Resources for Starting Your Business
Bookmark this page as I will continue to add to it! Please comment with your suggestions as well. Several of these are affiliates, which means SuperViva makes $ when you buy through our links.
Administrative Stuff / Setting Up Shop
Affordable Business Cards and More from VistaPrint:
FREE Business Cards!
80% OFF Premium Business Cards & FREE Return Address Labels!
50% Off All Postcards
Instant Temporary Business Card Maker: Businesscardland saved me when I needed cards within a few minutes. Luckily I had the business card paper on hand. It’s very easy and generates a PDF to print your cards out.
Buying Computers:
Want a Mac? Get free ground shipping on all orders over $50!
or Save up to $100 on a New Mac and Printer!
Phone Calls:
With Skype for Business
international calling is free when you call Skype-to-Skype using a microphone and your computer. With Skype Out and Skype In it’s also cheap to call and receive calls using your Internet connection.
You can also set up conferences and chats.
Faxing:
It’s affordable to get and send faxes by email as well as a toll free number. It’s a good deal when you buy 2 months get the 3rd FREE at MyFax.
I tried them, and it’s especially helpful for fax blasts.
Business Coaching
There are many business coaches to help you plan your company and get motivated. I personally know Starla Sireno and can recommend you check out Fearlessness, Inc. as well as workshops in the San Francisco area and elsewhere. Download for free:
The 5 Biggest Entrepreneurial Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
Passion for Business Coaching offers classes from planning through marketing.
Find more coaching options in our See a short list of people we know.
SCORE “Counselors to America’s Small Businesses” brings you valuable insight from retired executives - at no cost - through the Small Business Administration.
Creating and Hosting Your Website
The following sites let you buy a domain name as well as use a wizard to set up your website. Or completely customize the site. Some also offer a “1-click” set up of services such as blogs.
Want to start selling right away?
Open an eBay Store or simply sell on eBay!
Creating Your Website
Please contact Susie for help from a consultant with setting up your website or social network.
For informational sites or e-stores compare Web Hosting packages from Yahoo!
Also BlueHost is a company I’ve used, offering easy web hosting for $6.95 along with a free domain. They also make it easy to set up a blog or a social network.
For e-book downloads and affiliate programs 1ShoppingCart is a popular solution that also integrates email marketing at an affordable price.
Want a custom design and special functionality? Find designers, writers, and developers on Elance— which has been around for years as a resource for finding freelance talent.
Only need a social networking site? Check out Ning and KickApps, which let you create a community with forums, photos, videos and more. These are great for non-profits.
Only need a blog? Check out Wordpress.com. You can pay for an upgrade to customize the design or choose from a variety of offered designs.
Marketing: Comparing Email Newsletter and List Signup Services
I have experience with four popular email services: Constant Contact, Vertical Response, iContact, and AWeber. Some observations:
AWeber
AWeber has powerful features especially related to website signup and auto responders that keep pinging a customer or prospect with information or reminders. I’ve seen a lot of coaches and other service businesses relying on AWeber.
Pricing: Their pricing per month for the value you get with the auto responders seems like the best deal to me. You can send unlimited campaigns. If you’re doing a “tip of the day,” the auto responder would really come in handy.
Caveat: 1) Make SURE to create a password only for their site, as if you cancel the account they ask you for your password. I’ve never heard of such a thing. 2) If you want to upload a list of contacts, they send an email to each person asking if they opted in. The other services use your word that your list is an opt-in list.
Constant Contact
They’ve been around for many years and has matured with many email template options, surveys, and more. They have a deal for Email Newsletters - 60 Day Free Trial
.
Pricing: Constant Contact prices per-month, based on how many people are in your online list of contacts (i.e. how many people you’re mailing). Posting your newsletter on the web costs $5 per month, and is only viewable by people on your list; it is not indexed by search engines. If you have a static HTML site you could pretty easily save your newsletter and post them on your own site.
iContact
iContact is good for managing your email lists and newsletters. Get your free trial now!
Caveat: While posting your newsletter on the web is included, and it will be part of the public iContact “community” with their banner at the top of the page. It’s a good way to attract new people to your site but if keeping control of your brand is important to you, this might not be the right option.
Vertical Response
Vertical Response is another popular email marketing company which also makes it easy to send paper postcards to customers and automatically creates a web version of your newsletter to point people to.
Pricing: Their pricing varies from the other 2 companies in that it is based on number of emails sent. You need to do some basic arithmetic (remember that?) to do a comparison.
Caveat: They manually approve all campaigns. If you need to quickly send out an email in the evening, well you can’t, as they might not be able to review it by morning.
Which is most cost effective?
If you have a large database of people but send FEW emails, Vertical Response could be the best solution. Basically if you’re sending many mails during a month, take a look at the others. AWeber’s autoresponder feature makes it a great value.
Other Helpful Resources
- Your local Small Business Adminstration office
- Center for Rural Entrepreneurship - “The RUPRI Center for Rural Entrepreneurship strives to be the focal point for efforts to stimulate and support private and public entrepreneurship development in communities throughout rural America.” Very cool!
- Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine are chock full of motivational small business success stories and best practices for starting your business.
Please ask any questions below or email susie at superviva.com if you would like more tips!
More links to interesting sites on SuperViva >>
