T ECHNOLOGY T IMES “Insider Tips To Make Your Business Run Faster, Easier, And More Profitably” Get More Free Tips, Tools, and Services At My Web Site: www.aztechworks.com Is Your Old, Outdated Phone System Causing You More Problems Than It’s Worth? If you think you have outgrown your current phone system and are tired of constant downtime, dropped calls, repairs and maintenance, it might be time for you to consider a VoIP system for your office. The right VoIP system can likely save a considerable amount of money AND give you more features and flexibility to support customers, drive sales and manage calls throughout your office. Here Are 3 Big Reasons Why Thousands Of Small Businesses Are Trading In Their Current Phone System For VoIP: 1. Drastically reduces your phone bill. If you have multiple offices, or even remote workers, new voice-over IP technology integrates your data and voice networks to drastically reduce long distance and lease line charges you are currently paying. 2. Eliminates expensive technician visits. These new systems are built so that your current IT person or company could easily maintain it in-house. No more waiting around for high-priced phone technicians to show up or paying high service call fees. 3. FREE voice mail, auto attendant, call processing, automatic call distribution, and call management using mobile devices. New VoIP systems come with all features included. À la carte add-ons are now a thing of the past. Imagine a phone that can automatically get to you anywhere and everywhere with a click of the button and much more. Free Phone Audit Shows You How To Save $1,000 to $3,000 Guaranteed In 2015 If you currently have an old PBX legacy system, sign up to receive a Free Phone Audit and we will come out to your office and do a complete communications analysis for your company. At the end of our audit, we’ll summarize our findings and show you exactly where we can save you a bundle this year. Call our office today at 623-444-2395 to get started. “As a business owner, you don’t have time to waste on technical and operational issues. That’s where we shine! Call us and put an end to your IT problems finally and forever!” Dedicated To Your Success, David Carattini President & CEO January 2015 Inside This Issue… Is Your Phone System Causing You More Problems Than It’s Worth?......................Page 1 iPhone Binoculars .....................................Page 2 Social Media Marketing Tools ...............Page 2 Intro to Cloud Computing ......................Page 2 Top 10 Backups Everyone Should Have, Part 1 .................................Page 3 App of the Month: RoboForm ...............Page 4 What You Can Expect Regarding 2015 HIPAA Enforcement ......................Page 4 Meet Tracy Boettinger .............................Page 4 Internet Vigilance......................................Page 5 Cake, Presents & Embezzlement...........Page 5 Your Chance To Win $20 to: ..................................Page 5 Take Your Profit First, Always.................Page 6 IT Just Works
Transcript
TECHNOLOGY TIMES “Insider Tips To Make Your Business Run Faster, Easier, And More Profitably”
Get More Free Tips, Tools, and Services At My Web Site: www.aztechworks.com
Is Your Old, Outdated Phone System Causing You More Problems
Than It’s Worth? If you think you have outgrown your
current phone system and are tired of constant downtime, dropped calls, repairs and maintenance, it might be time for you to consider a VoIP system for your office.
The right VoIP system can likely save a considerable amount of money AND give you more features and flexibility to support customers, drive sales and manage calls throughout your office.
Here Are 3 Big Reasons Why Thousands Of Small Businesses Are
Trading In Their Current Phone System For VoIP:
1. Drastically reduces your phone bill. If you have multiple offices, or even remote workers, new voice-over IP technology integrates your data and voice networks to drastically reduce long distance and lease line charges you are currently paying.
2. Eliminates expensive technician visits. These new systems are built so that your current IT person or company could easily maintain it in-house. No more waiting around for high-priced phone technicians to show up or paying high service call fees.
3. FREE voice mail, auto attendant, call processing, automatic call distribution, and call management using mobile devices. New VoIP systems come with all features included. À la carte add-ons are now a thing of the past. Imagine a phone that can automatically get to you anywhere and everywhere with a click of the button and much more.
Free Phone Audit Shows You How To Save $1,000
to $3,000 Guaranteed In 2015
If you currently have an old PBX legacy system, sign up to receive a Free Phone Audit and we will come out to your office and do a complete communications analysis for your company. At the end of our audit, we’ll summarize our findings and show you exactly where we can save you a bundle this year.
