Christopher Steiner, 04.22.09, 10:00 AM ET
At the tender age of 17, Bill Gates had laid the foundation of what would become the most storied technology firm ever. But the man behind Microsoft got a late start compared with some entrepreneurial sprouts.
These days, precocious youngsters have a handle on the laws of supply and demand--not to mention other concepts, like inventory and marketing--by the time they crack double digits. Their cherubic appeal comes in handy, too.
"It's a beautiful thing when you have a child who understands entrepreneurship and markets," says Steve J. Mariotti, founder of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, a nonprofit organization that aims to educate kids from low-income communities. "They should be recognized and congratulated."
We're not just talking paper routes and lemonade stands--many of today's grade-school entrepreneurs are all about the Web. "This is the first time in human history when children are an authority to many of us on something really important," says Don Tapscott, author of Grown Up Digital.
Leanna Archer, 13, of Central Islip, N.Y., is well on her entrepreneurial way. Archer sells natural hair care products, from shampoo to detangling hair mist. She moves most of the merchandise online--about 350 orders per week. The most popular product from her comany, Leanna's Inc., is homemade pomade made from avocado oil, hibiscus oil, almond oil and quinine (the recipe came from Leanna's Haitian grandmother). Four ounces goes for $15; an 8-ounce jar fetches $25.
"The kitchen at my house turns into an assembly line," says Archer. "It's kind of funny."
Archer has some serious vision for a 13-year-old. She socks away half her earnings for college--Harvard for undergrad and law school, natch. "I don't look at this only as a business," she says, "it's also a learning experience."
Nonsense, says 10-year-old Samantha Senechal of Ocala, Fla., who makes and sells Sammy's Dog Treats. Her favorite part about running a business: "The cash--I like making money," she avers. "Real money."
Senechal found a book on how to make dog treats at the library. She tried her early creations on Lucky, her Boston terrier. After a little tweaking of the recipe, she now moves 200 to 300 4-ounce bags, each containing 20 treats and retailing for $5, every month. (She also offers an 8-ounce bag for $9, and a one-pounder for $13.)
For now, Senechal makes the treats in her parents' kitchen. But Stephanie and Robert Senechal are doubling down on their daughter's enterprise: They're building a structure behind their new home that will house a giant batter mixer ($12,000), a machine that will shape the treats ($47,000) and two giant ovens ($29,000 apiece) to cook them. Asked where she sees all of this leading, Samantha offers one word: "Wal-Mart."
Haley Schmidt, 9, of Charleston, S.C., turned her flair for design into a thriving T-shirt business. It all started one morning in 2007 at breakfast when Haley's mother, Aimee, saw her daughter doodle "a funky set of roses" on the back of the paper menu. Soon after, the family registered the Web address shophaleybop.com and posted a shirt with that design for sale. Things hit critical mass in November 2008, when Haley landed on Ryan Seacrest's syndicated radio show.
This is high-margin work. Schmidt orders plain shirts from American Apparel's wholesale branch for $3 each; printing the designs costs another $5 or so, depending on the size of the order. Schmidt now sells around 75 shirts a month (her monthly record is 124), ranging from $28 to $32 apiece.
"It's gotten way bigger than I expected," she gushes. "I had no idea it would be this exciting." Watch out, Nicole Miller!
To thrive in a recession, the sales force at iCore Networks focuses on cold calling
The Hiring Process
1. An executive recruiter prescreens candidates to find reps with a few years' experience outside the telecom industry. 2. A first interview with sales manager Anthony Chapa. Only 10 percent of candidates advance beyond this stage. 3. Next, a candidate spends a full day with a rep door-to-door cold-calling. "We've had people leave halfway through, because the pace was too much for them," Chapa says. 4. An interview with Michael Bertamini, VP of sales 5. An interview with founder and CEO Stephen Canton
Compensation
Base salary + commission
Average first-year income: $92,000
Average second-year income: $121,000
Average third-year income: $150,000
The Sales Philosophy
"Without a brand name and without market share, the only way to close deals is through activity -- that means feet on the street and knocking on doors." -- Stephen Canton, iCore's founder and CEO
The Employee Handbook
1. Be willing to be coached and managed. Don't be set in your ways. 2. Be on time for the 8 a.m. meeting, and return in the afternoon to plan for the following day. 3. Be interested in a career track. The plan is to expand geographically, with account executives becoming managers and opening up new territories, starting with Philadelphia.
When Calling On Customers
1. On a scheduled introductory call, the goal is to discern whether iCore's system would be useful for a prospective customer. 2. After that appointment, cold-call every other tenant in the same building or office park. 3. If you get no further than the outer office, make sure you size up the age of the phone on the receptionist's desk.
The Expectations
Quotas are set by the number of "seats" the reps sell, which corresponds to the number of individual phones using the system.
Companywide quota: 8,000 seats a year
Experienced rep's quota: 1,500 seats a year
New hire's quota: 75 seats per month
The Results
Total revenue, 2008: $17,025,510
Revenue per salesperson: $1,418,793
Revenue versus quota, 2008: +25 percent
Revenue growth, 2007–08: +45 percent
The Typical Workday
7:30 a.m. One or two new reps meet with their manager for individual coaching. "We use this time to help a rep who is poor in a particular area, like learning how to talk about the technology or how to set a realistic forecast," Bertamini says. 8 a.m. Reps gather to discuss successes and failures from the day before and to role-play how to overcome objections. 9 a.m. An hour of intense telemarketing (20 to 25 calls per rep) to cultivate companies that reps can call on later that day. 10 a.m. → 4 p.m. Reps head into the field for cold-calling. 4:30 p.m. → 6 p.m. Reps return to the office to enter the information they've gathered into iCore's contacts database and Salesforce.com CRM software and to research the prospects and places they intend to visit the following day.
Comments:
The discipline, focus, and persistence of the iCore team is impressive. The fact is though that many companies do not have the structure in place or the internal resources necessary to implement such a process. Full disclosure, I work for an outsourced cold calling and B2B appointment setting company - and if cold calling were easy or less time intensive, we wouldn't be in business. But it's absolutely effective. In fact, there's so much online and social media concentration right now that it seems that people are making fewer calls and I'd argue there's less competition than there was just 10 years ago.
As an iCore customer with 18 lines of service I can tell you that they did get our business through a cold call!!!
Cold calling works when you know how to do it the right way. Though pounding pavement is an effective technique, you need to also use the phone to get access to the decision maker at the company where you sized up the old phones at the reception desk. As an example, to massively increase the number of people you actually talk to, try getting the direct lines of the executives during the day, then phone stalking them after hours once the admins are gone for the day.
One has to respect the discipline instilled by sales management in order to perpetuate this sales methodology. At the same time, it strikes me as exhausting to iCore's people, time and money. What's needed is a marketing program that regularly communicates with the lead database developed by the calls and site visits. Constant lead nurturing, followed up by professional telesales to follow-up on long-term opportunities and maintain visibility, is required. I am a Sales Activation Specialist, and this is the process we use at www.salesactivationco.com. Our philosophy is based on the fact that timing is everything and all leads are not created equal.
