handpickedtomatoes.com Blog

An $800 yearly savings is a big deal around here. Hand Picked Tomatoes isn’t your typical high priced consultancy, located in a slick glass building in that business park by the airport. It’s me, Stephen P. Kane. Plus — depending on the project, — a group of Hand Picked Freelancers working from home offices across Orange County.

As experienced entrepreneurs know, survival depends on an understanding of the real value of things. This economy has taught us not to spend ten cents on things that don’t matter.

The business phone is one of those things that does matter — a lot — which is why I’ve spent between $70 and $100 per month to have the land line with voice mail. If you multiply that times 6 freelancers all doing the same thing, that’s $420 per month – or $5040 per year. That’s over $5,000 per year we have to pass on to our clients! The troubling thing is that what we’re paying phone companies today is based on a technology infrastructure that existed way back in the 1980s, before Internet and satellite based communications.

But what’s the alternative? Skype? Vonage? A cell phone? All those require compromises of some sort and cost more. Here in Irvine, where home owner associations have fought cell towers successfully to this day, cell phone service is categorically dismal, for example. Vonage charges per month what Magic Jack charges per year. And for business people like me, who make zero overseas calls, the added costs of Vonage and Skype seem to have no added value. Skype is nice, but it doesn’t allow you to use your current phone equipment — you know, like the one with the pricey headset that enables you to move around the building while talking.

Enter the $39.95 Magic Jack available from Office Depot, Radio Shack and similar retailers. (Includes unlimited calls across North America for one full year. Subsequent years cost $19.95 each). If you’re like me, you cross your arms and dismiss ads like Magic Jack’s TV spots as not ready for business use. And that’s what I did for six months, while my early adopter friend Larry replaced his home phone service with a Magic Jack.  Note that he kept his phone system – the master and wireless phones and such – he just dropped his phone company service. Instead of plugging his phone’s jack into the wall, he plugged it into a short wire with a USB connector on the other end (i.e. the Magic Jack). The Magic Jack plugs into the USB port on any PC or Mac computer.

The one time  five minute setup is a matter of plugging the USB connector into a computer and walking through the registration screens. Setup enables you to register the phone line and pick a local phone number. I went for the easy to remember: 949.954.4443. (Being able to transfer an existing number would have been even better, but that’s not currently available).

Within five minutes of plugging the USB connector into my laptop, I was able to make and receive phone calls from my old desk phone — with a clarity that is as good or better than my previous land line. And once the setup is completed on one computer, the Magic Jack can be plugged into virtually any computer anywhere without another set up. That means you can switch the Magic Jack from one computer to another throughout your office — or when you’re in hotels, conference centers, or virtually anywhere where an Internet connection exists.

What happens when your computer is off or on those (hopefully) rare instances when your internet connection is down? Incoming calls go immediately into voice mail and an MP3 audio file is automatically emailed to you for playback, say on your iPhone. Or you can just call your office number from any phone and roll into voice mail to retrieve your messages. And because the Magic Jack number comes unlisted – you avoid telemarketers.

By way of full disclosure, I should mention that I have absolutely no affiliation with Magic Jack nor do I stand to profit in any way other than through the good will that naturally accrues from offering information that can save my readers money and make them more competitive. If you own a Magic Jack and have experiences to share — or just have a question — I hope you’ll share it here.

…Magic Jack for small businesses. It’s cool. It’s clear. It’s cheap and really really functional.

PS:
In checking some facts for this post with the magicjack.com site, I see that Magic Jack now offers free Conference Calling. And not only to Magic Jack users, but to anyone. I just registered for mine by calling 305-848-8888, pressing 2, and defining a 3 digit pin number. Magic Jack appends the 3 digit pin to your 7 digit phone number to create your unique conference room number. That’s it. Settup’s done. Now all I have to do is tell my participants the phone number to call for the conference, and my unique conference room number, and we’re good to go. (How do you spell d–i-s-r-u-p-t-i-v-e?)

