Running your Remote-Based Business with Proper Contract Management

August 23, 2011 0 Comments

This is a guest post. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

If the economy does see a double-dip recession, then countless offices and small businesses across the country are sure make some extreme cutbacks. One cost-saving possibility many low-earnings entities will consider is dismantling their offices in favor of remote-based operations. With the advent of cloud computing and virtually instant mobile web access, this is becoming more and more of a practical possibility. But employers are having to come up with ways to make sure they’re still able to get the work done right with employees working outside of an office and data being stored elsewhere as well.

The best way to do that is to focus a significant part of your remote transition on making sure you have worthy contract management systems. Making sure business obligations are being met and employees are following through with their responsibilities can seem harder when you don’t have the information right there in front of you. But honestly when was the last time anybody ever referred to a contract in writing?

We all know the truth about contracts: they help in the event of legal problems. You want signed proof that certain parties agreed to certain things. In that case, when switching to remote strategies you just need to have a means to keep track of contracts that you otherwise don’t have hard copy access to. This can easily be accomplished with simple to get contract management software.

Automating the contractual side of your enterprise is sure to save you quite a bit of time and money. You won’t have to rely on someone to do it for you and you can rest assured that your contracts are professional, and most important of all, perfected with the law in mind. That’s right, most contract management software services make sure their contract agreements are optimized with a judge’s eyes in mind.

If the economy is forcing you to downsize and you’re saying goodbye to the office, then think about saying hello to some improvements in the way you handle your contract management.

How A Small Business Owner Can Open An Online Merchant Account

May 31, 2011 0 Comments

This is a guest post by Gerald Evans. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

To accept online credits card payments, a merchant account is required. Small business owners must know how to select the best online merchant accounts for their businesses. They should understand the terminology associated with the use of an online merchant account such as payment gateway, discount rate, transaction fees, chargebacks, and chargeback fees. It is also important for them to know the use of a reserve fee offsets chargeback fees. A merchant account’s monthly fees and the merchant account provider’s track record must be examined before a small business owner selects a merchant account. Security, settlement time, and technical support are important elements that should influence a small business owner’s selection of a merchant account.

Small business owners will constantly see or hear words such as payment gateway, discount rate, transaction fees, chargebacks, and chargeback fees. A clear understanding of the terminology will help them answer the questions regarding their business to ensure the best merchant account is selected for their business.

A payment gateway allows the small business owner to accept an electronic payment online. It securely connects websites to credit card processors to process online payment transactions. They are variety of payment gateways used. The uptime of any payment gateway should be 99.9 percent. Small business owner should be able to integrate it with their business website easily.

Discount rate is the rate paid to credit card processors for conducting each transaction. The rate is usually a percentage of the transaction. Small business owners will need to be aware of the transaction fees associated with the merchant account they choose. Transaction fees are fees accessed on every transaction when a credit card is used. Transaction fees will vary with different companies that offer the merchant accounts to small business owners.

Chargebacks occurs when customers has a credit card payment refunded, because they may not be satisfied with the item or the initial transaction could have been done with a stolen credit card. Small business owners pay chargebacks fees to credit card processor when chargeback disputes are favorable for the customer. In some cases, a reserve fee maybe required. A fee used to help offset cost of chargeback fees. It is important to know the amount of the charge back fee and fees associated with chargebacks to ensure they are not excessive.

To select a merchant account, small business owners must know the needs of their business and the expected monthly credit card transactions. They would need to examine the discount rate offered by the company. It should not be too low, because, this could mean hidden fees are looming. The average discount rate ranges from one to two percent. They should be aware of all the monthly fees and the transaction fees to ensure they are not too expensive.

The merchant account provider should have a well-established track record that the small business owner. Merchant Account provider must be trustworthy to ensure the small business does not suffer from poor or misleading practices. Security is a priority when processing credit cards online; therefore, the small business owner should be aware of what type of security will be used to protect their customers’ transactions and prevent sensitive information from being compromised.