Stories of Zappos, the online shoe retailer, and how they have pioneered a new way of doing customer service, using social media, and selling products online are now all over the business and trade media. From their policies such as paying new recruits to quit within their first 60 days (arguing it costs less in the long run) to having a manifesto of ten principles that guide their customer service team, Zappos has a model that many are trying right now to replicate.
Whether or not you think that the Zappos model may work for your business, there are definitely some lessons you can take away from their 10 guiding principles. Here they are along with some thoughts on how you might be able to apply them to your small business:
1. Deliver WOW Through Service. This is all about doing more than the expected. Solving a customer's need is the baseline and of course you always want to try and do that through customer service. Delivering a "WOW" is open to interpretation, but certainly means doing more than the basics.
2. Embrace and Drive Change. In many businesses, people are afraid of change. Change means more work. Change means you might do something wrong and potentially lose your job. Embracing change, however, is about adapting to your circumstances and not being afraid. Innovation comes from embracing and driving change.
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness. Nothing is as empowering for employees as encouraging them to have fun and do things in a different way. Fun and wierd are not two words you typically see in any sort of customer service group - yet for Zappos it is a strong part of why they have such a fiercely loyal workforce.
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded. Encouraging creativity is something that can often be frowned upon because you are trying to enforce rules - but this flexibility is also a big part of making employees feel empowered to do their job and think outside of what their job tells them to do.
5. Pursue Growth and Learning. The most successful organizations are ones that allow their people to grow their knowledge in order to do their job better. Making education, training and knowledge building a priority in your business sends a message that you care about working smarter and are willing to support your employees who try to find ways to do that.
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication. Honesty is the key word here, as it is easy to think it is better to keep specifics of your business to yourself and not share them with your employees. Being honest about the state of the business can help you to get more commitment from your employees to do what needs to be done to make it better.
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit. Most people would agree that a team should be like a family, but in practice they don’t act that way. A family spirit means a level of trust and dedication that should be your goal at your business. Positivity is something that comes with that.
8. Do More With Less. Too often, it is easier for employees to rely on resources being provided by “the company” in order to get their jobs done. Encourage them to think about how they can do more with less, and then reward them for it. Those dollars they end up saving the company can really add up.
9. Be Passionate and Determined. There really is no substitute for passion when it comes to getting things done. Sometimes you can inspire that passion with employees, but the best way to get it is to hire people who are passionate themselves about what they do and about what you do.
10. Be Humble. Humility is attractive for employees and for customers. It means that success doesn’t go to your head and that you can maintain a real perspective on what is truly important. This is also one of those qualities that comes from the top, so to inspire humility in your company means that you need to live up to that lesson yourself.
It’s been said many times that business is all about people. That being the case, perhaps we should stop reading management books for advice and start looking at social psychology. Very simply, social psychologists study how people interact with others – their families, friends, and yes, business partners. Smart marketers and executives have been using the findings of this growing field for decades to close sales, hold effective meetings and get their way in negotiations. But rather than putting you through an academic psychology lesson, we condensed the most useful concepts into one article.
The Concept: If you’re wondering how to convince superiors, employees or customers to do what you ask, try using the foot in the door phenomenon. This refers to the tendency of people to do something huge if they have already agreed to something much smaller. Your friend should be much more open to helping you decorate your entire house for a dinner party if, for example, he already helped you pick out decorations. How You Can Use It: This handy principle has countless applications in the business world. Hand lotion and beauty supply kiosks at the mall use it all the time. If you can get a person to talk to you for a couple of minutes and rub some lotion on their hands, you’ve got your foot in the door, and they are much more likely to buy from you than if you had just screamed a sales pitch at them.
The Concept: Another classic persuasion tactic is known as the “Door in the Face Phenomenon.” Using this approach, you make your actual request look reasonable by first making an outrageous request that the person will unquestionably turn down. When they turn you down, you then ask for what you really want, which now looks trivial in light of what you asked for a moment earlier. How You Can Use It: Let’s say you want your company to approve funding for a team of five marketers to research a new advertising campaign. Rather than simply asking for this funding and risking being shot down, use the door in the face principle. Ask your company for twice the amount of funding for a team twice as big as what you need. This will almost certainly be disapproved, but don’t fret; you didn’t need that amount in the first place. Act like you’re really going to work hard on cutting the funding down to the bone and reworking your proposal. In a few days, come back and propose the funding request you wanted all along. It will look as though you found a way to accomplish the same tasks for half the price with half the personnel. Social psychology research states that you are much more likely to get what you want by doing this.
The Concept: A truly sharp marketer should understand how our brains process information. The “Serial Position Effect” (developed by Hermann Ebbinghaus) assists by explaining how we remember items we see or hear in lists. Ebbunghaus discovered that things shown at the beginning of a list and at the end of a list are remembered best. This was later titled the “Primacy Effect,” and the “Recency Effect.” How You Can Use It: This powerful concept can affect what the millions of people seeing your advertisements, listening to your radio promotion, or reading your sales letter, remember about your product. If you have five benefits that your product provides over the competition, think long and hard about which ones you want to stick deep into your audience’s memory. Place those items at the beginning and end of your pitch. This way, prospects will remember these benefits when they see your product on a shelf or think about the commercial they just saw.
The Concept: Cognitive dissonance is a fancy term for when people have opinions, behave contrary to them, and change their opinion to fit how they acted. For example, if you normally despise handguns, but join your buddy at the shooting range one day, you might leave thinking about how “guns aren’t really that bad if you use them safely.” Simply by holding and shooting one yourself, your brain begins thinking positive thoughts about it. Similarly, a “boring” task might later be remembered as “not being all that bad” or even being “fun” because, after all, you did it. How You Can Use It: What this means to you is that if you can get your customer to perform a small task, such as a little game or survey online, the customer may begin making some positive assumptions about what you sell. This especially works for businesses operating in controversial markets, such as gambling, tobacco or other vice-related products. If you can find a harmless and fun way for potential customers to get involved with your products and services they will be more likely to become loyal buyers down the line.
The Concept: Not everyone processes information (including product demos and advertisements) the same way. Generally speaking, there are two types of audiences, depending on your product/service. Your audience is either attentively thinking about your message, or they are distracted. These two audiences take two different routes to understanding your message. The involved group takes what is known as the “Central Route,” meaning that they focus on what you are saying closely, develop counterarguments and respond based on what they eventually decide your product is all about. If your ad or pitch was strong and convincing, these people will probably buy. If it was weak or not convincing enough, there’s little hope of them buying. How You Can Use It: The distracted audience takes a very different route to understanding your pitch known as the “Peripheral Route.” These people focus on irrelevant parts of the pitch that randomly interest them. The speaker’s good looks, for example might interest them more than the information in the pitch. Simple language is also important for this kind of audience. For example, if you’re selling a market research service, classic adages such as “look before you leap” will probably work better than “perform proper market research before investing.”
The Concept: Let’s face it – most of us give more weight to what “experts” say than average Joes off the street. Most people would sooner listen to a warning about the health hazards of eating fast food, for instance, if it came from a renowned nutritionist than from a self-righteous teenager. How You Can Use It: What makes someone appear to be an expert? One tactic that has been used by marketers (and politicians) is to begin your pitch with something the audience already agrees with. This makes the speaker seem intelligent and makes the audience eager to believe more of what he or she has to say.
