Flint is a new company targeting small businesses. Their principles are the same as square. A mobile credit/debit card processing company that has low fees and is easy to set up. But buyer be warned. They claim to have a 1.95% fee. Which is lower than squares 2.75%.. but only for debit, credit fees are up to 2.95%. Plus, all transactions have a 10 cent fee. Which may not seam like much, but for any purchase under 30$ makes their fee up near 3%. Overall. Their rates are not all that good. Not to mention the costs. But they advertise as no card reader... but that to me is more of a pain. They require you to scan the card using your phones camera. Which not only throws in the question of security, but the actual process just seams clumsy. With Flint, they email receipts just like square, but Flint keeps your history, knows what you bought, and can email you ads...seams a bit intrusive to me. Overall, id describe Flint as a great attempt that was started 5 Years ago, but overall, they simply got beat. They don't have any standout features, and they didn't make it on the scene first meaning they really have no edge. In my opinion, id suggest either Square or even intuit. Don't fall for Flint's ads, do your homework, and decide which will be the best for you.
Showing posts with label Small Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Small Business. Show all posts
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Is "Flint" already up in flames?
Saturday, September 7, 2013
25 Best Apps for Small Businesses
Hey everyone, here is a great read that I just came across while looking up some of the best apps for Small Businesses. I'm planning on featuring 5 of these Apps in some up coming posts so make sure to stay tuned to learn what my perspective is, and hey if its popular enough, I'll write a post featuring the top 25 Apps in my eyes for successful small businesses. Remember to follow, subscribe, comment, and share. Let me know what Five you want to know more about.
Read more Here
Read more Here
Friday, September 6, 2013
Up In The Clouds
"The Cloud" has a whole new meaning lately with dozens of new websites, apps, and companies developing a way to store files remotely, and it is key for small businesses. The ability to store remotely is priceless to Small and Large businesses, but especially small businesses because of the low cost. Large companies can afford to have their own server(s) to store files locally and remotely in an integrated system, but those systems are not cheap, and for a small business, are simply out of the question. So for those readers who are a little less tech savvy, I will explain what the cloud is, for those of you who get this concept, feel free to skip down to the next paragraph. So what is The Cloud? Nope, not those white fluffy things in the sky that are condensed water vapor, but the idea is the same. The cloud is a remote storage place for all of your files, pictures, videos, and documents that you and your business ever use or create. There are tons of different sites like Dropbox, Google's Drive, Skydrive, Rackspace, Justcloud, the list is endless, just like the possibilities. The great part about these are you can set it up so your whole computer is backed up, certain folders are synced daily, or you can simply add file by file to keep your personal and business files separated.
So how does this help a small business so much that I am writing a blog post about it? The answer to that is that these services allow businesses to collaborate better then ever before. Before cloud storage, in order to share contracts, marketing reports, and investor teasers, small business owners dreaded attaching these to emails and praying that the "file to large" error message would not show up. Even if they could attach it and send it, more times than not, somewhere along the line, these files got reformatted, lost a page, or some sort of other error that quite frankly made it more of a hassle than snail mail. So what do these storage sites do for you? it gives you a place to keep as few, or as many files and folders as you want. Create a marketing analysis at your home office and upload it to Dropbox, with a username and a password, you can access your files anywhere in the world, on devices from PC's, Macs, Iphones, Ipads, androids, you name it, you can probably retrieve your files. No more need to travel with that little USB drive that your constantly worrying you will lose or break, and there goes everything. No more need of transferring your files to your external hard drive, simply upload it and all your files are backed up. That business trip to Las Vegas just became a lot more fun didn't it? But what if I told you that you could skip the whole trip, instead of traveling to LA to meet with your investor and go over pages and pages of contracts, you can allow him to read the document by using Dropbox, make changes, and re upload it so you can review it. Once everything is good by both parties, a simple Skype call is all that stands between you and a signed contract (check back for a post on video conferencing). Saving thousands on plane tickets and hotel costs. Another great part about the cloud is the ability for small business owners to hire people across the country for their marketing or sales teams. This decreases cost because it basically eliminates the need for office space, or for company computers, and sense you pay for what you need, you no longer have to purchase triple the amount of storage because it was all they offered. Pay for what you use, its that simple. Productivity will also be at an all time high, no more need to train people how to use a Mac after being a PC owner of 10 years, or vice versa. These storage servers allow people to use what ever type of device and operating system they chose, without any formatting errors. All in all, the cloud literally can save, and make small businesses succeed in today's technological boom.
