How Online “Cloud” Services Save You Time and Money

Every day when I tune in to the World Wide Web, there’s something new that I just ‘”have to have” to streamline my business or personal life. Among all the new “cloud” services, I have a few favorites that I’ll be discussing at my presentation in Reno, Nevada on Sept. 29th. (Register for free, now.) Knowing that you might not be able to see me in person, a quick Video overview follows.

Password Protection, Organization, with LastPass

• The Problem: If you’re like most of us, you have passwords for everything – for business and pleasure. How do you keep track of all of them?
• The Solution: LastPass.com. If you have lots of passwords like me - this site is for you. This free software program makes strong and super secure passwords for you that you can access through any kind of computer or smart phone.

Free Accounting Services with Freshbook

• The Problem: Do want to escape the tyranny of very complicated accounting systems?
• The Solution: Say hello to Freshbook.com. This is just a great online cloud service that will send out all of your invoices, organize your files, help you follow-up on payments, and offer a lot of additional functionality – for free!

Sales Tracking with Zoho

• The Problem: Do you and your sales department need to keep track of your customers and follow-up with them in a scheduled timeframe? Say good-bye to confusing and costly sales management software.
• The Solution: Zoho does a better job for me, and it’s free. Zoho provides more than 20 different integrated online applications to help with productivity, sales tracking and more.

Synchronizing and Sharing Files with Dropbox

• The Problem: Have you ever ended up working on an old copy of an important file that you updated on another computer or IPhone, yet you forgot that you did?
• The Solution: Sign up for Dropbox. This cool tool will synchronize your files so you can have the most current version available on ALL of your computers. It comes with 2 GB of online storage and it’s completely secure with some of the best file security technology to keep hackers out and only those whom you designate, in.

Communicating World Wide with Skype

• The Problem: Would you like to be able to affordably and efficiently communicate with your clients or colleagues across the world … for free?
• The Solution: Sign up for Skype today. It’s a phone service that you and any colleague who also uses Skype can use endlessly – for free. They also offer incredible low rates for those without Skype. In addition, if your computer has a video camera, you can video conference as well.

Transferring Phone Lines and Messages with GoggleVoice

• The Problem: Do you have multiple telephone numbers that you would like to be transferred to one telephone number while you retain a different answering message for each number?
• The Solution: All the things you would like built in to your telephone system you can now get for free with Google Voice. And, you get the things that your normal telephone provider would like to charge you an arm and leg for … for free. The list of services you get with this system are impressive.

Sharing Common E-mails with GoogleApps

• The Problem: Do you need a common e-mail within your business that several people can access from different computers and locations?
• The Solution: Google Apps is an excellent solution for most business with up to ten employees. Google offers two levels of services "totally free" and a paid service that is $50 per year for each employee. I would start with the free service as it has all the basic functionality of the paid service.

Sharing the same bookmarks on all your computers with Xmarks

• The Problem:You have loads of bookmarks on your office computer. However, you are at home or only have your smart-phone available and you can’t remember the URL of that website and you really need the information!
• The Solution: Xmarks with this freely available plug-in for all the leading browsers: IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari. You can have the same bookmarks on all your computers and smart-phones.

A easy to us client management system with Highrise

• The Problem: Do You have a number of clients and you know that an easy to use CRM system would be really helpful. However you need something that is easy for you and your client to use and will be available on all your machines and smart-phones.
   
• The Solution: Highrise  is the clear solution. Over the years I have used many different types of CRM systems which were either very complicated or expensive or both. You just don’t get this with Highrise. It is powerful, really easy to use and will save you and your clients’ time and frustration connected to client communication problems.

 Secure offsite backup of your computer   BackBlaze

• The Problem: You do have a back of your office computer business data don’t you? If yes its probably on an external hard-drive. This is an excellent solution. However what happens if the office burns-down or your office is burgled?
   
• The Solution:office BackBlaze Is online backup which is completely secure and safe you pay $5 a month you can backup as much data as you like and unlike other online backup services BackBlaze will also backup any external hard-drives you have attache to you computer
   

   

That’s (not) all folks …

There will be more news you can use about the latest and greatest “cloud” tools before you know it. To save you time, come see me in Reno on September 29th. Check out this video below for all the details or register on line today.