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Here’s a great new offer for anyone considering upgrading their office software. If you buy Office 2007 now, you can download Office 2010 when it becomes available, through our Tech Guarantee programme. The download will be available at no extra charge but there will an additional fee if you want the DVD. You need to:
Buy from an authorised reseller
Save your sales receipt
Keep your Product Key in a safe place
Have or create a Windows Live ID (a simple, free, sign-up process)
Request your Office 2010 product by 31 October 2010.
You can find more details on the offer on the Tech Guarantee page and also sign up for an email reminder.
There’s more…
If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free 60-day trial of Office 2007 or download the free beta of Office 2010 – both are available from the Microsoft Small Business Centre download page.
Source: Microsoft Small Business
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If you’re dealing with foreign companies (and Monday’s blog implies many of you are) you might find Bing Translator useful. It’s a free online language translation service for instant automatic translation of text and web pages, translating between many languages – not just French, German, Spanish etc, but also Chinese, Finniish, Hebrew and Thai for example, plus – as a consequence of the Haitian relief efforts – Haitian Creole.
It’s very easy to use – you simply type or paste text or a webpage URL that you want to translate, select your language and click on ‘translate’ – that’s it.
And if you’re selling to foreign countries you can add the Translator Widget to your site so users can see your pages in their own language, without having to go to a separate translation site. So if you’re sourcing suppliers, selling abroad, checking out the competition, or simply curious, try it out for yourself: Bing Translator and Translator Widget.
Source: Microsoft Small Business
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Guest post from Emma Jones, Founder of Enterprise Nation, the home business website and author of ‘Spare Room Start Up – how to start a business from home’.
With home-based businesses being more likely to export than their non home-based colleagues, it can safely be said that home business owners have quite a role to play in stimulating international trade. Is it a route you want to take? Here’s how to go about it.
Expand your horizons. Increase trade.
Research carried out by Professor Colin Mason of the University of Strathclyde revealed that:
“The proportion of home-based businesses deriving more than half their sales from overseas customers – although very low (6%) – is actually greater than for other SMEs, indicating the presence of a small proportion of home-based businesses that are highly export-oriented.”
This is certainly something we see at Enterprise Nation; from the artisan who is importing Fair Trade bags from India, applying a special design, and selling them to the US, to the information publisher who is expanding his site to Sweden after spotting a gap in the market and forging local partnerships.
Follow these five steps to increase your own international sales.
Perfect your product – is yours a product that is likely to have high demand from customers overseas? Handmade and British craft products are popular, as are products and services appealing to a niche audience. If you cater to a niche audience in the UK, the likelihood is you’ll also be well received by customers overseas.
Present yourself – you have your product/service, how do you present it to potential customers? For handmade goods, consider selling on international platforms such as Etsy.com Artfire.com and Dawanda.com. If you have your own site, sign up to payment providers such as PayPal so you can accept worldwide currencies. Consider having your site displayed in the local language as research from www.lingo24.com shows you’re more likely to make sales when content on your site is translated.
Choose international suppliers – there is a support network of providers offering everything from parcel delivery to local call numbers and meeting space; companies such as Skype, parcel2go.com and Regus. Make the most of their international network to expand your own.
Strengthen links – visit countries in which your trade is increasing to meet customers and win new ones. Keeping in touch with local customers and partners is now so straightforward with online project management and meeting tools such as Dimdim (www.dimdim.com), Huddle (www.huddle.net) and Basecamp (http://basecamphq.com)
Tell your story – so others can be inspired to look overseas and achieve the same success. A good time to celebrate these stories is Global Entrepreneurship Week (www.gew.org.uk)
Without a doubt, home-based businesses are producing products and services that have global appeal. With the technology tools and applications now in place to help secure customers and partners, expect to see international trade flourish yet further!
Source: Microsoft Small Business
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Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, talks about Cloud Computing; what is it and why is it so important? Steve Ballmer gave a presentation yesterday at the University of Washington and we’ve got the video! Watch it now on the Microsoft Small Business Centre and learn more about the opportunities cloud computing offers.
Source: Microsoft Small Business
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We’re looking for a UK small business that would be interested in having a Windows 7 makeover. Qualifying criteria:
· Between 3-10, three+ year old PCs running Windows XP or Windows Vista
· No server
· A basic IT infrastructure in need of updating
· Operating in a non-IT sector
This is for a case study so you would be featured in the press and on our websites. If you’d like more information please email v-madehu@microsoft.com by Friday 5 March 2010.
Source: Microsoft Small Business
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Guest post from Emma Jones, Founder of Enterprise Nation, the home business website and author of ‘Spare Room Start Up – how to start a business from home’.
Do you have content you would like to share with an interested audience of existing and potential customers? It’s never been so easy to package your content in a stylish way, and distribute it in a cost-effective way. Enter the age of home publishing.
Technology, the great leveller
It used to be that if you wanted to publish a book, magazine, newspaper or show series, you could only do so if you had access to large (and expensive) capital equipment and a workforce of hundreds. Not any more. Web-based applications are freeing up the imagination and putting home business owners in control of how content is distributed. Here are some to get you started.
This list does not even cover publishing content for people to consume whilst on the move ie mobile applications and publishing for devices such as the iPad and Kindle – that will be covered in a future piece!
