Business Answers articles

25 ways to improve your emails

Matthew — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:40:00 GMT

Email continues to be the communication channel of choice in business, and while social media might be muscling in on our personal lives, it hasn’t killed email just yet. Unfortunately, despite the practice we get by sending 144.8 billion emails a day, most of us are still really bad at it. And it’s driving everyone mad.

So, here are 25 tips to help you get to the point, get read, and get a response.

Make sure your full name appears in the sender details. Do you answer the phone from a withheld number? Then who is going to open an anonymous email?
Choose your recipients judiciously. Don’t bother those who don’t need to know.
Prevent premature delivery by leaving the ‘To’ field blank until your email is ready to send.
The subject line is there for you to summarise clearly and concisely the point of your email. If you want it opened, don’t call it ‘Hey’ or ‘Meeting’. Be specific, tell them what the email needs them to do.
When you’re in a long thread, and the topic of conversation changes, change the subject line. Keep it relevant (with the original in brackets so everyone remembers how it all began).
Respect your reader’s time. Keep everything short, sweet and to the point.
An email should only ever cover one topic. Don’t muddy the message and make the reader have to think about what you want from them. If you have lots to cover, call the person or have a meeting.
If you’re sharing documents and data consider whether collaboration tools, like Basecamp, would be better than email.
Email is simply not suitable for some things: don’t fire people, argue or cover personal and sensitive topics with a medium that is notoriously open to misinterpretation.
If there is no objective to your email, why are you sending it? Don’t fill your recipient’s inbox with white noise.
Use plain text. “All those pretty colors and fancy type faces and styles make me want to puke,” says Guy Kawasaki, “If you can’t say it in plain text, you don’t have anything worth saying.”
Don’t faff about. Get to heart of the matter in the first line. Tell them what you want them to do, or what you want them to know. Chris Brogan blogged about one of the greatest emails he’s ever received. Look at why.
Write plainly. As with all writing, avoid jargon and meaningless words that will make your reader zone out.
Check your spelling and grammar. Yes, it does matter, it affects how people hear your tone and if you don’t think enough of your recipient to take the time to get it right, why should they take the time to reply?
Don’t be afraid of emotion. Use emoticons, or extra punctuation to clarify your tone and keep things friendly!!!
Having said that, don’t email when you’re emotional. If you are angry or drunk, then step away from the keyboard.
Be conversational. Keep it human in order to keep it engaging. Email is electronic, your reader is not.
For marketing emails, be sure to focus on helping the reader, rather than boasting about yourself. The results speak for themselves.
Speak to specific audiences. Marketing emails need to be just as relevant and informative as any other email, so target your emails.
When using email for sales, always make sure you answer ‘What’s in it for me?’ early on in the message.
Reiterate your main point and spell out what you want your reader to do before you sign off. ‘Reply and let me know if you are free at 2pm on Wednesday.’
Include links to social media or websites with your signature, but don’t go mad. People want to know how to get in touch, not your life story.
Stop. Breath. Think. Re-read. Send.
Reply. Set a good example. If you want people to respond promptly, and pay attention to your emails, then return the favour and practice what you preach.
And finally, never forward an email that contains the words, ‘LOL’, ‘FAIL’ or ‘CAT’.

No more late payments: eight tips to speed up payments

Matthew — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:38:00 GMT

Cash is king and the key to the throne is getting your customers to pay you on time. In my experience early payment discounts and late-payment penalties don’t work very well but here are some tried-and-tested tips to get the cash rolling in:

