Image Credit: www.empowerwomennow.com

Hello Women Entrepreneurs!

Yahoo! Small Business has launched a contest for women entrepreneurs. It’s called Seeds for Success: Empowering Women Entrepreneurs. They are doing this to empower women who own businesses. They recognize that there are 10.4 million women-owned businesses AND that women own 41% of small businesses in the U.S.

They are offering a cash prize of $20,000 (a business grant!), mentoring by women business leaders, a website designed by experts, promotional attention from Yahoo! to drive attention to your business, and free Yahoo! web hosting for two years. Yahoo! Small Business will track the success rates of the finalists, and at the end of the competition, the winner who made the most progress wins an additional $10,000.

The contest ends on April 6, so hurry up and register now! It’s easy and doesn’t look like it’ll take more than a few minutes to fill out the information.

Go for it!

You are researching to start a business or perhaps already have a business up and running. Either way, you are looking to better serve your customers by telephone and add an extra level of professional service. Finding the best deal on toll free numbers can be a time consuming task and cost you a lot of money in the long run if you don’t do your homework correctly. I’ve been in the same position and researched several companies.

Check out some of the information I have gathered:

1. AT&T.
They offer a toll free number for $2.95/month. You can choose whatever vanity number you want, as long as it’s available. AT&T connects this number to your pre-existing line, provided you already have their long distance plan (or you have to upgrade). The rates for incoming calls: 10¢/minute from the US and 50¢/minute from Canada. If someone calls you from a phone booth: 60¢ fee plus 10¢/minute. The calls will ring on your home phone line, but the caller id won’t let know if they are calling you from the toll free number or your home phone. Outgoing calls are charged just as they would be on your long distance plan.

AT&T seems like an okay option for friends and family to call long-distance for free, but it does not seem like a viable business option that will meet the needs of my growing business. I want a separate voicemail and menu system for customers. I don’t want customers leaving messages on my home voicemail. I also don’t want to spend the money to upgrade to a long-distance plan because I use my cell phone for long distance calls.

2. Toll Free Forwarding.
This company offers you a toll free number forwarded to your telephone for $10/month. This includes 127 minutes when calls are forwarded to a phone in the US. They charge 7.9¢/minute for additional call time. Toll Free Forwarding also offers a free 10-day trial, so it wouldn’t hurt to try and see what they have to offer.

Toll Free Forwarding is essentially the same price as Ring Central, but for the same price you will get 27 minutes more per month here. It does not appear as though they have upgraded packages beyond $10/month. This means that if my company continues to grow, I’ll be paying almost 8¢ minute for every minute over 127. I think I’d rather have the option of upgrading.

3. Ring Central.
Ring Central offers a lot for $10/month compared with the other two companies listed above. What does $10/month get you at Ring Central?

-100 minutes (6.7¢/minute for additional minutes)
-Virtual PBX with 5 extentions (create your own departments such as sales or customer services to send calls)
-Toll free or local number (you can get vanity numbers!)
-Internet fax
-Voicemail
-Music/Messages on hold
-Call forwarding
-Call screening
-Real time call controller
-Message alerts
-RingMe: click-to-call me
-RingOut: click-to-call out
-Answering rules (This is basically the control board. You decide how, when, and what calls to take.

With Ring Central, you don’t necessarily have to be working from your computer all the time because they allow you to forward calls to your home phone or cell phone. Faxes can also go directly to your inbox or PDA.

Ring Central allows you to try their services for free. The real downside to the company is that they charge $14.99/month if you don’t want to sign a contract. Toll Free Forwarding is better in this aspect. If you are not sure about a year-long commitment, you have to go month-by-month for $14.99 and that’s not very nice of them.

After searching far and wide, a friend recommended this company and promised they have the best deal around. She was right, as a small business owner, Ring Central meets and exceeds my needs for the bargain price of ten dollars a month. It’s professional and I like the fact that nobody has to know you are a one-woman business. By now, you are probably thinking: how much is Ring Central paying her for this review? They are not paying me a penny. I just think the Ring Central setup and price is so great (except the $14.99 with no contract), I had to share! With a free trial and no long-term commitments necessary, it is worth a try. Ring Central gives you more control of everything and other companies could not offer the same amount of flexibility and services.

Let me know if you know of any other great companies out there offering excellent services.

Best of luck,
Entrepreneur Goddess

Spring has (almost) sprung! It’s time for some small business spring cleaning and organizing! It’s always a good idea, even for the most disorganized of business owners, to do some heavy- duty office cleaning and organizing at few times a year. You’ll not only be more organized, but feel better. Working from a well-organized and newly cleaned office is like being gifted a whole new work area!

Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be a huge one-day undertaking if you don’t want it to be. Actually if you have a lot of catching up to do, I recommend dividing your office into zones and committing yourself to a zone per day for one week. That way, you can do a quality job on each task.

We’ll start from the inside and work our way out.

Here are the zones:

Zone 1: Insides
Insides include drawers, files, closets, boxes, and anything else you might have hidden away. Time to pull out your files and refile/rename folders (i.e. some files can now be moved to a collective “2007” file) or destroy documents you no longer need. Go through drawer junk and only save what you absolutely need. You might be amazed at how many things you can throw away and how many pens you never knew you had!

Zone 2: Surfaces
Surfaces include desktops, shelves, and any other surface you can think of . Reorganize books, go through papers and file or throw away. Find a permanent home for homeless objects.

Zone 3: Electronics
Electronic items could include computers, PDAs, phones, printers, scanners, faxes. Take some time to organize your computer files, update software/anti-virus, organize your email, and backup your files. Make sure printers, scanners, and faxes are in working order, clean, and have sufficient ink in the cartridges.

Zone 4: Floors
Clear anything off the floor that does not belong. Find homes for things and papers that should not be on the floor.

Zone 5: Scrub-a-dub-dub Everything
Now that you’ve organized the innards, surfaces, electronics, and floor of your office…it’s time to dust away the winter grime, disinfect the winter germs goodbye, vacuum, and mop away the winter blues. Welcome to spring!