Of course, being introduced as an expert never hurt either. A comment about an approaching asteroid from “Dr. Robert Kimmel, Chair of Astrophysics at Harvard University” will surely be taken more seriously than, “Robbie Kimmel, local guitarist and college student.”
Finally, social scientists find that speaking confidently greatly improves believability. A study performed by Bonnie Erikson in 1978 proved this by having college students rate the credibility of two supposed “witnesses” to an accident. One spoke very clearly and confidently and the other one hesitated and stumbled over his words a bit. One by one, each student said the confident speaker was much more credible. Perhaps it’s time to buy your TV or radio guy a course in effective speaking!
The Concept: Trustworthiness of the speaker is another factor critical to any kind of visual marketing. No trust, no sale. Fortunately, how trustworthy you look can be controlled almost entirely by you. How You Can Use It: Our outward behaviors have a lot to do with whether trust us or not. One behavior that seems to carry a lot of weight is eye contact. Researchers have found that if video-taped witnesses in court looked their questioner straight in the eye rather than down or around, they were seen as more trustworthy.
You can also appear more trustworthy by seeming like you’re not trying to influence an audience. “Hidden camera” TV commercials utilize this tactic all the time. Social psychology experiments have found that people who don’t think they’re being watched are comfortable being completely honest.
People also find others trustworthy when they argue against their own interest. Thus, a message about risks of cigarette smoking seems much more sincere coming from the tobacco companies than it would if were given by an anti-smoking politician up for re-election. People might link the politician’s anti-smoking speeches to his political agenda, whereas they cannot do this with the tobacco companies and are much more likely to absorb the message as true.
The Concept: Sometimes repetition alone can make a message more believable. Social research has found that people tend to eventually believe things they’ve been told many times, simply because they’ve repeatedly heard it. Studies show that people rate false statements such as “Mercury has a higher boiling point than copper” as true if they were made to read them a week before. How You Can Use It: This concept is why companies run the same advertisement three times during a one-hour television show. The first time the audience sees the ad they might just ignore it. However, a week later they may have seen the ad 20 times, and by that point they have begun to accept its message and view favorably the product it advertises.
The Concept: Audio and visual messages are much more effective when the audience can be somewhat distracted by background clutter just long enough to inhibit counter-arguing. Mild distraction often preoccupies the brain just long enough to stop it from inventing a reason to say “no.” How You Can Use It: Many radio commercials utilize this tactic. The words promote the product being sold while background music or intermittent comedy distracts us from thinking too deeply about the words. Be careful not to distract so much that ad is not processed, however. Extremely violent or incredibly sexual advertisements are often ineffective because the audience is simply too distracted by what they’re viewing to pay attention to the message. They key is to strike a balance such that your message is understood, but not deeply analyzed or argued by the audience.
The Concept: Remember – a marketer’s job making sure the audience understands and remembers the sales pitch. One handy way to achieve this is known as the “Self-Reference Effect.” The Self Reference Effect refers to the tendency of people to effectively recall information about themselves. Most people are primary concerned with themselves. Thus, memories pertaining to what we think about the most, (ourselves), are held longer and recalled easier. Studies have shown that, when asked to compare ourselves to a short-story character, we remember that character better than if we compared them to someone else. How You Can Use It: When planning a new marketing campaign or presentation to the board, it is important to keep this principle in mind, as it can greatly influence what your audience walks away remembering. Try focusing on the basic lifestyle and personality traits of your audience. Once you have these squared away, design your new message to match these traits. This makes your message personally meaningful to them and boosts their chance of remembering what you said.
The Concept: Priming is when various stimuli (sights, tastes, smells) automatically trigger thoughts of similar stimuli. The smell of crisp fall air, for example, might trigger thoughts about the holiday. As a result, simply smelling the fall air might make you crave pumpkin pie or apple cider, even though no food is in front of you. How You Can Use It: Priming is a classic sales tactic that has been used for decades, and you can put it to use for your business immediately. The key is to find some kind of neutral stimulus that is clearly related to your product. A perfect example of this can be found at any movie theater. As soon as you walk through the door your nostrils are overcome with the smell of buttery popcorn. Without even seeing the popcorn or being asked to buy it, you find yourself making your way to the concession stand because you suddenly feel like the movie wouldn’t be the same without the snacks. This is classic priming, and all five senses are susceptible to priming by intelligent marketers and businesspeople.
The Concept: Have you ever noticed, perhaps in college or around the office, that when groups are assembled to complete a task, it always ends up that a couple of members do most of the work while the majority of members do almost none of the work? This is a social psychological phenomenon known as “Social Loafing,” and it happens everywhere and in absolutely every profession. Social loafing is defined as the tendency for people to put less effort into a task when they are in a group than when they are alone. How You Can Use It: Social loafing can seriously drain a team’s performance. The good news is that the causes of social loafing are known and consistent. Social loafing happens when no one is personally accountable. When the group is judged as a whole no matter what its individual members do, loafing is almost sure to occur. The sure-fire way to make sure that all of your employees are contributing equally to the task at hand is to assign them to groups, but assure them that they will be personally monitored and evaluated on their contributions to the group. The more someone thinks they will be judged personally, the less social loafing you have. This allows you to make the most of the talent you have on staff and almost always produces stronger results than the vague “group evaluation” does.
The phrase “necessity is the mother of invention” is especially true in the case of Rose Marie Iskowitz.
A one-time marketing and sales representative, Iskowitz had just given birth to her second child when the idea for a specially designed diaper changing station dubbed the Dipe N’ Go began to take shape,
The Dipe N' Go portable changing mat has been specially designed to hold everything a parent on the go needs to take care of their child's diaper changing needs! This all in one "changing station" is made of soft, machine washable fabric which has multiple pockets for everything from spare diapers to powder and wipes. Everything you need is right there in one convenient place! The Dipe N' Go has the space and capacity to store it all! Simply unroll the Dipe nÕ Go with just one hand and gently lie your baby down and make a quick diaper change! The Dipe N' Go includes:
Compact size when closed: 15.5" x 12.5"
Ample space to change a baby when open: 15.5" x 35"
Light weight and easy to carry: Under 1lb when empty
Plenty of Storage space: 2 Large pockets and one small pocket to hold diaper changing supplies
The most important aspect of any advertising campaign is whether or not it builds trust. Consumers are naturally skeptical about any form of advertising as it is paid for and thus biased. Hence, even if you go on about your product’s features and how great of a deal consumers are getting, these claims are often counteracted by the fact that consumers know the commercial is biased and thus have no trust in the information presented. This is especially true for small businesses that have no well-known brand name to back them up.
Here are a few sources consumers believe in and should be integrated into every ad campaign. Testimonials
These are especially helpful if the person you are trying to reach knows the person offering the testimonial. While this many not be possible in mass media advertising, for more personalized ad campaigns, get customers to make a list of people thy know who may be interested in the product and run an e-mail or direct mail campaign saying “Your friend [Insert Name Here] thought you might be interested in our product.” This can be kick started by offering customers any sort of incentive to want to refer their friends and family. Independent Organizations
Consumers know YOU think your company is amazing, but who else does? Providing outside credibility from independent organizations, whether it be a glowing review in a major newspaper for a movie commercial or statistics from an industry study conducted by an independent research organization, is a great way to build trust. Endorsements
People trust people they know. One way to apply this to advertising is through the testimonials tactic explained above. Unfortunately, this model doesn’t scale for mass media advertising. Instead, for mass media advertising your company needs to be recommended from someone that everyone knows through an endorsement. The first words to come to mind when thinking of “an endorsement” are celebrities and million dollar contracts.
