How to support small business during the holidays
November 28, 2008 by entrepreneurgoddess
Filed under EG
- Host a holiday shopping extravaganza in your home. Shopping doesn’t have to be a stressful task, so make it fun by inviting your friends to check out products made by your other friends. Sisterhood, wine, and laughter will add to the ambience of the holidays and make for a fun holiday tradition.
- Organize a private after-hours shopping spree. Ask your friend if she’ll open her store to you and a few close friends for an after-hours party. Invest in some bubbly and your business owner friend will love you forever.
Bargain Deal:
Three short layers of earth tone abalone shells and faux pearls. Beautiful for work or play! Includes matching earrings. $28 retail value. $ 10.00
For glamorous jewelry… Moxxie Jewelry owner, Nicole Rawson, is a savvy entrepreneur who has worked hard to build Moxxie into the hot brand it is today. Now anyone can buy jewelry from Nicole at her new online store ShopMoxxie.
For environmentally friendly cards…Sewgracious at Etsy sells mini fabric wallets ideal for gift cards, credit cards, small greeting cards, lip balm, or a cell phone. Both handmade and environmentally friendly.
On Amazon.com…support small business owners selling their products. Pompilates is a great example of the small people doing business on Amazon.com.
In addition to shopping small business this holiday season, remember to shop for your VALUES. Examples: environmentally friendly, support a cause, etc.
Review: Epson Workforce 600
November 20, 2008 by Katie Skow
Filed under Biz
Design:
Forget buying and finding space for a scanner, a fax machine, a copy machine, and a laser printer. Although these are all necessary elements for every small business, they take up too much space, cost a lot of money, and create waste.
Epson has created a very compact all-in-one machine that takes care of all these things minus the wires thanks to the Wi-Fi capability of the Workforce 600. This printer takes up just as much space on my desk as my older (and less capable) 3-in-1. For all that it can accomplish, it’s an amazingly compact size.
Weight: 18.3 lbs. Dimensions: 18.2” x 13.6” x 9.3” (W x D x H)
Key design features:
- 2.5” tilt LCD to view, edit and print images with our without a computer
- Built in multipurpose memory card slots to easily transfer files and quick PC-free photo printing
Setup:
This part is probably a minor annoyance, but fortunately something you will have to do only once. It took me close to two hours of troubleshooting to get my Apple computer hooked up to the printer via WiFi. Our Dell seemed to sync much faster and only took about 45 minutes to go through the whole process, troubleshooting included.
Now that I’ve put that out there, I will say it was well worth the results. Wireless is truly the way to go. With two laptops and one printer for the home office, it was a constant battle of unhooking all the external stuff to carry the laptop over to the printer only to wait a few minutes for a simple word document to be printed.
Interface and Compatibility:
- Windows: Vista, XP, XP Professional x64, 2000
- Macintosh: OS X 10.3.9, 10.4.9, 10.5.x
- Hi-speed USB 2.0
- Wireless 802.11 b/g, compatible with 802.11n
- Ethernet 10/100
Printer:
600 prints most documents faster than it takes to get up and walk to the printer.
Picture: photo layout feature
The quality of photo printing rivals many professional outlets, including photo kiosks at drug stores and chain retailers. Printing photos is super easy. You insert your memory card and choose the photos you want to print right from the screen. You can choose how many, allow the printer to optimize the image for you, and even take care of red eye reduction.
Picture-Top: red eyes on left
Bottom: red eye reduction and optimized.
Other photo features: print all the photos on your memory card, print your own photo greeting card (printer provides the template), photo layout sheet, index sheet, proof sheet, slideshow (view all of your photos on the printer screen), view your photos and select which ones and how many to print. Using this printer feels a lot like using a photo kiosk in a store. It’s very easy and the Workforce 600 will walk you through all the steps.
Having the Workforce 600 around has already saved me several trips to the copy center. I’ve printed flyers as well as business cards and nobody would ever know that I didn’t have them professionally printed.
Picture: Notebook paper feature
Picture: Stationary printed using Workforce 600 feature.
Mac buyer beware! Epson boasts double sided printing, but this is only available to PC users! Hopefully they can work on this for the next generation…
Key printer features:
- Prints laser-quality documents about twice as fast as competitive models
- Prints up to 38 ppm black and color
- Industry leading laser-quality black text up to 27 ppm and laser quality color text up to 19 ppm
Again, the options are plentiful. Scan or fax a single document or up to 30 documents in the automatic feeder. You have your choice of attaching your scanned document to email, a memory card, your computer, or as a pdf file on your computer. You can send and receive faxes in color, black and white, or try the photo option. All the documents and pictures, with the exception of the Workforce 600 photos, were scanned using the built-in scanner.
