essential technology

Essential Technology Lists

Hardware Must Haves

1. Laptop with a wireless modem
2. Cable modem with a wireless router
3. Color printer/scanner/copier
4. Dedicated fax line with Multifunction fax machine
5. Digital camera
6. Professional e-mail server/account. (Not one of popular personal free e-mail accounts like Yahoo and definitely not Hotmail.)
7. Telephone land line for your toll-free customer service number.

What if you don’t have one or more of these hardware essentials? Get started with:

1. A professional message on your home telephone line: Hello, you’ve reached the Williams home and the professional offices of Achieve Enterprises. Please leave a short message and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Your call is important to us.
2. The fastest Internet connection you can afford for the computer you have.
3. The best color inkjet printer you can afford. (Best in terms of quality of the printed page. The paper you use also matters.)
4. A telephone set up that lets you move and talk “hands free.” Use a Plantronics headset so you don’t have to hold the telephone receiver and your hands are free to use your computer keyboard and to write notes–or to gesture freely while you talk.
5. A friend with a digital camera you can borrow.

See more about email accounts and addresses in the section below, Web-based Software Tools

Essential Software Must-Haves

1. Microsoft Word
2. Excel
3. Powerpoint
4. Outlook
5. Quickbooks
6. Adobe Acrobat Reader

What if you don’t have these? What if you’re a Mac user?

Web-based Software Tools

There are ways to get started without Microsoft Office installed on your computer. You can use:

Web-based software from Google. Create a Google account and check out Google Docs. Best part about it? Access to Google Docs is free!

An autoresponder with contact management system built in. Oprius offers this kind of web-based tool. Check it out here: Oprius.com. It’s free to test for 30 days and then it costs $14.95 per month. That’s a great price for this powerful tool. Another feature of Oprius is that you can develop landing pages (or squeeze pages) with sign up boxes easily from within the Oprius software, a boon if you are new to web page development.

Are you more interested in being able to send out email newsletters and surveys? Consider using iContact for email marketing. iContact is affordable and easy to use and has a great following from home-based entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies. iContact includes its survey function in the basic price, a savings over the popular Constant Contact program. Click here to go to iContact’s page to sign up for a free trial.

You will be able to get your Outlook address book into either of these programs by exporting data and then importing into the program. The details of this process are beyond the scope of this post, but I’m glad to help you if you contact me. Your first half-hour coaching session is no cost to you.

{ 0 comments }