No matter what business you’re in, data security is important to you and to your current and potential clients. For many small business owners, the fear of poor security is enough to inspire them to invest huge amounts of money in in-house data infrastructures to run their businesses. In many (if not most) cases, this level of infrastructure far exceeds what the company needs, or even what it can handle. Hiring the IT staff necessary to keep in-house technology running and up-to-date, alone, can put you out of business. And with the constant evolution of technology today, the costs are not likely to go down any time soon. On top of all that, your data security probably isn’t as solid as you think it is.

Downsize

The first step towards financial independence from your IT infrastructure is downsizing. I don’t just mean buying cheaper or less robust equipment, I mean getting rid of your equipment all together. It might seem like a bold step, but the number of world-class, secure, affordable web hosting and data storage providers out there make this step a no-brainer. Not only will you enjoy improved data security and performance, your out-of-pocket costs will plummet. Good web hosting companies can afford to have the most robust, powerful security measures available. Why not trust the experts?

Going Remote

While it will probably feel strange at first–like you’re arriving at high school without your pants–you will quickly realize how liberating it is to trust your data to a company that specializes in security. If you do your homework and sign up with a reputable company that offers guarantees (guaranteed backups, guaranteed bandwidth, etc.) you will have someone to hold accountable when things go wrong, and you will be protected by their terms of service and their public reputation. No good web hosting company is going to let your business fail because that means their business fails. In an online climate where word of mouth makes and breaks businesses every day, the small business consumer is protected like never before. Also, when your data is accessible remotely, your office suddenly becomes mobile. You can access your business website, client records, everything, via a secure remote connection. This can be a real boon for a small business, especially when that business only has a few very busy employees.

Save The Green

By outsourcing all of your IT costs, you won’t have to worry about electricity, IT staff, hardware replacements or the potential for catastrophic data loss due to fire, flood or any other natural or man-made disaster. Your business won’t be tied to one physical location. If you sign up with a company that has multiple data centers, you can opt to have your data backed-up to multiple geographic sites. This redundancy protects you, your clients and your business future.

Upgrades

One of the most compelling reasons to get your infrastructure out of your office is the possibility for on-the-fly technology upgrades. What if your business suddenly takes off? Do you want to be held back by your aging infrastructure? With a good web host, you can add server space quickly and easily. Often all you will need to do is submit an online order!

Support

If you are not particularly tech-oriented, or don’t feel entirely comfortable letting go of your hardware, find a package that includes fully managed support. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to call when things go wrong? Someone who knows the technology backwards and forwards, and who’s fee is already included in your monthly bill? Yes. Yes it would.

Provider Competence

Of course, what goes without saying here, is that you need to find a solid, reputable provider (that’s right, I said it anyway). In addition to solid guarantees and a good TOS, look for a company with a proven track record with small businesses like yours. If other business owners are happy with the service, chances are you will be too. Funnily enough, one such business pops to mind: TurnKey Internet. We specialize in small businesses! We also offer a huge collection of additional automation services to streamline every aspect of your business. Hop on live chat if you’ve got questions. We’d love to make you an offer you can’t refuse

Charisma is a characteristic that people assume is in-born. In other words, it’s the kind of thing you either have or you don’t. That couldn’t be further from the truth, especially in the business world. In business, expectations are firmly established. People expect you to introduce yourself a certain way. They expect you to define yourself by your job, or the products you are offering. Subverting that expectation with a memorable introduction piques curiosity. It makes you stand out from the crowd. It opens the door for sales.

Beyond the Suit and Tie

While many business professionals will tell you appearances are everything, the impression you make goes way beyond your suit and tie. Imagine you are at a convention in a room full of people. Everyone there is dressed up for the occasion. They’ve all got sleek hair, sterling silver business card cozies and shiny shoes. They all look very appropriately businessy. Now imagine walking out of that room and trying to remember a single person, a single face in the crowd. So often I find myself struggling to remember the names of the people I just met, and that’s on a normal day! In a convention center, the challenge is 100-fold. One simple way to stand out is to shake up everyone’s expectations. Wear a velvet leisure suit. Wear a giant sombrero. If you’re really feeling daring, dress up in an 18^th century powdered wig like the businessmen of old. In short, wear something that makes you the center of attention. In a convention environment, you won’t lose any points for being outrageous. You’ll gain admiration while being the most memorable person in the room. You better believe everyone will leave that building thinking about the original, zany crusader who stole the show. When you follow up on those leads you collected, people will make time to talk to you.

The Activities Make the Man

While costumed stunts work fabulously well at a convention or conference, they’re not practical for day-to-day meetings with potential clients. If you want to make yourself more charismatic and interesting on a normal day at the office, you’ll need some stories with a real “wow” factor. This might mean taking a trip to an exotic country in search of buried treasure or hiking the Oregon Trail with only a backpack and a lute.  While you might not feel like you have the time for a character-building vacation, you’d be well advised to make that time. If you have a compelling, strange story, you become a memorable person. It’s a simple fact. Think about what truly interests you and get creative about how to explore that interest more fully. If you’ve always wanted to scuba dive, take a class in scuba and go on a trip. Print out your underwater photographs for your office wall and learn about the species you photographed. The more interesting your life activities, the more charismatic you become. If you actually become more interesting to yourself in the process, all the better.

