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TechTidBit – Tips and advice for small business computing – Tech Experts™ – Monroe Michigan

TechTidBit - Tips and advice for small business computing - Tech Experts™ - Monroe Michigan

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Get Ahead By Practicing These ‘Top Employee’ Habits

July 25, 2013

Maybe you’ll win the lottery. Or a wealthy relative will leave you a fortune.

But if neither possibility turns into reality, you’ll have to go to work tomorrow, where your best chance of getting ahead is to be the best employee you can.

Here’s some advice for making an impact at work:

Be positive
Managers and co-workers like working with people who are upbeat and enthusiastic.

You don’t have to force a fake smile on your face every minute of the day, but refrain from complaints, cynicism, and sarcasm at work. Support what’s working, and fix what needs to work better.

Communicate
The ability to express your ideas clearly is one of the most important skills you can master.

Concentrate on getting your messages across in concrete, concise language that everyone can understand without confusion.

Compliment people
Tell people sincerely when you appreciate their work, their assistance, or their support.

Highlight their tangible achievements, connect your praise to your organization’s goals, and don’t overdo it. Everyone, including your supervisor, likes to hear, “Thank you,” or, “Good work.”

Be honest
Admit your mistakes, and ask openly about things you don’t understand.

“Fake it till you make it,” has a place in your career strategy, but in the long run you’ll do better by being up front with your supervisors and colleagues.

Keep learning
Don’t rely too long on what’s worked for you in the past. A commitment to your own development shows that you’re serious about your career, and gets the attention of managers looking for tomorrow’s leaders.

Social Media Tips For Non Profit Managers

July 25, 2013

In the world of non-profit organizations it is not rare for just one person to get assigned the social media duties for the whole company.

They may also have dozens of other demands to deal with that have nothing to do with public relations so they will probably need all the help they can get to be able to come up with fresh content week in and week out.

One good tip is to use Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to offer a first look at an upcoming event or newsletter, introduce a staff member, share photographs of volunteers as they are working and ask a trivia question, the answer to which will shed light on your company’s particular cause.

Other good tips include connecting a news story that is currently trending in your non-profit work, sharing a client’s words of gratitude, sharing a success story, thanking a staff member or volunteer, or sharing a photograph that was taken at a special event.

If you take a specific approach on a regular basis, the audience will start looking forward to what is coming next.

Better Passwords: Keep Your Information Secure!

June 17, 2013

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

It could be your email, your pictures, or your company documents and files – whatever you have on your computer needs to protected from hackers, identity thieves, nosy employees and other cyber troublemakers.

Imagine if all of your private, personal and company information were available on the public Internet. And then, take a few minutes to follow the steps below and help make your systems more secure.

Use a different password for each important service
Make sure you have a different password for every important account you have. Hackers will steal your username and password from one site, and then use them to try to log into lots of other sites where you might have an account.

Even large, reputable sites sometimes have their password databases stolen. If you use the same password across many different sites, there’s a greater chance it might end up on a list of stolen passwords. And the more accounts you have that use that password, the more data you might lose if that password is stolen.

Giving an account its own, strong password helps protect you and your information in that account.

Make your password hard to guess
“password.” “123456.” “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!” These examples are terrible passwords because everyone knows them – including potential attackers.

Making your passwords longer or more complicated makes them harder to guess for both bad guys and people who know you.

Complex and lengthy passwords can be a pain – the average password is shorter than eight characters, and many just contain letters. Analysis shows that only 54 percent of passwords include numbers, and only 3.7 percent have special characters like & or $.

One way to build a strong password is to think of a phrase or sentence that other people wouldn’t know and then use that to build your password.

For example, for your email you could think of a personal message like “I want to get better at responding to emails quickly and concisely” and then build your password from numbers, symbols, and the first letters of each word—“iw2gb@r2eq&c”.

Don’t use popular phrases or lyrics to build your password—research suggests that people gravitate to the same phrases, and you want your password to be something only you know.

Keep your password somewhere safe
Research shows that worrying about remembering too many passwords is the chief reason people reuse certain passwords across multiple services.

