6 Things That Will Transform The Way You Approach Your Home Businesss

As of June 2011, 96% of 2,132,142 actively trading businesses in Australia were small businesses. With so many people going into business, you cannot just maintain it. You need to get ahead in the competition! You need to improve your home business! How?

• Use your domain name in your email address
  Which do you think looks more professional? johnssecurities@yahoo.com or john@johnssecurities.com.au? The second option would most likely attract your attention.

  You can also sign up for a Google Apps account which lets you create new email addresses for all your employees as well as allow you to use a variety of cloud services. Make sure you don’t try to host your own email account – that is risky!

• Use a business service centre
  Having a city address helps make you look more professional and also helps maintain your privacy.

  Postal staff at your local Australia Post Office don’t sign for couriers on your behalf. However, business service centres receive your mail, sign for couriers and notifies you when your parcels arrive. They also provide after-hours access so you can collect items at your convenience.

• Use another line for business calls
  You can sign up for Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone service for your business number which will run over your internet connection.

  With VoIP, you may be able to divert calls to voicemail after business hours. VoIP service offered by your ISP is often more reliable than consumer-grade VoIP services offered by third parties.

• Have a personal answering service
  When you have a personal answering service, customers are assured of your dependability because you can be reached 24×7. Several telcos offer a personal answering service for business customers.

  You can also avail of voicemail to email and fax to email service which allows sending of messages as email attachments. Several VoIP services offer this feature.

• Lease equipment, don’t buy it
  Leasing equipment is better than purchasing when it comes to taxes. In Australia, for example, according to the Australian Tax Office, “small businesses can now immediately write off most depreciating assets costing less than $6,500 each, up from the previous $1,000 threshold.”

  When you lease equipment, there are no upfront costs. You have extra cash to use for paying off debts or growing your business. Additionally, depending on the conditions of your lease, you may be able to rent other equipment for your business in the future.

  However, if you upgrade your equipment more often, it is better to buy a new computer and resell the old one.

• Use a phone scanner for your business
  A traditional scanner may be an unnecessary expense if you use it only a few times each month. If you need to have your documents scanned, you can do it with a smartphone.

  Now, you can scan your documents using smartphone apps such as Turboscan for iOS; CamScanner, Stoik Mobile Doc Scanner (MDScan); and Document Scanner.

  With these apps, you just need to take a photo of your document and they will crop the edges of the document and then straighten the image automatically.

Don’t be content with just maintaining your business. By following these simple steps, you will make a significant improvement to your home business; this will lead to a substantial boost in sales and a better lifestyle for you! For a better idea of how cloud solutions can help your small business contact Complete Cloud.

For updates join us at Google+