The Opt-In Moment

If you start out every meeting with an unexpected and interesting anecdote, you start out every meeting with curiosity and interest. Interest is the key to the “opt-in,” the moment when the person you’re talking to asks YOU a question. In sales, getting a lead interested in you personally is the golden goal. Once a lead asks you a question, you have your foot in the door. So much of business is building relationships. That is the same today as it has always been. Despite the virtual world we all live in, we are still people sitting behind the screens. Appeal to the curiosity of your audience and you appeal to the person, not just the consumer. Not only is this good for business, it makes life more fun and it makes your potential clients feel like people instead of numbers. That’s good for everyone.

It’s no secret that creativity is a valuable asset. This country was built on the creativity and innovation of countless artists, politicians, scientists and entrepreneurs. Yet, still, many business people are unwilling to invest in the creative professionals that could bring their business to center-stage. Why is this? Well, the short answer is, it’s complicated.

Creatives Can Be Difficult

Creative people often get a bad rep, and this isn’t always unfair. Many creative people are inherently less stable or reliable than their non-creative counterparts. Often they are perpetually unsatisfied and while this quality makes them perpetually innovative and fuels their creativity, it can also make them difficult employees. That lightning-in-a-bottle sometimes gets out of the bottle. Then you’ve got lightning in the office and you have to wear rubber shoes. The thing is, you can’t put a dollar value on creativity. It’s this magical combination of knowledge and novelty that makes businesses stand out.

Foster a Conducive Environment

There are many ways to handle creative employees that will make them feel comfortable, productive and respected and that won’t make a dent in your profits. You’ll need to get to know your employees before you can meet their creative needs. Some creative types need to listen to music while they work while others need complete silence. Try to accommodate the needs of your creatives as best you can without infringing on the needs of everyone else. Showing your employees that you genuinely care about their job satisfaction will foster an attitude of mutual appreciation and trust, vital for any successful employer/employee relationship.

Go Over the Rules

When you’re interviewing potential creatives, be clear about what you expect of them. In many cases, creative people are excellent workers who respect the business environment and who will do their best to be model employees. If the individual is not one of these exemplary creatives, being clear and straightforward about your expectations will let him know you’re not going to put up with errant behavior. Make a clear policy regarding days off and productivity and put it in writing. That way, if it doesn’t work out, you’ll be protected.

Be Flexible

For some creative people, the traditional 9-5 work day is not the best arrangement. Maybe they do their best work at night, or simply can’t think straight at 2 PM. Whatever the reason, if you trust the person to get work done (or base your evaluations on results) you can afford to be flexible about hours. If you have an office that’s open at non-traditional hours, offer the employee the freedom to choose when she works. If not, consider allowing her to work from home some of the time. In the end, the most important thing is that you get the creative output you pay for.

Focus on Results

In the end, the more creative a business is, the more people will take notice. Consider hiring creatives in several different capacities—from graphic design to marketing. Thinking outside the box means you get to do things first. You set the bar for your competition and you get ahead, every time. The more creativity you have on your team, the faster you will be able to adapt to new marketplace variables and the better equipped you will be to ride the wave of public opinion.

Today I am very excited to be able to announce our newest software-as-a-service solution: TurnKey Website! TurnKey Website is an easy-to-use website builder that will save businesses thousands of dollars in web design costs. It includes over 1,000 different design templates you can completely customize in minutes. It also comes with tons of web applications (like blog, SitePal, image gallery, guestbook, forum, feedback, RSS reader and more), traffic reports, a free domain name AND ecommerce shop pages! Of course, all of this is backed by our world-class 24×7 support.

But I’ve Never Made a Website Before!
For those of you who may feel a little bit timid about leaping into designing your own company website, I completely understand where you’re coming from. As a former small business owner myself, I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by both the cost of hiring a designer, and the steep learning curve of figuring out how to do it myself. I ended up spending many hours that I didn’t really have to design my site. In the end it was functional, but it wasn’t pretty, and my company’s reputation suffered. If I had had TurnKey Website back then, who knows how my business would have done!

Video Tutorials
If you have never used a website builder before, you will probably benefit from watching our short tutorials that demonstrate the software and illustrate, quickly and easily, how you can use it to build your own business website. Everything in TurnKey Website is customizable. You pick colors, include your logo and edit all the text. If you watch the tutorials and follow the easy step-by-step instructions, you will be amazed how much functionality you suddenly find at your fingertips.

The Highest Quality: Professional Results Every Time
The first time I tried TurnKey Website, I was shocked by the quality of the templates. They look extremely professional—in fact, many “professional” designers use similar templates for their projects—projects that bring in thousands of dollars for the designers. The only difference between those designers and you is that they know how to use the software! To be fair, a lot of the web design software out there is extremely convoluded and confusing, and it’s worth it to hire an expert—figuring it out yourself would be worth the money, and more! But TurnKey Website isn’t hard to figure out. It makes sense! In fact, you could learn it in 30 minutes and then turn around and sell your design services to the next guy! Seriously. It’s that easy and that good.