Be clear about your payment terms. Use a colour printer to highlight the due date of an invoice in big, red letters so that customers know what you expect.
Invoice quickly. Don’t wait until the end of the month to do an invoice run. If you have delivered the goods, send in the invoice. Every day’s delay costs you money.
Check they got the invoice. A week after you send in an invoice, call your client and politely check they received the invoice. The old excuse ‘it got lost in the post’ is still common but it’s much more likely to get lost in someone’s in-tray. So get confirmation that they have actually received it.
Be friendly (but persistent). It also helps to establish a friendly channel of communication with your client’s accounts payable people. If cash is tight, they’ll often delay payments to companies they don’t know or who don’t chase them. You want to be in the other category from the start. And you definitely want to be polite (if firm, diplomatic and persistent) rather than angry or stressed.
Send reminders. Send a reminder about a week before the due date and then on the due date. Once the invoice is overdue, you can use colour and design on your statements and invoices to emphasise the invoice status.
Give people lots of ways to pay you. The worst way to get paid is a cheque because it can get lost and it takes time pay in and clear. Make it easy for people to pay you online with PayPal or direct into your bank account with BACS. You could even look at accepting payment in bitcoins (like WordPress.com).
Go nuclear. If persistence doesn’t pay off, a lawyer’s letter should produce rapid results. You can even sue someone online at the Courses & Tribunals Service’s Money Claim site. There’s a risk to the relationship, of course, but a court summons usually produces instant results.
Re-consider your business model. Can you charge a retainer? Accept credit card payments? Ask for an advance payment before you start? There’s no law that says you have to invoice after the fact and then accept a 90 day wait for payment. Change the rules if you can.

MFP Press Reviews

Matthew — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:36:00 GMT

PC Magazine says of the black and white HP LaserJet Enterprise 500 MFP M525f: ‘If your office is looking for a rich-featured monochrome MFP for heavy-duty text printing, it's worth a close look.’

And it is equally positive about the colour MFP M575dn model, saying it ‘is very fast for a color laser multifunction printer and prints excellent graphics.’

This video gives a great overview of why HP’s new MFPs are so cool – it’s about so much more than just printing.

Analyst firm Gartner gets straight to the point: ‘HP’s latest document management solutions address three major trends in enterprise printing: workflow digitization, cloud and mobility. Workflow digitization reduces the burden of a paper-heavy document system in several ways. It saves storage space, decreases paper consumption, reduces costs, saves time and makes document processes more efficient overall.’

Dexter’s Blog: 21st Century Education

Matthew — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:09:26 GMT

Education is one of those universal experiences. We all went to school, of course. Many people, like me, have young children in school. And all of us are relying on our education system to produce happy, productive members of society. So, what happens in schools is important.

Here at HP, we passionately believe in the power of technology to make a difference in the classroom. It can help in many ways:

Improve attainment with personalised learning. Give a child the tools and the right guidance and they can discover the world.
Allow students to learn anywhere, any time. Inspiration doesn’t follow a timetable or live in one building.
Bridge the home-school divide and get parents more involved. Parents can see how children are progressing and how they can help. Students can access resources outside school.
Streamline and simplify routine school admin. Technology can free teachers from time-consuming paperwork and help them spend more time educating.
Equip students with real-world skills. Students, especially as they approach school-leaving age, need to discover what the world of work is like and become familiar with the technology they will need in it.

These opportunities are worth seizing. This is why HP is committed to the education market and why we are investing heavily in developing next-generation technology that will turn these opportunities into everyday reality.

It’s also why we are co-sponsoring the TES Schools Awards. In just seven weeks we’ll help celebrate the best schools, teachers and support staff in the country and an HP-sponsored ICT award will recognise real innovation and examples of excellent ICT teaching practice.

Watch out for short list nominations in the Times Educational Supplement or online later this week.

Free HP white paper: The Art of Flexible Management

Matthew — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:25:00 GMT

Virtual workers? Mobile staff? Home offices? Duvet days? If you're embracing the world for flexible working, you need flexible management too. Our white paper explains how.

Get more done with an HP Workstation

Matthew — Tue, 14 May 2013 08:19:00 GMT

Did you ever sit waiting for your computer to respond? Perhaps you were recalculating a big spreadsheet, working a detailed presentation or waiting for a document to load. Maybe you were working on a big graphics file or editing a video. If you value your time, it can pay to get a faster, more capable computer.

Faster is better

HP Workstations are like regular PCs on steroids. They help you become more productive by letting you spend more time doing your job and less time waiting for your computer to catch up. This is because they are designed for performance. They still run Microsoft Windows and familiar applications, but they have been optimised with high-performance components, extra memory, faster processors and storage.

Maximum performance for digital content

People who work with digital content need workstation performance. It makes short work of photo retouching, video editing, 3D modelling, desktop publishing and graphic design. In fact, our workstations are certified by leading software vendors, including Autodesk and Adobe.

