Are you ready to do what it takes to make sure that your network in the office is secure? Maybe you do not really think it’s that urgent of an issue. Well, if I were you, I’d take a step back and think again. With all the cases of hacking, phishing, and whatnot out there, it may just be a matter of time till you would have to deal with these problems in your own network! Why wait till that happens? Take some steps to ensure the security of your office network NOW.

There are simple things that you can do to increase your network security. You don’t even really have to do it yourself – that’s what the IT guy is for. However, you should have an idea of what you want to achieve. This way, your solutions will be more effective.

One simple thing to secure your office network is to take note of the units which hold the most sensitive information. This information includes – but is not limited to – credit card information of your clients, your bank information, and so on. What you can do then is to take these units off of the Internet. That is, make it accessible through the local network but block it from the outside world. This will give you a greater degree of security.

One thing that greatly increases your risk is when employees visit dubious sites. Unfortunately, this will always happen. One way to deal with this is to block certain sites. Of course, your employees will probably hate you for that, but you are running a business and you might just have to go this route. You may purchase software to help you with this.

At the end of the day, what you do will depend on your taking into consideration all the factors in play – and that includes dealing with your employees.

You run your own business, hopefully successfully. You probably are smarter than a fifth grader. The more important question is, just how smart do you think you are? Are you the kind of leader that thinks he knows it all? Or maybe you don’t really think that but if you take a step back and analyze how you work and how you behave at work, you just might see that you send across that message.

This post is meant to be a wake up call for all small business owners out there. We have to understand the importance of learning. More than that, we have to understand that learning is a lifelong process and we just can’t know it all. No matter how smart we may be, no matter how much we know, no matter how much experience we may have had, there is always something new that we can learn.

How exactly can we continue learning? It’s not that hard. I believe that the first step is to keep an open mind. Recognize and acknowledge that there is always something that can be learned. With this attitude, it will be easier to find learning experiences in most everything.

In concrete terms, one way to pick up new insights is to interact with other business owners. You don’t even have to do this face to face. CEO blogs, web sites, books, and forums are all good ways to exchange information and learn.

Another way is to always keep yourself updated with regard to your field. Journals, web sites, forums, and other regular publications can help with this. For sure, new developments will arise – and you cannot afford not to know about these things.

You may be smarter than a fifth grader, but you have to outsmart yourself in order to go further.

There are a lot of marketing strategies and techniques available to the business owner. The trick is in being able to analyze and make educated guesses as to which activities will yield the best results. Of course, there really is no perfect guarantee that the conversion rates will soar, but with observation, testing, and critical analysis, you are bound to get the results that you want.

Web presence has always been a popular term. It means that people know that you exist and that they can find you online easily. One way you can achieve a strong web presence is by exposing your content to your audience.

What do I mean? You have a web site, right? You want people to visit it and see what you have to offer. This means you might have to engage in activities such as paid search so that your site will come up as a sponsored link (such as in Google). This is one way to go about it.

Another way is to push your web site content to other locations which receive more traffic. Let us say you have videos on your web site. What is the first web site that comes to mind when I say video? I bet it’s YouTube. The idea is to publish this video on YouTube as well. The chances of people discovering that video through YouTube are way higher than if you let the video remain on your web site alone.

The same principle applies to other context such as text and photos. You have to figure out which sites aggregate various content and make sure that your content gets in there.

You have to face it – VoIP just might be the best solution for your business’ telecommunications needs. While the technology has been around for so long, not everyone is using it. This is due to so many reasons but the bottom line is that more and more business owners are seeing the benefits of implementing a VoIP system for the company. If you are on the hunt for a VoIP provider, here are some questions that can help you get the most out of it.

How easy is it to add or remove phones?
The technical term usually used is “scalable.” Ask potential VoIP providers if their system is scalable. This also means that you can add or remove phones WITHOUT having to spend more money. This is quite important if you have plans of expanding in the near future.

Is your area serviced excellently by the provider?
Just like mobile phone providers and other similar services, VoIP service may not be the same in all areas. As such, you need to make sure that potential providers work excellently in your area. You can ask existing customers in your area and even ask the provider for a test run.

What is included in their customer service?
VoIP is great but it is not without problems. If something happens and your connection goes down, how will customer service help? How fast will they fix things? What other problems are covered by their customer service? You should know all these things before making a decision.

We’re in the middle of the first work week of 2010. How are things going at the office? I sure hope that your year is off to a good – no, great – start. If it is not that great, here are some things that you can do NOW. It is not too late anyway.

Take a look at your personal expenses. What does this have to do with your business? While things just might turn out to be much better in 2010, a lot of small business owners are saying that they are taking home less and less money from the business. Of course, being the owner, you have more to lose. As early as now, see what you can cut back on personally, just in case you won’t be able take home as much money as you want.

Prepare for tax time NOW. It’s still several months away, but you know just how hectic the tax period is. This can take your time and focus away from running the business efficiently. As such, do your preparations as early as you can, in increments. This will help you keep focused on the more essential things.

Don’t borrow too much. Common sense, really, but this year, resolve to depend on yourself as much as you can. You might have to dip into your savings, but that is better than owing other people money and having to pay interest on it.

Stay healthy. You are the boss. You make decisions. You run the business. If you get sick, your business will suffer, and you will spend more on medical expenses.