If your interested in reading some more about this topic, check out A Matter Of Scale
So how does this help a small business so much that I am writing a blog post about it? The answer to that is that these services allow businesses to collaborate better then ever before. Before cloud storage, in order to share contracts, marketing reports, and investor teasers, small business owners dreaded attaching these to emails and praying that the "file to large" error message would not show up. Even if they could attach it and send it, more times than not, somewhere along the line, these files got reformatted, lost a page, or some sort of other error that quite frankly made it more of a hassle than snail mail. So what do these storage sites do for you? it gives you a place to keep as few, or as many files and folders as you want. Create a marketing analysis at your home office and upload it to Dropbox, with a username and a password, you can access your files anywhere in the world, on devices from PC's, Macs, Iphones, Ipads, androids, you name it, you can probably retrieve your files. No more need to travel with that little USB drive that your constantly worrying you will lose or break, and there goes everything. No more need of transferring your files to your external hard drive, simply upload it and all your files are backed up. That business trip to Las Vegas just became a lot more fun didn't it? But what if I told you that you could skip the whole trip, instead of traveling to LA to meet with your investor and go over pages and pages of contracts, you can allow him to read the document by using Dropbox, make changes, and re upload it so you can review it. Once everything is good by both parties, a simple Skype call is all that stands between you and a signed contract (check back for a post on video conferencing). Saving thousands on plane tickets and hotel costs. Another great part about the cloud is the ability for small business owners to hire people across the country for their marketing or sales teams. This decreases cost because it basically eliminates the need for office space, or for company computers, and sense you pay for what you need, you no longer have to purchase triple the amount of storage because it was all they offered. Pay for what you use, its that simple. Productivity will also be at an all time high, no more need to train people how to use a Mac after being a PC owner of 10 years, or vice versa. These storage servers allow people to use what ever type of device and operating system they chose, without any formatting errors. All in all, the cloud literally can save, and make small businesses succeed in today's technological boom.
If your interested in reading some more about this topic, check out A Matter Of Scale
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Social Media Do's and Don'ts
Social media is great for staying in touch with family when they move across country, friends when they leave for college, or start their new journey in life with their loved one, and just sharing memories via pictures or videos, but what other tools does social media hold? With the majority of people on Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pintrest, LinkedIn, and more, what better place for a small business to do market research. In a matter of a couple hours, a company can create a page on Facebook or a similar social media site that describes what they do, what they sell, and gain an instant following. Of course the page wont have 10,000 "Likes" over night, but its a start. With this page they can create polls to find out what the consumers want in order to fit the needs of the current day, and future markets. Start up companies THRIVE on these sites because of many reasons, and to be honest, its quite simple.
1. They are free
2. They connect to the majority of consumers
3. They have the ability to spread like wild fire
4. Ability to run promotions and give a ways (people like free stuff)
5. Share new products or services with pictures and videos
6. Can answer any consumer questions directly with comments
7. And did I mention it was 100% FREE
So how exactly do small businesses use these free tools? I am going to use a local example from Plymouth, New Hampshire. A company called Poleish Sports founded by Bryan Biederman. The company makes the famous game of Poleish Horse Shoes, basically a game played with two ski poles, two beer bottles, and a Frisbee. The company started literally in his back yard as a college game that him and his friends played daily, and he thought "now wait a second, why don't they make these", and so production started in his garage. Being so close to Plymouth State University, and having a family general store in downtown, he was able to capture the audience of the locals, but how could he get out of Plymouth? The answer was simple: Facebook. He made a page describing what it was about and put up pictures and shared it with every friend and family member he had on Facebook, asking and begging them to share it. As the likes began to climb, he got more recognition. As a business owner, you post your page to various different other pages, "PSU SPRING FLING" or "Country Fest 2012" and so on... more people see it, more people "like", and more people "share". Social media sites wont help products like those 2:00am infomercials. They WILL NOT make a bad product popular and sell, what they WILL do, is make a great product get recognized, which is all it needs, the product or service will do the rest.
As time went on, Poleish sports became more and more popular and people around the country started finding out about this trend, and wanted more. Using Facebook, Bryan could reach out to these people as to where to buy it locally, or where they could order it from online. He would upload instructional videos, pictures from trade shows, and others could post their fun pictures of the product in use. All this creates a sort of BUZZ around the product, and people like Buzz. If everyone else has this game at the cookout, the tailgate, or the beach, you want it too.
Don't forget to check out this game by visiting his Facebook page, or his website!
Facebook
Website
In order to get customer appreciation, small business owners can create raffles or give a ways on Facebook. But the biggest thing in my eyes is customer interaction. A customer can comment on different aspects of the page, and the owner can simply write back, answering questions, giving information, or asking questions of their own. It makes it so the customer gets what they want, and the owner can learn what is needed. In the start up of a small company, these social media sites are crucial because they act as a basic website, that is free, easy to use, and packs a punch.
