GoFaxer Blog

So I was recently working with a small business owner, a successful businessman in his own right. He needed to approve some proofs for an advertisement. I had emailed them to him. He hadn’t responded to the email. Guess why?

His laptop was being repaired. He didn’t know how to check his email without Outlook. I said, “Is there another way that you can check your email?” He responded, “I guess I can log onto hotmail with our computer at the store?” I said, “Yes, try that.”

He said that if that didn’t work I could fax it to him, which I’d be happy to do with my fax to email service. But I still couldn’t figure out why this man couldn’t open his email. And more importantly, how was he doing other business without it.

Using email effectively has become a necessity of any well run business. Yet I’ve seen small business owners still using dial-up and not replying to their emails regularly because they don’t understand the technology’s importance to their ability to generate sales.

If you don’t understand technology, it will kill you. Because many of your competitors do understand technology and they’re working at a much more efficient level because of it. So don’t allow yourself to be disadvantaged by something that is out there to help you.

One of my biggest complaints about many large businesses is their refusal to change and innovate, choosing instead to cling to their old fashioned technologies, controlling the market and insisting that consumers continue to purchase their antiquated products.

Take gasoline automobiles for example. The gas engine that we use now is essentially the same basic technology created over 100 years ago. Tradition may work for baseball, but there’s no reason that we shouldn’t have cars that are fundamentally better by now, if at least in terms of their fuel system.

The consequence is a industry that dramatically contributes to the polluting of the world. It also ties us to a natural resource with many negative political and economic consequences. Other fuel options have been shut down by political forces invested in keeping the status quo.

This would be like businesses hearing about fax to email technology but deciding to stick with their fax machines. Why would you stay with an old system that isn’t as good? But this is what’s been forced upon us by the auto industry.

So throw away your fax machine with pride. Buy a hybrid. Do what you can to tell producers that we live in a new millennium and expect products to match the times.

I recently wrote about how technologies like email fax are helping women balance between family and their business responsibilities. I said:

“Even though many women want the opportunity to work, many also don’t want to forfeit their right to have a family . . . how do you work that baby into your meeting schedule? As long as businesses are tied to offices, with office machinery, it will always be hard for women to balance work and family.”

But we live in a modern age where business people are no longer tied to their offices. A recent article at Entrepreneur.com by Alexa Vaugn talks about women who started their own businesses while pregnant. For many, it turned out to be a good thing. Vaugn quotes Penny Domschot:

“Being pregnant and being a mom teaches you to be a master juggler that goes all day long–and that’s really the essence of being an entrepreneur. So it’s really the best training you can get in so many ways.”

The combination of advancing technology with progressing social attitudes are making it easier and easier for women to be successful in the business world. Indeed, it’s also helping men who want to be involved with their families as well, not having to spend long hours at the office, but remaining competitive in their career. We live in an exciting time for independent minded business people.

Making a movie is kind of like building a business that will only be in operation for a few months. Whether you’re working for a large production company, or you’re producing a small independent film, the situation is the same. You need flexibility. You need mobility. And you’ve got to keep your costs down no matter what.

Movie productions are notorious for going over budget. Staying on schedule and on budget is a constant daily battle. A little bit of bad luck can turn your small production into a much bigger production than was ever hoped for.

Thankfully, we live in a time when technology is favoring filmmakers. Not only is digital film and editing equipment dramatically reducing the costs of producing a film, but basic office expenses are at an all-time low. A producer can manage a production crew through laptops, cell phones, email, and fax to email services.

Even in the pre and post-production periods, there’s huge savings to be had from these technologies. Writers, directors, producers, and staff can run their entire operations from home, restaurants, or coffee shops, reduciung the expenses for the production. Technology like this can really mean the difference between a movie being made or not made at all.

I found a recent article at Ezine Articles by Rache Young that outlines some very obvious and basic benefits to using email fax over the traditional fax machine.

She first discusses the mainstream uses of the fax machine in the 1980’s:

“With the invention of the fax machine, all you had to do was place your document on a fax machine, dial the phone number of another fax machine anywhere in the world, and by the magic of technology the document would come out on the other side looking just like it did when you sent it.”

This operation was quite remarkable for it’s time. We had gone a long way since the Pony Express. Now we could send documents in minutes over the phone line.

But things got even faster in the 1990’s. Now everyone was sending info in seconds through the Internet. Young says:

“With today’s advanced technology a simple computer, with an Internet connection, is all that is required to send your email to fax machine documents to anywhere in the world.”

The biggest advantage to email fax is it’s cost savings. You don’t have to purchase fax machines anymore. And you save time since the new technology is faster. You don’t need a dedicated line anymore simply for faxes. No more long distance phone charges. Once again, technology is proving a boon to businesses wanting greater efficiency and greater cost savings.