We’ve all heard about how Twitter and other social media platforms have proved to be excellent tools for business. Perhaps you’ve even created a Twitter account yourself – you might even be quite active in using it for the business. If so, then you would also have been exposed to the issue of personalization.

Good business communication with the public depends on many things, and one of them is showing the “human” face behind the business façade. On Twitter, one problem that may arise is if you have several employees maintaining one account. How would people know who is posting which message?

Luckily, the people at Twitter are trying to address this issue. They are currently trying out a feature wherein business accounts can have personalized notes which give an indication as to the identity of the person posting the tweets. Unfortunately, this is still NOT open to the public.

To get an idea of how it works, check out @Starbucks. You will see a small note at the bottom of the post telling you who created the message. You can then click on the Twitter name to go to the personal account of that employee.

So what is the point? Again, personalizing your business Twitter account will help you reach out to more people out there. After all, people would rather interact with a live person than some lifeless drone that they cannot connect with. At the end of the day, you want them to think of your business as human, and not some machine.

Less than a month, and it’s Christmas Day! During this time of the year, people look forward to lots of gifts and freebies. Why not take advantage of the prevailing spirit and promote your business as much as you can?

One way by which you can do this is to use your business Facebook or Twitter account (create one if you haven’t already!) to launch a contest. This is a great way to promote your business without costing you much. In fact, it could very well be a free thing for you as well.

Why hold a contest? As I said earlier, people love freebies, and contests give them an opportunity to get something without paying for it. The good result for you is that you gain more attention and, hopefully, new customers as well.

Here are some things to bear in mind when holding a contest.

One, make it easy. Contests are supposed to be fun. Do not make the participants jump through hoops just to qualify. Being a follower on Twitter or a fan of Facebook should be enough.

Two, make it worth their while. What’s in it for the participants? Make sure that they will want to join and win. A good idea is to provide a gift cheque for your product or service – it’s a win-win situation.

Three, get the word out. You can hold a contest but if you do not let people know about it, no one’s going to join. So more than announcing it once on Facebook or Twitter, be more aggressive about it. Use other means to promote the contest – your web site, for example. Also, make sure that the rules and stipulation are clear so as to avoid potential problems.

Photo via National Bingo Online

Telecommuting has fast become a popular practice in business. This is especially true for companies that have been trying to cut down on operation costs. Also considering the help of all the advanced technology available to businesses today, it is no wonder that there are millions of telecommuters today. If you’re wondering about the figures, WorldatWork, an organization based in Arizona, estimated about 33.7 million telecommuters in the United States last year. If that isn’t impressive, then I don’t know what is!

For what it’s worth, though, telecommuting is not a solution for all businesses. Before you jump into the telecommuting bandwagon, make sure that you know what you are getting into and that it is right for you.

One thing that you should make sure of is that you have clear cut policies and guidelines governing telecommuting. These policies will ensure that everyone knows exactly what is expected of him and how to get things done. Without these policies, your telecommuting program might prove to be more disadvantageous.

In line with this, it is a very good idea to come up with a standard agreement which a telecommuter will have to sign. This will be a reminder for the employee and something which you can refer to in case complications arise. This agreement can also cover other aspects such as compensation, use of office equipment, and the like.

Of course, just because you have a telecommuting program does not mean that your employees do not have to come to the office, if only every now and then. You might also want to add this stipulation.

At the end of the day, analyze – if telecommuting is going to benefit your business and your employees then go for it.

Changes here, changes there; the only thing constant in this world is change. There are so many sayings about change, and people have been experiencing change since time immemorial. But you and I know very well that we cannot simply initiate change without planning for it and making sure that it goes smoothly – especially in the business sense. I read a very good article by David Javitch at Entrepreneur.com, and he proposes some questions that you need to answer before you go ahead and shake things up. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Ask yourself if others agree with you. The bottom line is that no change will be effective if other people in the company do not see the problem as you do. Even if the problem is very real, people just might resist the change and defeat the purpose.

Ask yourself if you have the key people on your side to implement the change. You can send out directives about the change that you want to make, but again, the trick is in the implementation. You need to have key people in your staff to help you with the implementation and with handling problems and glitches that may occur. Make sure that you identify these key persons first.

Ask yourself about the specifics – time frame, budget, and the like. Just like any other plan, you need to be particular about the details. You cannot implement change effectively unless you have a goal and a route to get there. Make use of your key persons. Brainstorm with them, and come up with a detailed plan to help you achieve your goals.

For more of the questions and in-depth information, read the whole article here.

Making and giving presentations are part of any business. You may have to present proposals to clients and customers. You may have to present rules or give training to your employees. No matter what the purpose for your presentation, you will need to know how to use PowerPoint efficiently. Otherwise, you just might not achieve what you are aiming for. Here are some things which you can bear in mind when creating your PowerPoint presentation AND when delivering it as well.

The fewer slides you have, the better. This is a simple rule that has been encouraged for a while now. PowerPoint presentations are supposed to be visual aids. They are not supposed to contain all the information that you want to get across. Single out the main points and put them in the slides.

Naturally, you should also look at the content of the slides. You probably have heard of the idea that the fewer words that you use, the better. Well it is true! Again, choose the most striking words that will help you deliver the key points, and leave the rest to your ORAL delivery.

This brings us to the next important point – pay particular attention to your delivery. Make sure you know what you want to get across ON TOP of what is on the presentation. Find ways to liven up the presentation and engage your audience. LOOK at them, TALK to them. Remember that you are presenting to people, and people need interaction.