While this may be the most well-known form of endorsement advertising, it is well out of the reach of many small business owners. Instead, small business owners need to forget about getting an endorser with universal appeal, and instead focus on getting one who appeals only to their audience. For a local restaurant, this could be a local celebrity or rising star only well known in the area. For a marketing agency, it could be a well known professional in the industry.
These endorsements may not catch the attention of mainstream media, but if targeted correctly will be of interest to the people you are trying to reach.
New Jersey-based Switch2Health now offers the S2H REPLAY, a fun and innovative wrist-worn device aimed at tweens and teens that allows them to quantify their level of physical activity, according to trendspotter Springwise.
In addition to displaying the date and time, the device also tracks and registers continuous, moderate-intensity activity, subdividing each hour into 20 three-minute segments. When users complete a full 60 minutes of physical activity over time, the device generates a reward code that can be uploaded and converted into points on the company’s website.
Those points are redeemable for items such as gift cards or free months of membership at sponsors including Barnes & Noble, GameStop, Best Buy, Webkinz and Club Penguin. Consumers can also set each other specific challenges and reward them for success using S2H REPLAY.
No cables or software are required, nor is there any need to recharge the device’s battery. Available online, S2H REPLAY is water-resistant and available in three sizes. The device comes with a blue silicone band, but alternate colours are available. A fully brandable device is also available for use in corporate promotions.
After the terrific market response to 11 Highly Useful Presentation Tools for Sales and Marketing[1], we knew that a follow-on post was mandatory to help readers sell and market successfully online (and off). Here is a list of 33 more presentation tools we hope you’ll find helpful. SlideRocket[2] is a presentation creation and management service that I didn’t include in 11 Presentation Tools and I wish I had. They offer useful tools to build presentations and cool analytics tools. The service starts at free and goes up to $20/user/month.
PhotoPeach[3] is a photo site with a twist. It allows you to import your photos from Facebook or Picasa (no others at this time) and create a slide show, adding words, audio, and music. You can host it there or embed it in your site or blog. Free. Amazon Slideshow Widget[4] is for those who have an Amazon presence at all, this widget is a way to display Amazon products on your store or alongside your profile. You can choose images out of the entire Amazon catalog. Adam[5] is unlike any multimedia presentation tool I’ve seen on the web. I’m sure that expensive programs do this, but I’ve not seen it. The exciting piece of this is you can a “hotspot” to a PDF or Image file. Essentially, when someone scrolls over a particular area of a document, a popup (of sorts) opens and you can embed a video, text, music, or hyperlink. Free. Click on the “View Samples” link. Blow Up[6] is a downloadable tool that works with Flickr. It is totally free. It imports/loads your photosets into a fullscreen display. You can deeplink into the photos you want and run it on your own site or blog. VoiceThread[7] is a collaborative, multimedia slide show web-based service (holding all sorts of documents like most of these other services). Ranges from Free to $30/month. Allows people to leave comments five different ways. IgniteCAST[8] is a media sharing web service where users can create, upload, view and share structured video clips, interactive presentations, PowerPoint, software demonstrations, surveys, quizzes and more. Free. Presentation Assistant[9] provides various tools to bring the audience’s attention to a specific spot, and allows you to zoom in and annotate the screen. It also enables you to open documents or programs quickly, and play background musics conveniently during the presentation. You can do a free trial or buy it for $23.95. MyJugaad.in[10] is the tool if you need to quickly put together a presentation of a bunch of websites, bookmarks, or your blog posts. MyJugaad.in is a slideshow for webpages, which are sourced either from popular websites such as del.icio.us (for best webpages), digg, google news, flickr, youtube, etc. or from a list provided by you or from your RSS feed(s). This image shows their tour where they explain – just type in a search term and as the results come in, you can turn it straight into a slideshow.
I don’t know how long this little app will remain online, but if you dig in a little bit and want to learn what these two entrepreneurs are doing, read how they built this slideshow web app in six days[11]… WebSlides by Diigo[12] is the same concept as myjugaad, however, theirs only appears to work with your bookmarks and lists from within Diigo. It promises to work from any RSS feed, but I couldn’t get it to work. Once I joined, I could create some bookmarks and then move them into a Diigo List, then the WebSlides widget worked. Here’s my result testing two of my own sites as bookmarks[13]. FormatPixel[14] is an online publishing application that appears quite robust. It allows you to create ‘page’ based presentations; anything from magazines to fanzines, brochures to catalogues and even portfolios.
Free for one project with less than 512k in size. Next package is about $30/year. Slidestory[15] allows you to create audio slideshows and podcasts. It is a free tool and you have to download a small application for your desktop. From there, you can drag and drop images, record your presentation, and upload it to the Slidestory host. Slidesix[16] is another multimedia presentation sharing site, however, they allow you to upload a presentation and record audio, video or embed it directly from their web app. It is a free app and I found that it was quick to load and use. The management console kept things organized and their SlideLabs section had a presentation analytics component. Prezentit[17] is a web-based slideshow presentation tool that also lets your team simultaneously collaborate with you. Not all of the other services allow that. The slides become webpages, so you can edit the code manually if you chose. Webinaria[18] is a screen recording application that is similar to Jing Project. It allows you to create a flash presentation (FLV or AVI files) as you click through a series of screens, web pages, or whatever you are demonstrating online. Free. Zentation[19] is a tool for combining video and slides. On one side you’ll have your full motion video and on the other your material in the form of a slide presentation. Present.io[20] is a service of Drop.io, which is a real-time file sharing and collaboration service. Small file “drops” are free, but then you can select a plan starting at $19/month. Once you drop a file into the Drop.io service, it is immediately accessible publicly or privately. You can present information to everyone in this shared area or simply leave the files in one location. Drop.io tries to convert every file you send into a web-friendly format so that anyone, on any browser, can see it and interact with the file. There are too many features to list here, but it is worth 20 minutes to see if it can work for your company or project. Animoto[21] is a service to turn photos into hip videos. I do not use the word ‘hip’ lightly. This is another of my favorites from our presentation explorations to find ways for other small biz owners to find new and innovative ways to present and sell. Click on the link right below the featured video (right now it is two small dogs on the screen) that says “Watch the 60-Sec. learn more video” in small print. They need to make this larger and more obvious, but don’t let that comment deter you.
SpotMixer[22] is a web-based video advertising service that makes it easy and affordable for small- to mid-sized businesses to reach new customers with online video ads and TV ads without hiring videographers or ad agencies. This is not a free service, but an affordable one if you want to explore online video advertising. Vuvox[23] is fun to explain. It takes your slides and puts them into a moving collage (not a video). You can bring your Flickr, Picasa, an RSS feed into the service and have it display your work. Within it, like other services we’ve mentioned, you can create “hotspots” where you have a popup within your presentation and a link. Some of these services are simply meant to be experienced or seen. Freepath[24] is a playlist application that helps you mix and play your rich media assets such as video, photos and music together with your traditional desktop files like PowerPoint, PDFs and Word without having to convert files, embed links or import files. They say in their About Us section to “Think of us as an iTunes-like playlist where you can organize, arrange and play all your stuff.” Again, the tour is in order. There is a free trial and it is only $50/year for a single-user license.