Reliability boosts productivity

Crashes and breakdowns are a big waste of time. Workstations typically have 25 percent longer mean time between failures, which reduces the chances of a hardware problem interrupting your work for an extended period. But HP Workstation reliability doesn’t end there. Features such as error-correcting memory and intelligent cooling reduce the chances of temporary faults causing crashes and short-term interruptions.

Get more done with multiple monitors

Using more than one monitor at a time can make you much productive. Studies show an average productivity increase of 20-30 percent when using two displays instead of just one. HP Workstations support multiple monitors. Depending on the model and configuration, you can have up to eight different screens. So whatever you do, if you spend a lot of time in front of a computer, you’ll get more done with a Workstation than a regular PC.

Video review of HP Z1 all-in-one workstation

For more information

Streamlining for success: the story of a thoroughly modern Monica Vinader

Matthew — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:14:15 GMT

Monica Vinader is an innovative UK-based company that designs, produces and sells elegant jewellery. We talked to head of operations (and sister to designer Monica) Gabriela Vinader about how she uses cloud-based tools to run and manage their modern and collaborative business.

Monica Vinader describes itself as ‘the brand of choice for elegant and wearable jewellery’. With outlets in Harrods, Liberty and Selfridges, as well as a dedicated store just off Bond Street, it seems they most certainly are.

Monica Vinader regularly receives coverage in magazines like Vogue and Elle, and numerous celebrities have been spotted sporting a Monica Vinader piece. It’s not just the jewellery that’s beautiful though; thanks to Grabriela’s commitment to making the most of modern business technology, its internal operations are pretty stunning too.

Why modernity matters

‘Using cloud-based tools is a no-brainer for me,’ says Gabriela, ‘it’s like if the internet hadn’t been invented and then someone came along and offered it to you – would you use it? Of course you would!’

Monica Vinader faces many of the challenges that are common to small businesses today. The firm has to manage a split head office, with Monica and the design team based in Norfolk, and Gabriela working in London where the majority of their outlets are.

Of the 30+ members of staff, several travel regularly between offices and need to be able to work on the road, and many also work flexibly from home. That means Gabriela has to support multiple devices of every sort and access to information on the go.

‘There are things coming on the market, like Turbine, that make it affordable now,’ says Gabriela. By embracing online tools, Gabriela not only enables remote and flexible working, but since there is no need for a server or dedicated IT staff, she also saves a great deal of money.

Take Turbine for example

Before Turbine, purchase orders at Monica Vinader were ‘a bit of a nightmare.’ Staff would email Gabriela with requests and then she’d enter the request on a spreadsheet and reply with a made-up PO number.

‘It wasn’t really working, and nobody knew what was going on,’ says Gabriela.

Now everybody has an account on Turbine, they can log in and make requests using the suppliers and accounting codes that Gabriela set up when she signed up. Gabriela can simply review and approve requests at the click of a button. Even if she misses an email, she can sign in and see all the requests in one place.

‘It’s just more efficient and cleaner,’ says Gabriela.

Business efficiency? There’s an app for that

When it comes to online apps, Gabriela has taken full advantage of the multitude of services out there that can help small businesses:

theRota.com helps Gabriela ensure that there are always people on the shop floor and covering their counters in the various department stores. It can automate scheduling and send text messages if the rota is changed.
Customer service is taken care of with Desk.com, which is a web-based email management tool that has functionality like tagging, time tracking and social media integration
Gabriela uses Box and Google Drive for back up and sharing files, as people can access them from anywhere, any time
Google Apps allows real time collaboration on specific documents, and Gabriela has used Google Apps to build a simple company intranet
She communicate with their website developers using Basecamp, which allows her to track progress and be part of the iterative design and coding process
Looking to the future, Gabriela is exploring online point-of-sales and inventory apps as well as cloud-based accounting systems

‘We don’t store credit card data or customer information on the cloud,’ says Gabriela, ‘but for everything else it seems pretty obvious.’ Considering online tools like Turbine have saved her time and money whilst making her job easier and her staff happier, it’s easy to see why being a thoroughly-modern Monica Vinader has meant becoming an extremely successful and innovative small business.

HP ElitePad Diary

Matthew — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:57:24 GMT

Is it possible to replace a laptop and a desktop computer with a tablet PC running Windows 8 Pro? Matthew Stibbe tries an HP ElitePad 900 for a week to find out. Read some entries from his diary: a week in the life of an ElitePad.

