Skype – No More Phone Bill?

If you’ve never hear of VOIP (Voice Over IP) then now is as good a time as any to get started. VOIP is a type of internet technology that allows you to make telephone calls over the Internet. In the early days this was simply sending voice “data” between two computers anywhere in the world. It worked but only barely. Things have come an awful long way since. Modern VOIP (also called Internet Telephony) now allows you to make calls between computers and also to landlines and cellphones (mobile phones in Europe) anywhere in the world.

It’s not so long ago now that I remember downloading the Beta (test version) of a little program called Skype. At the time I was travelling a lot with my daytime job and spent months overseas in Indian and Canada. To save on long distance phone charges I started using Skype to make calls home to my family and I’ve been a loyal fan ever since. Skype has grown in massive leaps and bounds since then and was recently bought out by Ebay/Paypal.

Read the full article here.

This is just a short post to help promote the business of a fellow Irishman who’s trying to establish an online presence. Niall Kelly is the manager of NSK Graphic Design in Dublin. NSK design is a dedicated graphic design & web development firm with a simple goal; create the most cost-effective, results driven communication materials possible for our customers. Check them out if you need web development or graphic design work done.

Although you’re working from home that doesn’t take away from the fact that you need to promote your business at any and every opportunity. This includes the age old tactic of handing out business cards to clients and yes even to friends – you never know where you’ll find a potential customer for your product or service.

The problem most people have with business cards is how much they cost and the hassle of having them printed and delivered. Well there’s a great company called Vistaprint that take the headache out of such things. I’ve used them personally and have always been happy with the results. If you’re looking for some new business cards then why not check them out?

VistaPrint

You’ve probably heard of a blog by now I’d imagine? No? A blog is short for web log and is a type of online journal. For years these were kept in the domain of the geek and super computer user. Times have changed though. Businesses, both online and offline, now recognize the value of having their own blog in terms of a business presence.

Why?

Well blogs provide you with a way of staying in touch with your customers (and prospective customers) in a very real way. No matter what you’re selling or what service you’re offering blogs provide a quick and easy way to maintain customer contact and get your business “out there”. Look at this blog for example. It’s just not purely about home office designs and information – I also include books I’m reading and anything else which springs to mind. This stops the blog becoming stale and let’s you see or hear what I’m thinking in a realtime format. This makes it something that you might want to read because I’m not selling you anything (well not always lol) It’s a form of dynamic social interaction that means you can also comment on anything I say on this blog too!

Now when most people hear about “web presence” and other such technical details they tend to shrink away from the idea because they don’t consider themselves technically minded. This isn’t the case at all with blogs. You don’t need to be a tech head at all to own your own blog – as a matter of fact blogs remove all those annoying technicalities.

And the best thing about blogs is……. they’re free! Yup really. You can setup your own blog right now without it costing you a dime. Where’s the best place to start?

Wordpress is one of the most powerful blogging platforms (fancy name for systems) on the web today. You can setup your own free blog directly from the Wordpress website.

http://wordpress.org

Google also have their own blogging service which is named Blogger (creative name eh?) and you can setup your own blog here in about 15 minutes. Check it out here.

https://www2.blogger.com/start

To get into the real meat of blogging would take days. That being said if blogging is something you’d like to hear more about then drop me a mail with your questions or suggestions and I’ll include them here

There’s a favourite old saying that I was taught once “Perception is reality” and I understood this to mean that what we see as being real is real – to us at least. This leads to us to a lot of mistaken goals and realities in life but this is due to how we were raised and our childhood influences.

Through a series of pretty unbelievable circumstances (coincidences?) I wound up watching a movie called The Secret recently. I’d actually been meant to see this a couple of times and never got around to it. As the Universe moves and shakes I was meant to see this movie at this point in my life it seems.

So what is The Secret? It’s basically about the Law of Attraction in the Universe and how it afffects our lives. To put it simply – look at the people in your life who are always miserable and complaining. What happens? They constantly get more unhappiness and misery.

Now look at the people who are optimistic (in as much as they can be) and try to stay that way. They generally have happy and productive lives and good things tend to “just come to them”.

Some people say The Secret is a joke or a farce. Fair enough. I challenge you to watch it and I guarantee it will change how you see your life. It did for me.

http://thesecret.tv/

Modern technology is wonderful. Without the creation of electricity, home computers, the Internet and blogs you wouldn’t be reading what you’re reading right now…. which would be tragic The downside to this is, however, just how many distractions you have around you on a daily basis and how much focus you lose because of these things. Working at home or from a home office is wonderful but because you’re surrounded by the comforts of home then it’s all too easy to let work and home get mixed up – and waste a huge amount of time because of that.

For example do you have a messenger program (AIM, Yahoo, GMail etc) installed on your computer? Do you sign into it when you turn the computer on? You do? Stop doing that! Unless there’s a very specific business reason for doing it then leave your messenger program alone – people love to chat but that chatting isn’t going to drive your business forward or make you money. If you really need to chat to friends online then do that during your lunch break – like a treat. You’ll get 10x as much work done in the absence of a messenger program.

Now we go on to email. Do you need to check your email every 15 minutes? Every 5 minutes? Nope you don’t. Realistically two or three times per day should do it. Checking your email every 5,15 or 15 minutes is just a subconscious way of avoiding work. It’s ok that you’re doing it…as long as you don’t mind wasting your own time or burning money. You don’t want to waste time or burn money? Ok well stop checking your email so often. Check it say maybe once in the morning, at lunch and just before close of business. At least then you’re adding structure to your email correspondence and fitting it into your working day instead of spending all your working day staring at the latest funny email that you’ve probably seen 100 times before.

Now look for other distractions in or near your home office. Is there a TV near you? Move it away or out of the office altogether – especially if you’re a compulsive news watcher like I am. You can’t focus on being productive and what Oprah or Dr Phil is waffling on about too. Don’t kid yourself – move the TV away from your working area.

The basic message is this – Look at your working day and what distracts you from getting work done. Then remove those distractions. You might find it difficult at first to live without these distractions but your business and bank balance will thank you in the long run. Focus makes money. Distractions don’t.

Learn a little more about time management now – it could save your business.