The other side of social media however is advertisement, and I'm not talking about small scale. Once a company is large enough, they can afford Ad Space on Facebook. Some companies say its great and that increases sales by X%. But I hate it, first off, when I'm a site like Facebook or Youtube, I'm not there to watch advertisements, I understand why the sites do it, they need to make their money some how. But from the business side, I think its terrible. Okay Coke or Verizon, if you want to have an add sure, go ahead, it wont break your bank. But for a semi-small Company STOP first of all, think about how much money your about to spend, and what it will actually get you. As a user of these sites, I know first hand that any add that I visit is surly and accident, and will be closed as soon as possible. So when these sites say they will get you X amount of clicks, assume 5% of those are on purpose. When I look at small businesses, I like the fact that they don't dump big money into big advertisements because it means their product works without it. So at the end of the day. Unless your budget is 25 million a year for advertising. STAY AWAY. Bad idea, and frankly, a bad rep with your customers, don't look thirsty, look smart.
The following graphic is from Intuit Websites, A great site with lots of information, I will be featuring one of their products a little later on in the month so stay tuned!!
via: Intuit Websites\
Dont forget to share this blog, you can subscribe by email on the sidebar to your right --> and share via your favorite social medias. Comment and let me know what you think.
1. They are free
2. They connect to the majority of consumers
3. They have the ability to spread like wild fire
4. Ability to run promotions and give a ways (people like free stuff)
5. Share new products or services with pictures and videos
6. Can answer any consumer questions directly with comments
7. And did I mention it was 100% FREE
So how exactly do small businesses use these free tools? I am going to use a local example from Plymouth, New Hampshire. A company called Poleish Sports founded by Bryan Biederman. The company makes the famous game of Poleish Horse Shoes, basically a game played with two ski poles, two beer bottles, and a Frisbee. The company started literally in his back yard as a college game that him and his friends played daily, and he thought "now wait a second, why don't they make these", and so production started in his garage. Being so close to Plymouth State University, and having a family general store in downtown, he was able to capture the audience of the locals, but how could he get out of Plymouth? The answer was simple: Facebook. He made a page describing what it was about and put up pictures and shared it with every friend and family member he had on Facebook, asking and begging them to share it. As the likes began to climb, he got more recognition. As a business owner, you post your page to various different other pages, "PSU SPRING FLING" or "Country Fest 2012" and so on... more people see it, more people "like", and more people "share". Social media sites wont help products like those 2:00am infomercials. They WILL NOT make a bad product popular and sell, what they WILL do, is make a great product get recognized, which is all it needs, the product or service will do the rest.
As time went on, Poleish sports became more and more popular and people around the country started finding out about this trend, and wanted more. Using Facebook, Bryan could reach out to these people as to where to buy it locally, or where they could order it from online. He would upload instructional videos, pictures from trade shows, and others could post their fun pictures of the product in use. All this creates a sort of BUZZ around the product, and people like Buzz. If everyone else has this game at the cookout, the tailgate, or the beach, you want it too.
Don't forget to check out this game by visiting his Facebook page, or his website!
Website
In order to get customer appreciation, small business owners can create raffles or give a ways on Facebook. But the biggest thing in my eyes is customer interaction. A customer can comment on different aspects of the page, and the owner can simply write back, answering questions, giving information, or asking questions of their own. It makes it so the customer gets what they want, and the owner can learn what is needed. In the start up of a small company, these social media sites are crucial because they act as a basic website, that is free, easy to use, and packs a punch.
The other side of social media however is advertisement, and I'm not talking about small scale. Once a company is large enough, they can afford Ad Space on Facebook. Some companies say its great and that increases sales by X%. But I hate it, first off, when I'm a site like Facebook or Youtube, I'm not there to watch advertisements, I understand why the sites do it, they need to make their money some how. But from the business side, I think its terrible. Okay Coke or Verizon, if you want to have an add sure, go ahead, it wont break your bank. But for a semi-small Company STOP first of all, think about how much money your about to spend, and what it will actually get you. As a user of these sites, I know first hand that any add that I visit is surly and accident, and will be closed as soon as possible. So when these sites say they will get you X amount of clicks, assume 5% of those are on purpose. When I look at small businesses, I like the fact that they don't dump big money into big advertisements because it means their product works without it. So at the end of the day. Unless your budget is 25 million a year for advertising. STAY AWAY. Bad idea, and frankly, a bad rep with your customers, don't look thirsty, look smart.