Small business owners must ensure the processing time of credit cards and the actual time it takes to receive funds in their bank account is sufficient. Settlement time is length time it takes from moment credit card is processed that it takes for funds from credit card transaction to reach small business owner’s bank account. It should take two to three days to settle a transaction. It is also important merchant account providers have good technical support. By asking the correct questions, small business owners will be able to select a good merchant account for their businesses.

Gerald Evans is a co-founder of CheapestMerchantAccounts.com offering small business owners unfiltered advice on the full costs and services associated with the best merchant account providers available today.

How to Promote Your Website

May 19, 2011 0 Comments

No business today can be successful without a website. Our society relies heavily on the internet for information about a business before they even pursue it. So even if you have a website already up and running, you will find little use in having it if you don’t promote it. Discovering different methods to promote your website will not only increase your online traffic, but also increase revenue for your business so you can find success as an entrepreneur.

1. Get Involved in Social Networking

Social networking is the perfect supplement to any company with a website. Most social networking sites allow you to have a page for your business for free, which is a major money saver for other expenses. Social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter will engage your audience and allow for closer consumer interaction. Also maintaining a blog will provide your consumers with updates that they can share and promote to their friends, an easy and free method of promotion called “word of mouth.”

2. Search Engine Optimization

This method is great for increasing your website’s visibility online. Through search engine optimization, you use key terms that are can be searched through Google, Yahoo, Bing, or any other search engine. By simply moving your website up to the front page of a search results list, you could easily increase your daily hits–sometimes exponentially.

3. Have Tunnel Vision

The most important thing you can do is stay focused on the work you are doing now. As entrepreneurs, we can get a lot of ideas and want to implement all of them. Yet when we stretch ourselves too thin, we begin to lose focus on our bigger projects and end up with all of our work suffering from lack of focus. Sticking with your biggest project, or the one with the most revenue potential, will help you become successful until it can stand on its own and you can start a new project.
Neil Patel, entrepreneur and one of TechCrunch’s top 100 bloggers, became successful when he founded a website that helps everyday people learn to play poker, even if they had no experience in the game. He says,”Don’t spread yourself too thin. I am constantly making that mistake. I…have a million ideas that I want to start everyday. I have to hold myself back from that temptation.”

By promoting your website and increasing the number of hits per day, you will soon discover a new realm of success for your business and your website. The important thing is to stick to your guns, and you will emerge as a successful entrepreneur.

Peak Potential Customer Interest With Multimedia Experience

February 18, 2011 0 Comments

This is a guest post. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Nowadays, it’s impossible for entrepreneurs to run a business without a web site. Additionally, business owners are responsible for branding themselves and their company. With the help of the Internet, business owners can make use of several mediums to market their brand and expand their audience. Online video distribution is one way entrepreneurs get the attention of potential customers.

To capitalize on the video capabilities, check out these tips.

Don’t limit videos to your site exclusively.
Most posts on the Internet can be shared. Social networks make content available to millions of people who may not be prone to seeing your content elsewhere. Take advantage of video hosting sites, such as YouTube or Vimeo, your blog and maybe even cell phone apps. Distributing your videos is no easy task and requires a bulk of time. Consider employing the services of a specialist or software for online video distribution. You’ll most likely be pleased with your ROI.

Update your videos frequently.
Stagnate content turns off for visitors who return to your web site. Keep your material new so users make a habit of checking out your channel(s) on video sites. Fresh material generally means increased traffic, which is always a good thing.

Choose a target audience.
In the same vein as updating your content, create videos for the audience you want to attract. Too much variation in your videos won’t grab anybody’s attention. Produce pieces that appeal to the interests of your selected group, but try to vary the messages. This requires creativity on your part.

Simple is good.
Sure, a video that looks like it cost a lot to produce gets people’s attention. However, it’s not necessary to distribute only your most expensive clips. Take different approaches to videos, such as a quick testimonial from a happy customer or an employee discussing the perks of working for your small business. Keep an eye on hosting site’s rules as to what is considered too promotional for sharing.

With a large volume of web users watching video during every surfing session, it’s crucial that you get in on the action. Online video distribution increases your interactive media presence and online presence overall. Spreading your videos over the web is sure to boost your search engine rankings.