Monday

It’s my Monday morning video conference with my Turbine development team. I use the ElitePad’s HD web cam and the Windows 8 Skype app to talk to them. They’re in Ukraine and I’m in London but the tablet brings us together as if we’re in neighbouring rooms.

Then I have my weekly conference call to discuss Articulate’s upcoming copywriting work. I load up Microsoft’s free OneNote app to take notes while I talk – just using the onscreen keyboard works fine for this. I can create tasks just as easily using the touchscreen display. It’s actually more intuitive to do this on a tablet.

Tuesday

It’s a busy writing day so I drop the ElitePad into its docking station and connect it to the big monitor on my desk and a full size keyboard. Using Microsoft Word 2013, I quickly finish off two articles. The way that the new version of Word sinks into background and brings my copy to the fore is impressive. The new design is very slick with nice details like a smoothly animating cursor and support for touch as well as mouse-based editing.

Wednesday

Off to a meeting with Edelman to plan out more content for HP Business Answers. I use the ElitePad on the tube trip to Victoria to go over my notes, which I’ve downloaded to the device via Box. (And yes, I listen to some music on my headphones while I’m doing it!) When I surface, I use Bing maps to find my way to their offices. On the way back, I pick up my email at St. James’s station using the Virgin Wi-Fi there. Cool.

Thursday

Another writing day but with a few interviews. I’m working on some brochures for HP and a couple of case studies from other clients. For the HP call, I use HP Virtual Rooms on the ElitePad so that my client can show me a presentation while we talk. I take notes in OneNote during the call so that I have a record of the conversation.

Swiping in from the edge of the screen is like alt-tabbing between apps and I can quickly check the calendar while I’m talking and make sure that I don’t overrun into my next meeting.

Friday

It’s billing time and I use Excel to open up the tracking spreadsheet on my server and log into FreshBooks to actually create the invoices. More housekeeping: I check my social network accounts, reply to a few emails … the usual stuff.

And suddenly, I realise that I could quite happily use the ElitePad as my main computer, especially with the docking station and I’m sad to have to give it back. I really can’t say that about the other tablets I’ve bought over the past couple of years.

I’ve just downloaded the Netflix app and I’m looking forward to watching some TV over the weekend. The ElitePad is a capable, everyday business computer shrunk into lightweight tablet form factor with a responsive touch screen and Windows 8 Pro. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have a bit of fun on the weekend!

Dexter's blog: HP and the public sector

Matthew — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:42:43 GMT

What happens in the public sector affects us all. The quality of schools matters to parents, employers and children alike. We’ve all used the NHS and the other inevitability – taxes – also involves the public sector. And, increasingly, the public sector as a whole depends on IT.

This is why I’m looking forward to The Public Sector Show on Tuesday 30 April.

HP will be there with our ElitePad 900, MFP Flow and OfficeJet Pro X printers and other cool technology that is already helping to transform the way the public sector does its work.

Government Agencies can now take control of their complex IT environment with HP, enabling less time thinking about technology and more time focusing on what really matters.

For example, we can help public sector organisations:

Get control of printing. There’s an HP seminar about HP Managed Print Services to discuss how HP can help reduce printing costs and environmental impact.
Simplify document sharing and management. The seminar will also cover ways in which HP technology like MFP Flow can make it easier to securely scan, share and store documents.
Put information in the hands of decision-makers. I wanted to share this video showcasing the way an eye surgeon is using an HP ElitePad 900 to spend more time with patients and less time tethered to a computer screen. For more about the HP ElitePad, take a look at our online eBook.

This kind of technology has the potential to improve the way we interact with the public sector services we all use, whether it’s in central government, healthcare, education or local authorities.

If you work in the public sector, this is a must-see show. High performance printers that double as document portals and portable tablet computers that let you run real Windows applications are incredibly powerful tools for change.

Efficiency is their business: how Shutl stays sharp

Matthew — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:04:21 GMT

Shutl is an innovative UK-based company that lets online shoppers get what they want, when they want it. They’ll deliver your goods within 90 minutes or in a one-hour window of your choice. But how efficient is the company behind the delivery service? We talked to founder and CEO Tom Allason to find out.

Sometimes, when you buy something online you don’t want it tomorrow, or sometime this week. You want to get it now, or at least at a convenient time that fits around your busy lifestyle. Shutl makes that happen.

