InfoBusiness 2.0

Special Report:

What Every Small Business Owner Must Know About Protecting And Preserving Their Company’s Critical Data And Computer Systems

If You Depend On Your Computer Network To Run Your Business, This Is One Report You DON’T Want To Overlook!

   This report will outline in plain, non-technical English common mistakes that many small business owners make with their computer network that cost them thousands in lost sales, productivity, and computer repair bills, as well as providing an easy, proven way to reduce or completely eliminate the financial expense and frustration of these oversights.

You’ll Discover:

§  The single most expensive mistake most small business owners make when it comes to protecting their company data.

§  The universal misconception business owners have about their computer networks, and how it can end up costing between $9,000 to as much as $60,000 in damages.

§  6 Critical security measures every small business should have in place.

§  How to greatly reduce – or even completely eliminate – frustrating crashes, slow performance, and other annoying computer problems.

§  How to avoid expensive computer repair bills and get all the computer support you need for a low, fixed monthly rate.

Dear Colleague,

   Have you ever lost an hour of work on your computer?

   Now imagine if you lost days or weeks of work – or imagine losing your client database, financial records, and all of the work files your company has ever produced or compiled.

   Imagine what would happen if your network went down for days, where you couldn’t access e-mail or the information on your PC. How frustrating would that be?

   Or, what if a major storm, flood, or fire destroyed your office and all of your files? Or if a virus wiped out your server…do you have an emergency recovery plan in place that you feel confident in?

   How quickly do you think you could recover, if at all?

   Many small business owners tend to ignore or forget about taking steps to secure their company’s network from these types of catastrophes until disaster strikes. By then it’s too late and the damage is done.

But That Could Never Happen To Me!
(And Other Lies Business Owners Like To Believe About Their Businesses…)

   After working with over a 100 of small and mid-size businesses in the Greater Toronto Area, we found that 6 out of 10 businesses will experience some type of major network or technology disaster that will end up costing them between $9,000 and $60,000 in repairs and restoration costs on average. 

   That doesn’t even include lost productivity, sales, and client goodwill that can be damaged when a company can’t operate or fulfill on its promises due to technical problems.

   While it may be difficult to determine the actual financial impact computer problems have on your business, you can’t deny the fact that they do have a negative effect. If you’ve ever had your business grind to a screeching halt because you and your employees could not access the data or systems necessary for operations, you must have some idea of the frustration and financial loss to your business even if you haven’t put a pencil to figuring out the exact cost.

Take a look at these statistics:

• Companies experience an average of 501 hours of network downtime every year, and the overall downtime costs an average of 3.6% of annual revenue.  (Source: The Costs of Enterprise Downtime, Infonetics Research)
  
  
• 93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster, and 50% filed for bankruptcy immediately. (Source: National Archives & Records Administration in Washington.)
  
  
• 20% of small to medium businesses will suffer a major disaster causing loss of critical data every 5 years. (Source: Richmond House Group)
  
  
• This year, 40% of small to medium businesses that manage their own network and use the Internet for more than e-mail will have their network accessed by a hacker, and more than 50% won’t even know they were attacked. (Source: Gartner Group)
  
  
• Of those companies participating in the Contingency Planning & Management Cost of Downtime Survey: 46% said each hour of downtime would cost their companies up to $50,000, 28% said each hour would cost between $51,000 and $250,000, 18% said each hour would cost between $251,000 and $1 million, and 8% said it would cost their companies more than $1million per hour. (Source: Cost of Downtime Survey Results, 2001.)
  
  
• Cyber-criminals stole an average of $900 from each of 3 million Americans in the past year, and that doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of PCs rendered useless by spyware. (Source: Gartner Group)

What These Failures Are REALLY Costing Your Business

   Even if you don’t factor in the soft costs of lost productivity, there is a hard cost of repairing and restoring your network. Most major network repairs will require a minimum of four to eight hours on average to get the network back up and running. Plus, most consultants cannot get on-site to resolve the problem for 24 to 48 hours. That means your network could be down for one to two days.

