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Free Accounting Software For Entrepreneurs

Hello Entrepreneurs

I have an exceptional accounting software for you. Where you can Do all your accounting and bookkeeping, quickly and easily, and never pay a cent (or a Baiza). Real double-entry accounting that actually makes sense to non-accountants.

Check it out for yourself, and then say a little prayer for me :-)

www.waveapps.com

Stay tuned for more app and software solutions to help you build your business.

Learning LinkedIn From the Experts: How to Build a Powerful Business Presence on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the most under-utilized networks by startups. Besides networking, it's useful in acquiring new customers, attaining partnerships, and even raising money. 

Hubspot recently released a new eBook focused on helping businesses leverage LinkedIn's 20+ million members by building a powerful business presence. It was written by five LinkedIn specialists who divulged their secrets in how they used LinkedIn to successfully grow their network and business. The content discuss how to build and grow your network, how to market your business, how to market yourself and ends by discussing how to measure the ROI of your efforts. 

This free eBook is available for a limited time. Download it here. Enjoy!

The End Of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Simply a Shift?

One of the Best Articles I Have Read for a While..This is truly the shift to take into account whether you are a small, medium or large enterprise owner. Welcome to the Service-Value, Customer-Centric Times!!

However, do keep in mind that ERP can never die so long as there is manufacturing. So a more accurate way of putting it is to say that ERP is simply moving to the cloud as a Software As A Solution (SaaP) service, which can be delivered as a subscription service or installed on the client’s premise.

Here's the Article:-

Tien Tzuo is founder and CEO of Zuora. He was previously chief strategy officer and chief marketing officer at Salesforce.com.

Tien Tzuo: A moment of silence for ERP.

Much has been discussed about SAP’s pending $3.4B acquisition of SuccessFactors, and now Oracle’s $1.9 billion deal to buy Taleo. Rightly, SAP and Oracle have been praised for trying to bolster their cloud offerings with these moves. But, in a few years, I wonder if it will really matter. Because, while SAP and Oracle are obviously trying to get with the times by offering their services via the cloud, it may be too late. Why? Because, in short, ERP – enterprise resource planning software – is on its deathbed.

That’s right. ERP’s days are numbered. And it is because of a fundamental shift that is taking place regarding how people consume products and services driven by the massive growth of the cloud itself.

I’m referring to the shift we are experiencing away from a 20^th century product-based, “buy once” economy to a 21^st century services-based “Subscription Economy” centred around recurring customer relationships.

Think about it: there is a very good chance you are one of the exploding number of consumers who now access their music via a subscription such as Pandora or Spotify. Perhaps you are one of the many people who have stopped renting DVDs in favor of streaming your movies over Netflix. Or, you could be one of the growing number of consumers who have eschewed owning a car to accessing one via a subscription with Zipcar. Or, maybe you are one of the growing list of companies who are voting “no” to buying hardware and software and instead are using apps and computing power served up from the cloud. As an economy and a culture, we are rapidly moving away from owning tangible goods and, instead, gravitating towards becoming members of services that provide us with experiences – such as listening to a song, using a car, watching a movie or collaborating with our colleagues.

Of course, this cultural transformation has profound implications for business models. Why? Success is no longer gauged by counting how many units of your product you have sold. Rather, success is measuring how many customers are using your service on a recurring basis and how successful you are monetizing those recurring relationships.

Today, the Subscription Economy is fuelling massive changes across communications, media, technology, consumer services and other billion dollar industries that are embracing subscription revenue models. In addition to the names above, innovative companies that adopted the subscription business models to fundamentally transform their industries include Salesforce.com, Box, Tata, VNU Media and Zendesk.

But, it is not just the upstarts that are leveraging the subscription model. A greater indicator of this shift is that traditional product companies such as Dell are racing to re-invent themselves around services. Dell recognized that selling low-margin hardware was simply much less lucrative than offering services. Consequently, Dell has acquired service companies and refocused its efforts around, “pricing our products based on value rather than based on cost,” according to Michael Dell. And it is working. In a recent Q3 earnings call, Michael Dell stated, “This is a new Dell…in Q3, our enterprise solutions and service business grew 8% to a record high $4.7 billion.”