As I review all these sites, with some of them, I see a simple place to create or host a presentation. But with some of them (like Vuvox, Animoto, and Freepath to name just a few), what I find happening is marketing ideas I’ve had for years are now taking shape because they have created a way for me to take my ideas to the web in such an easy way that I can’t help but experiment. You may find yourself thinking and coming up with new ways to reach a customer. InstantPresenter[25] is in here because it is a new type of web conferencing tool that allows you to have multiple participants, via voice and/or webcams to be part of an online presentation. Has all of the collaborative tools you’d expect from whiteboards to chat. You can upload your slide presentation and have it available from their servers. Free trial, then $39/month. Spicynodes[26] is an interactive mind mapping sort of tool. With it, you can guide visitors on a tour. Because it is a new way of visually showing and moving people through information, it can be confusing at first, but it may be just what you need to help people understand your service or product. Instead of a traditional navigation menu, you would offer a series of “nodes” or perhaps we could call them waypoints, where as a viewer clicks through this new map, other options display. If you’ve ever seen Google’s new Wonder Wheel search tool, that will help this makes sense. It is a free service and it lets you sign up with your Google, Yahoo, or OpenID account. They have a terrific gallery of examples.
[27]
Sometimes you just have to draw out what you want to say. Gliffy[28] is your tool. Actually, you don’t even need to draw. They have tons of shapes and flowcharts and images you can use to diagram out whatever you’re thinking. Straightforward, with easy-to-use features. I quickly dragged and dropped various images and shapes onto a palette. The new file could be saved in my Gliffy account or exported to a variety of file format. Free trial and then $5/month. Creately[29] is a diagramming service that lets you create flowcharts, diagrams, website maps where the links are clickable (as in site navigation, not geographic maps), and ready made templates for many common team projects. You can link diagrams together as well. Currently in beta, free for public diagrams. Private access is about to launch. Mindmeister[30] is a mind mapping and diagramming tool. There are those times when you need to create a visual that represents part of what you or your team are thinking and discussing. A whiteboard type of discussion where you are connecting the dots. Mindmeister is great at that, plus you can then share it to the web, with links. Cooliris[31] is a 3D photo/video wall. It is a browser plug-in, however, it also gives you a specific URL (webpage) where others can view your 3D wall of images. It visually appears to pop off the page. Very engaging. It works with many photo and social networking sites including Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook and pulls your images into the Cooliris wall. Free.
Moonk[32] lets you create a slideshow or video show from your files. If you have wanted to put video on your site, but haven’t wanted the public aspect of YouTube, Moonk might be the answer. You can then integrate or embed this “player” into your website or blog. Free. Toufee[33] allows you to create flash files (without the programming experience or expensive applications) that can be loaded to YouTube or your site. Free trial and then $60/year. Viewbook[34], at first glance, is an online portfolio for photographers and photo-oriented businesses. But if you have a visual product or service, it may work for you as a way to build a visually rich website or promotional page. Free trial and $19/month for professional package. Stupeflix[35] lets you turn your photos, videos, presentations and text into professional looking videos. It is a fast and full video editor with features you only find in desktop applications. Free for small videos, with Stupeflix brand. Premium options are a low-cost per video. Skrbl[36] is a whiteboard tool and collaboration service. You can have up to five people join you in a collaborative space and work on the same document drawing out your ideas and uploading pictures, if you need to. Free for single user, $10/month for five users. Twiddla[37] is an online whiteboard, plus a co-browsing web meeting service. You can mark up web pages, share files, and chat while you work together. They have a free trial, with no signup to get started, and then, its still free. After 30 days, they expect you to register. Who wouldn’t register for such a great tool?
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Now, with 44 Highly Useful Presentation Tools (33 today plus 11 last time), we all need to get busy creating professional presentations that help educate our customers and generate new sales. Keep us posted about which tools you use and like. We’ll be busy here at Small Business Trends playing and experimenting with this new batch of presentation tools.
Article printed from Small Business Trends: http://smallbiztrends.com
URL to article: http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/09/33-useful-presentation-tools.html
URLs in this post:
[1] 11 Highly Useful Presentation Tools for Sales and Marketing: http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/08/11-presentation-tools-sales-marketing.html
[11] read how they built this slideshow web app in six days: http://www.paraschopra.com/blog/personal/how-i-built-a-webapp-in-six-days-for-rs-350-8-usd-only.htm
[12] WebSlides by Diigo: http://slides.diigo.com/
[13] my result testing two of my own sites as bookmarks: http://slides.diigo.com/list/q4sales/web_slides-test-by-tj-mc_cue?mode=full&sid=24193
Email marketing is one of the dominant ways that a small business reaches out to customers and prospects. Email marketing is about relationships — and successful relationship marketing involves a lot more thought than simply firing off a newsletter via email. According to MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report (free PDF excerpt here[1]), email marketing is one of two marketing budget items that saw an increase in 2009. The other is social media.
But where many have claimed that “email is dead,” MarketingSherpa has proven otherwise in its studies. In fact, they show that email is quite social. A recent survey asked users how they share information they find on the internet: 78% responded that email is how they do it. 22% use social media sites.