   Since the average computer consultant charges over $100 per hour plus a trip fee and a surcharge if it’s an emergency, the average cost of these repairs is $600 to $1,000; and that doesn’t even include any software or hardware costs that may also be required. Over a year, this results in $1,800 to $3,000 in costs without even considering hardware and software costs, or other soft costs of lost sales and work hours. Of course, those numbers quickly multiply with larger, more complex networks.

   What’s most exasperating about this situation is that 100% of these disasters and restoration costs could have been completely avoided or greatly mitigated easily and inexpensively with a little planning and proactive maintenance.

Putting a data backup system into place is just the first step.  In order to fully prepare for an emergency, you need to create a thorough business continuity plan.  Do you have temporary office facilities secured, so you have a place to operate in the event of a fire or flood?  Who will be responsible for restoring systems if your entire infrastructure collapses?  Statistics show that 80 percent of organizations who do not implement a well-structured continuity plan shut down within 12 months after a major event. With a “Plan B”, you can ensure that all links in your business chain will operate smoothly if a disaster strikes.       

Start your plan by calculating the cost of down time, then determine how much down time you can afford.  For example, if your company brings in revenues of $10 million a year, and follows a 9 to 5/Monday through Friday working schedule, then one hour of down time would cost you about $480.  That means that for every hour your business is idle due to unforeseen computer problems, almost $500 of your hard earned cash goes down the drain. 

If you cannot afford any downtime at all, then you’ll need to implement 24×7 computer monitoring, and make sure that technicians are always on call to immediately resolve any issues that may arise.  Although there are expenses associated with this approach, it will still cost you far less than losing hours, or even days of productivity while you wait for someone to fix your computers. 

There are many basic monitoring software packages available, from vendors such as Uptime Software, IP Monitor, Chevin Software, and NetScout.  These solutions can be set up to page you, or your technicians, in the event of a problem.  You can even set up the paging system to alert your technicians first, then page you if the problem is not resolved within a few hours. 

The 5 Most Important Things You Should Do To Make Sure Your Company Is Protected From These Types Of Disasters:

While it’s impossible to plan for every potential computer disaster or emergency, there are a few easy and inexpensive measures you can put into place that will help you avoid the vast majority of computer disasters you could experience.

Step#1: Make Sure You Are Backing Up Your System

It just amazes me how many businesses never back up their computer network. Imagine this: you write the most important piece of information you could ever write on a chalk board and I come along and erase it. How are you going to get it back? You’re not. Unless you can remember it, or if YOU MADE A COPY OF IT, you can’t recover the data. It’s gone. That is why it is so important to back up your network. There are a number of things that could cause you to lose data files. If the information on the disk is important to you, make sure you have more than one copy of it.

Step #2: Perform A Complete Data Restore To Make Sure
Your Backups Are Working Properly

This is another big mistake I see. Many business owners set up some type of backup system, but then never check to make sure it’s working properly. It’s not uncommon for a system to APPEAR to be backing up when in reality, it’s not. Remember the Health Products Company that shelled out $40,000 to recover data they THOUGHT they backed up? Don’t let this happen to you.

Step #3: Keep An Offsite Copy Of Your Backups

What happens if a fire or flood destroys your server AND the backup tapes or drive? What happens if your office gets robbed and they take EVERYTHING? Having an off-site back up is simply a smart way to make sure you have multiple, redundant copies of your data.

Step #4: Make Sure Your Virus Protection Is ALWAYS On And Up-To-Date

You would have to be living under a rock to not know how devastating a virus can be to your network. With virus attacks coming from spam, downloaded data and music files, web sites, and even e-mails from friends, you cannot afford to not be protected.

Not only can a virus corrupt your files and bring down your network, but it can hurt your reputation. If you or one of your employees unknowingly spreads a virus to a customer, or if the virus hijacks your e-mail address book, you’re going to make a lot of people very angry.

Step #5: Set Up A Firewall

Small business owners tend to think that because they are “just a small business”, no one would waste time trying to hack in to their network, when nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve conducted experiments were I connected a single computer to the internet with no firewall.  Within hours, over 13 gigabytes of space was taken over with malicious code and files that I could not delete. The simple fact is there are thousands of unscrupulous individuals out there who think its fun to disable your computer just because they can.

