Small Business Blog from Microsoft

Too many women who run small or home-based businesses get caught doing double duty. They're continually balancing work and family, weekdays and weekends, while the borders between the two keep shifting. Working from home has many perks, but with those perks come the reality that you're never away from your business. The result? Tasks and responsibilities spin round the clock and women business owners don't allow themselves any true breaks or vacation - a lunch break is too often cleaning the kitchen or folding washing.

In this time-pressed equation, technology is both a blessing and a bane. Anywhere-anytime technology helps companies of all sizes stay on top of rapidly-shifting priorities and needs. Yet, always-on access also means women never quite shut down. And taking phone calls during dinner or checking email while out with the kids usually means someone gets short shrift, whether it's the family or the client. Here are some tips on how to avoid burnout:

• Create backup before it's critical. Build support structures and safety nets before you actually need any, whether that means childcare or having a virtual assistant on tap who can handle some of your more routine tasks. Or, partner with other businesses or women who can ‘watch the shop' while you're away. "
• Learn to say no. Practice in the mirror. Shout it in the woods. Don't sacrifice your personal calendar for work tasks.
• Announce your plans. When you do take time off, let clients know exactly when you'll be away and when you'll return, including when you expect to respond to email and phone calls.
• Set boundaries. Schedule regular free time that you can maintain and that everyone will understand.
• Stay focused and efficient during work hours. Rather than being driven by the day's crop of email and phone calls, check your messages two or three times a day, such as first thing in the morning, at noon, and in the late afternoon. That will give you greater freedom to focus on the bigger picture of growing your business.
• Take short breaks. If you can't make time for a few days away, break up the week with a long afternoon walk, lunch with a friend, or go to a local event.
• Request help when you need it. Partners, significant others, relatives, and everyone else may have become accustomed to the fact that you simply do everything all the time. Stop. Ask for support.
• Give yourself small rewards. Go to the gym, the cinema, dinner with a friend or book a half-day at the spa (OK: a one-hour manicure) before you're worn out. The idea is to remember why you work so hard.

Related posts: Mompreneurs - women setting up in business; Focusing on women in business

We've had a daily news feed on the Small Business website for a while now, and it's proving a quick and easy way of keeping up-to-date with SME news. We've developed this resource so you can now view the whole news archive, not just the previous few days, and find those articles you read last week. You can also search the archive by topic, or by month. And if you haven't already done so, you can subscribe to the RSS SME news feed and get the latest news delivered to your desktop.

Related posts: Subscribe to the Smart Business newsletter

New Ask the Expert questions for September include a question about why a small business should upgrade to Windows Vista. Having heard good things about its functionality and design, the question is what benefits does Vista bring from a business perspective? John Curran, Windows Client Business Lead for Microsoft UK takes the opportunity to run through some of the main plus points of Windows Vista over XP.

Managing mobile staff more efficiently is the topic for the second expert article. An electricians business is looking for an application that will allow them to schedule visits to customers’ houses, and then to enter data via mobile devices, linking back to a central database. David Brown runs through the features of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which will enable the company to build a profile of their customers and centralise their market information.

Related post: August's ATEs on keeping accounts and reducing admin overheads

• General overview
• Getting started
• Designing your website
• Advanced design tips
• Website statistics
• Office Live email
• Promoting your business (adManager & Email Marketing)
• Business applications (Contact Manager, Document Manager, Team Workspaces and more)
• Office Live Workspace
• Using the Resource Centre

The really good news is that between now and 19 October 2008, you can download an electronic version of the book completely for free.

Also, if you want a printed copy of the book it’s on promotion as book of the month, at 40% off the retail price.

So, if you’re interested in Office Live and want a great reference to help you build your website and use all the other tools and services available, now is a great time to get the book.

Related posts: Advanced design features in Office Live; Building a website - adding PayPal

Back in August we posted a blog about Free Small Business Resources. We had a GMTA (great minds think alike) response from a Microsoft MVP (Most Valued Professional), who has spent some considerable time compiling a very extensive list of free Microsoft Office 2007 resources. Take a look at Blake Handler's post, which is a truly impressive list of downloads and add-ins you can use to make your working day a bit smoother.  Blake's blog is ‘The Road to Know Where - Quick nuggets of technical information in an easy to understand format'.

