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“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” – Henry Ford
Many entrepreneurs start their business with the paradigm of “my business is small, it doesn’t require systems”, “technology is expensive”, “I don’t understand these things”, without taking into account that technology and information systems represent improvements in processes, they are systems designed to increase productivity based on knowledge proven by other companies.
Let’s analyze some advantages that certain platforms offer us.
Our business on the Internet
Currently, if our business is not on the Internet, it’s as if it didn’t exist, and some people even validate the website before buying. Not being a web developer is no longer an excuse for not having an online presence. With Wix you can create a site in minutes, quickly and easily in an assisted manner. If you need to develop a complex site, you also have the option to hire the service; however, to upload content to the Internet, it is no longer necessary to be an experienced Web developer, now it’s as easy as editing a document in Word.
(Literally, I copied and pasted this Blog from my Microsoft Word to the Wix editor)
Possibilities of receiving online payments
E-commerce systems or online payment processing make it easier for our customers to buy products using their credit cards from anywhere in the world. These payment options are a necessity in the face of current or future pandemics. Haven’t you used UberEats or applications that charge directly to your credit cards? This way, customers make payments from the comfort of their home or mobile devices. We adapt or someone else will make the sale to our potential customer! What solution is fast, secure, and reliable? cuanto.app, we use it because the commissions are lower than PayPal and the implementation is faster than through a banking entity.
Control of my finances online
Imagine for a moment that you decide to take a long trip in your vehicle. You saved and prepared for months for this trip. When you get in the car, you realize that you don’t have the speed gauge, fuel indicator, or other indicators that we normally use on the dashboard; you decide to start and move forward anyway. As you advance, you realize that there are no signs on the road to indicate the distance, and using Waze is not allowed! The only thing you think you know is how to get there, you know you have fuel, and you believe the vehicle is in good condition. Could you reach the final destination? How would you know if you’re going at an appropriate speed? Could you tell if the vehicle is in good condition as you move? How do you know how much is left?
I thought about this example over and over again when starting my business. As income, expenses, new clients came up, I needed to visualize the information in an orderly manner, otherwise managing the business would be practically blind.
Many businesses operate without tools that allow them to grow in an organized and sustainable way, without indicators that help them manage information more intelligently in order to make decisions based on predictive data, data that allows them to better prepare for the eventual scenarios they will face along the way.
Using an online accounting application allows you to have control of income, expenses, banks, inventories, customers, and in some countries, electronic invoicing. Can you imagine generating a report that lets you know your tax payment with just one button? How about seeing a simple graph that shows us a comparison between what we have invoiced vs. what we have spent? Knowing the availability of our customers’ account statements and that they can verify it 24/7 from anywhere. Do you have any system that does automatic collection management?
All the answers to the previous questions are affirmative if you use Alegra, a super simple system to use, 100% Cloud, not like some systems (🍑🌳) that are installed on your computer and die if the hard drive of the equipment is damaged.
Customer portfolio management
It’s as simple as the client checking your page, their data reaching your system, which guides you through the process that you designed to handle your sales and manage proper follow-up with the team. This is how CRMs work, and if you don’t believe me, go to www.painlesspymes.com in the contact area and see how quickly we attend to you.
PipeDrive CRM is another type of technology that’s easy to implement, low-cost, and offers multiple benefits, as it gives us the ability to visualize all interactions with our customers from initial contact to closing the sale. This is essential if we want to sell more and know which customers to invite for our marketing campaigns in the future, make offers, or simply treat the customer as they deserve, with personalized attention. This undoubtedly prevents our customers from feeling like they’re contacting a government entity!
A worthy contact for a serious company
Regardless of whether it’s a small business, the first impression always counts and counts a lot. It’s not the same to give a company phone number to be contacted as to provide your cell phone number as the only contact (I know what I’m saying, we’ve all been there at some point), in my opinion, I see it as almost as important as having an Internet domain. Haven’t you ever wondered why there are still companies with Hotmail or Gmail emails?
Imagine that after a meeting with that important client, you agree to send them a proposal for thousands of dollars, where in the content of the proposal you talk about your offer, market presence, and more, finally you send the information to the client and they receive your valuable offer from yournameofyourbusiness@gmail.com or Hotmail.
Internet domains are so affordable that you can get them from $12 USD onwards, just like phone lines for your company, which you pay from $5, $10, $15 USD onwards.
IP telephone systems like 3CX used by AirFrance, American Express, or the Intercontinental Hotel chain, allow you to have a telephone system cheaper than the smartphone you probably have in your pocket and with a lower consumption plan, not to mention that calls are likely to be much cheaper using your 3CX system.
These are technologies used by large companies, which are within reach of all of us, it’s just that not everyone knows it!
Increase productivity
I’ve said it before, “not using Microsoft’s collaboration technologies and continuing to send emails to edit documents is like saving files on a floppy disk, going up to the 10th floor of the office, finding the person you need to give the document to, giving them the disk, waiting for them to edit it, returning to your desk with the updated information, and praying that they didn’t accidentally save their dog’s photo file and having to go up again repeating the process”. This happens with emails, they come and go, go and come with a thousand different versions and sometimes they send you incorrect documents!
Microsoft is not just Windows as we’ve known it for years, nor the Office that the pirate technician in the neighborhood illegally installed for us. Microsoft solutions give you alternatives to manage your email with your own domain (a worthy contact for a serious company) and better than Gmail, because it also gives you your Office in comfortable packages ranging from $5 USD per month and up. The difference between the pirate package from the neighbor and Microsoft is that Microsoft gives you support through us, their partners or directly with them 24/7, with many staff with thousands of knowledge in support.
The new Office 365 applications help us when we start managing our data in secure cloud sites, having evaluations for our clients, using teams for our video calls and work sessions, whether with our clients or with our collaborators, they give us the possibility to manage our documentation in a format that almost everyone knows and many more benefits, which will help us be more productive and even reduce costs.
In conclusion, to start a business, whether it’s a small eatery (small restaurant), tattoo studio, architecture firm, coffee plantation, or medical practice, we must begin by building solid foundations that allow us to grow in an organized and sustainable manner, using the set of technological solutions that we consider best suited to our needs or even consulting with experts in the field to determine which ones adapt to our business model. Thus, referring back to the initial quote, “let’s not wait for faster horses when we already have vehicles”
