FreshBooks

According to FreshBooks CEO Mike McDerment:

“FreshBooks has been designed for service-based businesses. Therefore FreshBooks users primarily fall into two categories: service-based businesses that bill for time (i.e. billing for time like lawyers, web designers, IT consultants, PR firms) and/or service providers that offer recurring services and benefit from recurring billing (alarm system monitoring companies, web hosts, ISPs, pool cleaners, lawn care companies). Technical competence does not seem to be limiting factor for uptake as we have both tech savvy customers (IT consultants, web designers, etc) and extraordinarily non tech savvy (dog walkers, dance studios, nannies…). We offer outstanding customer service by phone and email and therefore any business owner can take comfort in knowing help is available if they need it. That said, most of our paying clients never contact us directly, they self-serve thanks to the ease of use of the service.”

FreshBooks is an impressive efficiency tool. I set up a trial account and experimented with it. You can go online and issue invoices and send them out via email — or send a hard copy via snail mail through a service FreshBooks provides. FreshBooks keeps employee or contractor timesheets, including an online timer that automatically logs time spent on a task. You also can use FreshBooks to create an online help center for customers, with the ability for customers to lodge work orders and support tickets online. Your staff then goes in and handles the tickets. As the business owner you can monitor everything from the online control panel.

For more:http://www.freshbooks.com/

Franchise Vs Start UP

Entrepreneurs have plenty of questions that need answered when they’re planning new ventures, covering everything from business type to location to funding.

But there’s one other question that is just as important: Should the new business be a franchise?

Budding restaurateurs Brian Kubik of Buxton-Kubik-Dodd Interiors and Architecture and Paul Freeman of Computech Mailing Service, and industry veteran Jeff Hurshman chose a franchise – Cleveland-based San Francisco Oven – when they were ready to open an eatery in 2006 under the Oven Spaces LLC banner.

“With a franchise, a lot of the headaches have been worked out,” said Kubik, whose group paid $300,000 to renovate their first space, at 1845 E. Sunshine St., in May 2006.

“The menu’s been made, the kitchen’s been decided, the equipment has been decided, the approach, what people wear, what the place looks like, how the business is run.”


Dealing with details

That the details are taken care of by the franchise is one of the biggest draws for entrepreneurs, according to Terry Hill, vice president of communications for the International Franchise Association.

“You’re buying a system that is, as much as possible, perfected in the marketplace,” Hill said. “You also get a recognized brand and the marketing muscle behind that. You get a support system.”

Hill noted that IFA is gearing up to conduct a survey of U.S. franchise operations, but he said that in 2001, when the last survey was conducted, there were 2,500 viable franchise systems in the United States and more than 767,000 franchised businesses by the end of that year.
Read full: http://www.sbj.net/article.asp?aID=84180603.1037104.1001078.5576855.8504842.445&aID2=76997

Offertrax

RSS is mainly used by bloggers and media companies to distribute their latest blog updates and news flashes. Adding to the mix, Offertrax is bringing Really Simple Syndication to the retail sector, offering consumers more purchasing intelligence and online merchants a new way to convert site visits into sales.

According to Offertrax, less than 3% of site visits convert to a sale. By letting merchants use RSS to distribute updates on products, Offertrax aims to bring visitors back for future conversions. How it works? The web-based application creates RSS feeds for entire online catalogues. Retailers just add a 'track this' button to each product page.

Consumers can then subscribe to a product's feed. As soon as a product's price changes or a retailer announces a special offer, trackers are notified. Merchants can also send notes and deal alerts directly to trackers. The service is free for consumers and merchants are charged a fee.
For more:: www.offertrax.com