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?)