I’m sure you know that Microsoft doesn’t sell direct to consumers, but sells instead through various channels, retailers and partners. We’re aware this can be frustrating so we’ve developed a special ‘How to buy’ section on the Small Business website, designed to help you decide exactly what you want and what the best buying options are for different scenarios. 

You may need just one copy of Office 2007 for example, or you may be thinking about purchasing licences for a mix of products and aren't sure of the best way to do it. The How to Buy section has a simple questionnaire to help guide you through the decision-making process and a comparison tool so you can see at a glance with option is best for you.

This is a good time to buy Office 2007 Small Business Edition for example – buy from a participating Microsoft partner before 31 October and you can get up to 15% off – you’ll find more details on the Special Offers page. You can buy from retailers or you can download an electronic copy from the Microsoft Store.

Related posts: The Ultimate Steal

• Use Voice-over-Internet protocol phone service (VoIP) to create a virtual office. You've probably heard about such affordable services, which, basically, use the Internet to send and receive calls. Usually, you pay only for Internet access and not for calls, much the way email works. There are dozens of VoIP providers to choose from - BT's packages start at around £5 per month.
• Use online services for office communications and banking.
• Leverage the power of a professional website. Setting up a website (free with Office Live), more than any other technological tool, will shave considerable time and effort from your workdays. With a professional site, you can more efficiently conduct business, fulfil orders, organise contacts, share documents with employees or contractors, and market your products or services, even when you're out of the office or on the road. Use your site features to stay in touch with customers. For example:
  - Set up an online forum so customers can register and post comments to you and to each other.
  - Set up a survey that customers can take online. This can be a focus group type of survey (say, about a new product) or a customer satisfaction survey.
  - Set up a special email address and ask customers for specific feedback or advice whenever you launch a new product, service, or special promotion.
• Use email software to track schedules and tasks. Software such as Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 can improve your performance. Most people are good at creating to-do or task lists, but often become distracted and don't commit to a scheduled time to accomplish those tasks. By using the task and reminder functions of an email program, you can set up a calendar that generates alerts, whether annual, weekly, or daily. Some business owners say that such alerts boost their productivity by 50 per cent or more.
• Stop thinking you must do everything yourself. Doing administrative work is necessary, but it can detract from an owner's primary purpose of growing and nurturing the business. There are plenty of ‘virtual office assistants' around who can help when you need additional resources.
• Create a sales contact database for your business. Software such as Contact Manager, included within Office Live Small Business (see a demo of Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2007), can transform your electronic address book into a sales, contact management, and marketing tool. Then, when you send out marketing or sales material, instead of hand-addressing envelopes, you can automate the process with labels or envelopes printed from your database list. Similarly, you can use the database to send email marketing messages. Just make sure that the software you use for your database (usually part of a sales contact program) can be integrated with your email program.
• Invest in email marketing that yields results. Certainly, consumers now delete email marketing messages faster than you can say ‘click-through'. However, when it's done right (which means your consumer really wants your message and knows your brand), email marketing remains relatively cheap and incredibly effective. You can automate the process of sending and tracking your mail campaigns with affordable tools and either off-the-shelf or online software. (Tip: get double opt-in permission before adding a prospect to your e-mail list.)
• Mobile phones and continual access to email now make us available around the clock. So, in the end, all the technology in the world won't let you kick back unless you make some rules.
  - Schedule specific times to check e-mail. 
  - Turn off your phone when you're home or out with friends.

Related posts: Handy software tips; Who's in the room?

"On the web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly and suddenly a cult which was 12 people who had some deep personal issues suddenly find a formula which is very believable," he said. "A sort of conspiracy theory of sorts and which you can imagine spreading to thousands of people and being deeply damaging."

Sir Tim spoke to the BBC last week, to publicise the launch of his World Wide Web Foundation which aims to improve the web's accessibility.

Alongside this role it will aim to make it easier for people to get online. Currently only 20% of the world's population have access to the web. "Has it been designed by the West for the West?" asked Sir Tim.