It’s a delivery service that integrates with online stores, such as Maplin and Argos, to give customers fast, convenient delivery, often in as little as 90 minutes

The cost of Shutl delivery is comparable to standard delivery, meaning in many cases free depending on the retailer and the value of the order. To add to the excitement, you can watch the delivery in real time because Shutl’s couriers have GPS tracking.

Efficiency is their business

Shutl is about more than deliveries. It’s about the shopper’s experience and brand building. ‘We talk about Shutl as part of the retailer’s value proposition, their marketing story and as a way to build the lifetime value of a customer,’ says Tom Allason, Shutl’s CEO. In other words, for e-commerce companies that offer the Shutl option, efficiency is good for business.

Sharing is efficiency

Efficiency is also a business objective within the company. ‘It’s a very agile, transparent environment,’ says Tom. The linkage between the two things – transparency and agility – lets people work more efficiently. If people have the right information, they can make decisions quickly.

So, for example, the company asks every shopper about their Shutl experience and shares the survey results with everyone in the company to keep everyone focused on this key metric. Similarly, the development team doesn’t just show the directors what they’re working on, they do a demo for the whole company.

Turbine takes care of time off

Transparency is important when it comes to routine admin too. This is why Shutl uses Turbine to track who’s in the office and who’s off sick or on holiday. ‘A single view of who’s off and how much holiday time people have is very useful,’ says Tom, ‘and Turbine is very straightforward and easy to use.’

With 35 staff working in offices in Chelmsford, Shoreditch and San Francisco, having a straightforward and easy-to-use tool like this is essential.

Invest in what’s important

It’s a mistake to see Shutl as a kind of courier company. In fact, they are a high-tech software company and their product is their technology, which matches customers, couriers and retailers in real time. With such high-tech DNA, it’s no surprise that they are keen adopters of cloud applications like Turbine.

For example, they use:

Ruby on Railsas the framework for their software (like Turbine does)
Amazon Web Servicesto host their software
Pivotal Tracker and Trellofor project management
Salesforcefor customer relationship management
Google Appsfor email, calendars, word processing, spreadsheets and presentations
Dropboxfor file sharing
MailChimpfor newsletters
LinkedIn for customer prospecting and research

In true lean startup style, they even used eBay to buy all their office furniture. This combination of frugality and innovation is typical of the most efficient companies. Like Shutl, they spend their money according to their priorities, ruthlessly focusing their investment on tools that help them grow the business. And if that means a second-hand office chair, so be it. It’s a badge of honour.

Ten technology tools to help you run your business more efficiently

Matthew — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 08:13:00 GMT

There are lots of ways to put the magic of technology to work in making your business run a little better. Here are ten particularly wizzy ones:

HP Elitepad 900. Working on the go, presenting in client meetings, accessing files on the train. A powerful, secure, modern tablet, than can be hooked up to a keyboard when you’re at your desk is an invaluable tool in today’s new working culture. HP’s Elitepad 900 is just that.
2. IntelliPanel Plug. This might be low tech, but it’s efficient tech. Plug your PC into the main socket and all your associated devices (printer, speakers, monitor) into the other sockets. Turn your PC on or off and the other devices will automatically follow suit. Save money, save time.
Livescribe. Take notes, record audio, sync them together and then send it all to the cloud. These pens are simply genius. They integrate with Evernote and according to this Engadget review, the time you save in never again losing your notes is invaluable.
Genius Scan. This little app turns your iPhone into a pocket scanner. You can capture documents as JPEGs or PDFs and share them on the go. No more paper juggling or overloaded in-trays by the scanner. Quick and clever.
Rapportive. This plugin for Gmail pools together all your CRM data from MailChimp and social media, so you have all your customer’s contact and conversation information in one place. A rapid way to build rapport and keep on top of your contacts’ concerns.
HP OfficeJet Pro X. Wireless, double-sided printing, up to twice the speed and half the cost of colour laser printers. Perfect printing efficiency for a small business.
Turbine. An online HR admin app, it lets your staff request purchase orders, and you approve them all from a simple online portal. It also includes time-off functions, expenses requests and more. No more shared spreadsheets and lost emails. Efficiency exemplified.
RockThePost. This site, or site as a service really, brings together investors and startups and small businesses. They vet ventures, verify people and ease the funding process. “RockThePost showcases well-thought out startups, with a sustainable structure and a concrete plan,” says the Washington Post.
TaskAware.The gentle nudge we all wished we’d had when we walk through the door and realise we’ve gone past the post box and still have that client invoice in our hand. Enter tasks and their locations and Task Aware tracks you and lets you know when you’re near somewhere where you need to do something!
LastPass. Tapping your fingernails, retracing your steps, searching your piles of post-its: how much time do you spend trying to remember, find and type in all your passwords? LastPass brings all your logins together behind one secure master key. Remember one thing, log in once, access everything.