In the meantime, make the most of earning revenue from charging individual subscriptions or secure a sponsor who would like to be associated with your content and the viral way through which you’ll distribute it. Before you know it you’ll be publishing online, in print, and in audio/video, to an audience of interested readers/watchers/listeners. What a business to run from the comfort of your own home!
Source: Microsoft Small Business
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We’re very excited about the campaign we’re launching this week to raise money for Sport Relief 2010 with a virtual fundraising initiative called ‘Give with Bing.’
While Sport Relief drives fundraising by challenging people to do physical activities such as running a mile, we’re introducing the ‘Bing Search Mile,’ which gives people the ability to search using Bing and raise money for charity.
For every 10 searches made, Bing.com will donate 5p to Sport Relief 2010, enabling you, and your friends and family, to raise money just by searching with Bing until the end of March.
With the average mile taking about 10 minutes to run, in the same time, you can make up to 150 searches online - that’s 75p raised for a good cause per ‘search mile’. And while you’re at it, why not step it up a gear and aim to complete a ‘Search Mile’ each day or even a ‘Search Marathon’ over the 5 week campaign with your colleagues, friends and family?
How to get involved:
1. Visit GiveWithBing.com and download the Official Sport Relief Bing Counter. Once downloaded, the Sport Relief counter will count all the searches you do on Bing from that point on.
2. Now that you’re registered (and signed in), invite your friends, family, colleagues or classmates to join in the fundraising with you – GiveWithBing.com automatically generates an email explaining how it works for you to send them – the more people who search with you, the more money you raise. People can also register a school
3. Run your ‘search mile’ every day and watch how your searches turn into life-changing cash for charity, with every 10 searches equalling 5p for Sport Relief. You can check your progress by visiting your individual page (more info here).
So register on www.givewithbing.com, invite all your friends to join you, and start making a difference with Bing today!
Source: Microsoft Small Business
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Want to get more done in your day? Be more productive? Spend less time on paperwork and admin? Of course you do. Which is why it’s important to put the right tools in place. If you’re still using pen and paper for your accounts it really is worth investing some time in getting to know Excel so you can keep track of money in and money out. If you’re paying an agency to produce brochures for you, you could do it yourself for less cost with customisable templates in Publisher. There’s so much Office 2007 can do to help your business - listen to what other small businesses have to say about how they’re using technology to boost productivity. 
Source: Microsoft Small Business
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I’ve just come across a new website – Big Ambition that’s worth recommending to any 14-19 year-olds you know. It’s been created by e-skills uk, which works on behalf of UK employers to ensure the UK has the technology skills it needs to succeed in a global digital economy. Big Ambition’s aim is, according to its Twitter bio, is to ‘to attract teenagers towards education and careers within the IT sector’.
Teens can submit technology articles, win work experience, explore digital careers and much more. There’s an ‘Apprenticeships’ section on the site too, which includes those offered by Microsoft Partners so again, if you know of anyone who might be interested – pass it on. Apprentices will be paid £100 pw for the first 10 months, as well as gaining a huge amount of experience and expertise to help them with their future careers.
There are a few teens I know who I’ll be passing this onto…
Source: Microsoft Small Business
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Guest post from Emma Jones, Founder of Enterprise Nation, the home business website and author of ‘Spare Room Start Up – how to start a business from home’.
With many home-based businesses now growing by outsourcing and partnering as opposed to taking on staff, it’s important to have an agreement in place with new partners that allows for a smooth running and profitable partnership. Emma Jones explains how to go about it.
Making the case for a business pre-nup
Do you remember Paul McCartney going to court with estranged wife Heather Mills to battle it out for who got what? Commentators made the point that a pre-nup would have saved lots of time and money. Consider a partnership agreement as your pre-nup in business. At the outset of a relationship, all is good and you’re excited about potential but be safe; have a few things written and agreed so both parties are clear on expectations.
The following should not be taken as concrete legal advice, more of a guideline on how to draw up an agreement. An agreement only need be a single page and cover the basics:
- Scope of agreement – what is your partnership working to achieve, for example, ‘This agreement is made between Company A and Company B. The agreement is related to the generation of online advertising revenues/hosting of an event/development of a new product.’
- Respective responsibilities – set out the expectations on who does what. For example, Company A will be responsible for promotion and business development and Company B will take on technical development and client care. Also include note of how you’ll keep each other briefed, maybe through the use of an online project management tool such as Basecamp.
- Finances – what will be the split in revenue, and is this before or after costs? And who owns the intellectual property of the product/service/activity? Consider including a clause that states the agreement will be reviewed in six months so both parties can check on progress and have the right to cease the agreement if it hasn’t gone as planned.
- Be fair – agreements where both parties feel they’re receiving their fair share are likely to be longer-lasting than those where one party feels embittered. Talk about this before writing and concluding the agreement.
- Sign it! - After making effort to produce an agreement, be sure to sign it and then store it so you can access if the need arises.
When writing the clauses in your agreement, think about all the things that could go wrong and safeguard against them. It’s a practical exercise and won’t harm your newly formed business relationship but will get it off on a firm footing. If you’re looking for a template agreement, check out www.clickdocs.co.uk or www.the-legal-shop.co.uk
Wishing you a fruitful and rewarding partnership!
Source: Microsoft Small Business