Here are 30 small business email marketing applications to grow customer relationships — and your business (in no particular order): Emma[2]
Emma is a Web-based service that combines do-it-yourself with free personal assistance when you need it (custom email design comes at an additional charge). They have strong tracking and analytics components that allow you to learn what works, or doesn’t, with your audience. Constant Contact[3]
They offer a free 60-day trial. They have been around a long time and have a strong arsenal of email marketing tools from HTML newsletter templates to personal coaching on how to get your email campaigns done right. They have added event management so you can handle online registration, as well as online survey tools to gather info from customers and prospects. AWeber[4]
AWeber grew very popular because it focused on auto-response emails. They made it very simple and elegant to create a form a prospect would fill out. The service then auto-responded to that information with whatever message you had set up. They offer a robust set of tools including email newsletters, emails to RSS, and, of course, autoresponders. First month is $1, and then pay-as-you-go based on subscriber count. You don’t pay per email with them. MailChimp[5]
MailChimp was one of the first email marketing providers to offer a “forever free” plan. Small business users I know love this plan as it gives you up to 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails for free each month. After that, it has pay-as-you-go pricing. On top of the email newsletter and database list management, they offer an integration with online event registrations and ticket sales via Eventbrite. iContact[6]
iContact offers all of the same features as the others, but they focus attention on their deliverability rates – often talked about as whitelist agreements. While it may not seem like a big deal at first glance, if your email provider isn’t doing things right, your email may not get through. iContact partners with a third party, Pivotal Veracity, to score emails to help improve how many get through to recipients. They offer a free trial, no credit card to get started, and a good educational resource section. Vertical Response[7]
In addition to email, Vertical Response is probably one of the more integrated services out there, with integration to Intuit and Salesforce. They offer postal mail options, too, so you can send a postcard to a prospect or customer to add another touch beyond email. Great educational materials also. EmailBrain I liked that they had a “no credit card” free trial signup. More importantly, I really appreciated that they offer an industry-focus approach with 20+ industry examples and case studies. You could dig in and see what someone else like you was doing — a good way to get a jumpstart on your email marketing. eConnect[8]
eConnect Email’s claim to fame is their the first provider to offer a tagging system for email. Look at it as a meta-organizing system where you can see what your customers and prospects find interesting and are clicking on. You can tag items in a specific email, in a campaign, and across multiple campaigns. That information is then available on a subscriber level, so you can see the top five tags your customer is interested in. FuseMail[9]
FuseMail offers email hosting as well as campaign management. They have a 14-day free trial. The big area that stood out for me was they have an SMTP Direct service (which is an email gateway) where you can use your existing email newsletter program and gain the advantages of their email servers. The advantage of this is that you don’t have to get everyone on your existing mail list to “opt-in” to your newsletter again, which is almost always a requirement when signing on with a new service. FuseMail doesn’t have this requirement with their SMTP Direct service. Pretty unique. SimplyCast[10]
SimplyCast, owned by Mailworkz (offers 300 emails a month “free forever” account, similar to MailChimp). Some of the key features that SimplyCast offers are worth considering: Image hosting (so you can easily have your image render properly), easy to include attachments, forward-to-a-friend options from within the email (great for viral stuff), and dozens of template categories. JangoMail[11]
Many providers tag your emails with “Powered by ABC Email…” and you probably don’t particularly want to see this sort of branding on your email messages to customers. JangoMail promises “your emails are your emails, not ours.” Even though they are a web-based email provider, they allow for you to manage your messaging through Outlook or Thunderbird, and other web-based apps like Gmail and Yahoo, too. Free trial allows for 50 test emails. GetResponse[12]
GetResponse appears to be very social media savvy. They offer video email and social media tools. Your email subscribers, for example, can easily receive your Twitter updates via the GetResponse service. They also have a split-testing feature so that you can test one email against another to see which one pulls better results. Contact29[13]
Contact29 is an email marketing provider focused primarily on the real estate and mortgage industries. If you are in those industries, they are worth a look. SendLabs[14]
SendLabs has created a tool to help you see what your email will look like in the recipients inbox. With a single click, this feature within the SendLabs Summer ‘09 release will send a copy of your email to all of the major email programs (Outlook, Lotus Notes, Yahoo!, Gmail, etc.) and provide a screen shot report on how well your email will render for everybody. Campaigner[15]
Campaigner offers a nifty workflow tool that allows you to determine when and what actions trigger an email to be sent to your customer or prospect. It is similar to an autoresponder (which sends an email when a customer fills in a form on a website usually), but a bit more advanced. With their workflow tool, you can trigger a specific response based on what a customer does within the email. If they click a certain link, for example, they might receive an email 1 hour later. Free trial, of course. EasyContact[16]
I liked the very simple 3-step plan that EasyContact presents to first time visitors. You get a clear sense that they have thought about how to make it as easy as possible. They also offer a free forever plan and low-cost pay-as-you-go options. Big Response[17]
The other services may have similar offers, but Big Response has a couple of things worth mentioning: First, they highlight that you can collect an unlimited number of subscribers – meaning you don’t pay to store contacts and only pay for emails sent. Second, that you get unlimited phone and email support from their experts. I didn’t see that one mentioned elsewhere, so that made me think about doing a trial. Benchmark Email[18]
Their competitor comparison chart reveals a lot about what they offer that others don’t. You can tie into your Google Analytics account. You can view all of your subscriber opens within a map within the reporting feature. You can segment out all of your email lists easily – which is handy as you get to know your customers better. StreamSend[19]
The big differentiator for StreamSend is they offer every customer a private IP address, which helps you keep your reputation intact. You are not judged by the email provider you use, but by your email quality. myNewsletterBuilder[20]
myNewsletterBuilder stands out in the crowd of email marketers by providing pre-written content that you can use in your newsletters and emails, by industry segment. They also partnered with eVoiceSpot, which is a multimedia rich presentation service that you can embed into your email or newsletter. YesMail[21]
YesMail has one major awards and recognition for its platform and service. They have a specific small business offering called YesMail Direct. This link goes direct to that page. They are connected to InfoUSA, so if you need to build a mailing list you can do it all under one roof. Mad Mimi[22]
Mad Mimi is a simple email marketing system. One of the nice features is it comes with free design assistance. It also has a limited edition that is completely free and includes good sharing functions like Forward to a Friend, among many other standard features. PoMMo[23]
PoMMo is a free open-source program that bills itself as “mass mailing” software. It is a no-frills program. It’s is 100% free. However, like many open source apps, remember there’s always a cost — it costs you time. You are pretty much on your own when it comes to installing it and troubleshooting issues. There is no customer support to call. CRM EMAIL
Many companies don’t like their email efforts separated from their customer data. Keeping it all together is a lot of work. Customer relationship management software companies have listened, but these five web-based offerings are aimed at the small business owner. If you want to enable customized emails to your customers, with full tracking and opportunities to create new campaigns from your customer data, then you should look closely at these companies: Infusionsoft[24]
Infusionsoft is a popular CRM solution with automated email marketing as a central concept. As you make contact with customers via email, or via interactions on your website or online shopping cart, Infusionsoft tracks those contact points. You can then use those interactions to send targeted and relevant communications. Your salespeople can access this info and understand what communications the customer has seen, or where they’ve gone on your site, and have a more intelligent conversation. (Note: Infusionsoft is a sponsor of this site’s Internet radio show.) ZohoCRM Zoho is an online application suite like OpenOffice or Google Documents, but with a lot more applications and options for managing your business. Their ZohoCRM tool recently introduced the email within CRM option. The email add-on is $5 a month additional. Highrise HQ[25]
Highrise HQ is a web-based CRM from 37 Signals (owner of Basecamp, a popular project management tool). Like most CRM solutions, they allow you to track who you talk to and so forth, but the ability to see all of your email efforts and dialogue with a customer on one page is fairly useful. Leopard CRM[26]
Integrating your email into your CRM efforts always looks daunting, but Leopard CRM simply says — call our support team and we’ll walk you through it. SalesBoom SalesBoom is an online CRM application that offers an email campaign management tool. With it, a user can capture leads via a simple web form and then send individual emails, or manage entire drip marketing campaigns[27] where you email customers or prospects a series of emails over a period of time. SalesJunction[28]
SalesJunction offers one of the lowest monthly costs for a web-based CRM that I’ve found. The basic edition has a 15 day trial. Lyris HQ [29]
Lyris HQ used to be known as Email Labs. It integrates with Salesforce.com, which is the industry-leading online CRM solution, so that’s a plus for the many business owners using Salesforce. I could not find pricing on their website, which is a downside in my opinion. Small business owners are too busy to talk to sales reps or sit through web demos just to discover pricing. SOCIAL EMAIL
There’s loads of proof that social networks have changed how we communicate. They increase transparency, build trust, and give people (customers and prospects) the choice to opt-in to our messages.
