Execute better using Salesforce.com, Basecamp, and Quickbooks

I am in Starbucks as I write this.

I had client meetings with others in Pasadena, Philly, Seattle, West LA, and Florida this week. All without driving anywhere past my nearest Starbucks or Public Library.

You are feeling the pain of this economy and so am I. Even $50 a month saved can make a significant difference if used effectively.

I am in the business of helping make others successful so here is what I do to remain competitive as a small business owner and entrepreneur. I coach, train, and support others as they walk down this journey toward competitive advantage with technology.

An Email Revolution
Email and text based communications are becoming the most critical forms of communication today. This can cause an overwhelming deluge if not managed well. I will offer a few suggestions based on what I have found to be successful.

A Real Estate client of mine was using a popular service for hosting an MLS integrated website for listings and news. This service also came with email at their domain which really filled a need. The drawback was that email had to either be read via a web browser like Firefox or downloaded to their local machine via Post Office Protocol, or POP, which deletes the message on the server once saved for a time on their local PC. Both of these methods can be very slow and are cumbersome if email is going to be used on more than one device such as two computers or a mobile phone and a PC (read: say no to email syncing between machines).

Given the larger service area many Realtors and agents are covering, getting email on a mobile device is almost standard.

I made the jump for myself earlier this year and enabled my client using the same technology.

The key solving this problem begins with how email is able to be accessed. I mentioned POP earlier as it acts like a Post Office. You go in, get your mail, and take it home. Another method is Internet Message Access Protocol, or IMAP for short. Much like a Public Library with books, IMAP lets you can go in and view messages by title and then open up the one you want to read without saving them to your local computer.

This enables you to have any number of devices such as a Treo, Peek, Blackberry, iPhone, Laptop or desktop PC have equal access to your email without worry that any will be out of sync with the others as long as you use IMAP.

What is a revolution here is how accessible this has now become.

In 2006, you either had to go along with whatever email system you had or hire costly IT help to setup a new mail server for you and manage it over time.

Not so any longer although their oversight is recommended.

• Google Apps for my Domain is a service that can enable IMAP for free for your organization. A simple setup process creates the account and you just need to forward a couple ways to verify ownership of your domain to your IT team, setup your users, and update the DNS or behind the scenes routing of messages.
• Email friendly devices such as an iPhone, Blackberry, or Peek can use this new server to access email from any location and any changes you make to messages will be reflected on your computer.
• Embracing SMS texting from your phone will give you greater communication opportunities with successful folks in the younger generation (generally < 35) and is much faster than email.

There are numerous how-to guides on the web for setting up Google Apps for email.

I will talk about shifting free consulting and when free is expensive in future parts so stay tuned.

Your comments are always welcome below and please let us know if you have found a tip that worked for you.

To your success,

p.s.
That $50 could get you 60 mins of coaching to give you the confidence and skills to not just survive but thrive.