Call our office today at 623-444-2395 to get started.
“As a business owner, you don’t have time to waste on technical and operational issues. That’s where we shine! Call us and put an end to your IT problems finally and forever!”
Dedicated To Your Success,
David Carattini President & CEO
January 2015 Inside This Issue…
Is Your Phone System Causing You More Problems Than It’s Worth? ......................Page 1
Internet Vigilance ......................................Page 5
Cake, Presents & Embezzlement ...........Page 5
Your Chance To Win $20 to:
..................................Page 5
Take Your Profit First, Always .................Page 6
IT Just Works
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Get More Free Tips, Tools, and Services At My Web Site: www.aztechworks.com
Shiny New Gadget
Of The Month:
iPhone Binoculars
If you’ve ever wanted to add more utility to your Apple iPhone, SkyMall’s iPhone Binoculars might be what you’re looking for. These binoculars, featuring 36mm lenses, attach onto the back of your phone via a sturdy and specially designed case. The case lines up the iPhone’s camera with one of the binocular’s lenses, giving your camera 8x magnification.
While it’s not going to blow any optic aficionados away, it increases the usefulness of your iPhone’s camera. Just open up the camera app to see the magnified image. Turn your phone into a viewfinder to take pictures or record video. Or just watch what your binoculars capture. You can even use the binoculars separately from the iPhone for doubled utility!
The binoculars also come with a travel case and cleaning cloth, and are currently compatible with the iPhone 5/5s and iPhone 4/4s. Pick one up at www.SkyMall.com!
Free Report Download: If You Are Considering Cloud Computing For Your Company — Don’t, Until You Read This...
If you are considering cloud computing or Office 365 to save money and simplify IT, it is extremely important that you get and read this special report, “5 Critical Facts Every Business Owner Must Know Before Moving Their Network To The Cloud.”
This report discusses in simple, non-technical terms the pros and cons of cloud computing, data security, how to choose a cloud provider, as well as 3 little-known facts that most IT consultants don’t know or won’t tell you about cloud computing that could end up causing you MORE problems and costing you more money than you anticipated.
Even if you aren’t ready to move to the cloud yet, this report will give you the right information and questions to ask when the time comes.
Get Your Free Copy Today: www.aztechworks.com/cloudreport
Social Media Marketing Tools: 8 Picks New social media marketing tools seem to pop up every day, so here’s some
help sorting the best from the rest:
1. Mention: Google Alerts for the social web. Mention helps you monitor your brand’s presence on social networks, forums, blogs and more. It also includes social features that allow you to respond to mentions of your brand and to share industry news that you find.
2. Buffer: Social media publishing plus powerful analytics. Buffer is a powerful social media tool that lets you schedule your updates to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and App.net.
3. Feedly: Content discovery. Finding great content to share with your audience is easy with Feedly. Not only can you subscribe to RSS feeds to keep on top of industry blogs and news sites, you can also use Feedly to discover new content related to your topics of interest.
4. Twitter Counter: Track Twitter progress. It can be easy to lose track of how your Twitter account is growing; that’s where Twitter Counter comes in. It’s a free service that tracks changes in your follower count and predicts future growth over time.
5. Zapier: Link favorite social services. Zapier connects the services you use independently. For example, if your team uses HipChat to keep in touch, you can use Zapier to set up automatic notifications inside HipChat rooms for Tweets, MailChimp campaigns or new RSS items.
6. Bottlenose: Intelligence for social networks. Bottlenose features a real-time search engine that queries all public information from social networks and groups and displays it in algorithmic order of importance. The result is a stream of content ranked by most to least important.
7. Followerwonk: Follower analysis for Twitter. Although you can use a tool like Twitter Counter to watch the growth of the number of your Twitter followers, you may need to analyze your followers more carefully. Followerwonk breaks down your followers into demographics so you can understand them better.
8. Quintly: Social analytics for brands. Quintly is a powerful tool for in-depth social media analytics, helping you track your business’s social media performance on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram. Quintly also has benchmarking features that help you understand how your performance compares to that of competitors and to industry averages.