Funding options for growing businesses - free HP whitepaper

Matthew — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:15:30 GMT

Small business borrowing adds up to around $1trn, according to the US-based Small Business Administration, with friends and family and banks the most likely sources for most small firms. But bank lending is becoming more constrained, and the Breedon Report, published in March by the UK government, has highlighted a large and growing finance gap for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Download our free white paper (click on the link below) to see lots of different options.

How to work with big companies

Matthew — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 05:32:00 GMT

Small companies work with big clients all the time. My company is a great example - there are only a few of us but we work with some of the biggest companies in the world, including HP. If you can provide a niche service that helps a large company, there’s no reason to let your size hold you back. It is, however, a very particular kind of relationship, where a little know-how can go a long way.

Most big businesses break down into what is effectively a collection of small companies. You need to target the department that is most likely to need and use your services and concentrate on understanding and reacting to their particular characteristics.
No matter how big the company, you are always dealing with an individual. If you are lucky, and if you search hard enough, you will find someone who needs and likes you, and will be your advocate internally.
When you approach a big company, do not focus on what you can offer, but instead talk to them about how you can help. Take as a lead, Lori Goler’s approach to Sheryl Sandberg:“I want to apply to work with you at Facebook. So I thought about calling you and telling you all of the things I’m good at and all of the things that I like to do. Then I figured that everyone was doing that. So instead, I want to ask you: What is your biggest problem, and how can I solve it?”
Do not try to replace existing agencies and established providers, but rather look for gaps in what they do and try to fill them.
Take the time to understand how big businesses work. They inevitably have more bureaucracy and many more pressing concerns than a small business, so sometimes things take longer. Get to know their purchase order process, decision-making chains and budgeting cycles, so that you are not disappointed and they are not pestered.
Do not overpromise. The best way of ensuring future work from a big client is to deliver what you promise, when you promise. It is all too easy to keep saying yes to big names with big budgets, but it will hurt you in the long run. Keep to fixed deadlines, agreements and budgets as much as possible.
Once you have your foot in the giant’s door, keep it there. Try to get on their roster of approved suppliers, rather than going through subcontractors. And stay in touch, even when there is no work on the immediate horizon. ‘The Trusted Advisor’ by David Maister is a great guide to building and maintaining a lasting client relationship.

Dexter’s blog: Go with the flow

Matthew — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:03:00 GMT

If your image of a printer is a grey box that sits in the corner spewing out paper, think again.

With the latest HP technology, a business printer could be the digital heart of your business. For example, you can use our latest multifunction printers (MFP) to:

Scan in documents and store them securely online or on your local network
Use advanced document management tools to scan the contents and make them searchable
Digitise business workflows, such as order processing
Support remote and wireless printing (using HP ePrint technology)
Scan documents to Microsoft SharePoint
And, yes, when you need a document printed out, it’ll do that too!

If your business uses lots of documents this kind of advanced document management technology could make a huge difference.

And an HP MFP is the tool that makes it all possible. It’s the on-ramp (scanning) and off-ramp (printing) for digitising your business.

You can see the new HP MFPs in action in this video.

How to invest your time efficiently

Matthew — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 05:18:00 GMT

You cannot simply engineer more hours into your day, (unless of course you are The Doctor). What you can do is allocate and use your time more efficiently to get more return on your time-investment.

The what

Start by reviewing your current portfolio. There are lots of ways to keep track of what you do and how long it takes you to do it:

Undertake an old fashioned time and motion study. It might feel like it’s taking more time than it saves, but it’s a powerful reality check on where your days are going.
Use a program like Rescue Time or Track Time to monitor what you do on your devices. A quick Twitter check every half an hour soon adds up.
Keep track of your achievements with Joe’s Goals or iDoneThis so you can see what really does get done.