But don’t worry – if you’ve created so many passwords that it’s hard to remember them, it’s OK to make a list and write them down. Just make sure you keep your list in a safe place, where you won’t lose it and others won’t be able to find it.

If you’d prefer to manage your passwords digitally, a trusted password manager might be a good option. Many web browsers have free password managers built into them, and there are many independent options as well.

The Advantages Of Managed Services Over Traditional IT Services

June 17, 2013

By Tech Experts Staff
Of all the important aspects to a successful business, your company’s IT systems are arguably the most important since these systems can impact all aspects of a business.

Many companies handle their IT resources in different ways, from having an in-house IT employee, to not having anyone, to managed services.

What exactly are all of these ways of taking care of your IT systems? With all the different approaches to taking care of your business what’s the best option?

Some businesses choose not to have in-house IT staff as it’s too expensive and instead go without IT support and try to fix problems on their own or ignore the issues all together.

The biggest problem with this approach, also known as a “Break Fix” approach, is that you generally always have downtime and issues with your IT systems since they are not properly cared for.

In addition to the high costs of downtime, when businesses finally break down and call for help the support can be very expensive since they are not on a support contract.

While many larger companies choose to have an in-house IT employee, or several for very large companies, this is not always the best option either.

One of the biggest problems with in-house IT staff is that they tend to have a knowledge base that is centered on one business’s network so when problems arise it can be difficult for them to figure out what the issue is.

When you use a service provider like Tech Experts, you are getting an IT tech that has a broad base of knowledge and can very quickly adapt to your network and use knowledge of similar issues other organizations have had to correct your problem much faster.

For small to medium size businesses the cost of having an in-house IT employee is simply too expensive so they tend to go with the first option.

It is possible for small to medium sized businesses to get the same level of service or higher than having one in-house IT employee at a fraction of the cost as well.

The third option and the best option is called Managed Services. Managed Services give the IT provider the ability to proactively monitor the important aspects of your business’s workstations and servers to prevent major issues before they cause costly downtime.

With our Managed Services platform, we offer a large number of software and hardware checks to keep your servers and workstations secure from hackers and running great for years.

We also offer several other benefits when combined in an all-inclusive, unlimited support, service contract. Our Managed Services platform offers the ability for us to connect to your computer and work with you remotely.

In most cases, we can solve your problem quickly so you don’t have to wait for a tech to travel to your location.

We also offer offsite backups as an option to protect your business from a catastrophic data loss that can cause a company to go under in a few months after such an event.

Managed services are simply the best option for small to medium sized businesses due to the flexibility they offer and the high amount of protection offered.

If you would like to see what Managed Services can do for your company give us a call and we can setup a meeting to take a look at your current systems and get you a quote on what this would cost your business today!

Why Are Windows And Software Updates Important?

June 17, 2013

by Jeremy Miller, Technician
Everyone who owns a computer running Microsoft Windows has seen that pop-up alerting you that you have updates to install or that they have been installed. Updates are fixes for a known issue.

Microsoft uses an application called Windows Update Service to look for new updates, and then it categorizes the various updates by how critical they are.

There are security updates which patch vulnerabilities that can compromise your system.

Critical updates fix major issues found with Microsoft products that can cause errors or unusual behavior. Software updates are non-critical issues such as more features and minor bug fixes.

Service packs contain all updates and patches prior to the service pack. You can install a service pack to apply a large amount of updates at once. Also service packs can determine which software you can run.

It is important to update your computer to keep your computing environment stable. If you allow your computer to get too out of date such as not installing a service pack, you may not be able to run a lot of software.
Even worse if you do not install security updates you will have a larger “known” attack surface for exploits.

Windows is not the only software that updates. You have probably seen Adobe Reader, Flash Player, or Java letting you know that there are updates available for install in your system tray. They update for the same reason that Microsoft updates Windows.

Updates are important to keep your system secure and relatively issue free. Updates can also cause issues sometimes. It is better to install the update on a computer to see if there will be an issue before deploying it to the entire network.

A good example of this is if Internet Explorer 10 has just been installed on your computer and now all of a sudden you cannot print a report, the latest update may be the issue. You should first attempt to work with the new update.

