GoFaxer Blog

You no longer need your computer to manage your online affairs.  With today’s cell phones, PDA’s and other mobile devices it is easier than ever before to connect to the internet while on the go.  As a result, an ever increasing amount of companies are taking advantage of the many benefits of wireless internet access.

Before wireless internet access became available, many business people had the “luxury” of toting their laptops with them everywhere.  With today’s technology individuals are trading their hefty laptops for lightweight cell phones and other mobile devices.  Not to say that laptops are no longer needed, they’re just not necessary if all you need to do is quickly check your email. Not to mention the battery life on your cell phone is much better than the battery life on your laptop. And without all those cords you can get mobile much quicker.

Which brings me to the next benefit of wireless internet access, you can check your email anywhere!  This is extremely beneficial for those business people on the go.  If you’re not in the office much, or even more so for people who work sans office, using your cell phone to check your emails is the next best thing since sliced bread!

With GoFaxer’s online fax service you can put your wireless devices to even more use by receiving all of your faxes online! Contact GoFaxer today for more details.

If you tend to communicate via email at work, then you know the frustration of having an email go unread. What makes one email get opened before another? Some believe it’s all in the subject line. Below are a few subject headers sure to draw the readers attention to your email first.

Ask a question

Make sure your question is relevant to your audience. If it is, this can be a great way to grab someone’s attention. For example, if you are running a health club you might ask, “How would you like to lose 5 lbs this month?”

Be straight forward

Sometimes the best tactic is just to say exactly what you want the reader to know. So, if you’re having a sale your subject could read, “50% off sale this Saturday.” This approach works especially well if you’re sending a newsletter.

Get personal

The more you can make each contact feel you’re speaking directly to them, the more effective your communication will be. Whatever style of subject line you use, you can make it personal by using the word “you.”

Another effective way of communication is through internet fax! It’s quick, it’s efficient, and it’s easy to manage. Contact GoFaxer today for more information.

You know the employee who can never keep up with their email. You sent them an email a few days ago and they never saw it cause it’s lost in a sea of communication.

Communication is faster and easier than it’s ever been. Technologies like email and fax to email have made typical mail a rarity. And it’s often easier to send a digital communication instead of talking personally or over the phone.

But this speed and ease can also be a disadvantage to many. It may not be entirely their fault. Some people are in demanding positions, where the number of people that they’re in contact with results in a quantity of emails that are completely unmanageable.

So what do you do if you’re in this boat? The first rule of thumb is this: Send less email. Only use email to send documents and information for others’ reference. If you need to send them that manual, do it through email or fax. If you need to send an update on your projects, a report, or the minutes to the meeting, great! These emails don’t require responses back, limiting the number of emails you’ll receive.

Don’t send emails to push important initiatives. Do that in person and over the phone. It will be harder for them to ignore if it’s done in person. And again, you won’t get emails in response.

These are challenging issues, but making communication management a priority will be worth your attention.

Michael Scott is the boss that we all love to hate. He’s awkward and incompetent. Yet we love to watch him and his rag-tag company try to sell office supplies.

The hit television show, “The Office,” just began new episodes this week, and I’m reminded of Dunder Mifflin’s advertising slogan, “Limitless Paper in a Paperless World”. Even though we love the employees, it’s clear from the show that the company is struggling.

Needless to say, now is not a good time to start a paper company. More and more businesses are relying on completely digital communication.

Do you find yourselves in one of these companies? If you are, then you are actually helping the environment. The less paper you use, the less trees are cut down, and the less the environment is affected by your business. But what if another company you work with isn’t so environmentally friendly, and needs a fax?

This is where email fax saves the day. You send an email of the image or message you want faxed, and the fax is sent to the company’s fax machine. All that it requires is Internet access, which today is about as common as ragweed pollen. And it’s better for your health.

So here’s the situation. You’re traveling through South America. You’ve been to the rain forest. You’re in a small little town below the equator. You’re further away from home than you’ve ever been in your life. You decide it’s good to check your email.

So you go to a little Internet café in a town that doesn’t have running water in most homes. In your email you find a frantic message from one of your business associates. They need a document faxed to another business associate ASAP.

Now, you’re in the middle of the third world. You may have the Internet, but a fax machine is nowhere to be seen. But that’s not a problem. You email the fax through the Internet with your GoFaxer service. It’s easy.

It doesn’t require any special software, which is good because the computer that you are using is not yours and they wouldn’t allow you to go downloading software willy-nilly. All you need is access to the Internet through a standard browser, and you are ready to do business.

Now that a business crisis had been averted, you are ready to go back to your tour of an ancient civilization. This is what life’s all about. Having the freedom to visit the most exotic locals in the world, but with the conveniences of home right at your fingertip through an easy thing called the Internet.

