Ok, since I run a small web consulting business, I have come accross articles and tips given by other people in the industry, other businesses, and seasoned free-lancers. I thought this time I would provide some tips of my own on how to help you run your small business.
Mind you, I am only suggesting certain technologies that will either save you money, time, or both. I am in no particular position to tell you how to run your business (I would not know how anyway). Also, and let’s get this out of the way right away: You are free to follow all, some, or none of my tips but please do so at YOUR OWN RISK.
What I write here are only tips, you are free to take them or not, mold them to suit your business, or use them to invent new ways to do what you do. Your are under no obligation to do anything and therefore, I WILL NOT OWE YOU anything if my advise did not work well in your particular case. There, I said it up front.
Now that we are all clear, let us start with Part I of this series.
How To Reduce Your Long Distance Telephone Bill
Voice over Internet Protocol (aka VoIP), enables your computer to carry voice signals over the Internet. What this means is that you can use your computer, your internet connection, and your microphone to talk to your friends and family, colleagues, or strategic partners even for long distance calls.
A few vendors already exist that provide this technology. I will describe what I use: Skype.
Skype is a little program for making free calls over the internet to anyone else who also has Skype. It also allows you to make calls from your computer to regular landlines or mobile phones for a very small fee.
Of course, there are some minimum hardware requirements for all computers involved but they do not require bleeding-edge technology. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The minimum hardware requirements are:
- 400 MHz processor
- 128 MB RAM
- 10 MB free disk space on your hard drive
- Sound Card, speakers and microphone
- Internet Connection (either dial-up: minimum 33.6 Kbps modem, or any broadband: cable, DSL, etc.)
Some would even call this type of hardware ‘obsolete’ by today’s standards.
Anyways, with Skype, all calls from Skype to landlines and mobiles within the US and Canada are also free till the end of the year.
There even are some home phones that are ‘Skype-enabled’. This means the phone (a regular-looking handset) is able to place calls via VoIP by connecting wirelessly to a receiver plugged to your PC and using your PC to connect to the internet to make the calls.
Other VoIP alternatives exist such as Vonage. Vonage allows to keep your phone number and they charge a very reasonable rate for their services which include a ton of features.
So, to recap, save some money on long distance calls and investigate all the VoIP options in your area. You will find that you may still want to keep a regular land line (or cellphone) handy so that you can free up the computer for other tasks, but for those long distance calls it is hard to beat Skype’s pricetag.
For the next installment, we will find some good use for all the money we have saved on long distance calls and spend it on data back-up plans for your small business.
Until next time…
October 17th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
[...] In Part I of this series, we discussed how to save your business some money by using services such as Skype or Vonage for your long distance calls. In this second installment, we will go the opposite way and ask you to spend money. Counter-intuitive? maybe but not until you read the rest of article. [...]