It's your dollar; spend it wisely

by David Lewis

I don't know about you, but I'm not in some big company that can spend money like water and somehow use creative bookkeeping so it ends up saving me money at tax time. So, naturally, I want to stretch my hard-earned dollar to its extreme.

So, what can you do to make the most of your buck? Well, lots of things. Let's take a look.

• Office space: Physical or virtual: If you need a physical office once in a blue moon, consider renting a hotel's meeting room or space in a local business center. But if it's only virtual space you need, the Internet offers a slew of virtual offices.
• The Internet: Internet access, e-mail, and Web sites all come free, but check the fine print before you agree to use them.
• The phone/fax/cellular: Check out package deals and freebies attached to plans.
• Bartering: Make a trade; exchange your services for the products or services you need, but make sure you get the details in writing.

Office space: physical or virtual

As I've mentioned in an earlier column, I have the luxury of working from a home office. Meeting clients generally isn't an issue as most of that is done by phone or e-mail, and many of my clients aren't even in my time zone. On the odd occasion that I do need to meet a local client, I always visit their office. Fine for them, as they don't have to go anywhere; fine for me, as I don't have to clean my office. ;-)

But, what do you do if you have a meeting with important clients, and they want to come see you? My home office, though very functional, does not lend itself well to a few folks in business suits—and I doubt they will want to play Barbie with my 4-year-old daughter. So, in such a case, what would I do? Here are a few options:

Physical space

• Book a meeting room in the hotel where your clients are staying.  Most hotels have meeting rooms of various sizes although there is a cost involved. But, from a professional standpoint, you maintain an image, make it more convenient for the client, and most meetings rooms can be set up for flip charts, projectors, and coffee.
• Call a local business center. They seem to be popping up everywhere. These centers rent or lease everything you need to run your business, from receptionists to fax machines to boardrooms. And the best thing ... for a small cost, you can project a big image. Many small companies even pay a small monthly fee to office centers to use their receptionists, who route all calls, not to an internal office, but to their home office. The advantage of this is that instead of your "corporate" address being a P.O. Box in a subdivision, you can have it appear as if you are in a "high-end" address in your area's business sector.
  
  To locate one in your area, I recommend having a look in your phone book under "business services" or "business centers", or, ask your local chamber of commerce There are some national chains that provide these or similar services. Here are a few:

o Mail Boxes Etc.

o Kinko's

Virtual space

The Internet is flooded with companies that give away virtual offices for nothing. Cool ... for us anyway! Hmm, there's a business model that's doomed to die. Imagine if we ran our businesses by giving away our products or services for free? Yep, we'd be around a long, long time! Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox. :-)

In one search on the Web, I found a bunch of companies offering solutions to setting up a virtual office. These virtual offices are neat in that they offer you a central place where you can "meet" with clients on-line without having to incur the cost of traveling, plus, they are also a good way to keep in touch with distant contractors.

These virtual offices include some pretty cool services such as:

• On-line meetings
• File sharing
• On-line calendars
• Contact lists
• Chat
• Bookkeeping
• Notes
• On-line business presentations
• Web-site building and hosting

Here are some examples:

• WebEx — Provides services like on-line meeting locations and virtual offices
• vJungle – Of the two, this one is certainly the more robust. It offers not only on-line meeting places, but e-mail, on-line web design and hosting and a heck of a lot more

The Internet

Well, to follow along with the free theme, here are some other free things.

Now, as with any warning when something seems too good to be true, check the fine print, check the terms, and check what is required of you, such as  personal information or a term contract. Best to be an informed consumer.  Besides, if something is free, there almost always is a catch. :-)

Internet access

Yep, you can get free Internet access ... of course, it depends on where you are and if you have the stomach for lots of advertising or giving up personal information. Personally, I live in a rather remote area and the free stuff doesn't apply, and I get flooded with enough advertising, so this isn't a route I'd go. But when you are starting out, I can't think of a better money-saving angle.

Here are a few you can check out:

• NetZero
• Excite
• Juno
• Altavista

E-mail

Yes, there are literally hundreds of free e-mail offers—Hotmail , Altavista, and Yahoo to name a few. All are free, and all are handy in that you can check, send, and receive mail from any computer.

OneBox is particularly good because as well as free Web-based e-mail, it offers you free voice mail. You can check it from any phone, and it allows you to give out a number to clients and the public—one that won't bother you after work hours—or in the middle of your own work. The voice mail number is not toll-free, and is always located in the United States, but even with long distance rates down substantially, it may be an excellent solution for you.

Now, free is nice, but professional it isn't. Free e-mail is a good starting point, but if you want to establish a presence on-line, spend a bit and register a domain name, and utilize it and some of the available e-mail-only domain services. Look at it this way, if you received an e-mail message from ACME Bootstraps, which would you think more professional?

a) acmebtstps@yahoo.com

or

b) sales@acmebootstraps.com

Remember, image IS important, even in e-mail.