These individuals strike randomly by searching the internet for open, unprotected ports. As soon as they find one, they will delete files or download huge files that cannot be deleted shutting down your hard drive. They can also use your computer as a zombie for storing pirated software or sending spam which will cause your ISP to shut YOU down and prevent you from access the Internet or sending and receiving e-mail.

If the malicious programs can’t be deleted, you’ll have to re-format the entire hard drive causing you to lose every piece of information you’ve ever owned UNLESS you were backing up your files properly (see 1 to 3 above).

Special Report:

The 3 Most Expensive & Deadly Computer Disasters That Wipe Out Small Business Owners …
And How To Avoid Them

An Urgent Warning To All Small Business Owners:

If You Depend On Your Computer Network To Run Your Business, This Is One Report You DON’T Want To Overlook!

You’ll Discover:

§ 5 Critical security measures every small business should have in place.

§ The single costliest mistake most small business owners make when it comes to protecting their irreplaceable company data.

§ How to avoid costly network repair bills.

§ A simple way to protect your network that won’t cost you a dime!

Dear Colleague,

Have you ever lost an hour of work on your computer?

Now imagine if you lost days or weeks of work – or imagine losing your client database, financial records, and all of the work files your company has ever produced or compiled.

Imagine what would happen if your network went down for days where you couldn’t access e-mail or the information on your PC. How frustrating would that be?

What if a major storm, flood, or fire destroyed your office and all of your files? Or if a virus wiped out your server…do you have an emergency recovery plan in place that you feel confident in? How quickly do you think you could recover, if at all?

Many small business owners tend to ignore or forget about taking steps to secure their company’s network from these types of catastrophes until disaster strikes. By then it’s too late and the damage is done.

After working with over a 100 of small and mid-size businesses in the Greater Toronto Area, we found that 6 out of 10 businesses will experience some type of major network or technology disaster that will end up costing them between $9,000 to $60,000 in repairs and restoration costs on average. That doesn’t even include lost productivity, sales, and client good-will that can be damaged when a company can’t operate or fulfill on its promises due to a down network.

What’s most exasperating about this situation is that 100% of these disasters and restoration costs could have been completely avoided easily and inexpensively. That’s why I decided to write this report.

I have found that most small business owners have no idea of the importance of regular preventative maintenance and disaster recovery planning because they are already swamped with more immediate day-to-day fires demanding their attention. If their network is working fine today, it goes to the bottom of the pile of things to worry about. In most cases, no one is watching to make sure the back ups are working, the virus protection is up-to-date, or that the network is “healthy”.

This is like saying you’re too busy driving your car on the highway to put your seatbelt on. Taking that simple preventative step doesn’t really show its true value until you get into a head on collision; at that point you are either extremely relieved that you had it on or incredibly sorry that you didn’t.

The same holds true with your computer network. Obviously the information on the disk is far more valuable than the disk itself. If your company depends on having access to the information stored on your server or PC, then it’s time to get serious about protecting it from damage or loss.

Why Small Business Are Especially Vulnerable
To These Disasters

With the constant changes to technology and daily development of new threats, it takes a highly-trained technician to maintain even a simple 3 to 5 person network. The costs of hiring a full-time IT person are just not feasible for the small business owner.

In an attempt to save money, most try to do their own in-house IT support and designate the person with the most technical expertise as the part-time IT manager. This never works out because this make-shift IT person has another full-time job to do and is usually not skilled enough to properly support an entire computer network anyway.

This inevitably results in a network that is ill-maintained and unstable. It also means that the backups, virus updates, and security patches are not getting timely updates, or may even be set up improperly giving a false sense of security.

It’s only a matter of time before the network crashes. If you’re lucky, it will only cost you a little downtime; but there’s always a chance you could end up like one of these companies:

Auto Body Shop Shells Out $20,000 To Clean Up A Virus

A local auto body shop with multiple locations discovered the importance of preventative maintenance the hard way. Without warning, a virus was downloaded to their server and started replicating and attaching itself to files. This virus corrupted their data, impaired their customer management system, and immediately brought down their Exchange server (no e-mail could come in or go out).