"Has it been designed for the executive and the teenager in the modern city with a smart phone in their pocket? If you are in a rural community do you need a different kind of web with different kinds of facilities?"

 (Read the whole story on the BBC website.)

The world isn't going to end for a couple of months though (as far as I know) because the Large Hadron Collider has been switched off - some kind of magnet problem apparently - so we can all breathe a big sigh of relief.

Related posts: Building a website - adding PayPal

A typical conversion rate for small business websites is between 1 - 5 per cent according to marketing professionals. In other words, for every 100 visitors to your site, somewhere between one and five will follow the link to your ‘buy this product' or to a free download. Here are ten strategies on how to get them there.

1. Remember the basics, but don't oversimplify. Yes, focusing on usability and good design will lead to a better conversion rate but you also need compelling messaging and alternative navigation. (Customers who bought this also bought X and Y and Z: wine under £5, wine under £10, etc etc.)
2. Think like a customer. Design your site from your customers' perspective - what they want from you, not from what you want to give them. How do you find out what they want? Just ask. Encourage feedback and examine your web metrics.
3. Don't over-pitch to your prospects. Instead, give them another reason to return to your site. Start a blog on it for example, or offer some hints and tips for existing customers. Or you could start a forum for customers and prospects to exchange ideas.
4. Yes, discounts and promotions really do work. Online shoppers love a good deal, including weekly/monthly specials, free p&p, coupon codes, or discounts for multiple orders.
5. Nothing sells like pictures - especially detailed ones. Integrating zoom and even rotate functionality on your site can really boost sales.
6. Add tools for reviews, comments, or ratings. Good and bad reviews can build your site's credibility. Third-party reviews can add credibility to your site and potentially boost sales over the long term. Why? If you add the capability for your customers to comment, it shows you really care about what your customers think, and that you're willing to stand behind your product.
7. Entertain. Generating an engaged audience can bring prompt more buyers. If they're bored, they unlikely to reach for their wallets (and they'll probably leave your site, too). Use podcasting and video-casting to promote your products and services through email campaigns that drive traffic to your website and consumers to your store.
8. You can't have too many ‘order' buttons. If you want customers to place orders, give them plenty of opportunities. Put order buttons not just on the home page but on other sub-pages. Don't force customers to backtrack to place an order, and avoid complicated, multi-step order forms.
9. Bookmark widgets, anyone? Giving your visitors the option of bookmarking a ‘buy this product' page can draw other visitors in a Web 2.0 world. Bookmarking is the ability to tag a certain page from your web browser and then come back to it quickly. Bookmarking tools like delicious.com allows people of like interests to share information and possibly drive additional prospects to your site.
10. Don't forget your meta tags. These descriptions about your pages are embedded in the coding of your site, and can help with sales. If you don't have a meta description tag, the search engines will often choose a text extract from your page that may not be the most persuasive. You can add meta tags to the header of each page, on your Office Live Small Business site or other web publishing software.

Related posts: How to write web content for a busy audience; 12 things you shouldn't publish on your website

We don't often do blatant product plugs in Small Business Blog but sometimes, when there's a really great tool available that can save loads of time, effort and money, the temptation is just too great. So bear with us on this one...

Producing professional-looking documents will cost you money if you go to a creative agency, as it will also do if you d-i-y, because of the length of time it will take you to get to the finished article.  But with Microsoft Office Publisher, even total beginners can create publications for email, print or websites. You can just use existing templates, or you can take one and customise it. You can start by producing a business card and then with a click of a button, move on to a mailing label for example.

You can also produce marketing campaigns and track their effectiveness. For example, create your marketing campaign with the ideas and tips in Publisher Tasks. After you create your marketing campaign, the compression tools in Publisher can optimise the publications that you plan to send as email messages. Finally, the Catalog Merge Wizard can manage your multiple mailing lists to simplify the email process.

Integration between Office Publisher 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, and Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager includes new tracking tools that help you determine the effectiveness of marketing mailings. You can merge multiple customer lists from Microsoft Office Access 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Office Outlook 2007, and Office Publisher 2007 by using the Publisher merge tools. And use Business Contact Manager to keep track of the marketing materials that you send, the responses that you receive, and the costs associated with each campaign.

