Emailing is an effective means of communicating both for business and personal use.  It can provide a type of quick response communication for a variety of questions or can be used successfully for mass-communications.  When you stop work to respond immediately to every email studies show it takes a full 2 minutes to be back to your previous level of concentration. Two minutes here and there adds up to a significant amount of time.

The difficult aspect of emailing is managing the mail.  There is a knack to it and here are six ways I’ve come across that really do make sense;

1)      Incorporate Gmail into your business email.  This will give you further flexibility and give you the opportunity to send and receive emails via your domain address through Gmail, and the process for setting this up is quite simple.

a)      Create a Gmail account for your site.

b)      Head to your current client and forward all your incoming email to the Gmail account.

c)       In your Gmail account, go to Settings –> Accounts. Under ‘send mail as’, click ‘Add another email address’. Enter the details for your me@mydomain.com account.

d)      Complete the verification process.

e)      Make your ‘me@mydomain.com’ address you default for ‘send mail as’.

2)      Organise your folders with labels.  Such a ‘To Do’, ‘Important’, ‘Boss’, ‘Networking’ etc.  Archive as much as you can so you don’t run out of space and delete unnecessary items.  It is possible to also put these folders in such as order that you prefer.  By adding the ‘@’ symbol at the beginning of the word such as @Important, this will push the folder to the top of the list, above all folders that beginning with the letter ‘A’ as can been seen below. 

You can also input a ‘rule’, very simple to do, to force all emails from for instance ‘Cam’ into the ‘Cam’ folder.  This helps with sorting of emails, with the more important emails being more obvious to you.  To find out more information about rules, simply search rules for outlook folders and there is a wealth of information.

3)      Process in batches once or twice a day and work your way to zero.  This will give you sufficient time to work on the other non-email related tasks and prevent being side-tracked by incoming emails.

4)      While working your way through your emails, read it and then answer it.  We’ve all done it, read an email we didn’t like the look of and thought ‘I’ll do it later’ completely putting it off until the last minute.  This is not productive and no longer how long you wait, the email will always be there. 

5)      Write, Re-read and send.  Keep your emails short and sweet by delivering the message in the email with a suitable salutation and closing.  Have your signature with functional links pre-set so you don’t need to re-write it with each email.  Once you have written your email, re-read it for typos and other errors and send.  Don’t ponder over it for too long because majority of the time, the changes that are made to these emails are rather insignificant anyway.

6)      If you must, use a bridging email.  A basic email to say thank you for your email, it has been read and it will be responded to ASAP will fill the gap between when it has been received and read and when it can be responded to when you work through the other more pressing emails you have.

Hopefully these six points have given you some ideas on how to work through the mounds of emails we receive.  Best of luck!

HireEzy is an innovative hire and rental market software program with the ability to revolutionise your entire day!  It’s packed full with numerous tools for everything from creating quotes and invoices, management of the products and services, deliveries and collections, a full accounting package and a marketing campaign creator plus more.  On top of that all aspects are totally integrated, completely internet friendly and iPad and iPhone compatible.  Disconnect from the stress of having loads of programs open and consider integrating with HireEzy!

THE SIMPLE LIFE
The hire industry can become demanding on your time, your business resources and your energies.  Unlike other articles I have previously written, I’ve decided to step out our the ‘how to’ mindset and take the viewpoint of ‘can we simplify your day?’. 

I understand small to medium businesses in the hire and rental industry are usually “stretched to the max”.  Resources can be pushed for instance as you dismantle from one event and move to set up another directly after, and this is when inventory becomes misplaced and there is the chance to lose track of your bookings, invoices and potential sales.

KEEPING YOUR DAY SIMPLE
Understanding industry requirements is what we are about at HireEzy so we’ve developed a complete software program to consolidate your day-to-day tasks in order to make life just that little bit easier. I have written articles from marketing your business, to hire industry trends for the upcoming year and usually I get my inspiration from a variety of sites but this time I was impressed with what I read on one particular webpage about wedding styling.  I realised sometimes we either forget or don’t appreciate additional resources available to assist us with our day. 

HOW WE CAN SIMPLIFY YOUR DAY
At HireEzy we all lead healthy lifestyles; this is a choice and what we find to be ‘simple’ for each of us individuals.  This has trickled through to our work practices and the product we provide for our valued clients.  We like to believe we keep things simple for you too. Simple to learn and simple to use, thus assisting to make your day as simple as possible.

SOME ADDITIONAL READING FOR YOU
Here are some articles I’ve found inspiring in my quest to incorporate ‘simplifying the day’ into my life in the hire and rental industry.  I believe it’s important to make use of the various opportunities available that have a purpose to benefit and assist in the hire and rental industry. 