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Get More Free Tips, Tools, and Services At My Web Site: www.aztechworks.com
Business Continuity Tip Of The Month:
Top 10 Backups Everyone Should Have (Not Just Computer Backups), Part 1
How often have I preached, expounded, begged and pleaded for all of us to backup our computer? Just about every day, right? Well there are many other things that we should be backing up as well. Things ranging from work and financials to personal needs. We should have a Plan B for many areas of our lives. With a backup in place, we can stay on our toes in case the unexpected throws a wrench in our plans. Murphy’s law is ever in effect. Here are 10 things we should have a backup for:
10. Backups Of Your Computer: Ok, I said in the title not just computer backups. Backing up your computer is incredibly important. Just ask anyone who's lost data! Use an automatic backup system where you don’t have to think about it. Depending on the complexity of your computer and network, there are a number of great backup options that range from just backing up your files to backing up you entire infrastructure to the cloud.
9. Backups Of Your Money: While copying your money (calling it a backup) might land you in jail and on possibly in the news, you should think of having an emergency or “rainy day” backup fund for your business. I recommend at least 60 days operational funds available at all times. I also recommend a personal financial emergency fund as well. You never know when a financial emergency might pop up.
8. Backup Credit Card: Some organizations use only one credit or debit card for their financial transactions. I strongly recommend having a second bank account and credit or debit card and use that one solely for purchases. Fund that account as needed for purchases.
7. Backups Of Your ToDo’s or Work Assignments: If you have regular items that you work with for your position such as expense reports, consider having extra copies of those items on hand. If you have regular deadlines, have a contingency plan ready to go just in case something comes up that would cause you to miss it.
6. Backup Of Your Internet: Just how does one back the internet? Again, depending on the size of your organization, there are a couple of ways to accomplish that. If you are small you could use your smartphone Internet “tethering” feature. You have to subscribe to the service, but the cost is minimal. If you are a larger organization, piping in internet from another service provider can be a great backup. You will need a business-class router that can handle the multiple connections.
Look for the remaining backup tips in the February newsletter...
How Well Did AZ Tech Works Perform?
Our Quarterly Survey Results Are In:
We received 19 surveys submitted by our clients. Our average score was 94.2% client satisfaction with our services. Thanks to those who provided their feedback. Please keep submitting them! It is incredibly helpful for us to make our team even better.
Referral Contest!! Earn CASH and the chance to win a new
50” LED HDTV
Refer a friend to AZ Tech Works Between January 1 and March 31,
2015 for a chance to win a 50” HDTV! Here’s the scoop: 1) Call, email us, or go on our website with your referral information. 2) We will call to schedule an appointment. 3) We will pay you $25 or donate $25 to your favorite charity for any qualified referral we get an appointment with. We will then enter your name in to the drawing for the TV. 4) When your referral becomes a client (and spends $1000 or more), we will pay you $75 or donate $75 to your charity. Plus we will give your referral $100 off their purchase.
What makes a good referral for us? An organization that has 5 or more PC’s and needs help with their network, backups, technology strategy, email server or is simply interested in having a second opinion on how they are doing things now.
Call or email Dave (623-444-2395 or [email protected]) with your referral details, or you can go to www.aztechworks.com/referral-program.
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Get More Free Tips, Tools, and Services At My Web Site: www.aztechworks.com
Mobile App Of The Month
RoboForm RoboForm is an app that makes it super easy to keep track of passwords, secure notes, credit cards, and other sensitive information.
The idea is you create a secure, complicated password as your “master” password. This is the only password you have to remember for all of the web sites you go to.
Using RoboForm you can create insane passwords for your online accounts that are 25+ characters long and nearly impossible to remember (and better yet, to crack). When going to your bank web page for example you use RoboForm to fill on the password by supplying only the master password (the one you have to remember).
Generating super strong and secure password leads to greatly reduced chances of your account being hacked. I use it for everything from Microsoft accounts, to banking, to credit card accounts.
Another great benefit is the form-filling features. I do a lot of online ordering and with the click of a button all of my address info is instantly filled in!
RoboForm works on iOS, Android, Windows and Mac, the data is synchronized between them all!
