Archive for the ‘Entrepreneurship Tools’ Category
Monday, March 8, 2010 | Written by Jacob Dearolph
Posted under: Entrepreneurship Tools |
Tags: Constant Contact, Email Marketing, Marketing |
1 Comment
We have just completed a round of email marketing and the results are undeniably good. Our metrics to our blog and homepage (www.TheEntreprneurSchool.com) have strongly increased and we have received great feedback from our customers.Simply put email marketing is a very powerful tool and needs to be apart of your marketing strategy as a small business. Listed below are blogs that comprise a series done on Constant Contact, our chosen tool for email marketing.
Note that we are in no way affiliated with Constant Contact and receive no kickbacks or discounts from them. We see them as offering a great product that meets our needs.
Email Marketing with Constant Contact Series:
Email Management and E-Letters
Tags: Constant Contact, Email Marketing, Marketing | Posted under Entrepreneurship Tools | 1 Comment
Monday, February 15, 2010 | Written by Erik Rostad
Posted under: Consulting, Entrepreneurship Tools |
Tags: consultant, contractors, entrepreneurship, freelancing |
1 Comment
Last week, the Wall Street Journal had a report on the shifting job force. It is now estimated that 20 – 23% of the USA workforce work as free agents, contractors, consultants, or freelancers. This is quite a shift from the traditional 9-5 company job. One out of every 4 people in the USA are working for themselves!
The WSJ described some important mindset changes needed for former employees that become freelancers.
1. You may be freelancing for a long time.
It’s not a guarantee that companies will be hiring back soon. It’s better to look at your situation as a long-term option of freelancing instead of trying to get one freelancing client to hold you over until you get hired back by the man.
2. Don’t do this all by yourself. Network.
One misconception I had about entrepreneurs before I started working for myself was that they do everything by themselves. When my entrepreneurial mentor hired me to work for him, I saw that he had an entire network of people he called for any number of questions. He wasn’t the lone ranger. With 20 – 23% of the workforce in your same shoes, you need to network and meet people with complimentary businesses, or the same type of business to get answers to questions.
3. Get some work space.
This could be in your home or away from your home. You need a place to get away. When I was a single guy, I worked from home and I was productive. When I got married, that became impossible. So I found a great deal on shared office space that is 5 blocks from where I live. I don’t need a car and I’m able to have my separate work space.
4. You must adopt an entrepreneurial mentality.
Write a business plan for yourself. How many clients do you need a month to support your family? What do you need to do to get those clients? What type of marketing could you do to get the results you need? How much start-up capital do you need to get this going?
The next question is what to do as a freelancer. What should you consult others about? What did you do in your corporate job? Can you offer that same service to other companies? Or, do you have a particular passion that you could turn into an income stream?
The Entrepreneur School is specially set up to help you start the process of starting your own business. We have the first module available for free where the first question we tackle is “Why be an Entrepreneur?” Click here to access these first set of videos.
Tags: consultant, contractors, entrepreneurship, freelancing | Posted under Consulting, Entrepreneurship Tools | 1 Comment
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 | Written by Erik Rostad
Posted under: Entrepreneurship Tools, General Thoughts |
Tags: automatic email invoices, time saving tools for the entrepreneur, vowcher |
No Comments
I have a business set up where I have monthly maintenance agreements set up with a number of my clients. On the 1st of each month, I go into Microsoft Word, create and invoice, save it as a PDF, email my client, and wait for the check. I do this for each client. As I add more clients, this has become a task that has consumed more and more time.
I began looking for a solution that would automatically send invoices by email to my clients on the first of each month. I found a service called Vowcher that does just that for a very nominal fee. For just $0.05 an email, Vowcher will send an email invoice to your clients on the date specified. You just set up the invoice once, and they will send the email out automatically. I purchased 100 credits (100 emails) for $5.60. That’s $0.05 per email and a $0.60 credit card transaction fee for payment. Very cheap to save a considerable amount of time.
This service is very nice for property owners collecting rent, for service providers collecting maintenance fees, or basically anyone collecting a monthly fee from your clients. If you no longer want to take the time to create invoice reminders each month, then I would recommend Vowcher to all Entrepreneurs looking to save some time at a very nominal cost.
The Entrepreneur School is in no way affiliated with Vowcher and will not receive any compensation from this blog posting.
Tags: automatic email invoices, time saving tools for the entrepreneur, vowcher | Posted under Entrepreneurship Tools, General Thoughts | No Comments
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 | Written by Jacob Dearolph
Posted under: Entrepreneurship Tools |
Tags: Address Book, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Mac, OS X, Phone, Skype, Snow Leopard, VOIP |
6 Comments
I’ve blogged about Skype before (see link to my blog) and had an interesting conversation with an entrepreneur about his experience with Skype. I use Skype a great deal and have since I have been on my own now for about a year. It’s cheap, easy, and a great addition to my phone setup. One of the things I like about Skype is the ability to dial out of my Address Book. Great functionality. That is until today.
I recently had to redo my entire computer and int he process I put in a new hard drive and upgraded to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. (Quick aside: after a brief stint with Windows 7 I would say hands down that Mac’s operating system is superior). In the process upgrading my computer my Skype Dial Out of Address Book function stopped working. Unfortunately, no IT guy to talk to so I googled: “Address book dial with Skype” I found a few helpful links. The most helpful link I found is a Macosxhints.com article form July 2006. I immediately wrote it off because it was from July 2006. I thought 3.5 years is past the statute of limitations on online blog help. I was wrong. It proved to be the easiest and quickest solution.
I’m blogging on it because I want to let people know that according to my own experience the directions work well (despite being from 2006). We aren’t a Technology or Mac blog but when I come across helpful solutions I like to let our readers know as they or others may have similar problems that I encounter as I run my business.
So if you are having this problem:
- Go to this site: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060718114236477
- Don’t worry about the code looking stuff at the top – you’ll just copy and paste that into AppleScript Editor.
- To open AppleScript Editor use the Spotlight and type it in
- Just paste the code into it
- Save it some place where you can find it
- Make sure to quit out of Address book before the next step
- You will move this script file into the Address Book Plug-ins folder found at the following Finder path
- Users->yourusername ->Library -> Address Book Plug-ins
- Open Address book back up – your dial out of skype should now appear when you click the number
Another Link I came across is a thread on Skype’s board: http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=436051; the dates are more recent and thus I was able to validate that the 2006 blog post worked. Someone poses a solution on switching to 64 big Snow Leopard and someone else poses a few files to download and place in the Library files. I believe these are just the scripts. The 64 bit thing gets a little complicated and their are warnings that basically told me it was over my head.
Hope this helps. Also, if you have any helpful hints for computers, phones, or anything that may impact an Entrepreneurs world please feel free to post here or shoot us an email. We exist to serve entrepreneurs and business owners.
Tags: Address Book, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Mac, OS X, Phone, Skype, Snow Leopard, VOIP | Posted under Entrepreneurship Tools | 6 Comments
