From Home Office to Real Profits: Three Easy Steps

Working from home is no longer just the domain of a select few. Today millions of entrepreneurs are taking up the challenge, looking for a variety of benefits that include a more flexible lifestyle, increased family time and reduced business expenses. And the timing for starting your own home-based business simply couldn’t be better.

Regardless of the economic climate, in the computing cloud today exists tools that let you compete on equal footing with the big guys in your industry by saving you money and sounding more professional when potential customers come calling.

Space is expensive, that’s one of the reasons you’re thinking about working out of your home, right? You’ve just recognized the most important aspect of setting up a home office: Indentify where you can create savings. Let’s discuss the three steps you’ll need to take to be in place to make real profits, real fast.

Step One: Building (or Redesigning) your Website

Your business is your website. Bold statement? Perhaps. But when customers – both existing and potential – visit your site, they’re walking into your virtual showroom. They will form opinions about your products, services and the level of customer relations you are able to provide simply on the appearance of your site. Your fortune will be made or broken at this critical juncture; in order to succeed you need to get it right.

To ensure yourself of a professional website, it’s important that you get out there and see what others have done. (This includes your competitors’ sites!) Be sure to note what elements you want to have – or don’t want to have – in your site.

Next, will you be designing the site yourself, or will you outsource it to a firm that specializes in web design? There have been tremendous advances in Web tools and templates; in fact, WYSIWYG editors (“What You See Is What You Get”) make building a website a visual rather than technical feat so that almost anyone can design a highly functional, professional website that levels the playing field between you and your competitors.

Step Two: Home Suite Home

Now that you have your website open for business, it’s time to think about business applications. In the past, you were pretty much required to purchase a bloated office suite. Today, however, you can find phone services, project management, word processing, customer relationship management, and spreadsheets—all these and many more—available on-line as software-as-a service (SaaS) applications.

The advantages of SaaS applications are both numerous and varied, but some of the biggest advantages include the ability to try a new product with less up-front investment (or even for free in some cases), the fact that direct IT maintenance overhead is almost entirely eliminated and that new features can be introduced online automatically without having to wait for long, drawn-out upgrades. Additionally, many of these applications store your documents on the Web so they’re accessible and shareable from anywhere.

And, finally, why would you travel when you can host conferences, live demos and share presentations right from your desk? Many of these cloud-based applications allow for virtual “meet and greets.” There are even applications that let you host—and record—large conference because you never know when you’ll need to meet with a hundred or so of your most important clients!

Step Three: VoIP Phone Services

With everything from children’s toys to banking going online, converting to a virtual office is key to adapting to the digital revolution. A VoIP phone system for your business, for example, can give you flexibility you never imagined as well as save you quite a bit of money. Whether you are setting up a home or small office, being able to communicate with customers and staff, no matter where they are, is essential to business.

The way VoIP works can be explained as such: The VoIP software serves as your ‘phone’. Instead of a traditional landline handset and receiver, you can use a headset attached to your PC, your computer’s microphone and speakers, a USB phone or even an existing analog telephone with an adapter. To make a call, simply start the program and on a familiar dial-pad (but now digital and on your computer), enter the number you wish to call. The call is placed to the landline or mobile device of your choice and you can talk for free with crystal-clear digital quality.

A quality VoIP provider will offer other services of high-value to your home-based business, typically free of charge. Look for these features when evaluating VoIP service providers:

• Instant messaging with presence lets your contacts—whether they’re suppliers, employees or business associates—know of your availability with a presence indicator. Typically, a provider will allow you to send and receive unlimited text messages for free.
• Multi-user voice conferencing allows you conference call with up to five participants at a time. Because no prior reservations required, this is perfect for impromptu collaborative meetings. (Within these types of conference calls, you are typically allowed a mix of your online contacts and one contact who can be reached only on their fixed or mobile phone numbers.)
• Multi-user text collaboration for inviting up to five contacts into one chat session.

When selecting a VoIP provider, I recommend you do a bit of homework: look for a company with a long history in VoIP communications and features of interest, including free PC-to-phone calls and PC-to–mobile device to select international destinations.

MediaRing Talk

One of the first companies to offer free PC-to-PC calls and instant messaging, MediaRing has built a complete VoIP service portfolio. Founded in 1993, they have an established reputation for quality products, service and support and are now the leading VoIP service provider in Asia.

It doesn’t matter how much time you spend of the phone; because when you use MediaRing Talk, your calls are unlimited and free to both landline and mobile phones anywhere in China as well as the U.S., Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong. Additionally, you can call landline phones in the U.K., Taiwan and Australia. (For all other global destinations, we offer very competitive rates.)