So you know that your company needs to go green. Everyone’s doing it. It’s important. Everyone agrees. So you better get to it.

But in the long list of thing to do for entrepreneurs, especially those who want to actually grow their business during an entire market recession, being environmentally friendly might not be at the top of your list.

So what can you do? Start simple. Pick a few easy things to do in the coming months and go from there. One of the easiest and simple things you can do is really push a paperless office in the coming quarter. Make it a company initiative to use less paper.

You can do this by getting rid of the fax machine and using an email fax service. You can do this by encouraging people to print up less documents, to send more documents electronically, etc. It’s easy.

Once you’ve got that out of the way, you can look into switching some light bulbs to more cost efficient ones. You can even look into some really big things like solar power and new heating systems.

The list of green things to do for your business is endless, but don’t get overwhelmed by the list. Start at the top, move down from there, and watch your company expenses go down. You’ll feel good about doing something positive for the world. It’s worth your time.

I’m all about speed. I like to start a project and end it in a timely way. If my projects drag out over the course of days they enter a phase of development where it is infinitely harder to finish them. So when I start something I want it done and I want it done fast.

If you’re the same, you can understand how frustrating it can be to wait for someone else to respond to your phone call or email. You want to get a hold of them right away, discuss your business, and complete the darned task.

So here’s a bit of advice. The longer it takes for your message to get to your recipient, the longer it will take them to answer you back. If you send a fax through an old fashioned fax machine, they’ll get it within minutes. But their phone line might be tied up for a while. And the secretary might not put it on their desk right away.

I like to send it through email or fax to email. That way I know that they’ve gotten it within seconds. I then follow up with a phone call. If I don’t get them on the phone right away, I keep trying back until I catch them, let them know that I sent the document and that I need a response within a certain period of time.

It’s a simple bit of advice, but I’ve found it to be a fundamental key to execution.

In a business world where sending information through email and online fax makes is enormously easy, it’s easy to forget to stop and look at what one is sending out. Proofreading, my friends, is a very unused practice.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s just an email. No one is going to crucify you for forgetting a period or misspelling a word. But remember this—every document that you send out with your name on it is an advertisement for you.

That person in the sales department that you’d love to get an interview with might not remember that you misspelled a word or your email organization was sloppy. But they might remember the impression they had that you’re not detail oriented. So they choose to fill that position with someone else instead than you.

So here’s a suggestion. Never put the person’s email address in the box while you’re composing the email. Write it out first. Then proofread it. Then put their name in and send. You’d hate to accidentally send an unrevised email. And when you’ve come back to the email after attending a meeting, and you don’t see the recipient in the box, you know that you still need to revise it.

When all is said and done, proofreading your emails is an essential practice of strong business leaders. So start today.

So here was a recent situation. My mother was traveling to Texas to a cousin’s wedding. We’re also in preparation for my wedding. She needed to pay the bill to a family luncheon. They asked her to fax them a contract. She’d be away from the office and away from a fax machine.

She could just go find a copy shop with a fax machine that would allow her to do her business. But I recommended that she go to GoFaxer.com and use their easy service for sending faxes through email. Suddenly being away from the office didn’t stop her from having the services of an office.

You may not have a need for faxing every day, but when the time comes where you need it, and you’re traveling, having a GoFaxer account will come really handy.

You don’t even have to have your personal computer to use the service. There’s no software required to work this. As long as you can get into an Internet café or use a friend’s computer with a browser, you can pull up your account, attach your file and send it to any fax machine as if you yourself had this hardware accessible.

My mom was very glad for this option. You will be too.

I like to work. But I don’t like working in an office. It feels too official. Working from home makes me feel like it’s my choice to work, rather than a decision made for me by an employer or circumstance. With new technologies that let you email and fax via the Internet, sometimes we don’t really need to go into the office.

Some people like the sociality of working in an office. They like chatting at the copy machine. They like figuring out new ways to waste their time until they can clock out. But if you’re considering making the move to a job from home, here’s some reasons to consider it:

You don’t have to do the whole, I’m getting up, taking a shower, making myself look professional thing when you wake up. You can get out of bed, poor yourself some granola with skim milk and just start working. And if you like work this isn’t a bad thing. You can get a jump start, end early and do what you like.

No commuting!

You can do your laundry gradually during the day while you work. You don’t have to spend precious Saturdays or evenings doing it.

You can actually be there when the important package is delivered or the cable guy finally shows up.

Of course, it takes a certain discipline to work from home. It might be easier for some to be distracted. But if you can swing it and still be productive, I highly recommend it.