What Can You Expect This Year Regarding HIPAA Enforcement?
Looking at the Department of Health And Human Services (HHS) “wall of shame” on their website, we can see that as of early December, 1170 breaches involving 31 million records have been reported since the mandated reporting of breaches began in September 2009. An increase in the number of breaches is not the only statistic on the rise. Although the 2014 data has not been released yet, the number of complaints in 2013 reached a new high with 4463 registered complaints of PHI leaks.
With the new 2015 budget firmly in place, the OCR (HHS Office of Civil Rights) did not get an increase of funds. In fact the agency responsible for enforcing HIPAA as a whole did not get “a raise” for 2015. However, don’t let that fool you in to the belief that OCR will be backing down or relaxing on fully enforcing HIPAA regulations. In fact an OCR spokeswoman states, “OCR’s strong enforcement of the HIPAA privacy, security, and breach notification rules, remains very much on track…” In fact, just a few weeks ago, HHS settled with the Alaska Department of Health and Human Services for $1.7 million for potential HIPAA violation.
Since enforcement efforts will very likely remain on track in 2015, so should your compliance efforts for this year. Keep your HIPAA policies and procedures up to date and conduct regular risk assessments. If you haven’t started, make it a top priority to do so. Your business could depend on it! If your organization has not addressed security on mobile devices, do so now. Mobile is proving to be a difficult balancing act to maintain depending on how you implement your policies. Make 2015 the year to take a deep dive regarding HIPAA compliance.
Meet Tracy Boettinger Tracy has been the “glue” in our office for over a year now. She is responsible for business
development and operations. The bulk of Tracy’s experience is the retail branding and visual communications industry. Formerly a Vice President of Harper’s Art Graphic Design, Inc., she managed the accounts for major clients such as: Albertsons, Kroger, Rite Aid, and Disney. Tracy was instrumental in the growth of Control Data Corporation where she was recognized for her outstanding customer service work resulting in the expansion Ticktetron/Teletron division. Tracy was responsible for the development and implementations of their newest division and ticketing software system.
During her downtime Tracy remains active in her community and home life with school volunteer work, their annual Hunted House and of course spending as much time as she can with her husband Steve and their 5 children.
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Get More Free Tips, Tools, and Services At My Web Site: www.aztechworks.com
Your Chance To Win $20 Gift Card
The Grand Prize Winner of last month’s Trivia Challenge Quiz was:
Diana Stocker — Sessions College For Professional Design The correct answer was: B) Hot cockles
This month’s question: To ring in the New Year in Spain, it is traditional to do what
on each chime of the clock ?
A) Eat a grape B) Take a sip of wine C) Clap your hands D) Light a candle
Call or email me right now with your answer: 623-444-2395 or [email protected]
Internet Vigilance Despite constant development in security and stability, the Internet still remains very much a Wild West landscape. You can navigate through it, but you never know when you might encounter a hidden danger. Threats exist on a global scale.
Cybercriminals want information. They don’t care whose information they access and steal, or what damage they do. They want to take what they can get and they want to sell it. There are people who do this for a living. This morning, in the period of one minute, there were hundreds of cyber-attacks originating in China, targeting the United States.
What can you do? Stay vigilant.
Visit web sites you know and trust: This is the simplest and most effective way to keep safe.
Keep your web browser and computers up-to-date with the latest patches and security updates: While your office computers are kept up-to-date automatically as long as you’re covered by any of our maintenance plans, you still need to keep an eye on updates for your home computer(s). Don’t ignore these updates!
Know web sites you input personal information or credit card information into are secure: Look at the address bar. If you see “https” you are on a secure web page. If you see “http” you are not on a secure web page.
Make web sites you visit more secure: Browser extensions, such as HTTPS Everywhere, help make web browsing more secure. HTTPS Everywhere takes standard “http” web pages and secures them with “https” by automatically directing you to the secure version of the site. It’s not compatible with every web page, but it goes a long way in protecting you.
The Lighter Side…
Cake, Presents & Embezzlement
There’s nothing like a birthday party complete with an over-the-top cake, mounds of balloons and presents stacked to the ceiling. No, we’re not talking about Miley Cyrus’ 23rd birthday extravaganza, we’re talking about the surprise birthday bash Ruth C. Amen threw for her boss, without approval.