With social media you can communicate directly to your customers without the traditional email hurdles and miss the inbox altogether. For example, your company can send messages to people in a Facebook or LinkedIn Group today. Twitter does not offer a group feature where you can message a group of people privately, but a third party app called Tweetworks[30] does. You could accomplish something similar by addressing a group with a hashtag — although it wouldn’t remain private. The goal with a private message is to avoid bothering others that would not be interested in the offer or message.
Are you still keeping your books using a spreadsheet — or worse, a time-consuming paper accounting ledger? Make 2010 the year you get your books organized and in tip-top shape. Let technology help make it easy.
Here are 17 small business accounting software applications or bookkeeping apps that can help you manage company finances with more predictability — and do it with less labor and at a reasonable cost. I’ve focused on apps with a North American (mainly U.S.) focus, in alphabetical order: Accounting ASAP[1]
Accounting ASAP takes the approach that you need invoicing most for your small business and that’s how they let you begin using the application. In under two minutes, you go from sign-up, into creating an invoice. Plans start at $0/month which includes up to 10 transactions a month. $10/month will get you up to 500 transactions. Offers 30-day free trial. Big4Books[2]
Big4Books offers a free version to its online accounting software for small business. Support is limited for the free version, which includes an advertising sponsor message within the app. However, the $9.95/month Silver subscription comes with more support and no sponsor ads. BionicBooks[3]
Many new web-based accounting applications are focused on making it easy for small businesses, startups, and contractors. Bionic Books offers a completely free subscription and the only limitation is you cannot print invoices and free includes only one user. The premium version is only £5.50/month. Clarity Accounting[4]
Clarity is aimed at small businesses, freelancers, and independent professionals. They have a 30-day free trial and then $10/month or $100/year if you pay for the entire year. Offers a terrific click-through demo sample, with no signup information required, which shows you how simple it is to use. Clearbooks[5]
Clearbooks prices their solution based on the number of transactions which is handy for small businesses that have a limited customer list. They offer a completely free option and the unlimited plan is £15.00/month. Free trial for 30 days on all plans. Cobalt[6]
Cobalt is a new product and project-based accounting system made for small businesses. They take a project-focused approach and tie invoicing, customer data, and reporting together. They offer only one plan at $11.25/month, which includes unlimited users. Offers a 60-day free trial. FreeAgent Central[7]
Free Agent Central is aimed at the freelancer market, which includes many small businesses. They include a time tracking module and a project management function, too. $20/month with 30-day free trial. IAC-EZ[8]
IAC-EZ offers an online bookkeeping application for small business owners. In their feature list, they have a claim that others don’t – that there is an “accountant on call.” It also estimates your taxes for you (US only). They offer one plan at $19.95/month with a free two-week trial. Intuit QuickBooks[9]
Just about every small business owner has heard of QuickBooks. It frequently ranks in the top lists of small business financial software packages. They offer desktop and web-based versions. Offers a month-to-month, pay-as-you-go contract as the web-based version. Starts at $9.95/month. I reviewed QuickBooks 2010 here[10]. Ledgerble[11]
Ledgerble works hard to make accounting easy. They have focused on the user experience and reducing the number of clicks to record transactions. Then memorizes the products and services you sell, and to whom, so creating invoices is fast, too. They offer one plan for only $14/month with a 30-day free trial (which does not require a credit card, just your email and a password). LessAccounting[12]
LessAccounting encourages customers to stop trying to learn Quickbooks and use their import tool. They were one of the first to offer an iPhone app. From their free option up to $24/month, all plans include a 30-day free trial where you can test out all the features. Merchants Mirror[13]
Merchants Mirror has a one-stop dashboard where a user can get a complete snapshot of the company’s financial picture. In that same view, they offer a good view of customer and vendor data for accounts receivable and payable. Offers a 30-day free trial and then $15.95/month. NetService Books[14]
We included this niche offering in this review post because there are many contractor businesses out there that might find this solution to be perfect. It handles dispatching, scheduling, invoicing, and synchronizes with QuickBooks. Net Service Books specializes in the HVAC and Plumbing industries. The platinum version offers a full-fledged general ledger. Lite version sells for $25/month. Outright[15]
Income, expenses, taxes, and reports are the four main tabs in Outright’s dashboard navigation. Then, they ask two questions: Would you like to start with money coming in? Or money going out? They designed the service for sole proprietors and single member LLCs and it is completely free, forever. As new features roll out, they plan to offer a premium version, but it is robust at the free level. My review of Outright[16] from a few months ago. Pulse[17]
Pulse approaches accounting from a cash flow perspective first. They believe that cash flow is the heartbeat of a company and that viewpoint will allow you to manage income and expenses better than traditional accounting approaches. Their plans start at $9/month up to $24/month and each includes a free 30-day trial. WorkingPoint [18]
A web-based package that includes double-entry bookkeeping, online invoicing, bill and expense tracking. They offer a free and paid version. Free allows two users and invoicing for up to five customers, which can be great for part-time freelancers. After that, the premium version is only $10/month for unlimited users and customers, but it also has more robust reporting. Read my review of WorkingPoint[19]. Xero[20]
Xero is an online accounting system designed for small businesses and their advisors. They offer a free trial with a “pay nothing until you’re ready” clause. Plans start at $19/month up to $39/month. The $19/month plan limits you to five accounts receivable and five accounts payable invoices per month and only 20 reconciled bank statement lines per month.
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These are the accounting apps priced for small businesses that we think you might want to check out. Please note: details about the small business accounting software apps are believed to be accurate as of the time of publication, but features and offerings may change over time. Always check the vendor’s website for up-to-date details. Special thanks to Smartsheet for help in compiling this list for us with their Crowdsourcing [21]service.
Posted By TJ McCue On January 18, 2010 @ 7:16 pm In Product Reviews |
Do you struggle with sending out invoices or estimates to your customers each week or month? Make 2010 the year you get your invoices online and done with less hassle by using Web-based technology.