10 Reasons to Hire a Wedding Stylist… http://bit.ly/fziDzX

B-A-L-A-N-C-I-N-G Your Juggling Act! http://bit.ly/emsu0P

Apps to simplify your business life.  Amazing ideas! http://bit.ly/a65e0q

Stay One Step Ahead of the Rest!

What’s happening in the world of social media for 2011?  We’ve been through Facebook, we’ve developed the Twitter account and blogging keeps us busy.  But what next?  What are going to be the new and exciting movements in the online world for the commencing year to grow your business?

 Here is a list of trends for the New Year.  Take what you like from it but don’t disregard… or you may just miss out on the next best thing (or be regarded as a bit of a laggard!).

1) Social Commerce

Facebook is familiar to us all but how about selling on Facebook?  The option is now there for a ‘marketplace’.  Link it up to your business’s profile and you’ve got a nice little free online-shop!  Facebook Marketplace is really quite simple; search for goods, upload pictures and insert information as you do with many sites.  Hopefully in the future there will be other options for payment rather than requiring individuals to be in direct contact with eachother, however it works nicely now and there is the option to only advertise to ‘friends’.  Check it out…

Facebook Marketplace - http://apps.facebook.com/marketplace/
Learn how to use - http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-use-facebook-marketplace

2) Group Buying

This is a relatively new concept that has swept across the world.  Advertised quite heavily in Australia alone, the power of group buying really does bring the power back to both the consumer and the business alike. Sites such as http://www.jumponit.com/ and http://cudo.com.au/ offer daily deals, so consumers have 24 hours to take advantage of the deal before it expires.  The site guarantees the business a certain number of sales in order for the discount to go ahead and the discount is guaranteed for the customer once a specific number of potential clients is confirmed.  Sounds like a win-win situation to me! 

Also try: 

Australia - http://dealdump.com.au/
UK - http://www.groupon.co.uk
USA – http://www.webbyplanet.com/
For general information – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12053015

3) Ever considered yourself a media company?

As more and more forums and other forms of marketing such as article writing become popular, companies, big and small, need to realise the importance of their writer.  Most of the tasks undertaken are similar to those of a PR or Communications staff member.  Therefore it is absolutely crucial the person in this role has the interest, capability and ability to learn exactly what is it that leads to successful e-marketing campaigns. 

Luckily, there is an absolute plethora of information on the net aimed to help out the novice writer or marketer.  Many E-Zines, How To’s and Forums contain valuable information regarding internet marketing, not to mention the number of paid options that are available.

My favourite is http://ezinearticles.com/

4) Workplace mobility

There is nothing more exciting than the ability to take your business mobile in 2011!  Without a doubt, the iPad and iPhone has revolutionised the way business can be conducted.  My previous article about ‘AirPrint’ http://www.hireezy.com/index.php/3036/apples-air-print/ has been a popular read, giving me the impression many of you are excited about these new opportunities.  Just imagine your sales reps on the road with an iPad, having the ability to update the database, print out catalogues, and send through invoices without the need to head back to the office or potentially wait days until the client gets the information he is after.  This is what workplace mobility is all about, and I guarantee this will change general business practices for the better in 2011.

HireEzy is moving forward in leaps and bounds in 2011.  We are especially taking advantage of the iPhone and iPad to increase the opportunity for workplace mobility for our clients. Our iPad and iPhone version of HireEzy will be launched in March 2011. This App will give you access to your database of clients, invoices and quotes and a full list of products. Making life so much easier!

Click here for more information on HireEzy – Hire & Rental Software

These are just a few examples of how businesses can suck the juice out of the internet in 2011.  How exciting!

Hire and Rental can be an extremely profitable and high growth business.

Examples abound of incredibly successful entrepreneurs in the industry who have grown their businesses to impressive levels.   Continued growth in the sector is a given.  Particularly with the growth of niche based rental or hire companies, such as Baby Equipment, Handbags, Cocktail machines, the list goes on.

To support Industry growth we have started this list of tools and sites that entreprenuers can use. We will add to it over time to provide a single resource to support the industry’s entrepreneurs.

If you have any resource sites you think useful then please let us know so we can add them.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

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Continuing growth can often encourage thoughts of how to expand the business.  Often such expansion though requires investment funding.

However the question becomes how to approach an Angel Investor?

Like everything in business the best approach is to understand their thinking, as you would a customer.

This Video by Dr Tom Mcaskill, successful entrepreuner and academic provides a great insight in to this.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

Wedding Decorating Ideas is a blog with a great range of wedding decorating ideas.

It also has Free wedding planning software

The site doesnt compete with you as it doesnt hire or rent wedding equipment.

However just be aware of the annoying pop up that appears occaisionally.

Remember if you are a Wedding Hire or Wedding Rental company we provide the world’s most innovative wedding hire software or wedding rental software business management system to help run your business.  Includes complete booking management, financials, digital and social media marketing PLUS MORE. 

