New Small Biz Contests and Competitions

Here’s our latest list of contests, competitions, and awards for growing companies, which is brought to you twice a month by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com.

Deluxe Business Makeover Sweepstakes
Enter by November 30, 2009

Deluxe will randomly award a $10,000 gift certificate from Target Commercial Interiors featuring HON furniture and a $5,000 DeluxeBucks gift certificate to use toward logo and Web site design, promotional products and additional marketing and branding solutions. Ten second-place winners will receive $500 DeluxeBucks gift certificates. More information here.

The Great TCBY Store Giveaway
Enter by: November 30, 2009

TCBY (the frozen yogurt stores) is holding a competition to give away a brand new TCBY franchise store for FREE. To enter you must:

• Create a video up to 2 minutes long indicating why you should win a TCBY store.
• Complete the application form and submit it with your video.
• Legal residents of the U.S. who are 21 and older are eligible to participate.

For more information watch the YouTube video. You can find the complete rules and the application to enter here.

New Small Biz Contests and Competitions

Here’s our latest list of contests, competitions, and awards for growing companies, which is brought to you twice a month by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com.

Deluxe Business Makeover Sweepstakes
Enter by November 30, 2009

Deluxe will randomly award a $10,000 gift certificate from Target Commercial Interiors featuring HON furniture and a $5,000 DeluxeBucks gift certificate to use toward logo and Web site design, promotional products and additional marketing and branding solutions. Ten second-place winners will receive $500 DeluxeBucks gift certificates. More information here.

The Great TCBY Store Giveaway
Enter by: November 30, 2009

TCBY (the frozen yogurt stores) is holding a competition to give away a brand new TCBY franchise store for FREE. To enter you must:

• Create a video up to 2 minutes long indicating why you should win a TCBY store.
• Complete the application form and submit it with your video.
• Legal residents of the U.S. who are 21 and older are eligible to participate.

For more information watch the YouTube video. You can find the complete rules and the application to enter here.

Dating Your Leads Marrying Your Customers: The Maturing of CRM Lite (Intuit CRM and more)

Until recently, I’ve always thought that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software was something automated, like Amazon.com’s renowned services, that help you automatically provide customers what they need the moment they needed it. This is indeed, CRM - or at least one aspect of it.

However, CRM, especially for smaller businesses are tools that help you and your staff have the most updated information about a customer, let’s call this CRM lite.

CRM lite is a close cousin to basic contact management solutions, be it Excel or Outlook.

To be considered CRM (lite), the focus is LESS on just the contact of a person (their telephone number and email address) and more on knowing their spending, their recent purchases, notes on the customer, last appointments and other things that are “customer relationship management” focused.

The most recent entrant into the CRM space is Intuit, with its release of Intuit Customer Manager.

At the outset Intuit’s Customer Manager is quite simple to use, with plenty of uncluttered white space and simple navigation buttons for actions to take. It’s not complicated, but quite basic: customer information, tasks, calendar and the ability to sync with QuickBooks in order to see the status of the financial information on each customer or company.

Dating Your Leads Marrying Your Customers: The Maturing of CRM Lite (Intuit CRM and more)

Until recently, I’ve always thought that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software was something automated, like Amazon.com’s renowned services, that help you automatically provide customers what they need the moment they needed it. This is indeed, CRM - or at least one aspect of it.

However, CRM, especially for smaller businesses are tools that help you and your staff have the most updated information about a customer, let’s call this CRM lite.

CRM lite is a close cousin to basic contact management solutions, be it Excel or Outlook.

To be considered CRM (lite), the focus is LESS on just the contact of a person (their telephone number and email address) and more on knowing their spending, their recent purchases, notes on the customer, last appointments and other things that are “customer relationship management” focused.

The most recent entrant into the CRM space is Intuit, with its release of Intuit Customer Manager.

At the outset Intuit’s Customer Manager is quite simple to use, with plenty of uncluttered white space and simple navigation buttons for actions to take. It’s not complicated, but quite basic: customer information, tasks, calendar and the ability to sync with QuickBooks in order to see the status of the financial information on each customer or company.

SideKick Data Loss: Lessons Learned For Your Business

As you may have heard, in October, SideKick users lost their data. It appears that some users have been able to recover their data, but not all the data has been able to be recovered by all users, based on what I’ve been reading.

What made this issue a bigger issue, other than the fact that SideKick is not some two-bit company, but has a sizable user base, is that SideKick is owned by Danger, which is owned by Microsoft.

This incident should be a VERY LOUD call to all of us, that although cloud computing is wonderful and does work, it is NOT perfect.

SideKick Data Loss: Lessons Learned For Your Business

As you may have heard, in October, SideKick users lost their data. It appears that some users have been able to recover their data, but not all the data has been able to be recovered by all users, based on what I’ve been reading.

What made this issue a bigger issue, other than the fact that SideKick is not some two-bit company, but has a sizable user base, is that SideKick is owned by Danger, which is owned by Microsoft.

This incident should be a VERY LOUD call to all of us, that although cloud computing is wonderful and does work, it is NOT perfect.

When Quick Collaboration Is Needed: Sharing Your Computer Screen in 30 Seconds

This post is going to be real short. In fact you should be able to read in in under 30 seconds. I don’t usually post things this short, but when something’s good. It’s good and doesn’t have to be long.

LogMeIn makers of remote control software for computers has a new tool out that enables you to share your computer screen with others. No need to download a heavy application.

Go go www.logmein.com/express. Download the applet. Give the code to someone else. They then go to the same web site, punch in the code and can start sharing the remote screen immediately.

Free. Fast. Simple.

I also have used TeamViewer for remote access, it works well. Other tools to consider are: PC Anywhere, GoToMYPC, and LapLink

When Quick Collaboration Is Needed: Sharing Your Computer Screen in 30 Seconds

This post is going to be real short. In fact you should be able to read in in under 30 seconds. I don’t usually post things this short, but when something’s good. It’s good and doesn’t have to be long.

LogMeIn makers of remote control software for computers has a new tool out that enables you to share your computer screen with others. No need to download a heavy application.

Go go www.logmein.com/express. Download the applet. Give the code to someone else. They then go to the same web site, punch in the code and can start sharing the remote screen immediately.

Free. Fast. Simple.

I also have used TeamViewer for remote access, it works well. Other tools to consider are: PC Anywhere, GoToMYPC, and LapLink

Your eBook: Beyond Books. Biz Docs Instead. Turning Consumer Tech Into Productive Business Tech.

Although eBooks are not yet as popular as iPods, as far as I can tell, they surely are getting close. On the trains of New York City I’m seeing more and more eBooks being read.

eBooks, such as Amazon.com’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook are absolutely useful for reading traditional books and magazines, however, if you have a lot of “office reading” to do, why not throw your stack of reading material onto an eBook?

For example, Nuance OmniPage software enables users to scan a document, automatically convert into a readable format and send it to an eReader, such as Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader, in one easy step. The software supports various eReader and PDF formats, according to a recent press release.

Your eBook: Beyond Books. Biz Docs Instead. Turning Consumer Tech Into Productive Business Tech.

Although eBooks are not yet as popular as iPods, as far as I can tell, they surely are getting close. On the trains of New York City I’m seeing more and more eBooks being read.

eBooks, such as Amazon.com’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook are absolutely useful for reading traditional books and magazines, however, if you have a lot of “office reading” to do, why not throw your stack of reading material onto an eBook?

For example, Nuance OmniPage software enables users to scan a document, automatically convert into a readable format and send it to an eReader, such as Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader, in one easy step. The software supports various eReader and PDF formats, according to a recent press release.