GoFaxer Blog

Business today is beginning to be conducted in a whole new way in keeping with the digital era. Many aspects of business have shifted away from their traditional ways in favor of more convenient and cost effective methods that take full advantage of available technologies. For instance, the fax machine is on its way to becoming obsolete. The mode of online fax has readied itself to take its place.

Nobody likes to have to run around looking for toner or paper with a very urgent fax message hanging in the balance. Regardless of whether it was an urgent fax or not, this meant precious time was wasted as you stood in the long lines in the hallway trying to desperately get the machine to work. I’m sure employers could think of many other ways they would rather their employees spend their time than standing in line at the fax machine. Not to mention the inconvenience of misplaced faxes!

Of course, things are different now. A business can now use an internet fax service to make their communications much more effective and efficient. Any business can now pay a reasonable fee to receive their own toll free fax number that operates through their already established internet connection.

The money saved on eliminating the now unnecessary dedicated phone line can usually make up for new expenses. Upgrading to online fax is not at all expensive and the hassles of the fax machine are eliminated.

Online fax also eliminates the problems listed above. No more waiting for the fax machine, any employee can conduct all of their fax related business right at their desks. And forget about misplaced faxes, all faxes will be sent directly to an online database for your retrieval.

You also have to consider just how handy this will be for people who don’t work the typical nine-to-five office hours. The convenience of online faxing will be even more apparent to the person who does a lot of traveling.

With all of the benefits of online fax, there is no doubt that the fax machine is increasingly becoming more and more obsolete. Don’t let your home office or business become obsolete as well. Contact GoFaxer today to learn about online fax services available.

There’s a million small bits of advice that you’re going to need when creating your own startup. Sometimes, legally, you’re required to have a board of directors. But even if you’re not, Carolyn Kepcher advises that you do it anyway.

She says:

“Assemble a group of knowledgeable friends, colleagues and associates who are willing to meet with you from time to time to look at your plans, review your decisions and act as general advisers to your enterprise.”

What amazing advice. I love this.

For example, you might not be aware of the fact that you can use Internet fax instead of a fax machine, but someone on your board of advisers, might. You might not know that you can save money using Gmail instead of buying Microsoft Outlook. You might be thinking of renting a somewhat expensive property, when one of your board knows someone with something cheaper.

The list of potential good advice to be given by a group of knowledgeable business people goes on and on. Don’t feel like you must rely on your knowledge and understanding alone. There’s so many people out there willing to help you build your enterprise. You just need to ask. And the results can be miraculous.

So your fax machine has broken. You’ve got a small business, not a lot of cash flow. With a recession looming, a new fax machine is hardly something you want to spend money on.

But wait my friend. Don’t hang your head in gloom. It’s a brave new world, where fax machines have died and new and better technology has replaced the old. It’s a time when all has gone digital.

Most of your documents can be sent now through email as an attachment. But in those instances where it needs to be faxed, or you need to receive a fax, you need a fax to email account. No more need for paper. No more need for bulky fax machines with toner and a table. No more need for long lines and waiting for an open phone line.

Fax to email is so convenient. It works just like email. You attach the document, and send it through the internet, but it shows up on the other person’s fax machine. And when they send you back a response through their fax machine, it shows up back in your email inbox. Multiple faxes can be sent and received at one time!

It’s so inexpensive compared with the costs of a fax machine. So no longer fret. It’s a bright new day.

I’m sure that Carolyn Kepcher, the famous star of the Donal Trump’s “The Office,” would never be caught waiting at a fax machine. Such antiquated practices have been replaced by Internet faxing; I’m sure she’d be the

She’s got some great advice to those of you creating a startup. She’s a strong proponent of networking and creating relationships. But she gives a caution.

Like dating you don’t want to go in too strong, scaring away the potential relationship. You want to give the relationship time to grow before approaching the person with serious commitments. She says:

“When introduced to somebody who might be able to help you, start a dialogue, get to know the person and help him or her get to know you a bit. Only when a relationship is formed should you begin to talk about your business ideas, pose questions or ask for help. If you jump in too quickly, you may turn the person off and lose his/her help altogether.”

She also points out that this person might in fact be a potential competitor. You don’t want to reveal information that they could use to their benefit, leaving you out of the loop.

Remember when you had that one employee who said to you, “Boss, we don’t need a fax machine anymore. Let’s switch to a fax to email service.” This is what great employees are for—finding great opportunities for your business growth and prosperity.

A recent article at Businessweek.com by Christine Comaford-Lynch offers some really sound advice about finding great employees. It’s easy, with a recession looming, to focus on money and business model issues, but don’t neglect the people. They’re likely to be most important element. And if you lose your top people during the downturn, you’ll never recover.

She suggests that an easy mistake is to mismatch people to the positions. Often, you’ve got a quality person that is under performing because they’re in the wrong position. Not because they aren’t quality. And you can’t afford to lose a quality employee. So always be evaluating whether you have everyone placed correctly.

Another thing she suggests is making sure you interview the people and not the resume. She does this by doing a really good screening phone conversation before the interview. She asks:

• The candidate’s career goals.
• What the person is really good at professionally.
• What he or she is not so good at, or not interested in doing.
• Who the candidate’s last five bosses were, what each boss would list as the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.

These are just a few of many recommendations that she makes. I’d strongly advise that you read the whole article. It’s very valuable info.

When the blue chips struggle, it’s definitely reason for pause for small businesses. Such was the case for General Electric, which reported 6% decline in first-quarter profits. They’re earnings were $4.3 billion, down from $4.57 a share.

So what does this mean for small businesses? Well, first off, it means that a recession is pretty much in the cards. I hate to say it, but it’s seeming pretty darned likely these days when every day there’s new bad news. This just adds to the pessimism.

I’ve discussed the many issues associated with preparing for a recession on here. But it’s probably worth repeating a few warnings.

The first and easiest advice I have to you and your small business is to cut costs wherever you can. These need to be intelligent cost cutting techniques that want cost you sales. Remember that the goal of all of this is increasing your profitability to shore up extra cash during the downturn. So don’t go hurting yourself in an effort to help yourself.

I’m talking about making intelligent cuts, like ditching the fax machine for an Internet based email fax service like GoFaxer. I’m talking about spending a little less on the office renovations. I’m talking about saving energy costs by switching to more efficient light bulbs. All of these savings will go to your bottom line and help you through this time.

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.

What will the state of technology be in ten or twenty years? Most of you will still be working in such an environment. I can’t help but wonder what it will be like.

If someone had told me twenty years ago that online fax services would replace the modern fax machine, I would have been amazed. It would have been hard to imagine the Internet and see exactly how dramatically it’s changed the world.

I think that in twenty years we will have lots of computer screens. They’ll be more than just flat. They’ll be holographically projected and relatively inexpensive. So we’ll have many of them through out the interior of our homes and offices.

We won’t have PCs or even laptops. We’ll have small portable interfaces that will link into the Internet, where all of our applications will be running. Meaning, we’ll have very little need for a lot of memory on the computer. Just really strong connections to the Internet.

I think that music and movies will be relatively free, but used to cross promote other products. You’ll see movies and music used to draw customers to websites which will then sell ad space, which generates revenue.

It’s going to be a very exciting world to live in. I can’t wait.

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.