The lavish party raised eyebrows and led to a review of the office manager’s accounting practices. Turns out Amen had been embezzling money from the business to pay her personal credit card debt. She also cut extra paychecks for herself, “forgetting” to deduct insurance costs from them.
Maybe Amen felt bad about stealing and wanted to make up for it somehow, but all of the birthday cakes in the world wouldn’t quite cover the $181,674 she stole. When the last candle was blown out, Amen was found guilty of Grand Theft and Scheme to Defraud, both felonies. Next time, buy a card; it’s much less suspicious.
Take Your Profit First, Always The formula for profitability has been established for ages. Every business owner,
CEO, freelancer and entrepreneur knows it. It is required by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which is enforced by the SEC in the US and the International Accounting Standards Board internationally. GAAP’s fundamental formula for profit is simple: Sales – Expenses = Profit
There is just one problem…the formula hurts profitability. There is a reason that 21 million out of 28 million small businesses in the US are surviving check to check. It’s not that 21 million people are smart enough to start and build a business, yet not smart enough to turn a profit—it’s that they are relying on a flawed formula. “Sales – Expenses = Profit” is a lie. The formula doesn’t yield a profit.
Logically, of course, the formula is sound. A business must first sell in order to generate inbound cash flow. Then the business deducts the expenses utilized to deliver its product or service and to run its operations. What remains is profit.
While the GAAP formula makes logical sense, it ignores the fact that it is managed by people. We are, first and foremost, emotional beings, prone to ignore (or even defy) logic.
Arguably, money is the ultimate resource. In GAAP’s “Sales – Expenses = Profit” formula, the business owner sees the cumulative deposits (resource) from sales and has a propensity to conclude that all the money is available for expenses (the demand expands to match the supply). The new equipment purchase is justified because the money is there. A new hire starts, because the money is there. Profit? It is an afterthought. Therefore, there rarely is any.
Now consider a new formula, where a business takes profit first: Sales – Profit = Expenses
Mathematically, the formula is identical to GAAP’s. But from the perspective of human behavior, the Profit First formula is radically different. In the Profit First formula, a preset percentage of deposits generated through sales are first allocated to profit. The remainder is used to pay expenses.
In practice, as deposits from sales come in, a predetermined percentage—for example 15%—is immediately transferred to a separate profit account. The remainder is available for the business leader to run business as usual. The business owner will see his available cash (which has had the profit already deducted) and make decisions accordingly. The new equipment purchase may be delayed, or a more cost-effective alternative may be found. A new hire won’t be made because the money is not there, and perhaps the entrepreneur will conclude it was unnecessary in the first place.
GAAP offers so much more in business insights than most entrepreneurs could imagine, but it does fall short on working with an entrepreneur’s “bank balance” habit. I have become an advocate for the Profit First approach to cash management, because of the one thing it does do extremely well. It works with the natural habit of business owners.
Profit First has transformed my own businesses for the better (if you consider consistent profits better). Admittedly, Profit First is not the panacea to all cash-flow problems, but it surely makes profit a habit.
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Contact us anytime for all of your IT needs!
3060 N. Litchfield Rd., Suite 120 Goodyear, AZ 85395
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Broadband • Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware Spyware
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Access Solutions • Video Surveillance • 24 x 7 Help Desk • Mac & Windows Solutions
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MIKE MICHALOWICZ (pronounced mi-KAL-o-wits) started his first business at the age of 24, moving his young family to the only safe place he could afford—a retirement building. With no experience, no contacts and no savings, he systematically bootstrapped a multimillion-dollar business. Then he did it again. And again. Now he is doing it for other entrepreneurs. Mike is the CEO of Provendus Group, a consulting firm that ignites explosive growth in companies that have plateaued; a former small-business columnist for The Wall Street Journal; MSNBC’s business makeover expert; a keynote speaker on entrepreneurship; and the author of the cult classic book The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. His newest book, The Pumpkin Plan, has already been called “the next E-Myth!” For more information, visit http://www.mikemichalowicz.com/