And Dell is just one of the many titans of industry that have shifted to a service-based model. According to a recent Gartner Group report, “by 2015, 35% of Global 2000 companies with non-media digital products will generate incremental revenue of 5% to 10% through subscription-based services and revenue models.”

Why does all of this signal the death of ERP? It’s because the rigid ERP systems from SAP, Oracle and others were designed specifically for the 20^th century manufacturing era rather than the 21^st century services-based world. Because ERP was built to track products that can be put on a pallet, versus offering services that are consumed over time, subscription businesses using this legacy technology struggle over and over again with the fundamental questions:

• Who are my customers? Try asking SAP or Oracle how many active customers you have at any one time. The concept simply doesn’t exist. Orders, Accounts, and Products? Sure. Ask your ERP how much up-sell business you’ve done, or how many customers have renewed in the past year – and you’ll get a blank stare. ERP is simply not built around customer-centric transactions. In a Subscription Economy, unless you can monetize customer relationships over time, you’re dead in the water.
• How can I price this service the way I want to? Subscription services run the gamut from simple monthly recurring charges, to usage based charges, to one-time charges, to “all of the above.” Unfortunately, ERP systems force companies to resort to hokey workarounds to get their pricing right, like creating different products for every month of the year. “February Service SKU” anyone? And simple cost-plus pricing doesn’t apply to services. Instead, businesses want to do rapid A-B price testing when trying to gauge appetite for a new service or offering. Meanwhile, a single price change in an ERP system can take weeks.
• Where’s the “Renew” button? Subscriptions are all about an ever-changing lifecycle as customers sign-up, upgrade, add-on, and ultimately renew their service. At their core, ERP systems only give you a “Buy” button for tracking transactions. They’re missing the critical tools you need to process this lifecycle over time.
• Why can’t I sell to everyone? Subscription Economy companies like Salesforce.com and Box have found success by selling their services to everyone from individual users up through very large enterprises. They need tools for managing things like high volume recurring payments in the B2C world, as well as tools for managing high-complexity invoices and contracts in the B2B world. And those tools need to manage customers that may come through different channels such as web self-service, mobile devices, direct or channel sales or even Facebook. Legacy enterprise technology makes you chose one or the other, when what you really need is the ability to sell B2Any.
• What’s going on with my financials? Subscription businesses live or die by their ability to measure the ways that bookings, billings, cash flow, and revenue are inter-related. Unfortunately, this data lives in different software silos. Bookings fall into CRM, billings and cashflow live in your GL or ERP system, and revenue is too often calculated in a series of complex spreadsheets. Good luck stringing all of that together.

It’s for all of these reasons that ERP’s days are numbered. The Subscription Economy demands new ways of both measuring and monetizing customer relationships. Companies must break out of the shackles of ERP if they are to succeed in this new world. Or, risk being buried alongside it.

Build a Killer Website: 19 Dos and Don'ts

If you do it right, your website can be the best marketing tool you have. Ilya Pozin, founder of the Web design firm Ciplex, on how not to screw it up.

By Ilya Pozin | @ilyaNeverSleeps |

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I’m continually surprised by how many people call my design company with very firm ideas about what they want on their business website and yet, they haven’t thought through some of the most basic questions first. For this reason, our first question is always “Why do you need a site?,” not “What do you want on it?”

At bottom your website is a marketing tool. For many businesses, it’s the only source of business. If done right, it can be a major part of yours.

Here’s my quick-hit list of the top dos and don’ts before you get started:

Do:

1. Set smart goals. And make sure they’re measurable. Here are a few great ones a Web designer wants to hear: increase conversion rates, increase sales, generate more leads, reduce overhead, and improve brand awareness.
2. Plan on becoming an SEO wizard. Sure, you’re going to want help from the pros and eventually you might even need your own in-house SEO expert, but search engine optimization is something you need to know about too. It has one of the highest ROIs in marketing. Plus, do it right and SEO can literally put your marketing on autopilot, allowing you to focus on improving the quality of your business, instead of figuring out how to bring in customers to your site. Start reading SEOmoz and stay up to date with SEO changes by reading sites like search engine land.
3. Use open source tools. You could go with a proprietary content management system (CMS) but that means you’re typically stuck with one company and paying hefty license fees to boot. Do yourself a favor and go with an open-source system—I like WordPress and Magento—that any developer can access.
4. Think about your mobile strategy simultaneously. Research the percentage of your visitors that are likely to use mobile devices to access your site. If it’s high, you may want to consider building a separate mobile version of your site, or even an app. If it’s relatively low, just make sure your website works on smart phones, but don’t invest into a mobile version.
5. Steal from your competitors. Before you build your site, check out your competitors and write down the things they do well. If you like the look and feel of another site, there’s no reason not to start with something you like and then make it your own.
6. Develop your content. The biggest slow-down in the Web design process is content. If you’re going to sell products on your site, get product photos and product descriptions ready. If you sell services, you’ll need a description of each service. Get as much of your content together before you start building your site—it will save you weeks. And while you’re at it…
7. Write with calls to action in mind. Good calls to action allow visitors to quickly decide what they want to do next. Having a big sale? Don’t just write a banner that says “50% off all products.” Write one that says “50% off all products, CLICK HERE to view them.”
8. Always answer the question “why?” Have you ever walked up to someone you’ve never met, handed them a business card, and walked away without saying a word? Likely not. If you want people to do something on your website, such as sign up for your newsletter, don’t just put up a box that says “enter email” or even “sign up for newsletter”—you’ll get a very weak conversion rate. Tell them why they should do it: “Sign up for our newsletter to receive weekly specials.” Same thing goes for Twitter and Facebook logos. Just putting them up isn’t smart. Tell people why they should follow you on Twitter or friend you on Facebook. What will they get out of it?
9. Trust your Web designer. I tend to see the worst end results with customers who come in with a “I know what I want, just do what I tell you” attitude. You hired an expert because they know more than you, right? Let them do what they do best and they’re more likely to meet and often exceed your goals.

Don’t:

1. Do it yourself. I know—I run a Web design firm, so of course I’m going to say this. But seriously, your website is often where your customers’ first experience your brand. If it looks homemade, they’re going to make assumptions about your business that you want to avoid.
2. Make people think. When visitors come to your website, they typically already know what they want out of it. Do a three-second test: If within three seconds a visitor can’t figure out what to do next, go back to the drawing board.
3. Expect visitors. Lose the “if you build it, they will come” mentality. Simply putting up your site will not result in any visitors.
4. Spend all your money. Don’t max out your entire budget on the website. You can get a well-designed site for under $1,000 from a freelancer, or a few thousand dollars from a professional agency. And you can always make improvements as your business grows. It’s far more important initially to have some money left over for a marketing budget so you can actually make a return on your investment.
5. Add a blog. Are you really going to write posts? Be honest. If you won’t, then forget about a blog. A website with an outdated blog can create the perception that your company is small or even out of business.
6. Add Twitter and Facebook buttons. If a potential client clicks through to your social pages and sees hardly any followers, they may lose trust in you. First build up your social presence, then commit to posting and engaging your fans on a regular basis, and only then promote them on your website. Also keep in mind that some businesses simply don’t belong on Twitter or Facebook.
7. Try to please everyone. Your website will be a mess if you try to accommodate every type of visitor who might come along. Figure out who is likely to be your most frequent users and focus on creating the best experience for them.
8. Add testimonials. Building credibility is important, but too often testimonials sound fake. “’They are great!’ says John Smith” simply isn’t believable. If you’re going to have testimonials make sure they are specific, and something people can relate to.
9. Use Flash. Some sites still need it, but if you can, avoid it. Adobe just announced that it will no longer support Flash on mobile devices and set-top-boxes. The last thing you want is for a potential customer to be unable to open your site.
10. Expect a killer website overnight. Good websites take time to build. If you want the best results out of your site, be prepared for several months of work.

Tried & Tested

Tried the CardMunch application for LinkedIn and I must say it absolutely is worth all the rave I've read about it.

I installed it on my iPhone and within minutes I was taking photos of all the business cards that have been sitting on my desk, and just like magic a few minutes later the contact's profile from LinkedIn is synched with the photo. Giving me the option to request to connect with all the new contacts I've met.

Absolutely outstanding business card solution. I even tested it with multicolored business card designs, as well as weird font business cards; it gets it right every time.

I know what I'll be doing when someone passes me their business card next!!! They can keep their paper, my iPhone is smart enough to munch that card and stay green. 