Internet Explorer 10 has compatibility mode to work with older websites, if that does not work you may have to uninstall the update and use Internet Explorer 9. This happens because the company you are printing the report from is not compatible with the new Internet Explorer 10 browser.

You will have to wait until either the company updates their server to be compliant with Internet Explorer 10 or you will have to wait until Internet Explorer 10’s compatibility will work with the site.

Keeping your software up to date is an important part of secure computing. Threats and security holes are discovered every day; it is critical you apply any updates the manufacturer releases.

Not all updates apply to every environment, which means that not everyone will get the same updates; it is based on the software you have installed and when you installed it.

The only software that you should always update would be any anti-virus software. This software usually updates automatically several times a day. The moment your anti-virus gets out of date you are not protected with the latest anti-virus definitions.

If you are having trouble with updates and patching or if you have any questions give us a call. We can make sure your computers are up to date and keep you worry free.

Advertising Via Social Media Sites

June 17, 2013

For all the hype that surrounds the use of social media when it comes to small businesses, many owners have learned the hard way that a Facebook or Twitter account alone is not going to drive up sales.

Successful social media campaigns need forethought, planning and skill and using a few tips can assist you to give more traction to your social media campaigns.

Advertisers often see Facebook as the social media site of choice but other social networks might actually be more effective for your particular brand.

LinkedIn for instance offers a wide array of users from the world of business while B2B clients might find Slideshare the ideal vehicle.

Advertising a niche product in a magazine aimed at the mass market is an obvious ‘no-no’ and the same applies to social networks.

Profile pages offer an amazing amount of data about users and this can be used very effectively to target the audience that best fits the demographic that you are targeting with your product or services.

Make use of video marketing
Seventy two percent of business executives watch videos that are related to business on business websites a minimum of once a week, according to Forbes. This means that you are seriously missing out on what may be one of the greatest lead generation techniques ever devised.

The bottom line is that creating an informative and compelling video is an excellent method of attracting attention from other businesses and indeed today video marketing is almost essential as a lead generation technique.

The main thing when it comes to using video marketing is to have a plan.

Think about the audience that you are attempting to reach with this video, as there are likely to be different approaches and language used when trying to reach executives as opposed to average people.

You also need to think about the benefits that targeted viewers can glean from the video as without benefits there will be not much in the way of follow-up!

Keep things short, make sure the sound quality is good and include the logo of your company at both the start and end of the video.

Content publishing tips
Having a good hold on content generates a lot of opportunities before you have even started promoting your business due to the fact that you can create and edit and then even publish that content by yourself.

When you have become efficient enough to be able to cope with B2B content you will then be able to help the online reputation of your business grow. Publishing content leads to increased exposure over the internet and results in more and more potential clients paying a visit to your website, so making sure that there is a good representation of that business is obviously going to help you generate and keep a good reputation.

The website’s content should be free from errors and feature appropriate and accurate material. The accomplishment of the website, and by extension your business, is dependent on the content being of the absolute highest quality possible, which means there should be no comprises made of any kind.

There are a number of different techniques, both classic and decidedly offbeat, that can be used to help turn customers into subscribers and even passionate advocates for your business and brand.

One tried and trusted method is to give special treatment to your subscribers. This can take the form of office perks, offering services to subscribers (plus their networks) or one-day specials on products via your social media channels, providing online recognition by asking your followers to post their own stories about your services and products.

Client Retention Tips For Small Businesses

May 17, 2013

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

You make a sale and get a new customer – that’s good, right?

But do you know what is even better? It is when they come back the second, third and fourth time around to do business with you again.

There is an art to getting your clients to continue with your service – and this is why you need to ramp up your client retention techniques.

As a small business owner, there are many things that you can do to improve client retention and have them return to you again and again and again. Here are a few ideas you can put to use right away:

Admit mistakes and address issues immediately. A study shows that 84% of customers will tell their friends (and even blog about) a negative experience with a certain business.

Imagine how many potential customers you can lose if this happens to you. The key is to admit the mistake and address the complaint as soon as possible – and your client will most likely remain loyal and tell their friends about the service.

