Ten Tech Tools for the Mobile Entrepreneur
As a small business owner who loves to travel (both for business and for pleasure), one of my biggest challenges has been ensuring that I’m still easily accessible to my clients and partners. Over the years I’ve found a number of tools that have made life on the go easier. Here are some of my favorites:
Communication
MagicJack
Plug this little gadget into your PC, then plug a phone into it and you have unlimited calling anywhere in the US and Canada (even if you’re using it overseas) for $20/year. Features include voicemail, call waiting, caller ID, incoming and outgoing calls, and 911 service.
Call quality is great on a strong connection, but degrades on poor connections.
eFax
Send and receive faxes via email from anywhere in the world. Prices range from free to $19.99/month, depending on your needs and level of usage. You can even transfer your existing fax number to the eFax service, hassle-free. For the professional on the go, this service is worth every penny.
EarthClassMail
I haven’t actually used this service myself, but I’ve heard good things and the idea was so cool I had to mention it. Danny describes how it works on his blog:
The service costs $10 a month and is worth every penny. What they do is give you a PO box number to have all your mail sent to. They then scan the envelope and post it online. You can then check your mail online and ask the service to open your mail or trash it. Open mailed get scanned and uploaded to your account. Pretty freakin sweet.
Remote File Access
MediaMax
If you’ve ever had a hard drive crash, you know the sense of despair that comes with losing all your data. MediaMax lets you back all your files up to their servers. Pricing ranges from Free (25GB of storage) to $29.99/month for 1,000GB of storage. Their service also allows you to automate file synchronization and access your data from anywhere. The free service is definitely worth considering if you don’t have a system in place (shame on you) for regularly backing up your files.
UltraVNC
Access your home or office computer anywhere with this free tool. UltraVNC (Virtual Network Computing) allows you to remotely control any computer running the application simply by logging in. This has saved me more than once when traveling, thinking I had a file on my laptop only to realize I had left it on my desktop 1,800 miles away.
Crystal has more great info on VNC and similar apps at BigBrightBulb.
Customer Relations
vTigerCRM
This is a great open-source CRM application that we’ve been using for a while. We used to use SugarCRM but it was a bit overwhelming. vTiger lets you consolidate all your contact information, calendars, product inventories, marketing campaigns, leads, and tech support in one place. You can host it yourself too, although this requires some setup.
GoToMeeting
This service probably gets more use in my business than any other. For $39.99/month, it may seem a little steep, but it pays for itself in a hurry. Setup is a breeze, and you can host web-meetings with up to 16 participants. It even comes with a free conference call system. I use it to troubleshoot computer problems for my clients and partners. All I have to do is set up a meeting, get them to join, and I can directly control their computer and solve the problem. The applications for this program are endless.
PayPal
Okay, so this isn’t exactly a customer relations tool, but it certainly makes it easier to handle this portion of your customer relationship. PayPal will securely handle credit cards for your business at a transaction fee of 3% or less. You can even integrate PayPal with Outlook or Quickbooks to generate invoices by email with a link to PayPal where your client can pay their bill online. Pretty slick, right? Crystal at BBB explains in a recent post why PayPal rocks, check it out.
Wrap-Up
This list is by no means exhaustive. There are thousands of awesome tools out there. Here are a few other lists I’ve come across:
FreelanceSwitch - 101 Essential Freelancing Resources
Web Design Goldmine - Freelancing Resources and Tools
I’m thinking I may make this sort of thing a weekly series, so if you like what you see, subscribe now!
Have I missed anything? What tools keep your business afloat? Have you used any of the tools I’ve mentioned? Your turn to talk…
What an inspiration! Go Kyle Go! Buckets and buckets of blessings on your...
Hi Kyle, what a great list! And the list of lists is cool also. I hadn’t heard of Web Design Goldmine and found a lot of cool stuff there.
Another tool I recently discovered is the online image editor Picnik at http://picnik.com . It’s been available for a long bit, but is totally new to me. Where it’s come in handy lately is lightly editing images for my blog posts. A quick upload and I can crop and add text in a few clicks. Much easier than Paint Shop Pro for something so small, and it’s free to use (with ads).
So, it’s great for simple image editing for blogging, maintaining a website, or sharing images with clients that need a quick cleanup (the images, not the client
). Integrates with Flickr, et. al.
Soooo looking forward to trying EarthClassMail sometime…
Cheers!
April 15th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Hey Crystal,
Thanks for the comment. Picnik is definitely a nice tool. I’ve used it a few times, but it looks like the interface has been changed completely since the last time I used it (a year or more ago). It’s amazing what you can find out there for free. Makes you wonder how much some of these sites are pulling in on advertising…
April 16th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Kyle, you are so very very right about that.
I lose sleep some nights, wondering how much some of these sites are pulling in on advertising!
~CW
April 16th, 2008 at 1:17 am
On the subject of file backup, sharing and storage …
Online backup is becoming common these days. It is estimated that 70-75% of all PC’s will be connected to online backup services with in the next decade.
Thousands of online backup companies exist, from one guy operating in his apartment to fortune 500 companies.
Choosing the best online backup company will be very confusing and difficult. One website I find very helpful in making a decision to pick an online backup company is:
http://www.BackupReview.info
Have a look here, too:
http://www.backupreview.info/index.php?pid=read_article&article_id=9
This site lists more than 400 online backup companies in its directory and ranks the top 25 on a monthly basis.
April 16th, 2008 at 4:45 am
Jennifer,
What a great resource! It’s definitely important to pick the best backup site. In the event that your backup site goes under or crashes, you could find yourself in some real trouble. It’s always good to do your homework first, and to have multiple solutions if your data is particularly critical.
Thanks for the comment!
~Kyle
April 16th, 2008 at 4:51 am
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