Small Business Owners Utilize New Tools to Stay Profitable

Small business owners look to stay competitive by acting quickly to utilize new tools. Many recent business tools are available to help increase productivitiy and create the perception of a larger support network.

(PRWEB) March 24, 2005 -- While Wal-Mart and other large corporations have the upper hand in price negotiation with manufacturers don't count out small business. The ability to act quickly in innovative ways will keep small business owners competitive if they are willing to take advantage of new business tools that can increase productivity and create the perception of a larger support network.

That's what Mike Perkins from Auto Glass Express in Seattle WA did when he set up a company website to try and draw in new customers.

I originally thought my website www.freewindshields.com, would have customers coming to me in droves and I do have new customers find me through my website." But what really happened was I learned the value to the customer of being able to access information about my company at any time."

That value increased when he added a windshield price engine from www.autoglasshosting.net.

"My employees began having more time freed up from the phone as we saw customers who wanted to check prices and schedule windshield replacement jobs online, said Perkins." This was a group I didn't see much before." They don't want to call or come to a storefront, they want to do it all online and I now offer the exact service they are looking for."

Scott Barnett from Walla Walla, WA didn't need a website. He already had a number of his own in addition to the ones he manages for clients. Barnett, the owner of Xtend Computer Services (www.xtendcs.com) and Xpert SEO(www.wallawallainfo.com) needed to re-evaluate the semi-local traveling that he did on a regular basis.

I have a number of clients with offices 30 to 90 minutes away from me, said Barnett." Trying to demonstrate search engine strategies and applications over the phone can be a less than satisfying experience." My clients pay me well to make sure they are ranking highly within Google, Yahoo and MSN." They deserve personalized attention and explanations from me." Unfortunately, traveling to a client 45 minutes both ways in addition to the time spent in their office can easily eat up half my day." It isn't an effective use of my time."

Barnett did some research and quickly found an online resource that was the answer to his problem www.gotomeeting.com.

Gotomeeting (www.tkqlhce.com/click-1677278-10362941)made me more productive," says Barnett, period." For a very modest price I was able to have an unlimited number of meetings online with my clients." I can do online presentations that allow both of us to interact with the same screen of information at the same time often eliminating the need to jump in a car." An unexpected bonus has been that many of my clients prefer our online meetings since I can often demonstrate an answer for them immediately rather than needing to schedule a time when I could be on site."

Fred Tetz has a freelance media company in Portland, Oregon that specializes in communication media for print, video and website. Even though his focus is communication this was the very area that was making him want to tear his hair out.

The whole issue of working with clients and being available to them was ruining my life", said Tetz. I am away from my office quite regularly and would have to consistently offer people two or three phone numbers so that they could reach me." I tried routing all of my calls to a cell phone but that didn't work well for a variety of reasons, chief being I often have to be in a studio where cell phone reception is really non-existent."

Knowing he needed to make a change but not wanting to take the step of hiring an assistant to deal with the issue he was delighted to find CallWave (www.tkqlhce.com/click-1606730-10368383). CallWave allowed Tetz to have a dedicated business phone number but to answer it anywhere he needed too.

Suddenly if I needed to head to the studio I could simply re-direct my business number to the studio line and not miss anything." If I knew I would be out on a video shoot I could answer the line on my cell phone so I wouldn't miss an important call back at the office." Most importantly this is seamless for my clients." They are able to reach me without calling several numbers to track me down." The difference in percieved professionalism was huge!" Back at the office I can also hear and screen calls going to voicemail using my PC". While on a deadline when a call comes in I can determine if I need to answer right then or can get back to the client the next day without losing valuable time."

Tetz admits he was skeptical of the service since it seemed, too good to be true" but CallWave offered a free no risk trial of the service and after just a few days he was sold.

This article is an example of information that will be available free of charge to small businesses on the soon-to-be-released smallbusiness-resource.com website.

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