Keep your customer service top notch. Did you know that more than half of all consumers are willing to pay more money for better customer service?

True, customer service will always make or break your business. Always seek to provide stellar service because this will benefit you in the long run and will encourage your clients to choose you over cheaper alternatives.

Remember your clients and they will remember you. Customers are just regular people, too. They are human beings who want to feel valued and appreciated.

Show your loyal clients that you remember them by sending personalized greeting cards. Christmas is a good time to send cards but if December seems too far away, you can always start a customer appreciation mailing program anytime.

Learn about your client’s needs. One of the main reasons why clients stop availing of certain services is because they no longer need them.

People’s needs evolve over time, so you may also want to improve your products or services to cater to their new needs.

Keep them in the loop. It is also good to keep your clients informed about new things going on in your business.

Do you have new services? Have you updated your products? Do you have a new branch that is somehow closer to them?

You can keep them informed through in-store presentations, brochures, regular e-mails or even print newsletters (like this one, going strong every month since October, 2006!).

As a small business owner, you do not have to spend thousands of dollars to retain customers. These are simple things that you can do (most of them for free) to keep your customers happy and coming back to you.

The Benefits Of Proper Networking For Your Business

May 17, 2013

By Tech Experts Staff
Many times a company’s network tends to be a difficult part of their infrastructure to decide what they really need.

There are many different ways of configuring a network depending on the company’s needs.

A network can be as simple as having your Internet Service Provider’s modem connected directly to a workstation or as complex as having thousands of workstations and servers connected to a company’s network around the world.

Deciding on what is needed for your network is completely dependent on the intended uses of it. Many factors contribute to this; security, size of network, locations, speed necessary, etc.

For most small companies, they can usually get by with a simple router that has a built-in firewall solution.

While the simple routers take care of giving access to users hardwired to the local network, and in some cases via a wireless connection, they don’t offer the features that a higher end router would.

Many companies have multiple sites that they want to have access to all the same files. One solution is purchasing cloud storage to accomplish this.

While that would be a great idea if you needed access when you are not on your companies network, a much more economical solution is to have a virtual private connection (VPN) setup between sites.

If a VPN is setup between sites the traffic is encrypted with a shared key between the routers which allows the two of them to pass traffic to each other without anyone being able to see what it is.

This allows you to safely send confidential information to members at a different site.

The biggest advantage of a VPN between sites is the ability to have one server at a centralized location and allow all of your sites to have access to it.

This alone can save thousands of dollars when it comes to the network build, you only need one server.

When it comes to having a server, if properly configured they can provide a significant amount of security on the network.

Servers improve security by offering centralized management and providing a means to allow or deny access to files on the network.

For instance, you may have accounting files on a network that you only want certain employees to have access to, with a server you can assign specific users access to these files.

Some routers also have the ability to manage bandwidth. This provides companies the ability to manage the amount of data users can use for different applications.

Many large companies need the ability to control how much bandwidth is being used and what is using it. With higher end routers you have the ability to do this.

On the business class firewalls we generally install at businesses they offer a large package of security tools to help protect your network.

Our business class firewalls offer all of the routing capabilities of the simple, home user routers but also offer antivirus, web filtering, antispam, intrusion prevention system (IPS), and vulnerability management.

The business class firewalls drastically improve a business’s security as well as offers many of the features listed above.

If your business is in need of network improvements to increase security and employee productivity, give us a call and we can offer you a network diagnosis to determine what your company’ needs are and where your networks weak points are.

Office 365 Or Office 2013: Which Is Right For You?

May 17, 2013

by Jeremy Miller, Technician
You’ve probably heard a lot of things in the news about Microsoft’s Office 365.

Let’s explain the difference between Office 365, and the traditional version of Microsoft Office you’re used to using on your computer.

Standard versions of Office 2013 are licensed or boxed product. You can purchase a license to this product from any local or online retailer.

Office 365 is a subscription based product. You purchase this license either monthly or annually. You can also use this product on more than one computer and it is transferrable to other computers. This license is not transferrable to another user.

You should know right away both versions of Office will not run on any Windows Operating system prior to Windows 7.