Preventing this disaster would have only cost them 1/25^th of the cost ($800 per month) AND they would have experienced better performance and fewer problems with their network. Instead, they were forced to spend a whopping $20,000 to remove the virus and restore their network, and that only got them back up and running. Their systems were still not optimized, secured, and updated as they should be.

Two Failed Hard Drives Costs Health Products Company $40,000 and
9 Days of Downtime

The back office of a health products company had two hard drives fail at the same time causing them to lose a large number of critical customer files.

When they contacted us to recover the data from the system backups, we found they weren’t functioning properly. Even though they appeared to be backing up all of this company’s data, they were in fact worthless. In the end, recovering the data off of these failed drives took a team of disaster recovery specialists 9 days and $15,000. In addition to the recovery costs, they also incurred $25,000 in other services to get their network stable.

Had they been properly monitoring their network, they would have been able to see that these hard drives were failing and that the back ups were not performing properly. This would have prevented the crash, the downtime, and the $40,000 in costs to get them back up and running, not to mention the 9 days of lost productivity while their network was down.

Property Management Company Spends $9,000 And Weeks Of Down Time For A Simple Inexpensive Repair

A 10-user property management company was not monitoring or maintaining their server. Due to the overuse and lack of maintenance, it started to degenerate and eventually shut down under the load. This caused their entire network to be down for two full days and cost them $3,000 in support fees to get them back up and running. Naturally the costs were much higher when you factor in the lost productivity of their ten employees during that time.

This client did not want to implement a preventative maintenance program so the same problem happened again two months later, costing them another $3,000 and two days of downtime.

Six months later it happened yet another time bringing their total to $9,000 in hard costs and tens of thousands in productivity costs for a problem that could have been quickly detected and prevented from happening.

Talk to any manager at any large organization, and they are likely to have an interesting disaster-related story to tell.  Perhaps a virus wiped out an entire email system, or a power surge corrupted hundreds of important business documents.  Or, maybe a flood destroyed servers that stored mission-critical customer data. 

According to statistics, you don’t need to worry about if a disaster will strike – you need to worry about when.  Hard drives have manufacturer warranties that last no longer than one to three years.  And, computer systems are so complex and intricate that a small problem with one little component can cause a chain reaction and bring your entire infrastructure down in a matter of seconds. 

Are you prepared?

The first thing you will need is some sort of backup device.  It can be an old computer, a network-attached storage device, or even a tape or DVD drive.  You must schedule a complete data backup to run each night, so you can retrieve recent versions of your files in the event of an emergency.  You can use the basic backup software that comes standard with your computer or DVD drive, or you can purchase one of the many other solutions available today, including BrightStor, Overland Storage, EMC, and Quantum.

If you cannot afford even a single minute of downtime during a backup, you need to look into complete backup solutions.  Packages like Acronis True Image can take a live snapshot of your hard drive and store it on a DVD, network server, or other hard drive.  You can revert back to the saved image at any time.  Simply replace the corrupted hard drive with a new one, boot from the recovery disk, and point the software to your backup files.  You’re entire system, exactly as it was at the time of your last backup, will be completely restored within an hour.  Your emails, Internet favorite places, programs, and documents will be easily retrievable, as if nothing happened.

After you configure your data backup, it is wise to add a few additional layers of protection:

Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS)

Uninterrupted power supplies can be found at any computer or recording store, and cost between $80 and $200. These devices protect all of your electronic equipment from damage caused by power surges and power loss.  Choosing a UPS with a bigger battery will give you more time to save your documents in the event of a sustained or long-term power loss.  And, don’t forget to configure an automatic software shutdown in the event of a power failure.  This will further minimize damage by saving your documents in their most current state, and safely shutting the computer down.  

Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)

RAID devices allow you to write on two or more hard drives at the same time, in case one of them fails.  With a RAID device, there is always another hard drive that contains the exact same data set.  So, unless all hard drives give out at the same time, which would be highly unlikely, you always have another available drive with the same exact data. 

