Jane's mog - Business Tips
Jane's mog Index
Some of my pet economic theories
The price system is the best system for allocating resources, but it's not perfect. That's why most economies have [& need] government sectors and spending.
If you have to compete on price alone, you are probably in an overcrowded market, or missing some other opportunity to stand out from the crowd.
NEVER put all your eggs in one basket.
The whole point of jobs and businesses is to solve problems - either for customers [by filling a need] or for the business, by fixing something that's not working as well as it could. These challenges are what make work fun.
Total income less total expenditure = profit. Spending money on tax deductibles - just to avoid paying tax - is not always the best way to maximise your wealth . Make sure you have the advice of a good accountant, base major spending decisions on alternative after-tax outcomes, and spend your money wisely. Better to pay tax on a profit [and put some money in the bank] than have no tax bill 'cos you are going broke.
Choosing the right email address [©08/12/09]
My website builder's bible warned me that, eventually, some bot would pick up the email address on my website and I would be swamped by hundreds of [unsavoury] emails a day. Unfortunately, the warning was not accompanied by any constructive advice about how to deal with the problem before it happened. In fact, it reminded me a little of that line from the movie Mrs Doubtfire, where Robin Williams [in drag] explained the late Mr Doubtfire's idea of foreplay as simply shouting "brace yourself, Effie!".
Now that I have worked out what to do about the problem, you might find my solution helpful - especially if you are a dinosaur like me and you don't have the same though processes computer technology does.
When you first set up your web-hosting account, you will probably opt for a package offering a minimum of, say, up to five email addresses, the names of which you can change whenever you please.
Whatever you do, select an email address [or several] which you will use exclusively for your business cards or stationery, and never on a website. When you need to scrap your original website email address 'cos you can't stand the spam anymore, this will spare you the expense of having new cards printed, and save you the problem of trying to withdraw old cards/email addresses from circulation.
Yes, a spam filter helps, but they are not foolproof: sometimes that urgent email I've been waiting for has been found buried in the spam folder.
Get someone else to write detailed, step by step instructions for changing email addresses with your service provider, then sit down and test the instructions yourself. By getting someone else to write the instructions, you will be able to test them properly - if you write them yourself you may unconsciously do something not written down and succeed, only to find that 12 months later you have no idea what the instructions mean.
You will also need to know how to add new accounts/identities to Outlook Express [or other email package you use on your computer] so you can check emails sent to your new [website] email address.
Change the [website] email address with your hosting service as soon as the junk email starts coming in. This will spare you a great deal of frustration, time and, probably, offense. For example, you can use an infinite variety of email addresses such as info@, mailus@, writeus@, contactus@ and so on.
Next,
update every email link on your website before scrapping the old accounts/identities in Outlook Express or other email package [if necessary, using detailed instructions written by someone else and tested by you]. Add the new website email address to your Outlook Express straight away.
Always date changes to your website pages, as a matter of course.
If anyone contacts you from your website, they will automatically be using your latest [website] email address.
If anyone contacts you using the address from a business card, that will not have changed.
The only problem you may encounter [please email me if you have more advice/tips to offer] is if someone has chosen a setting which automatically "adds" email addresses to their computer's email software database. These "user friendly" automatic features tend to list contacts as "fred nerks" rather than "f.nerks@yourdomain.xxx" and so a change of email address or a mistake in the address might not be conspicuous.
You might like to get around this by adding a message to all outgoing emails that says something like "Please note that the email address on our website sometimes changes, but you can always contact us by email using the address "businesscardaddress@yourdomain.xx".
Your feedback is always welcome - please click here to email me.
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