! (tag) Bananatag/Mailtag Email Tracking”

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Do You Have Present Productivity?

 

 

By Marla Regan

Todays post is by Marla Regan. Organization is my biggest productivity struggle!
Marla Regan CCP, owner of Organized Time is a Productivity Specialist and Certified Family Manager ® Coach specializing in helping clients with their productivity in their home and office.
Do you have present productivity? When you are at work, do you take mental trips home or to school wondering if your child has everything they need for this day?  When you are at home, do you have your mind on work projects?  If your answer to either one of these questions is ‘yes, sometimes…well, most of the time’ then you do NOT have present productivity. Present productivity is when you can honestly be present on the project in front of you and not take a mental trip to ‘Elsewhere Land’. To avoid the distraction of the mental side trips we make, we need to consider the details of our day and that will include anyone we are responsible for including children, parents, friends, pets., etc.

Continue reading “Do You Have Present Productivity?”

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Cloud Accounting Service-FreshBooks

Invoicing, payment tracking, online payment acceptance, expenses, receipts, time tracking, projects, profit and loss reports and more all in in one easy to use                 application.   

Freshbooks is the all in one accounting system for small businesses and solopreneurs.  If QuickBooks is more than you need or too complicated FreshBooks could be the answer.  Every year at tax time email the reports generated by FreshBooks to your CPA and you are  done!

From the FreshBooks Dashboard you can at a glance view how much you are owed, your year to date profit, how much you are  spending and what you are spending on.  It’s an easy navigation from the dashboard to several in depth built in reports. Continue reading “Cloud Accounting Service-FreshBooks”

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Boxcryptor

This is the last of three posts about things we can do to keep our data and private information as safe as is possible in todays online environment.  Boxcryptor encrypts files that you  store in the cloud.  Whisp.ly encrypts your emails in transit. Boxcryptor not only encrypts your files so that they are illegible but protects encrypted files from Meltdown and Spectre! Boxcryptor is free for non commercial use which allows you to install Boxcryptor on 2 devices, upload to one cloud provider and has Whisp.ly integration.  There are two upgrades you can buy up to, Personal and Business.  Compared to the cost of  having your data or personal information stolen both are  extremely cost effective. In addition to all of the benefits of the free service Personal and Business allow you to connect to unlimited cloud providers, Boxcryptor supports 20, on an unlimited number of devices.  Business has group membership and management options as well as a higher priority for support.  Continue reading “Boxcryptor”

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Encryption Tools-Whisp.ly

Encryption
                   This guy is why!

This is the second article in the series on cyber security and what you can do to discourage “that guy” 

When you send your files as email attachments they go flying through cyberspace available to anyone savvy enough to reach out and grab them.  Most of us are not sending top secret files but we do sometimes send info that if intercepted could cause us and/or our clients a lot of distress. Ever send your 1099 or w2 as an attachment? Have you ever sent sensitive client info to an underwriter?  Insurance companies have very strict rules about how to send client information.  They require client information to be encrypted during transit.   Gmail/G Suite’s encryption is not enough.  There are numerous services that supply encryption for individual users. I will discuss the one I use, Whisp.ly. Continue reading “Encryption Tools-Whisp.ly”

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Be Safe! Use A VPN!

Public wifi hotspot/public wifi/coffee shop

Everyday it seems there is a new cyber security scare! Ransomeware, stolen identity, emails containing worms that allow nefarious types to highjack your email and use it to rip off your friends, as well as you. We are truly never completely safe online anymore. This is going to be the first of a series of posts with tips about what we can do to be as safe as possible in the cyber world. Continue reading “Be Safe! Use A VPN!”