Off-Site Backup

Backing up your data using on-site solutions can offer effective protection against system failures.  But, what do you do in the event of a flood, fire, or burglary? Disasters like these require off-site back up.  Whether you use a tape, CD, or DVD, make sure you conduct a weekly backup to a remote network location, or have a third-party provider back up your data via the Internet.  There are many services available, ranging in price from free to about $100 per month.  Compare the various plans offered by EVault, Mozy, LiveVault, and other service providers, and see which one will best fit your needs. 

There are countless books, DVDs, software packages, and seminars that describe how to get your company online quickly and cost-effectively.  Since this topic alone could cover enough tips and ideas to fill an entire book, I will summarize just a few of the best options.

If you’re new to the Web, you’ll probably just need a basic informational Web site that highlights your company and its products/services, and provides contact data (i.e. email addresses, phone and fax numbers, etc.) for those visitors that wish to reach out to you to learn more.  If you already have all that, then there are two more advanced directions you can take – you can generate more business by driving more traffic to your site, or you can use your site to better serve your existing customers. 

Generating More Business with Search Engine Advertising & Optimization

One of the best ways to drive more traffic to – and more revenue from – your Web site is through search engines.  Search engines can be international or local, and can help prospects who are looking for products and services like yours to find your Web site.  You can optimize your search engine rankings (i.e. how high on the list you come up when a visitor types in a related keyword or key phrase) in two ways:

1)      You can buy ads on search engine sites, such as Google or Yahoo

2)      You can optimize your site, to make it easier for search engines to find it

Search engine ad campaigns can be launched for as low as a few dollars.  Open an account on Google™ AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Yahoo Overture), create your ad using common industry keywords, and post a bid for it.  A bid is the price you will pay each time a searcher clicks-through from the ad to your site.  In many cases, your bid can be as low as five cents.  Each time a Web visitor types in your keywords or phrases, your ad will appear above or to the side of the search results.  You can then run reports and track the number of people that clicked on your ad. 

Of course, the higher your search engine placement, the better.  There is a variety of search engine optimization (SEO) software on the market today to help boost rankings.  Check out Trendmetrics, Apex Pacific, and GR Software.  Or, you can hire a consulting company like Bruce Clay or MetaMend to help you optimize your site for you. 

SEO software typically costs between $100 and $1000, depending on the features and level of functionality it provides.  Consulting services can run anywhere from $100 to $5000 per month, depending on the size and complexity of your Web site, and your SEO goals.  I suggest starting with a combination of both approaches.  Track the results to see which delivers a higher return on investment. 

Generating More Business with Visitor Tracking

Understanding how many visitors you get, and where they come from, is vital to the success of your Web site strategy.  Your Web hosting company should provide you with access to statistics and log files that measure hits and traffic to your site. Monitor your site traffic daily, and assess the impact of your search engine optimization efforts and related ads.   More advanced Web statistics solutions are available through Stats in a Box, OpenTracker, and Web Trends.   

Generating More Business With Internet Marketing

Search engine optimization is not the only effective online marketing technique.  Consider exploring other types of programs such as opt-in email marketing (not spam), e-zine or blog advertising, and banner ads.

Placing banner ads in popular e-zines or newsletters can be a great way to reach your target audience.  You can even start your own e-zine, newsletter, or blog to share your ideas and knowledge, as well as new information with your prospects and clients. 

However, creating your own opt-in distribution list, and communicating regularly with those subscribers, is the most effective way to leverage the Internet for marketing purposes.  In order to launch a successful opt-in email program, you will need some sort of free offer – perhaps a special report, white paper, eBook, or other downloadable document.  Once you have used this offer to obtain their email address, and their permission to continue contacting them, you can send them future messages and promotions until they decide to purchase your products or services.  Don’t forget, studies show that it will take a minimum of 21 contacts before you actually close the deal. 