In the post, “20 Tips for Marketing Professional Photography Online”, I talked about the importance of site architecture in the development of a successful photography site. Here’s a site I developed over the weekend to demonstrate an example of what good architecture might look like:

This site is based on a css template by Dieter Schneider of Norway and here are the top 5 things I like about the architecture:

1. The Photography takes center stage
2. Details are hidden below the fold and on inside pages
3. Navigation is simple and intuitive
4. Audiences are separated into 3 categories (Photo | Studio | Print)
5. Pages are light and optimize well for search — No heavy, expensive Flash

I said “5 Things I Like”, but here’s a sixth worth mentioning: The Galleries are incredibly easy to browse.

Most of the small businesses I work with are not professional photography studios, but many of the strengths of architecture in Dieter’s design still apply.

Comments?

Chad Takenaka, owner of Design Models of California, has an approach to his work that really resonates with me:  Blending the latest technology with old school hand crafted values.

Chad Takenaka, owner of Design Models of California

After reading today’s LA Times article by Cyndia Zwahlen, I felt compelled to do something to help Chad’s business prosper. So, with a cup of coffee at my elbow, I sent the following email to Chad Takenaka, outlining 5 Steps he could take to improve his internet marketing:

Chad,

Enjoyed the Times article and hope it brings you lots of business. I’m particularly attracted to your concept of blending “the latest technology with old school values.”

As the owner of HandPickedTomates, I wanted to share a few quick (albeit unsolicited) thoughts about your website.

It looks professional, clean, simple, well organized, and (forgive me) really dull. Here are some suggestions to improve it to drive more business to you:

* 1. Improve the architecture
* Improve the impact of the landing page (you have 3-5 seconds to connect, don’t expect visitors to drill down to do it)
* Separate your audiences on the landing page
* Message to each audience individually (I’m guessing Mattel and Disney speak differently and have slightly different needs than Northrop and Boeing?)
* Enable zooming on all photos. (Imagine trying to communicate the beauty of Hawaii using only thumbnail images)
* Tag all images, links, and urls for better search engine optimization (SEO)
* Replace the email us link with a simple form, .e.g Contact Form
* 2. Name drop
* Your client list gives you instant cred. Yours more-so than most, so don’t hide it.
* 3. Make Social Networking work for you (Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter….)
* Your work is hip and interesting. Take the time to capture it and float it out onto the social networks.
* Use professional grade Photography and Video to tell the story
* Upload photos and video to YouTube, Flickr, etc. Make sure every post is well tagged for SEO.
* 4. Leverage Email Broadcasts
* Add an email subscription form to the site
* Send periodic email broadcasts to clients and other subscribers to keep your name in front of them
* 5. Post a Calendar of Events
* Consider offering regularly scheduled tours of your facility and post the date and time (see my Wednesday Free Consult for example)

This just scratches the surface. I hope you find some value in it. Please contact me if you ever decide to offer the facility tour.

Best,
Stephen

What do you other small business owners think about these steps. What others should be on Chad’s list?

A photographer friend of mine – let’s call him Tom – needed tips on how to launch and market his work online. Since I make my living helping companies market themselves, he asked for my advice. It’s my hope that this post, by way of reply, will help Tom and other professional photographers find online marketing success.

First, some background: Tom’s been shooting seriously for about 10 years. In my estimation, he’s qualified to teach most college courses on digital photography theory, lighting, composition, work flow – you name it. His understanding of computer software is exceptional too. He has over 20 years in software development and his technical understanding runs deep.  To round things out, he’s got a longer planning horizon than most people I know and has organization skills that, frankly, put most of us to shame.

But like many artistic and technically oriented people, he’s quick to share, “…the whole marketing thing has me a bit overwhelmed.”

The good news for Tom is he’s got all the hard parts already nailed: 1. He knows his craft 2. His work is impactful and connects emotionally 3. He shoots around “themes”, not just one off shots. 4. He’s accumulated a critical mass of digital assets (over 20,000 images). In other words, he’s ready to publish.

The Challenge:  How to successfully market professional photography images and services online.

The Solution: Start with a broad, well thought out strategy. Then execute consistently.

The bulk of this post will talk about building a web presence and summarizing the top online marketing opportunities photographers have. But first let’s start from the perspective of an overarching Marketing Strategy. As you read the following, keep in mind the goal is to execute consistent branding in all offline and online activities. Whether someone is talking to you face to face, reading your printed material, or looking at your online gallery, they should be getting consistent messaging.