Here are 30 small business online invoicing software applications to help you manage sending your customer bills out — and do it with less labor and at a reasonable cost. I’ve focused on apps with a North American (mainly U.S.) focus, in alphabetical order: AcceptPay[1] is a new electronic invoicing service from American Express. It offers a free option for one user called AcceptPay Lite that allows you to email 10 invoices per month and maintain an unlimited number of customers in your account. The full version AcceptPay is $20/month and integrates with QuickBooks, accepts online payments, ACH, and eChecks. I was impressed to see American Express entering this marketplace and putting some of their muscle into an online invoicing and billing solution. (Note: American Express is a sponsor of this site.) Ballpark[2]is an online invoicing service that believes the key component of any customer relationship revolves around communication. So, their dashboard tracks the back and forth dialogue between you, your customer, and your team. They offer a free personal plan and the small biz plans start at $6/month. BambooInvoice[3] is a free open source invoicing software for small business and independent contractor types. You load it on your own servers; it is not hosted like most of the others listed here. It offers a good online support forum as well. This is the only open source application I’ve seen in this space and it is one to watch for that reason. BillingBoss[4] is a completely free online invoicing tool aimed at both freelancers and small business. It is owned and sponsored by Sage Software (owner of SageCRM, Peachtree and many other apps) and is both an outreach by them to serve the small biz owner and a very soft plug for their other products (which doesn’t diminish its functionality and value, in my book). A really cool thing is you can use your existing merchant account with their Payment Plus option for $5/month. Again, the main invoicing tool is free. BillingOrchard[5]offers a highly recommended Auto-Invoicing feature that customers often talk about, so their solution is ideal for those with recurring billing needs. They offer a 15-day free trial and then a lite version at $9.95/month and $14.95 for standard. When you use the auto-invoice features, there is an additional cost per month, by number of transactions. Blinksale[6]targets small businesses and creative professionals who want to send well-formatted invoices easily. Their lowest price plan starts at $6 for 6 invoices a month, but you can have as many customers in the system as you want. It offers a free 30 day trial and integrates with Basecamp (the well known project management service). CannyBill[7]is a web-based billing and invoicing solution aimed at web designers or professionals, although it certainly has the features that most small business owners will want. It offers a fully functional free account with up to 10 invoices per month. Pricing ranges up to $48/month at the enterprise level. Cashboard[8] is a free financial time tracking service that lets you invoice, send estimates and accept payments online. They were quick to create desktop widgets for Mac and Windows as well as the iPhone so that you are not tied to a browser to manage your information. I found their pricing options just a bit confusing because most of the others listed here offer unlimited usage when you buy the paid version. With their “Dynamic” $10/month plan, you pay a bit extra for usage by employee and invoices. They offer a free for life plan, too. CurdBee[9] is online billing software for small business and freelancers. It offers a robust free level with unlimited invoicing and customers. It allows you to accept Paypal and Google Checkout, too. However, the free level invoices include a Curdbee logo, which seems fairly low key. Curdbee Premium level is only $5 a month and lets you remove the Curdbee logo from emails and invoices. The development team clearly thought about the customer with a demo that lets you take an in-depth look at the online invoicing service without even a trial. I give them a thumbs up for making it painless to learn more and for keeping it fast to make a decision. Endeve[10]positions itself as an invoice management service. It offers a forever free plan with an unlimited number of invoices and customers. The Professional Plan is $20/month and allows you to create Pay Now buttons with Paypal, customize your invoice layouts, and manage your expenses. Enliven Software[11] is for the larger small businesses out there. It is integrated with Microsoft Dynamics GP, Peachtree, and QuickBooks and automates accounts receivable and accounts payable processes for vendors and for customers. There was no pricing information available. Freelance Total[12] is online invoicing meets project management. Their web-based software allows you to take a client-centric approach to invoices as you manage the project. Plans start at $4.95 a month. It doesn’t say how long a free trial is, but it doesn’t collect billing information at signup. Freshbooks[13] is considered by many to be the market leader in Web-based online invoicing. It offers the standard features you’d expect, plus time tracking and the ability to manage subcontractors who are also working on your project. They integrate with other accounting and project management systems such as QuickBooks and Basecamp. They offer a fully free plan (some limitations) up to $149/month. I have personally used Freshbooks and have found their service was elegant and easy to use. They have thought (for a long time) about their customers’ needs. Invoice Journal[14] is completely free. It doesn’t offer any pricing info and suggests it will be free forever. The Invoice Machine[15]is an elegant application. You can do all the standard online invoicing functions, but in the tour, I was impressed with the flexibility. You can add line items in your invoice manually or from the project time tracking tool with a few clicks. You can create an HTML email invoice or attach one as a PDF. They offer an always free plan up to $48/month. InvoiceMore[16] is an online billing and invoicing solution for freelancers, entrepreneurs, and businesses. It offers multiple features so that you can create, download, store, backup, print, and email PDF invoices to clients. You can track overdue balances. They offer a free plan all the way up to $99/month. InvoicePlace[17] is an easy online invoicing service. One of the things that caught my eye was the simple offer of showing a completed sample invoice, in what looks like a Microsoft Word document. The tour explains the many features well. Free plan up to $20/month. Invoicera[18] offers invoices, estimates, and client reporting that you can use to track by specific product or service. You can add team members to a client and track their invoicing as well. Free plans, up to $149/month. Invoices Made Easy[19] offers an online invoicing service exclusively for small service-oriented trades. From landscapers to consultants, they offer the standard online invoicing options, but they also have an “EasyMail” service which will send your invoice via postal mail. Free 30 day trial, then $9.95/month. Invotrak[20] is both an online invoicing and timesheet tracker. They offer good reporting tools as well as iPhone and iPod Touch apps. They have a limited Free plan up to an Unlimited plan at $45/month. It integrates with Basecamp. LiteAccounting[21]offers four simple plans from free up to $18/month. The dashboard shows three boxes front and center to keep you focused: Products/Services, Customers, and Invoices. They have a nice demo which answers most questions so you can decide without all the signup hassles. Nett30[22] provides an online service for small businesses and contractors who need to make invoicing quick and user friendly. You can view real-time account summaries at any time. Send invoices as PDF, e-mail or have clients access them online. They have four plans: All unlimited. Free includes 5 clients up to Business Pro for $ 39 per month. PaySimple[23] is another market leader and focused on recurring online payments, including invoicing. They come at online payments with a Merchant Account background, so their service is oriented at credit card payments, ACH, eChecks, and online payment forms. They have a free setup (usually $129) and $34.95/month, then transaction fees. If you need the combination of merchant account and all the other pieces that you’ve read about here, they are worth a look. Ronin[24]is simple online invoicing product for freelancers all the way up to larger small businesses. Clients can log in to get their invoices or you can email them. You can try it out free without any worries of a time limit, but the free version is branded as powered by Ronin. After Free, plans range from $15/month up to $48/month. SantexQ[25] is a project management and time tracking tool that also lets you bill clients directly from the service. It offers web-based reporting, but also lets you export to Excel for customizing reports as you like. For a single user it is free, but limited, then only $9.95 per month for unlimited users. Sbzone.com[26] is a comprehensive online application suite combining sales, customer management, and accounting functions in one place. It offers a 30 day free trial and two plans: Limited Free plan and a $39.99/month. Simplybill[27]offers a clean interface and design to make the online invoicing process easy. The dashboard offers three tabs: Invoices, Quotes, and Clients. They offer the ability to keep in contact with your customers via reminders and thank you notes. There is the standard 30-day free trial, then $5/month up to $25/month. They have received excellent reviews and are worth a look. Simplifythis[28] is more than an online invoicing application. It starts with helping you book your appointments online and ties that data into the billing tool. It offers two services that start at $9/month: EasyBill and EasyBook. No credit card required for free 30 day trial. What I liked most about this service was that they have captured the attention of busy small biz owners who know something about technology or were not at all computer-savvy and still love the service. They have done of good job of making it useful for a range of skillsets and that’s not easy to do. Simply Invoices[29] follows their own name in concept for explaining what they do; they keep it simple. You can wrap your head around how they do things with a five step screenshot tour they offer, on one page. They offer a completely free plan up to $25/month. Winkbill[30] offers a robust online invoicing app at the free level all the way up to their platinum plan for $39.95/month. You can put your own logo on invoices with the free plan, but you can’t send them as a PDF. Loads of eye-catching templates you can use, too.