Enhancing Service to Existing Customers

Your Web site can also serve as a mechanism for providing faster, more responsive, less expensive services to your customers.  Some of the ways in which you can use your site to improve service delivery include:

• Linking your order management and fulfillment systems to your Web site.  This will allow customers to instantly access real-time information about their purchases, order status, and deliveries, while reducing call volumes to your customer service center. 
• Providing clients with complete order and payment histories, so they can see exactly what they purchased, and when. 
• Developing self-service tools for your clients, such as manuals, sales materials, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and other downloadable informational materials, as well as a knowledgebase.  You can also offer online support requests, issue reporting, and job ticket opening. 
• Putting a live help button on your site, so visitors can chat with company representatives in real-time.  You can also track visitors as they are browsing through your site, so you can see what they are reading and downloading.
• Electronically transferring purchase orders and contracts to and from customers.  This will dramatically increase order efficiency and accuracy by eliminating data entry errors and accelerating order processing. 
• Creating online client forums, where customers can help solve each other’s problems, discuss best practices, share ideas, and more, without the need for your support staff to get involved. 

Special Report:

5 Simple Ways To Avoid Getting

An Avalanche of Spam

As you probably already know from firsthand experience, once you’re on a spammer’s list, it’s next to impossible to get off. And changing your e-mail address can be a major inconvenience especially if you rely on it to stay in touch with important business and personal contacts.

To reduce the chances of your e-mail address getting spammed, here are 5 simple preventative measures you can take that will go a long way in keeping not-so-delicious spam out of your in-box.

1. Use a disposable e-mail address.

If you buy products online or occasionally subscribe to websites that interest you, chances are you’re going to get spammed.

To avoid your main e-mail address from ending up on their broadcast list, set up a free Internet e-mail address with Hotmail or Juno and use it when buying or opting in to online newsletters. You can also use a throwaway e-mail address when making purchases or subscribing to newsletters (see #4 below).

2. Pay attention to check boxes that automatically opt you in.

Whenever you subscribe to a website or make a purchase online, be very watchful of small, pre-checked boxes that say, “Yes! I want to receive offers from third party companies.”

If you do not un-check the box to opt-out, your e-mail address can (and will) be sold to every online advertiser.  To avoid this from happening, simply take a closer look at every online form you fill out. 

3. Don’t use your main e-mail address on your website, web forums, or newsgroups.

Spammers have special programs that can glean e-mail addresses from websites without your permission. If you are posting to a web forum or newsgroup, use your disposable e-mail address instead of your main e-mail address.

If you want to post an e-mail address on your home page, use “info@” and have all replies forwarded to a folder in your in-box that won’t interfere with your main address.

4. Create throwaway e-mail accounts.

If you own a web domain, all mail going to an address at your domain is probably set up to come directly to you by default.  For example, an e-mail addressed to anything@yourdomain.com will be delivered to your in-box.

This is a great way to fight spam without missing out on important e-mails you want to get. The next time you sign up for a newsletter, use the title of the website in your e-mail address. For example, if the website is titled “successsecrets.com”, enter “successsecrets@yourdomain.com” as your e-mail address. If you get spammed, look at what address the spam was sent to.

If successsecrets@yourdomain.com shows up as the original recipient, you know the source since that e-mail address was unique to that web site. Now you can easily stop the spam by making any e-mail sent to that address bounce back to the sender.

5. Don’t open, reply to or try to opt-out of obvious spam e-mails.

Opening, replying to, or even clicking a bogus opt-out link in an obvious spam e-mail signals that your e-mail address is active, and more spam will follow.

The only time it is safe to click on the opt-out link or reply to the e-mail is when the message was sent from a company you know or do business with (for example, a company that you purchase from or a newsletter you subscribed to).

Email is currently the most efficient way to communicate and collaborate with peers and colleagues.   It’s faster than a letter, requires less effort than a fax, and is less intrusive than a phone call.  It’s everywhere – most people have one, or even multiple email accounts set up.  And best of all, it’s free!

However, your company’s reputation, brand equity, and image will be greatly enhanced if you set up a dedicated email account for your specific domain (www.yourcompany.com).   This will make the emails your employees send instantly recognizable (john_smith@yourcompany.com) to recipients, and allow you to host all of your corporate email addresses on a single email server. 

Your corporate email server can be hosted and maintained by your third-party Internet Service Provider (ISP), or on your own premises.  There are a number of server settings that can be tweaked, to make your solution more robust and productive.  For example, you can automatically delete any executable email attachments such as .exe, .com, .pif, .bat, .MSI, or .cab files, as well as java script or visual basic script.  You can also automatically remove large music and video files, to eliminate email server clogs.  These two modifications alone can save you countless hours of downtime, and free up gigabytes of valuable server space. 