The following primer on marketing your images and services online makes a couple of assumptions:
Read more…

A very cool new way to get noticed: announce your event with Schmap.it on Twitter:

Schmap is free, easy to set up, and really useful if you host informal events. Take for example, a neighborhood cafe that has lots of book club meetings, open mike nights, live music, etc.

A Schmap tweet not only gets the word out about the event, it tracks confirmations, maps your location for customers, and provides a link to your website via your twitter profile.

But the viral doesn’t stop there. Schmap automatically creates a retweet for each attendee along with any comment they made, e.g. “PaulHesseBroker @web_tomatoes I’ll be there! I’m a commercial real estate broker specializing in Southeast LA and Northern OC… http://schmap.it/GWk3zi “.

Have a question about Schmap, Twitter, or any other aspect of online marketing for your business? Post a comment here or contact me at HandPickedTomatoes.com.

Microsoft is countering Google Apps with its own cloud based office productivity suite called Office Web Apps.  Why should you, as a business or personal user of office productivity software, care? Because the cloud makes things easier, safer, and a lot cheaper.

Businesses will no doubt weigh the options based on cost versus value. So let’s start with cost. Even with Microsoft’s recent price drop from $15 to $10 per month per user, they’re still priced 240% higher than Google. This means they have a lot to make up for in the value department to put them on par with their competitor.

And how about value? I haven’t compared Office Web Apps with Google Apps myself, but my friend Larry Higgins, Director, Sales & Marketing at One Touch Global,  just forwarded me this review:

I began using Google Apps for my personal needs in 2006. Until two months ago, I continued to use MS Office Professional as a backup – effectively paying twice but not being ready to cut the safety cord with Microsoft. I recently dropped MS Office and now use Google Apps exclusively for both the process improvements of the cloud computing model as well as the cost savings.

What made me put both feet solidly in the Google App camp?  Over the past year I’ve noticed that there is nothing that I or my users do that we can’t do in Google Apps. When colleagues send MS Word or Excel docs, we open them in Google Apps with no problem. For example:

When the chairman of my high school reunion recently sent six committee members a spreadsheet and asked each of us to update it with any current contact info we had on classmates, I immediately imported it as a Google Spreadsheet Doc. I then sent invites from within the doc to all committee members enabling us to all update the same document without  emailing attachments back and forth or manually coordinating and updating a master copy. It also tracked who made what changes. And although most committee members had never used a Google Spreadsheet before, the learning curve was trivial.

After viewing the video above, I’m glad I stopped waiting around for Microsoft to move to the cloud. They should have been there in 2002 anyway, but I suspect they had MS Office license fees to protect. As business consumers, we have those license fees to consider too – along with the cost of maintaining and updating the underlying products. With cloud computing, the inflated costs and headaches of hosting our own applications go away. And since Google is way out front of Microsoft in the cloud, now’s the right time for business people to seriously consider Google Apps.

OK, you’ve earned their attention. They’re your newest  fan. Your hard work resulted in them visiting your site and  they’ve found your message relevant. Now what?  

Why not ask for an email address?

FeedBurner makes doing that free and incredibly easy, by way of an email subscription widget.

FeedBurner was acquired by Google in 2007, and is a marketing tool that every blog or website should be using. It’s free and takes minutes to set up.

Adding the FeedBurner email subscription form to your blog is a cinch. Just cut and paste the code that FeedBurner provides into your blog admin panel (in WordPress you can add it via Appearance > Widget).

Once the email form is in place, FeedBurner handles all the complexities… The confirmation email and unscubscribe processes, the database for storing and maintaining the subscribers’ email addresses, as well as tools to export addresses to a standard CSV file  to use any way you want, e.g. with your email campaign tool of choice.

The FeedBurner site will walk you through how this is all done, but if you have a question that’s not covered, enter a comment here and I’ll try to address it.

Want more of the kind of information you just read? Easy.

Just subscribe to my free newsletter service on the right.

 
What is the Wave?
Wave is a new collaboration technology from Google. It’s just been made available in a pre-beta version to about 300,000 to 600,000 people globally. (100,000 invitees who in turn can give access to 5  additional people each).