Key features of scanner:
- 1200×2400 dpi scanning for high-quality results
- Convert documents into editable text with ABBYY FineReader Sprint Plus OCR Software
- Offers standalone (one-touch) color and black and white copying
- Copies up to 99 pages-no computer required
- Reduces and enlarges copies (25-400%) -Includes auto background removal for text
- Features fit-to-page to adjust a varity of document and photo sizes to letter sizes Key features of fax:
- High-speed color and black and white faxing using a 33.6 kbps modem
- Stores up to 60 speed dials
- Receives up to 180 pages in memory
- Automatic redial, auto answer
Copier:
My favorite feature in this section is the built-in 30-page automatic document feeder. Before the Epson Workforce 600 came along, I had a very basic 3-in-1. Whenever I needed to photocopy more than one document, it would take forever. Not anymore, Epson has created a real timesaver. The feeder is built into the top and easily tucks away when not in use. You can make colored copies or stick with black and white. The quality is the same as you would get with most larger copy machines found in printing shops. For massive amounts of printing (hundreds or thousands), I’d still recommend a trip to a place like Kinkos.
Conclusion:
The Epson Workforce 600 is an excellent choice for small business owners that will meet your everyday small business needs. It is everything a laser printer is and more, but without the fancy price tag attached. As a bonus, you’ll love all the bells and whistles.
For more information about the Epson Workforce 600, please click here.
Estimated Street Price:
$199.99
Entrepreneurship: are you ready?
November 19, 2008 by Katie Skow
Filed under Biz
By Janet W. Christy
Consultant and Author of Capitalizing On Being Woman Owned
www.leverageanddevelopment.com
- Needs to be more than: “I didn’t want to work for someone else anymore.”o If X can do it, so can I, may or may not be true
- Remember having a passion for something is not enough
- Be careful of: “So I can be at home with my children” or “So I will have more control of my time”.
- Be sure you are clear
- Don’t try to be too much
- Don’t group things that are different
- Too much and too different make you look as if you’re not good enough at something specific
- Can you translate your product or service into a benefit
Who are my customers, clients, prospects?
- If this is not clear you will be wasting time, effort and money marketing and selling
- Everyone or anybody are not good answers
- Banks say this is the number one question loan seekers cannot answer
- It takes research to truly answer this
Do I understand what makes my prospects spend money?
- Your product/service doesn’t make them spend money; their need or desire does
- It takes research to know what makes them spend money
- Not understanding this will cause you to waste a lot of time and money and possibly to fail
Does it matter to my prospects that my business is Minority or Woman Owned?
- They must have a reason
- Typical reasons are social consciousness or money
- If they do not care, use another marketing angle
- Research is necessary to know this
Am I prepared to spend the time and money necessary to market/sell my products and services?
- Because research is necessary, you must do it or have it done to be successful
- Marketing and sales must be done whether you like it or not
- You must do it or pay someone to do it
Where will I get money to start/run my business?
- First, do you know how much you need?
- If you plan to start part-time or on a shoestring, be sure you can be successful
- If you go to a bank you must address the other questions in this list
- Remember that with investors of any kind you lose some control
- Passion and Good Ideas are not financed, potential profit is financed
- Do not expect to receive grants to start or run your business – they do not exist
Do I understand the difference between should and will?
- Just because prospects, banks, investors, employees, etc. should doesn’t mean they will
- Believing that people will because they should sets you up for failure or at the least disappointment and frustration
- Research is vital to know if prospects and banks/investors will do what you think they should
Who are my competitors and how many of them are out there? Are they succeeding? How many have started and closed in the last 5 years?
- Don’t start a business in a field that is already crowded unless you have something very unique
- Don’t start a business in a field where people are not succeeding unless you know why they are not succeeding and you know (not think) you can do better
- If you do not know your competition how will you compete?
- Be sure you have enough money, time and people to compete
- Research is necessary to understand the competition
Do I have enough time, energy and money to run a business?
- A good question is “Do I have the stomach for it”
- Another good question is “Do I have the stamina?”
- You must do the research, understand the situation and develop the plans so that you know what it will take to start and run a business
- The research will also help you put passion and expectations in perspective
Do I have a clear understanding of the obstacles and pitfalls of starting and running my business? Do I have a plan to deal with them?
- This is very important, but is specific to your business type and your situation
- The need for this understanding is why research is vital
- The need for planning is why you hear “Do you have a Business Plan?” all the time
How thick is my skin? (Or how sensitive am I to these words: “NO”, “You’re too small/new”, “We already have a supplier.”)
- Can you hear these words and move on to the next loan officer or prospect?
- Can you use these words to help you decide if you need to modify, redirect or fold your tent?
- Can you take these words as opportunities and not obstacles?
How prepared are you to follow direction and jump through hoops?
- If a prospect has a process can you accept the fact that you must follow it, will you allocate the time to do so?
- Do you understand that the directions or hoops are part of the “test”?
- Do you recognize that the directions or hoops do not have to make sense to you?
- Remember that the customer is always right
XR.com for extreme URL reduction
November 19, 2008 by Katie Skow
Filed under EG
Here’s an update on the previous post, What is TinyURL?
What something better than TinyURL?
Is 25 character too many for you when you twitter or send text messages? A new site XR.com can cut the number down to just 10.
Example:
Regular URL: http://www.katieskow.com/2008/11/what-is-tinyurl.html
XR.com URL: http://xr.com/gcv
Impress your friends with this new cool super short URL tool! This means you have more characters to chat on Twitter. 
Follow me on Twitter: e_goddess