And There’s More
Beyond just the design of your website, TurnKey Website includes tons of added programs to build your online presence—from ecommerce tools to images, from blogging to flash intro pages. Once you understand the basics, you can set up an online store in minutes, and start taking credit card payments right away.

Give it a Shot
Try TurnKey Website today and we know you will be amazed with what you can do, and super pleased by the price tag (only $7.95/month). And with our free 30-day money back guarantee, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. How often does that happen?

While you might think longer domain names are never the way to go, you might be surprised by some of the benefits. A more descriptive domain better represents your site content, and can be a great boost to SEO. It can also be more memorable, more readily available and less of a risk of copyright infringement. Before I go too much further, I should mention that it is always a good idea for your domain name to be the same as the name of your site. This is true both because it will be more memorable and because it won’t dilute your brand with multiple titles.


SEO Benefits

In a longer domain name you have the opportunity to pick two or three keywords that represent your company, your products or your services. Short might be nice for ease of typing, but it’s nearly impossible to find a short domain name today that will have anything to do with your company content-wise. If you’re willing to brand yourself with something nonsensical for the sake of brevity, great; but if you want your brand to reflect your company, longer just makes sense. In a world where search terms define traffic, naming your company with industry-related search terms is smart business. However, there are a couple of points to look out for.

• Make sure the domain name you choose is easy to spell. If it isn’t, then buy up all the misspellings of your domain and point them to your page. But really, it’s best to avoid hard-to-spell domains for the sake of clarity. Also, your site ranking is associated with your domain name so if you have multiple spelling variants, it could be lowering your numbers.
• Make sure your domain name is easy to pronounce. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: word of mouth is just as important today as it was 50 years ago. If your customers can’t pronounce the name of your website, they’re less likely to talk about it. I don’t have any scientific studies to support this claim, but I think it’s pretty solid common sense.

Easy to Remember

Sometimes a phrase can be easier to remember than a short made up word. It’s all about context and description. If your site name and domain are specific, descriptive and relevant they will also be memorable. Why not go all the way and make your domain name a complete sentence? As language-based creatures, sentences that mean something, stick. Think about how easy it is to remember song lyrics. Associate your title sentence with your site content and you will have the advantage of contextual memory coupled with all of the other advantages discussed above. Slam dunk.

A colocated server is a privately owned server hosted at a datacenter, rather than in a home or business. Datacenters offer security, regulated power (with backup generators), fire protection, dedicated Internet connections, and climate control.

Customization

While the customer provides his own hardware, the facility offers choices of storage, connectivity, backup solutions, and security to suit the customer’s needs. The customer also has freedom to upgrade at any time.

Connectivity

Many datacenters offer fully-redundant network connections. At TurnKey Internet, we offer a 100% up-time guarantee on all colocated servers.

Financial Benefits

For small and medium-sized businesses housing servers in their offices, costs can be extremely high. Employing technicians, energy costs and maintaining infrastructure is extremely costly. By housing hardware in a datacenter, all of that is taken care of with support staff available to troubleshoot 24×7. Colocating is also a much greener option. A datacenter is considerably more energy efficient than an office.

Storage

Getting those servers out of the office opens up space and keeps things quiet so employees can work. Server fans are loud!

Disaster Recovery

Datacenters offer remote backup sites in case of disaster. If the unthinkable happens, your data is safe.

Security

Firewalls, security cameras, guards and other precautionary measures insure the safety of your physical hardware and virtual network.

Starting a new business can be a long and complicated process. One of the most important first steps (and one that often gets set aside for later) is creating a recognizable brand that suits your business goals. Your brand should reflect your industry but should also set you apart as unique. It should be memorable, easy to say and spell and should appeal specifically to your demographic. Lastly, your brand should be available as a domain name.

Brainstorm: What are You Looking For in a Company Brand?

Because of how hard it is to get a simple domain name these days, your best bet is to attack the problem from the opposite side. Figure out how you want to present your company to the world. Are you fun and web 2.0 like Google or Mozy, or are you more traditional and neutral like Dell Computers or Verizon? Try to think from the perspective of your demographic. If your clients are teenagers, look at the successful businesses in that market. What are their names like? Take your time doing this research. The brand you choose will help shape your company, and once you start marketing, you won’t want to make any changes that could disrupt traffic or confuse consumers. Point is, if your business is successful (which it will be, obviously) you’ll be living with this brand for a long time. The energy you put into naming your company will pay off every single time you see the name in the paper or on your letter head, every time you say it on the phone. This is your business! You need to be proud of its name.

Start Searching for Domain Names

Once you have a solid sense of the scope of your business, start trying out domain names. Sure, many of your early choices will likely be taken, but you might be surprised. There are still many domains out there and if you know what you’re looking for, chances are good you’ll find one pretty fast. Aim for short and simple and remember your goals and demographic. Don’t settle for something too soon. Once you have a list of names you like, show them to friends. Ask people in your target demographic what they think: if the name is memorable and interesting, and if it would attract them to the company.

If you can see the name in lights, up on a billboard or behind home base, you’ve done your job.