It’s a Swiss Army Knife of a tool for collaborating and communicating in real time. It has the potential to change the way we communicate, and I forsee many virtual teams using it to improve productivity, when it’s made generally available in the months ahead. Like Google Apps, the price for admission is free, so the barriers to entry will be very low.

The best description I’ve seen for what the Wave is and how businesses might use it is by Daniel Tenner, in his post “What problems does Google Wave solve?  (read the comments too, for a lively and mostly intelligent discussion of pros and cons of Wave).

Essentially Tenner postures that Wave is not a geek/hacker tool or a social media tool, but a corporate tool that solves real world work problems.

When Should You Jump In?
Business owners, executives, project teams and the rest of us with high collaboration requirements should have an awareness of the Wave – and in my opinion that’s good enough for now.

This “preview” version is pre-beta, with all the rough edges and incomplete functionality that that implies. I’d leave this pie in the oven for now while the early adopters do the heavy work in the kitchen.

In the meanwhile, get your mind around what it is and it’s potential for revolutionizing business communications and marketing. Then when the time’s ready to jump in that Wave, you’ll be both ready and stoked.

It starts off like this: “Worst service…I have ever seen”. And ends like this: ”…Don’t ever do business with these guys, EVER! Followed by a 1 out of 5 star rating. Ouch, that  really hurts. It hurts doubly bad because studies show that consumers assign much higher credibility to peer reviews than to company generated messaging. The scary part for business owners is that the reviewer can slam you anonymously, whether you deserve it or not.

Here’s how to proactively manage your online reputation to ensure your ratings fairly match the quality of products or services your business provides.

1. Expect to get Slammed: Recognize  two immutable truths: 1. unhappy customers – and unscrupulous competitors - have a built in incentive to “punish you” in a review and will spend the time and effort to do so.  2. Satisfied customers - left unattended – will stay silent.

2. Don’t Fight ‘Em: You can never win an argument with a customer, so don’t try. Avoid responding to any but the most slanderous reviews. Your time is probably better spent influencing happy customers to go online and review you.

3. The Good Side of Bad Reviews: Mine for gold in bad reviews. Sure, we can all handle just about any amount of praise, but who’s going to tell us what we’re doing wrong? You know, the things that most of our customers won’t tell us to our faces.

Eric Kirsammer, owner of Quimby’s Bookstore in Chicago, also avoids engaging his critics openly online. Instead, Kirsammer uses negative reviews as a tool to improve customer service. (By Kasey Wehrum | Jun 1, 2009 / Inc)

The takeaway is simple: If the anonymous nature of online reviews help people be more forthcoming, shake off the hurt pride and smile at your good fortune.

4. Set a “Good to Bad Ratio” Goal: If you believe, as I do. that every business is doomed over time to get slammed, then work proactively to encourage happy customers to review you. If 49 customers say your fabulous and the 50th says you’re dog food, fabulous wins every time.

5. Monitor Online Mentions: Reputation management is not a one time thing. Be ever vigilant. Search regularly for what’s being said about your company online. For that matter, see what’s being said about your competitors too, both pro and con. Look for actionable items. A quick Google or Bing of your company name + review is one step. Search Twitter too.

6. Be Proactive: First let’s talk about  prevention. Prevention is better than a cure.  If it takes getting slammed by a reviewer to jump start your efforts at reputation management, just be prepared to roll that heavy barrel up the hill instead of down.

7. Review the Reviewer: If you’re like me, you appreciate an honest, thoughtful reviewer, whether they post something positive or not. I always click on the reviewer to see what else they’ve reviewed and what they have to say. If they’ve only reviewed one business and they slammed it -or they’ve reviewed a bunch and they love everyone, I factor that into how much their rating will influence me.