Turn WordPress into an Online Store with Ease!

February 11, 2011 1 Comment

In the world of Ecommerce, having a shopping cart is essential. There are so many different options for shopping carts between hosted and licensed shopping carts. One of the major downfalls of each option tends to be the cost. Most hosted platforms can cost as little as $20 a month and upwards of $500 a month. Licensed shopping carts do not require a monthly fee, but the initial costs can range from as low as $500 and upwards of $2000 for out of the box software licenses. With all of the options, it can be hard for anyone to choose. I am going to try to help out and provide you with an easy out of the box solution that costs below $100 and is integrated in WordPress, the most widely used blogging software.

With a self-hosted wordpress installation, anyone can create a simple and easy ecommerce site with a shopping cart that is comparable to many. Shopperpress offers an unlimited license wordpress shopping cart theme that can take any wordpress website from simple blog to a fantastic looking ecommerce site. Their theme costs $79 and can be installed on any domain that has wordpress. The following features come with the Shopperpress Shopping Cart theme:

Unlimited Installation License
Open Source, no encryption
Google Adsense/Analytics Ready
Shipping/Tax options
Amazon/Ebay/CSV datafeed import options
Pre-installed with over 20 website designs
Multi-Language
Over 20 Built in payment gateways including Paypal
Supports the addition of other wordpress plugins
Multiple currencies
Built in advertising spots
Browser based, so customization can be done from any location

ShopperPress has many great user features keeping your website visitors online:

Members can create accounts to login and monitor their order status, edit their profile and keep updated with site news and products.
List & Gallery Views giving your visitors more freedom when it comes to viewing your shop products.
Built in search tools allowing visitors to quickly search and reorder the display of your shop products.
Coupon Codes, give away coupon codes online so your visitors can enjoy promotional discounts when buying products from your store.
Multi language & Currency giving visitors the ability to change product prices to local currencies and language settings.
Bookmark, print and email tools allowing visitors to email and print their favorite pages to show their friends.

Key store features to make you money!

Easily add or import stores products using the admin area tools, set your own pricing, shipping, tax, promotional costs, extra product mark-up costs, coupons etc all via the admin area in minutes!
Make money with affiliate stores! Quickly import 1,000′s of products from Amazon, Ebay or using the Datafeedr tool and earn affiliate commission from all the products you sell!
Sell Website Advertising Slots, Header (468×60), Footer (any size), Left and Right sidebar (250×250, 125×125) easily updated in the admin area including per category advertising slots and Google Adsense ready!
Setup your own custom fields giving you the ability to setup products with different sizes, types, colors etc + allow visitors to attach an image to the product ideal for customization products like cups,t-shirts etc

Key features to make running the website easy!

ShopperPress makes managing your shopping cart website is a piece of cake! User friendly management interfaces and helpful diagrams built in.

Dashboard for website overview showing you quickly the amount of products, pages etc you have added to your website including recently sales.
On/Off theme options and customize the theme the way you want it, edit almost all aspects of your site.
User friendly admin interface supporting 1,000′s of extra WordPress plugin’s. (SEO plugin’s, video, security etc)
Monthly sales chart, 20+ built in payment gateways, regional settings to change currency, language, and date format, contact forms etc
Unlimited shopping cart products, including articles, pages, categories, tags etc, the world is your oyster!
Shipping & tax options allowing you to create your own shipping prices and setup both country and state tax prices for your website.

I have tested out this shopping cart theme on a couple of client websites and it is extremely easy to setup and run. While I recommend this theme for people that are just starting out in ecommerce, I don’t think this can be a viable option for a full time ecommerce site that has thousands of products. Since it is running on wordpress, there could be issues with data integrity and security. If you are selling 1000 products or less, then this could be a great tool. Shopperpress could also be an easy way to setup multiple affiliate ecommerce sites that are niche based. Since you have unlimited installations under one license and you can install wordpress on any domain, Shopperpress’ theme can be a cost effective way to get into affiliate marketing. Check out Shopperpress for more great features of their shopping cart theme.

iMark Interactive

Running your Remote-Based Business with Proper Contract Management

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