The why

Next you need to analyse why you are doing what you are doing.

Covering the bills. These are the tasks necessary to keep your head above water, but which never move you forward. (They also usually seem the most urgent).
Short-term investment. These jobs are still pretty urgent. It’s current client work and calls from customers. It’s what is earning you money right now.
Long-term investment. This covers things like marketing, building relationships, research and product development. These are the tasks that will bring you the most long-term benefit, but which also most often slip to the bottom of the list.

The key is balancing the urgent with the important in order to get more from the time you have. Tim Ferris, famous for the ‘4-Hour Workweek’, uses the Pareto principle or 80-20 Rule, which states that 80 percent of your benefits come from 20 percent of your efforts, and therefore concentrates most on that 20 percent.

The how

Clarifying how you want to change the way you use your time is great, but you have to know how to make that change if it’s ever going to happen:

Start using a PA or virtual assistant. PAs can take care of a lot of the treading-water tasks, like chasing suppliers, booking meetings and sending emails. With sites like Elance, communication tools like Skype and collaboration software like Basecamp, it is easier than ever to make use of a PA, whether they are freelance, part-time or remote.
Don’t be afraid to delegate. Use the staff you have to offload the short-term tasks that have to be done, but don’t necessarily have to be done by you. Alternatively, consider freelancers for specific skilled tasks. It may take a little time and management to find the right person, but it’s a long-term investment that ultimately frees up more of your own mind.
Stay in touch. Investing your time in important, big-payoff tasks, which are suited to your expertise is great, but be careful not to lose touch with the everyday experience of your business. Build in time to talk to clients and get your hands dirty, in order to remember why you are investing your time in the first place.

Dexter's Blog: Thinking outside the Box

Matthew — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:03:04 GMT

How do you backup your files? Can you access critical business documents over the internet from any computer? Can you share them easily with colleagues and customers?

Box lets you do all these things.

It’s a secure online filing cabinet for your files so you can access, manage and share them from anywhere.

I was thinking about this over the weekend when I visited family and friends. If I had wanted to share some photos with them, I could have used Box to access my library.

Equally, if it had been a business trip and someone had stolen my laptop, I would still have access to my work files on another computer.

Good news: if you buy a qualifying HP Windows 8 PC, it’ll come with a free 100GB Box account. Check out the HP Store for more information. (Terms and conditions apply.)

Save money with your printer

Matthew — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:53:00 GMT

The unavoidable cost of printing is a perennial business issue. We have looked at ways to save money and print lesson Business Answers before, but there are always new tricks to try, so without further ado:

Sneaky money-saving tricks

Try some psychological tactics. Often saving money with your printer is about changing your employees’ habits: Move the printer next to the boss’s office so repeat print offenders cannot hide. Also, consider having one day a week where printing is banned – it’s extreme but people quickly get used to the idea, and you might be surprised how many days you can increase it to without losing any business efficiency.

Print less, print smarter

Try using an online print manager like Green Print or Print Manager Plus. They let you calculate the cost of individual printing jobs, limit printing privileges per employee and convert documents to PDF to reduce the need to print at all.

Start using Print Friendly. You can either use the website or download a bookmarklet to your browser. It lets you preview and edit web pages that you want to print so that you can remove unnecessary advertising and text. You can also convert pages to PDF, again to save from printing at all.

Go paperless

Switch to online admin tools. The proliferation of cloud services for small businesses means that paperwork no longer has to take up quite so much paper. Go digital and switch to online HR admin and invoicing.

Choose the right printer

Remember that having the right printer can be a cost saver in itself. Modern printers are of such a high quality that you can save money by producing your own marketing materials. Newer printers come with apps and functionality made to save you time and effort: the two most valuable assets you have!

Dexter’s blog: HP ElitePad 900 now available on the HP Store

Matthew — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:28:00 GMT

I wrote about the new HP ElitePad a few weeks ago but now it’s actually available to purchase now from the HP Store.

I’ve been playing with the HP ElitePad 900 myself and it’s a great machine.

You can do real work on it, you can plug in a keyboard and an external monitor and use it like a desktop PC or you can take it with you (it only weighs 700g) and use it like a tablet.