You can also improve the efficiency of your email interactions by implementing an Email Usage Policy.  You can modify any standard policy (check out the ones posted on KnowledgeLeader or Free Management Library), or have your attorney create a custom one from scratch.  This policy should be automatically attached to every single outgoing email sent by your server.  This will help decrease your liability for the content of emails sent by your employees.  You can even further protect yourself by monitoring and checking email usage on a weekly basis, to ensure compliance with your usage policies, and immediate identify any unusual or inappropriate activity. 

With software packages like MailMonitor, you can identify your top 10 email traffic generators, see who is emailing whom, determine if your competitors are getting emails from your employees, and identify the kinds of attachments that are being sent back and forth. 

Spam, or unsolicited email, also poses a major problem.  To prevent an avalanche of spam from clogging up your email server, you’ll need to install anti-spam or spam filtering software.  Spam filters work in three ways.  They can automatically delete any unsolicited emails or move them to a specific folder.  The newest spam filtering technologies can even automatically ask any suspicious sender to manually confirm their identity, to ensure that they are not a “robot” sending bulk emails blindly to millions of addresses.  Because many anti-spam setting are too restrictive, legitimate emails often get blocked.  So, I recommend using a spam filter that moves suspicious emails to a folder, where they can be retrieved if needed. 

If your email server does not contain an anti-spam filter, you can use anti-spam software on your desktop to block unsolicited emails.  And, in order to prevent spammers from using your email server to send out bulk emails to millions of users around the world, you can configure your email server to accept emails only from verified users with passwords. 

Email Response Management

Many companies have a generic mailbox for sales inquiries, support issues, or general information.  The amount of incoming emails to these boxes can be overwhelming, particularly if follow-up, responses, or history log maintenance is handled by more than one person.  Fortunately, there are a number of email response management software solutions that can help simplify this process.  There many different types of packages available, ranging in price from free to quite expensive.  Check out the ones offered by emailtopia, Talisma, and Right Now Technologies.  Or, you can search for other solutions online, and choose the one that’s best for your business. 

Email Auto-Responders

Marketing teams are often challenged to stay in constant contact with potential and existing customers.  I’m not talking about spamming to uninterested parties with useless ads, or sending out blind bulk emails.  This is about keeping the lines of communication open with current clients, or prospects who have given you permission to send them information about your products and services (note: putting an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of every email, and removing all those who “unsubscribe” from future distribution lists, will help you avoid breaking spam laws).  Studies show that the more you reach out to your audience with news, special offers, discounts, and promotions, the more likely they are to buy from you.  In fact, it takes, on average, at least 21 outreach attempts to convince a prospect to consider purchasing your products or services.  But time and budget constraints can prohibit you from making daily, weekly, or even monthly contact. 

So how can you efficiently and consistently stay in contact with your prospects and customers?  With email auto-responder software.  These solutions are available for desktop installation, or can be rented as a service through many third-party providers.  Email auto-responders work by allowing you to easily set up email lists and distribution schedules.  When new subscribers sign up to receive newsletters or other information, they are automatically added to the mailing list and will begin receiving emails at the pre-determined intervals. 

Auto-responder solutions are available through a variety of vendors and service providers, including AtomPark Software, Xtreeme, and AutoResponsePlus. 

Email Marketing

No chapter on email would be complete without mention of email marketing.  Several years ago, email became the preferred method of campaign distribution because it was faster and far cheaper than hard copy direct mail.  But, anti-spam laws, which have been in effect for quite some time, have since made it difficult to market effectively using email by preventing the distribution of unsolicited bulk email.  However, many companies will rent their opt-in lists, and even handle distribution for you.  Email lists can be rented through InfoUSA, EXM Marketing, InfoCore, LIST Incorporated, and other brokers. 

I also highly recommend checking all incoming and outgoing emails by using an anti-virus solution.  You can install it on each individual computer within your company, or centralize it on your email server. 