The following graphic is from Intuit Websites, A great site with lots of information, I will be featuring one of their products a little later on in the month so stay tuned!!
via: Intuit Websites\
Dont forget to share this blog, you can subscribe by email on the sidebar to your right --> and share via your favorite social medias. Comment and let me know what you think.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
How Technology Helps Business
Technology rules all, whether its politics, science, math, exploration, business, you name it, I bet it cant be done without technology. Yes I know what your thinking, "another blog about technology? come on, people get paid millions to write these". And you are exactly right, they do, and they are great, but what they lack is the view point of a teenager, who appreciates what technology is, and even more, what small business is. Throughout this blog you will see plenty of references to these big blogs because quite frankly, they are great and packed with information and resources that I don't have access to at this time, but it wont be some copy and paste job. It will serve as information, that I use in order to give you a younger view of what is to come, and why these small businesses, might just be the new big thing.
So lets start off, today were going to look at how technology helps get a small business off the ground. Lets rewind right off the bat, to lets say, mid 1970's. AH-HA Joe has just come up with the greatest ideas ever, a portable and private radio that someone could listen too while out for a jog (its too hard not to use technology as an example too). What does he do though? He has no way of finding out if this idea is original or not, if people would use it, how much they would pay, how to go about making it, or how to start selling them. All because the internet is not around, and Joe is lazy and thinks, huh, probably cant be done anyway so he doesn't go after it. Fast forward to today. With a new idea, an entrepreneur has every resource at his or her fingertips on the world wide web. They can file for a patent with the government, get in touch with designers in china, video call an investor in LA, email and share documents with a marketer in NYC, all from their house in Plymouth New Hampshire. Once this has happened, He can use social media like Facebook, twitter, and Instagram to spread the word of this fantastic new Idea. Use multitudes of new credit card processing company's like Intuit business, and Square, to sell his product in stores, online, and now, even on the street, while still beating the others rates. All of a sudden, the calls are coming to him, and using video conference programs like Skype, Oovoo, and Fuzebox, he can have a virtual meeting with the Investors that are looking to hop on board. In order to stay connected, LinkedIn offers a new type of social media networking based strictly on business, no party pictures, or love gossip, just experience and money. No need to ask for references anymore, look at someones LinkedIn profile, find past jobs, and you now have access to hundreds of ex co-workers from boss's to their interns. With blogs, WordPress, and WIX, people can create a professional website to share their product in under a day, without breaking the bank. And once the company is big enough, it heads right back to those social media sites with one thing on its mind, more money through marketing and advertisements.
So chances are you didn't learn anything new in this brief blog post, but I hope I grabbed your attention enough that you will subscribe, comment, share, or check back in the next couple of days when I look more in depth into some of these tools that are crucial technology in the formation and growth of small businesses. What will the first post be? Facebook? Skype? Square? Stay tuned.
So lets start off, today were going to look at how technology helps get a small business off the ground. Lets rewind right off the bat, to lets say, mid 1970's. AH-HA Joe has just come up with the greatest ideas ever, a portable and private radio that someone could listen too while out for a jog (its too hard not to use technology as an example too). What does he do though? He has no way of finding out if this idea is original or not, if people would use it, how much they would pay, how to go about making it, or how to start selling them. All because the internet is not around, and Joe is lazy and thinks, huh, probably cant be done anyway so he doesn't go after it. Fast forward to today. With a new idea, an entrepreneur has every resource at his or her fingertips on the world wide web. They can file for a patent with the government, get in touch with designers in china, video call an investor in LA, email and share documents with a marketer in NYC, all from their house in Plymouth New Hampshire. Once this has happened, He can use social media like Facebook, twitter, and Instagram to spread the word of this fantastic new Idea. Use multitudes of new credit card processing company's like Intuit business, and Square, to sell his product in stores, online, and now, even on the street, while still beating the others rates. All of a sudden, the calls are coming to him, and using video conference programs like Skype, Oovoo, and Fuzebox, he can have a virtual meeting with the Investors that are looking to hop on board. In order to stay connected, LinkedIn offers a new type of social media networking based strictly on business, no party pictures, or love gossip, just experience and money. No need to ask for references anymore, look at someones LinkedIn profile, find past jobs, and you now have access to hundreds of ex co-workers from boss's to their interns. With blogs, WordPress, and WIX, people can create a professional website to share their product in under a day, without breaking the bank. And once the company is big enough, it heads right back to those social media sites with one thing on its mind, more money through marketing and advertisements.
So chances are you didn't learn anything new in this brief blog post, but I hope I grabbed your attention enough that you will subscribe, comment, share, or check back in the next couple of days when I look more in depth into some of these tools that are crucial technology in the formation and growth of small businesses. What will the first post be? Facebook? Skype? Square? Stay tuned.
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