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

Why

Should your company have a Social Media Policy

Resources

Social Mashable has put together a list of 80 + different Social Media policies from different companies.  Social Media Policies of Over 80 Companies

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

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Welcome to the Thumbs Down Edition of my review of the week in tech.

Each week I’m picking out the things that I thought were a stupid idea, a bad thing to happen or just payed out on a tech company deservedly that I submitted via Twitter for you all to read. If you haven’t already seen my Twitter feed of tech tips add me @aholesgrove or have a look at http://twitter.com/aholesgrove and subscribe to the RSS feed of my tweets.

I missed out on doing this weekly review on time as it was all hands on deck in Making Life Ezy putting the final touches on HireEzy 2.1 before release that week.  We’re all done now and everything is back to normal.

This week in Thumbs Down I found myself highlighting Google‘s lamo attempt to control the internet and picking out a HUGE problem with Apple‘s new operating system which deletes all user data.  Yeah, you read that right – and people whinge about Windows.  Gosh.

• Haha – Google Wave – Early Impressions: Too Much Effort & Unintuitive http://tinyurl.com/yzhn4st

I’ve blogged before about how I think Google Wave is/will be stupid, worthless and pointless.  But don’t just take my word for it, other people are saying it too – as evidenced by this article.  Don’t know what Google Wave is?  Well, who cares.  If you do, it’s supposed to be an email/twitter/instant messaging alternative – replacement, whatever.  C’mon Google, you employ 20,000 of the smartest people on earth and not one of you can figure out that most people won’t want to ditch email because they can barely breathe without having access to it. #FAIL

• Interesting read, if you’re a geek – YouTube‘s Bandwidth Bill Is Zero. Welcome to the New Net http://tinyurl.com/yfhcuuv

Well, I know most of you aren’t geeks and won’t read the article, so I’ll paraphrase here to outline why I thought this article was interesting – basically, Google has a direct optical fibre connection to the core movers and shakers that make the internet connect to everybody (in fact, I read recently that Google accounts for 6% of all internet traffic in the word at the moment, an astounding statistic for a company that didn’t exist 10 years ago), which means that Google don’t need to pay for internet traffic.  So, all of those YouTube videos are just beaming out of the place with the computer infrastructure built into the rest of Google’s fortress of computer power, essentially making what most people would think to be an extremely expensive operation in pushing out online video actually cost them basically nothing to run – all those ad impressions are pure profit.  This is an amazing contrast to an organisation like Facebook, which spends $1 million a month of infrastructure to make their service super snappy and fast for users.  What the article goes on to detail is how Google hold so much power already, that instead of internet providers charging places like Google to have direct access to each other so that company’s internet users their their site quicker, Google are so powerful that they can charge internet companies to have better direct access to them to provide their services faster to their users.  In the next 3 years this will be a huge debate in the US as their government is trying to regulate this stuff and don’t really know how to approach it properly.  Public outcry ensures.  It’ll be an interesting development.

• LAME – Google enters the e-book arena http://bit.ly/wFDAM

I’m sure if I stood in a newsagent taking pictures of each page of a magazine so I could read it later without having to buy the magazine in the first place I’d be chased down the street by the shop owner and probably have the cops called on me.  Google send people to libraries to scan books digially, build a whole online book store full of inventory and they call it a “business“.  This is criminal.  That’s all I have to say.

• WOW Mac Users should read this – Major bug in Snow Leopard deletes all user data http://bit.ly/10PdGD

So, being the good samaritan that I am, I’ll give you Mac users this tip – don’t allow anonymous logins on your computer.  You’ll have your login that you use and just keep using that – don’t switch to another user and use the anonymous feature, as what happens is that you’ll go to log back into your computer as you and everything will be gone.  Yeah, it’s pretty awful and embarassing problem.  I tweeted this last week and I’m not sure if Apple have patched this problem yet but keep your eyes peeled on the Apple Software Update feature – last I read Apple were looking to put out a 10.6.1 update that addresses this and other problems.

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In fact at last count we had some 125 articles focused on this very business improvement ideas subject.

One particular area we have concentrated on is the opportunities offered by Social Media!

Not just in improving hire rental sales leads but also in how it can be applied to reduce operating costs and business risk. As many of our regular readers state the application of social media to hire and rental can be both broad and extremely effective.

We so passionately believe in the application benefits of Social Media to the hire rental industry we decided to provide a free advisory service to hire and rental companies.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

Such associations can often provide useful business advise to Rental and  Hire businesses, especially in times like these.

Amercian Rental Association

Canadian Rental Association

New Zealand Hire and Rental Association

Australia Hire and Rental Association

United Kingdom Construction Rental

European Rental Association

South Africa Contractor & Plant Hire Association

If you know of any more please let us know and we will add them to the list

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au