All businesses must share information, files, and applications among multiple local and remote users.  Many companies use Microsoft Windows and peer-to-peer or client/server networks, where all applications reside on a shared server but are executed at the desktop level, to accomplish this.  However, this approach can result in high operating costs, and can put a tremendous strain on your IT resources. 

Server-based computing provides an efficient and affordable way to share technology components among your employees.  In fact, server-based computing technologies are so effective; they are currently in use at more than 90 percent of Fortune 1000 companies, according to a Forrester Research study.

With server-based computing, you set up a dedicated server to share and run all applications.  All end-user computers are then connected to the server as if they were network terminals.  All of your applications, and their related files and data, will then be fully-centralized.  Additionally, all network terminals will be 100 percent interchangeable.  As a result, you can significantly reduce your set-up and administration expenses, minimize the burden on IT staff, and decrease downtime. 

This dedicated server should be set up on a Windows, Linux, or mainframe platform.  Microsoft has terminal services already built into its Windows Server 2000 and Windows Server 2003.  Additionally, they provide a remote client for any Windows desktop.  Linux, on the other hand, offers free X-Windows server-based software, which allows any terminal to review and run any application that resides on the server.  

This concept is not new.  IBM mainframes have allowed users to leverage this type of shared application configuration from the very beginning.  But, over the last five years, a large number of free remote client software packages have become available through Open Source Community, and many commercial solutions have been developed for cross-platform integration using Windows, Linux, and AS-400. 

Let’s take a look at an example using the average small business.  It may have anywhere from 10 to 50 desktop computers, a handful of servers, and about 10 standard applications such as Microsoft Office, email, Web access and browsing, accounting, and other employee productivity tools.  There may even be a few customized or proprietary software packages designed specifically for your industry or business.  If all of them are running on Microsoft Windows, you can set up a dedicated terminal server, and use your existing PCs as terminals for network-based access. 

This type of installation typically requires a Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 Server with terminal licenses.  You can use the same Windows machines you have right now, and run free Microsoft remote desktop software to connect them to the terminal server. This configuration will be even more cost-effective if you test it on a few computers, then converting any really old computers to “dumb” network terminals using free Linux-based PSEX software.  This will allow you to recycle older computers, and drive the cost of each terminal down a few hundred dollars.  Additionally, since each terminal will only be running Linux PSEX software, they can be easily replaced – without any downtime or tech support expenses – if they break. 

More information on server-based computing and related products is available from Microsoft, Red Hat, and IBM. 

We live in a digital age, and no business can thrive or succeed without the Internet.  But, how you use the Internet is just as important.  Without an effective Internet strategy in place, the Web will be nothing more than a productivity inhibitor, and a drain on your staff and financial resources. 

All businesses need a strict, well-enforced Internet Usage Policy.  This will help you control the way your employees use the Web, and reduce your potential liability for any inappropriate actions they perpetrate using the Internet during company hours.  Make sure your policy covers not only Internet utilization, but use of email and attachments, as well as information distribution.  You can obtain a sample Internet Usage Policy at KnowledgeLeader or Free Management Library, or have your lawyer draft a customized one for you. 

With a “proxy server”, aka Internet sharing server, as the only means of Internet access for your employees, you can further avoid risk and minimize the amount of time and money wasted on non-work activities.  These servers have configurable filters that allow you to block staff members from accessing the Web for personal use.  For example, you can prevent users from viewing adult Web sites, downloading movie and music files, using instant messaging applications, playing poker and other online games, visiting chat rooms, checking stocks, and more.  You can also closely monitor Internet activity, to instantly identify any employee who may be using the Web for improper behavior.  Have your IT department provide detailed weekly reports on Internet usage, and immediately penalize anyone who is caught breaking your Internet Usage Policy.   

Proxy servers are available from many vendors, including Microsoft, Wavecrest, and Qbik.  Some of the Internet usage monitoring tools on the market today include Track4Win, Echo, Activity Monitor, and Websense. 

Because staff members will still need to download files as part of their day-to-day work, you should install an antivirus solution on these servers.  This will enable you to automatically detect and delete any infected files before they come through and wreak havoc on your systems.