Here are a few places that offer e-mail-only domain services:

• Register.com
• Network Solutions
• Futurequest

Web sites, get your free Web sites here!

Well, you've taken the e-mail step, why not just go one more and get yourself a Web site if you don't already have one? Ah, but the cost of buying and learning Web site software is something you can't swing, or, your budget doesn't allow for hiring a Web slinger to get your shingle out there. No problem. Do it yourself and do it for free! Notice that free trend I'm going with? :-)

In yet another bold business step, there are many on-line sites that will allow you to build and host your Web site for free. With some, you get what you pay for, but several of them do offer some cool features, all for the sum of nothing. And, if you like what you get for free, most of the providers make available extra features, for a modest amount, such as e-commerce, credit card processing, and the like. It's a great way to start.

So, where do you go to get your free Web site! Try these sites:

• oBizGo – They offer a free two-page website with a friendly domain name and a mailing list manager as a start, and after that, pricing starts at $19.95US a month for the addition of more pages, e-commerce and additional features
• vJungle – Gee, what don't these guys offer? For starters, they offer e-mail, on-line web site building and hosting, file sharing, calendar, contacts, chat, bookkeeping, notes … you name it and it's there … and all free.
• BigStep – Not quite as robust in the way of offerings as vJungle, but they offer on-line web site building, an e-commerce component (for a fee), site traffic analysis, and several other marketing features

The phone/fax/cellular

Not so long ago, death-by-phone-bill was rather common. This doesn't seem to be the case these days as every company is offering extremely low rates for long distance or flat rate plans or something along those lines.  So, what can you do to get better deals? Here are a few thoughts:

• Get a package deal. If you currently have your business line with "X" company and your cellular service with "Y" company, approach either one to see if they can offer you a package deal on your services.  Chances are, because competition is so tight, your Telco may be very keen to work out a plan for you that not only saves you some money, but also saves you the headache of juggling several phone bills.
• Get free long-distance with some cellular plans. More and more cellular companies are offering free long distance with their plans. So if you do a lot of long distance calling, it may actually be less expensive to do it on your cell phone. (Warning: Cell phone calling may be hazardous to your health. I recommend buying a "hands-free" earpiece for something like $30—it's not free, but it'll keep those potentially brain-scrambling microwaves away from your sensitive little brain.)
• Check out your long distance carrier's rates. They often have packages that, for around $5 a month, give you much lower long-distance rates. They can be confusing, though, so read the plan's details carefully.
• Make sure your fax/data line isn't being charged to you as a business line. An interesting little fact ... most phone companies make available the option of paying for a data-only line. This would be used for faxing and Internet connection. My Telco has such a beast and it saves me $10 a month. :)
• Check out the rate or business-only plans. Whether you are using a cellular phone, a business line, or a dial-up Internet account, check your month-to-month usage and contact your telephone company to see if it has a better plan or package for you. I have one for $20 a month that includes one hour free long distance anywhere in North America, a discounted per minute long distance  rate, voice mail, call forwarding, and caller ID plus discounts to local calling areas.  When I figured all this out as separate things, it would have cost me an additional $10 to $15 not to mention the cost of additional long distance!

Bartering

This one is my favorite.  In the old days, if you could shoe a horse and  your neighbor could make a mean fence, well, you'd shoe his horses and he'd make your fence—and no money would change hands.  Of course, nowadays, this may fall under some taxation jurisdiction (ick), but it's still a great way to do business.

In the past, I've traded hardwood flooring for a Web site, consulting services for some firewood, design services for business cards, and if anything else comes along that fits the bill, I'll do it again.

There are a few things to keep in mind when doing a barter deal. First off, unless you totally-100%-cross-your-heart-hope-to-die trust someone, get the deal in writing. While no cash is changing hands, there is value there, so make sure things are set out clearly. For example, if you charge $50 an hour as a consultant, and you want to trade your local computer store for products, make sure you have a dollar for dollar trade and nothing is hidden, even taxes (you may want to check with your accountant on how barters are handled). You shouldn't discount your services especially if they don't.  I learned that one the hard way.

Also, keep a record of the barter if your tax situation requires it ... did I mention contacting your accountant first?

In addition to dealings with local companies, there are some "official" barter networks and exchanges that you may want to look into. Here's a sampling:

• BarterTrust
• BarterMax

One other option, if you are game, is to set your own network up among local businesses. Now, that's a whole other area of discussion, but it is something to think about!

A penny saved ...

I am a good capitalist. I like earning and spending money, but when I earn it, I want to get the most from it and I hate wasting it! So, I've used much of what I've mentioned above to wring out the most from my bucks ... now, if I could only stop the bank from nickel and diming me on every little transaction ... I'll work on that. :)

About the author

David Lewis owns and operates an eight-year-old, one-man, electronic publishing company, taybridge.communications that provides a broad range of online services.

Prior to starting his own business, David did several tours in the retail sales sector in areas ranging from food services to sporting goods.
 

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