The Office 2013 license is very straight forward: You simply install Office like you always have. However, unlike previous Office versions, you cannot remove it and install it on another computer.

The Office 365 license is much more malleable, and is licensed and sold by version. Office 365 comes in four versions: Home Premium, Small Business, Midsize Business, and Enterprise. Office 365 is licensed per user.

Office 365 Home Premium comes with Word, Excel, Power Point, One Note, Outlook, Publisher, Access, 20 GB of Skydrive cloud storage, and 60 minutes of calling if you have a Skype account. This version is not available to businesses.

Office 365 Small Business includes everything Home Premium has plus Microsoft Lync and business email which will offer 25 GB per month, and many other features.

Office 365 Midsize Business requires an annual commitment. This version will allow you to have up to 300 users. This has everything Small Business has plus Microsoft InfoPath.

Office 365 Enterprise also requires an annual commitment, but there are no limits as to the number of users you can have.

This version has everything that Midsize Business has plus Unified Discovery, Data Loss Prevention, and Role-based access.

Unified Discovery will allow you to search across Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync.

With Role-Based access you can control access and assign it to different groups.

You can create data loss prevention polices and templates for protecting sensitive information. These features will aid in keeping your business compliant with various regulatory requirements.

Choosing your version of Office is pretty straightforward. If you’re a light Office user, or only use a few features of Office then Office 2013 is best for you. You can choose which version you need based on the Office tools that you use.

If your company uses many features of Office, and you want to avoid large upfront software costs, then Office 365 is your best bet.

You will still be able to use Office 365 with no Internet connection. It does require an Internet connection to install and sync, however, and of course for email access.

You can access Office from anywhere using Office on Demand, which is not full-featured, but will allow you to read and edit documents.

Office 365 is the best bet for small and growing companies. You can add and remove new users and computers.

When you upgrade computers you will be able to remove Office from the old computer to install on a new computer.

You will also get more features like business email and calendars, a public website, team sites, web conferencing, and instant messaging.

If your company needs any help making a decision about which version of Office would best suit you, or if you would like help installing and configuring Office, please give us a call. We’d be happy to help.

Social Media: Authenticity And Perseverance

May 17, 2013

Social media is the current zeitgeist and the way of the future, or so we are told. This makes it all the more important to make sure that we are conducting our social media behavior in the correct manner.

Two of the most important things in the way we conduct ourselves in the world of social media are transparency and authenticity. In other words, do not try to pretend to be anyone or anything but what you are and be honest in all your interactions.

That said, perseverance and a thick skin can also come in handy. You cannot worry over what anyone else thinks about you 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the world of social media any more than you can in the real world.

Build and work your plan and just get out there. Make sure that you manage your brand, your image and your reputation. Take any legitimate criticism onboard, but do not be beholden to it.

Optimizing social strategy in emails
Senior management often tells B2B marketers to be more social when it comes to their B2B marketing efforts, but how exactly are you supposed to go about doing that?

The more familiar channel of email sees B2B marketers pushing their brand, solutions and messaging onto a targeted list of leads who are quite likely to either ignore it or even list them as spam.

One good tip when it comes to using email marketing for social media is to share rather than tell. It is not sufficient to leverage social media by just adding your social media links onto the bottom of an email. Provide links in emails in order to let leads share the content.

You also need to remember that at the end of the day it is all about the content. Sending the right content to the right person in the social sphere will have the result of amplifying the effect of that content, so take note of who your space’s loudest social media users are and try to get them to join in with your communications in order to leverage their long reach.

How to grow your market
There are a number of innovative methods with which you can attempt to connect and ultimately grow your market.

One good method is to actually invent a whole new market segment. B2B marketing is all about making sure that your service or product is put in the position of being at your category’s “logical extreme.”

For example, B2B companies that create disruptive technologies tend to be heavily funded when it comes to R&D, but the winners will be those companies that have positioned themselves to be the first in people’s minds.

Another good method is to swap your sales funnel for a sales network. These days there are innumerable ways to get out of the B2B sales funnel, with the market of today making it very expensive to find new prospects.

The trick is to create services and products that are so amazing that your existing customer base will not be able to stop talking about them to their friends and colleagues.

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