Learn more by downloading a free trial of Office Publisher 2007 and take a test drive today. And learn more about Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 and Microsoft Office Professional 2007.

Over the summer, I’ve been reading a few books about Peak Oil, the Energy Crisis, Renewables and other such engaging subjects. I also thought it was a good time to start experimenting with some of the new Advanced Design features in OfficeLive Small Business. So what I did was put a small website together showcasing Office Live Small Business and also highlighting the potential ecological dilemma we all face. Have a look at the end result at www.eco-crisis.co.uk.

The first thing you may notice is that this website looks quite different from other Office Live Small Business sites you might have seen or built yourself. The reason is that the Advanced Design mode has been switched on to reveal some features not previously available:

Once the Advanced Design features have been activated, you’ll immediately notice that each webpage has an extra option of “Save as template”. This allows the designer to build a new page with its own unique features, and then save it as a template which can then be re-used for subsequent pages for the site.

Crowdsourcing is the new hot topic. Just when you thought you might be getting a grip on cloud computing (blog from 5 June), another new term and business model comes along, brought to my attention by Angeline Vuong from CrowdSPRING. As I understand it, you post your creative ‘requirement', which may be a new website for example, a logo, a brochure or something similar, along with an indication of how much you'd like to pay, and then wait for the responses. You can then choose the one that best fits your needs. Although CrowdSPRING is based in the US, the marketplace is global so there are plenty of UK participants.

Crowdsourcing is not just limited to marketing materials - in this new era of digital marketing the concept is spreading to embrace software development as well. Same principle - you have a need and someone out there can help you meet that need, it's just a case of finding them. You can learn more from this book ‘Crowdsourcing: How the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business', available from Amazon.

On the subject of books, on special offer this month in the Small Business Centre books section, is  ‘Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Step by Step', available to SBC visitors at a 50% discount at £8.99.

Small Business blogs: True Business; moof.mobi

For all you out there with children or relatives who are about to embark on a new year of student life at university we have the perfect exclusive offer to get them started...

Microsoft can now offer students the new software they need for a rock-bottom price.  The ‘Ultimate Steal' is an offer being run by Microsoft for university students where they are able to obtain Office Ultimate for only £38.95 which is a whopping 90% off the current price amongst the retail outlets! 

Microsoft Office Ultimate Edition 2007 includes:

• Microsoft Access
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft Groove
• Microsoft InfoPath
• Microsoft OneNote
• Microsoft Outlook with Business Contact Manager
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Publisher
• Microsoft Word

All you have to do to get your hands on this fantastic deal is visit The Ultimate Steal website.

Small business owner/managers generally believe in the web even if they don't have their own website because they think building a site is a complicated, time-consuming project that they are afraid to outsource. Yet they don't have the time - or the knowledge - to do it themselves either.

If you fit this description, the answer may be a one-page ‘starter' website, which gives you an immediate web presence but doesn't require extensive planning, writing, or designing - or lots of cash. You can expand your site over time, as your business grows or you determine a need for more pages.

The expense is minimal if you sign up for a service such as Microsoft Office Live, which offers a free website and design tools, a free domain name, business e-mail, and hosting and storage. Even just a one-page site can:

• Get your business on search engines and directories
• Increase your company's legitimacy and credibility.
• Increase brand recognition for your business.
• Put your contact and location info in front of more people.
• Get you started so that you can add new pages over time.

One-page sites won't work for every business. They are generally most suitable in industries where the product or service is easy to describe and the key content is the value proposition and contact information. Small professional services firms such as law and accounting, small veterinary or dental clinics, and niche retail businesses are examples of where a one-page site could work because most people already know what they want from these businesses.

Five things the experts say you should include in your one-page site include:

• A high-resolution logo and other visual materials you use in your marketing.
• Short descriptions of your product or service offerings.
• Your contact and location information.
• Testimonials from clients.
• Links to any news articles and directories where your business is mentioned.

Related posts: How to write web content for a busy audience; Updating your website - tips for a tweak or a facelift;

Associated blog: True Business - real life for small business