I just read this great how-to article on packing everything you need into one carry on luggage.

Great tips

I subscribe to a lot of newsletters (both by email and rss feeds). One particular newsletter I was receiving publish 6-days a week so it was a bit much for me (the content is fine though ) and I decided to unsubscribe.

When clicked on the unsubscribe link, I was brought to a page that was absolutely brilliant (click on the image for a larger image):

Instead of just letting their hard-earned subscriber go into the wind – they managed to salvage me as a subscriber by offering me a choice to receive a weekly summary rather than daily emails. That was just what I needed, I thought the content was useful but just couldn’t keep up with the daily emails.

They read my mind.

If you publish/post a lot during the week, do you make such an offer to salvage potential lost subscribers?

Think of all the possible reasons your subscribers would want to unsubscribe and offer a suitable alternative to salvage these subscribers.

It’s already hard enough to gain subscribers and their attention in this attention-deficit world – so try this technique to recapture your audience.

Expensive software is something that always bugged me. It’s not that the creators of this software shouldn’t’ be denied payment for their work, but it would be great if it was just more affordable. That’s why I love using free software (legally of course) .

Here’s a list of desktop software (software that needs to be downloaded and installed) that I have used or presently use for business and best of all, it’s free!

1. 7zip – this file compressor/decompressor is by far better than what I used to use (Winzip) and it’s free
2. AbiWord – between AbiWord and OpenOffice’s word processor, who needs MS Word?
3. CamStudio -Records computer screen activity for creating online tutorials & demos so I don’t have to go through procedures over and over again
4. Dia – lets me create flow-charts and process diagrams to help visualise all the processes for my business
5. EssentialPIM – this personal organiser is as its name suggests, Essential. This is a great piece of software to keep track of your calendar, to-do lists, appointments and contacts.
6. FileZilla – great FTP client for transferring files to and from ftp sites
7. FreeMind – this software is great to brainstorm ideas and create mind-maps for your business processes and for product idea creation and general visual brain storming
8. Gnumeric – an excellent stand-alone spreadsheet program
9. LogMeIn Hamachi – great for accessing & connecting multiple computers for a VPN (virtual private network)
10. Mailstore – easily back up and archive ALL your email
11. Mozilla Firefox – Forget the finicky Internet Explorer, I can’t live without my Firefox browser. I also add great plugins to the Firefox to customise it with a bunch of nifty tools. It’s better and more customisable than IE.
12. Mozilla Thunderbird – A great versatile email client and highly customisable
13. OpenOffice – it has word processing, spreadsheets, you can create presentations, everything you really need for document creation. You can open and save in Microsoft Office compatible files too. Who needs MS Office and the ridiculously high-price licenses to go with it?
14. PDFCreator – The best PDF document creator program out there. Unfortunately, since I moved to Vista, I can’t use this anymore =(. It presently only works on Windows XP or lower and a fix for Vista is still yet to be found
15. PrimoPDF – the next best thing to PDFCreator is PrimoPDF
16. SyncBack – great for backing up and synchronising files
17. TrueCrypt - If you have sensitive business files you want to keep safe from prying eyes, this is a great file/drive encryption software. Great for USB drives too.
    

That’s it. Let me know if you have any additions to this list in the comments below. Thanks!

Stay tuned for my list of must-have (use) online software for your business too.

The one we used to go to was great, it was run by this nice couple who always remembered are names and had a smile for us everytime we showed up. It made us happy to go there and give them our business. It’s not that the laundry was any cleaner or cleaned any faster.

We just had a nice feeling going there. But all that changed when the couple sold the business to a new owner.

We gave the new proprietors a chance but it just wasn’t the same.

What did they do wrong?

• They always had a hard time finding our laundry
• They always looked like they hated seeing a customer show up
• They never asked us for our names nor remembered who we were
• Worst of all, they never seem to smile

So, the next time you have a chance to interact with your customer, give them a smile and make them feel nice.

And they’ll reward you with their business and not go to your competitor.

They invested a lot of money into the hotel (furniture, renovations, etc). When they opened for business they seemed to have one problem: no guests!

Only after they were bleeding so much cash that they almost had nothing left did they realise that they had to get moving on marketing and getting guests into their hotel.

Lesson learned?

The first thing you need to do before starting any business or venture is to ask yourself:

“How do we sell this?”

Only once you’ve figured out how to do this, should you even consider moving onto the next phase of your business.

“…if a business requires a superstar to produce great results, the business itself cannot be deemed great. A medical partnership led by your area’s premier brain surgeon may enjoy outsized and growing earnings, but that tells little about its future. The partnership’s moat will go when the surgeon goes. You can count, though, on the moat of the Mayo Clinic to endure, even though you can’t name its CEO.”

Here’s a good question to ask yourself to determine if your business is a great one: “Will your business endure if you or your star employee/figurehead is not there?”