Case Study: Checkered Flag, a neighborhood carwash here in Irvine, California launched a campaign to encourage customers to rate them online.  The rules where simple:

a. Review them on any one of these sites: google, yelp, yahoo, local.com
b. Get a free car wash
c. Limit 1 per customer
d. Print out the review and bring it to the cashier for your free car wash
e. Offer expires Oct. 31, 2009

Checkered Flag handed out fliers at the register announcing the offer to patrons. The staff were very careful not to influence customers to write a good review, which earned them a righteous nod in my book. A PR friend of mine took exception, questioning whether this would be interpreted as ”paying for a review”. I think not. I see it as reimbursing the customer for the 15 to 30 minutes of their time it takes to post a review – and clearly ethical so long as the business does not try to influence customers to write good reviews – beyond their consistent delivery of good products and services.

The results so far in Google, Yahoo, and Local.com are overwhelmingly positive for Checkered Flag as of this writing. Yelp reviews, as typical of Yelpers, were less glowing, yet mostly positive.

In summary, what people are saying about you online matters. Savvy companies are making online reputation management a strategic focus. The take away here is that if you don’t have the bandwidth or inclination or marketing wherewithal inside your business to nurture your online reputation- and most small businesses don’t, then outsource it. Else, bare your loins and pray the nasties leave you be.

I was an early adopter of Microsoft Office in the late 80s. While the development underground was busy hating Redmond – and demonstrating their lack of effection by exploiting countless Windows security holes, I was busy admiring Bill Gates, the man behind the empire. I demonstrated my admiration by throwing licensing fees his way each time I upgraded to a new Office Professional version or when I bought a new laptop. Sometimes I paid for the exact same version again, just because for one valid reason or another I was unable to locate my CD or serial number when I bought a new computer. (I still can’t find the missing socks from the dryer and yet Microsoft wants me to find the installation CD from two years ago?)

There were many logical reasons for staying with Office: learning curve, functionality, compatibility, lack of viable alternatives, just to name a few. But truthfully, there was an emotional reason that made the financial pill easier to swallow: I admired Bill and his wife Melinda for their pledge to give the bulk of their fortune away during their lifetime, through the Gates Foundation.  I still admire that about them and always will. I also think Microsoft is full of lots of good, intelligent, hard working people who deserve to reap their just rewards. The only change – and this is a killer for them when multiplied times 50 or 60 million people like me –  is that I’ve finally decided to stop contributing to their fortune. I will never again willingly pay a MS Office license fee.

Why? Glad you asked: 

1. Re-License Fatigue: I think I’ve repurchased the same product enough for one lifetime (listen up Beatles - I feel this way about the White Album too!)
2. Viable Alternative: Now there’s viable alternatives: Google Apps, and to a lesser extent, ZOHO apps.
3. Better Alternative: Now there’s a better alternative:  With Google Apps and other online solutions, there are no more software upgrades or viruses
4. Less Headaches: With “cloud computing” I”m finally out of the application hosting business! Google handles all software updates, security, and backup issues for me.
5. Less Cost (Considerably): Now there’s a cheaper alternative. Google apps cost me $50 per year, which is way cheaper than all the software upgrades, not to mention the cost of my time to install and update new software and patches for myself , my family, and our less technical friends. (some corporate studies have concluded it costs about $1,250 annually per desktop to maintain MS Office).
6. Better Collaboration: Collaboration with Google Apps is hands down easier – and promises to get easier and more effective still – with the impending release of Google Wave.
7. Always Available: Well, at least anytime I need it. Now I can access my stuff at work, at home, from my wife’s computer, from my friend’s computer, on my phone, and anywhere else with an Internet connection. I can also edit offline, though frankly I don’t do this, EVER. (If I’m without an Internet connection these days, I simply thank God for the serenity. Then I crack open a book, write notes on paper (I know, archaic isn’t it?), or (don’t think I’m weird for this) talk to the people around me.

Could Microsoft have created Google Apps before Google?  Sure they could have. A good time would have been about 2002. Why didn’t they? Who knows, but one would suspect that the threat to their short term earnings was just too great for investors and therefore management. Affiliates had a hand in it too. All those heavily invested types such as Microsoft Certified companies and resellers and other influencers have been throwing mud against the tide instead of using their leadership legacy to move their customers forward with better solutions. Too bad if this is true, because users and investors not to mention MS employees will suffer in the long term.

But isn’t this the way of nature? The old gives way to the new. The marketplace in time will correct inefficiencies. In my opinion, that time for MS Office has just arrived.