It looks the business too. It definitely turns heads when you take it into a meeting.

In fact, it’s like one of those other tablets but with business-class security, expandability and compatibility.

(As a side note, HP launched one of the very first touchscreen computers, the HP 150 back in 1983. Not many people know that!)

Prices start at £469 (excluding VAT). Considering that the HP ElitePad 900 is 100% compatible with Windows 8 and all the Windows applications you already use, including full versions of Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, that’s a pretty attractive price.

All work and some play: 15 business uses for your tablet PC

Matthew — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:04:46 GMT

Tablet computers are great for reading magazines and watching movies on trains, but what else is a tablet computer good for? Here are 15 ways to put a tablet to work in your business.

Can I take your order? Restaurants are speeding up service and saving money on staff by using tablet computers to let diners order their own meal.
Sign here please. Whilst taking payments on the go is something you can already do with a smartphone, using a tablet allows the customer to sign for their payment on screen and lets you immediately send them a receipt, making the process a little more seamless.
How do you spell that? Gone are the days of trying to decipher handwriting or make best guesses on customer feedback forms. Hand your customer the form loaded on your tablet and have it saved straight to your database. No muss, no fuss.
Double vision. Hook your tablet up to your laptop or PC and use it as a second screen.
Learn to share. Tablets are much easier to pass round in meetings than laptops, meaning you can share ideas, documents and mock-ups without having to create a whole presentation or print off reams of paper.
Annotate freely. Making comments, highlighting sections and generally interacting with PDFs is more intuitive and much simpler than on any other device and more versatile than paper.
Keep stock. A tablet is a great way to track inventory: you can scan bar codes and take pictures on site in your warehouse and update your spreadsheets instantly with programs like Inventory Tracker.
Everything in its place. Optimize your productivity by shifting all those distracting tasks and apps (email, Twitter, Skype) to your tablet. Then keep your desktop distraction free, and limit your tablet time to, say, ten minutes every hour.
A flat catalogue. A tablet is great for consuming media: so let your customers do just that. Make your catalogue media rich and let customers click on videos or zoom in on pictures, and save some trees while you’re at it.
. Master manual. Keeping track of instruction manuals is a nightmare, and many are only online now. Use your tablet to download and store all your manuals in one place, and access them on a device you can actually use when stuck down the back of the photocopier!
. Handy how-to. Following instructions like recipes, printing tips or even how-to fix your desktop on a tablet makes all those online resources that much more accessible. (If it’s a messy job simply put your tablet in a Ziploc bag, or if you’re feeling fancy, buy a case.)
. Instant estimate. Use an online invoicing service, and draw up estimates, bills and receipts on site with your customers using your tablet.
Go on the road. Tablets are often lighter and have a longer battery life than laptops, and you can still check emails, sort out your HR admin, access documents and go online, meaning you can spend more time with customers and less time chained to your desk.
Put your business on the road. For those in the service industries, some are trying out tablets as a way to communicate route information and updates, and receive notifications about repairs or problems.
Pass it on. This article explains about a trial that was conducted, giving Ethiopian children, with no experience of computer technology, tablets loaded with educational apps, to see if it could them learn. The results were very promising, if not a little surprising…

How to print your own stamps

Matthew — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:04:00 GMT

Going to the Post Office to buy stamps is a pain. Finding the right combination of penny stamps to put the right price on an envelope is a pain. Figuring how much it costs to send an airmail letter to Western Samoa is a pain.

Here’s what I do instead.

I use Royal Mail’s SmartStamp application on my PC. It costs £59.99 a year plus the cost of postage but it lets you print your own stamps.

I haven’t been to the Post Office to buy stamps for six years. That’s saved me a day standing in a line. I call that good value!

It works like this.

Download the software.
Buy some digital stamps. I usually buy £20 at a time.
Put envelopes into a second tray on your HP printer (I have an HP Colour LaserJet CM23320fxi MFP – a name only a geek could love but a great printer).
Open up the software, select the printer and DL envelopes, chose the class of postage and the size of the letter.
Paste in the address
Click print and - bingo - you have a nicely printed envelop with its own stamp

You can add your own logo to the stamp area and a return address. You can also print to labels so you can print out a sheet of first class stamps if you want. I also have a little label printer so I can print out stick-on labels for parcels and packets.