Yesterday it was announced that Toshiba was disbanding production of their HD DVD players. This comes as the end to a war between their technology and Sony’s Blue-ray discs. Both had relatively comparable technologies. Both had excellent products. But in the end, the consumer only wants one standard technology. No one wants to buy both disc players.

Unfortunately for about a million consumers who bought the HD DVD formatted machines, they have machines that are obsolete after just a short time in use. So they won’t be able to buy the latest new release on HD DVD. They won’t be able to rent them. Their investment is useless.

Many consumers chose wisely to stay out of the fight until it had been resolved. Of course Blue-ray sales are likely to go through the roof in the coming year now that your local Best Buy salesman can tell you which one to purchase with assurances.

This entire issue reminded me of the issue with fax machines and the merging technological shift toward email. Nowadays, you don’t want to buy a new fax machine. If your fax machine is dead, don’t think that you need a new one. Faxes can now be sent through fax to email services. It’s as easy as email, and it’s cheaper than buying an expensive new fax machine for your office every couple of years. And it’s a more efficient method of communication, saving your office workers time. Fax machines, like HD DVD players have gone the way of the ghost.

I recently wrote a post about a man who worked for a small start-up in the 80’s. They marketed their health magazine through an aggressive mass mailing strategy. It was a very expensive proposition, requiring extensive capital just to start.

But nowadays, traditional mailers are not as common. Why? Because no one uses the old fashioned mail anymore. Well, that’s an exaggeration. But you know what I mean. Email is great. It’s changed the world. And it’s given many small companies a really great marketing option.

In an article at Businessweek.com by Gene Marks, he talks about how email marketing is a great investment.

“These services are easy to use and work very well for the small business owner who wants to generate a continuous communication with people that can turn into potential business.”

Every week I get an email from the local record store, telling me the latest new music and dvd releases, as well as performers on all of the late night talk shows. It’s a brilliant strategy. It told me when the new Arcade Fire album was being released, which I wouldn’t have known about otherwise. I bought it the day it came out.

So along with your Internet fax service, make good use of email marketing, and your small business will be totally up to date and making use of all tech advantages.

It is a glorious day for small business owners, if they know how to use technology to their advantage. Internet Fax is just one example of many marvelous new inventions that will save you money, time, and hassle. They will make you more efficient and more competitive.

To be fair, a lot of technology out there is untested and unsure of itself. As cool I think the new iPhones are, they may not be one of the most important new tools to offer to your management team. But a wonderful article at Businessweek.com outlines several new inventions that might make your list of essentials.

One of those is desktop sharing software. To quote the website howstuffworks.com:

“Desktop sharing uses simple software to share files, presentations and applications over the Internet — in real time — with colleagues and clients around the world.”

To put it simply, it used to be that you needed to work in the same office as all of your coworkers. But with desktop sharing, an IT expert can fix a problem with a store’s computer thousands of miles away. A manager can present spreadsheets, powerpoint presentations, and other info all through this powerful technology. And two workers many miles away can collaborate on a project on the same desktop.

Everyone say it together: “Technology is our friend!”

Sometimes new technology can be scary. I know that the first time I heard about a fax machine it seemed kind of, how should I put it?—high tech! I know that many of you out there have no aspirations to be the next Information Technology expert.

Speaking of IT experts, do you ever notice how when they come to help you figure out why your computer froze up or your email login password won’t work, they treat you like it’s your fault. I think it’s a common personality trait for those in their profession. They always manage to act like you’re an idiot because you don’t know what the term html means.

So learning to use fax to email can be daunting. “Oh great, one more new high tech thing I’ve got to learn to use around the office.” But I promise you that with the services like GoFaxer you don’t need to worry. Pretty soon you’ll be scanning those documents and emailing them through your online fax service like a pro. You’ll be saying, “Fax machine. What’s that? I don’t need no stinkin’ fax machine.”

I just found a super article in Businessweek.com about great new technologies for small businesses. As regular readers of this blog know, I am often espousing the wonders of Internet fax technology. But this is just one example of other extraordinary innovations that are making it easier to do business on a small scale.

Today I want to talk about the first major innovation—remote desktop.

This service can also be referred to as terminal services. It’s defined on wikipedia as:

“. . . a component of Microsoft Windows (both server and client versions) that allows a user to access applications and data on a remote computer over any type of network, although normally best used when dealing with either a Wide Area Network (WAN) or Local Area Network (LAN), ease and compatibility with other types of networks may differ and vary.”

Remote desktop is a remarkable technology for salesman and employees who need to be mobile. All you need is a small and efficient laptop with a great Internet browser and you’re ready for business.

It’s also a great solution for that employee that can’t live without their Mac. Apple seems to constantly frustrate users by being better than other Microsoft based computers, but not at all compatible with them. But have no fear, you can use your Mac for editing your pictures and home movies, but you can do business on remote desktop, which basically converts your Apple to a PC.