SAVANTNews | May/June 2003 - For Small Business Owners ................................................................................................................................................................ 1. ECS|DC Insight Have you ever thought that as your business grows, somewhere down the line you'd like to be a Gold Sponsor at a Conference? Andrew has a different perspective on just how enriching your life can be without it. How many times have you been asked your email address but reply with apathy? You just don't check your email and you don't find it all that compelling. Research is showing a growing dependence on email and a surge in telephony exodus due to a changing business climate. Frankly, I've become email centric just out of sheer courtesy. Read the Bonus Points to test your email savvy skills. This edition is pretty lean due to summer plans, wedding plans, business plans... well, you get the picture. We've got a few new tools for you and promise to have beefy articles for your review in the next issue. BTW, we've decided to condense the summer reading months: May/June and July/August. Meanwhile, you can use the summer down time to get organized, download a few new botanical wallpapers for your PC or MAC designed by yours truly, and compile a number of reasons why you don't need that notebook computer on the beach! Thanks for subscribing!
1. ECS|DC Insight 2. SAVANTTips 3. Recommended Reading 4. Internet Surveys 5. What's New on ECSTEWART.com 6. SAVANTQuote 7. How to Get on the Mailing List 8. ECS|DC Contact Info ...................................................... Additional Issues: Main ......................................................		................................................................................................................................................................ 2. SAVANTTips Organizing from the Inside Out [entreprenuer.com] http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,47972,00.html You were bound to see this time-management monster appear sooner or later in this newsletter. However, some time-control whipping advice was developed before the digital age, thus most of it became irrelevant before home offices were the norm. We know schedules have boundaries just as messy desks do, so this article should help you tame your time before it manages to drive you crazy. Now only if I could corral the cat from swatting pens off my workspace... Great Tool: e-Mailanywhere.com http://www.e-mailanywhere.com So you want to check your e-mail on the road? If you don't want to be anchored by your laptop, what's a person to do? Well, if you're anything like us, we prefer not to close ourselves off to fun when the whole world awaits. Don't flounder with frustration, just ask the concierge if the hotel provides e-mail access to their clients. We found that some of the hippest hotels do, in fact, have a small room set aside for those of us who need to keep in touch without being incumbered. Did you catch the last newsletter regarding the relevance of domain names? e-Mailanywhere is just another great example of common-sense domain selection. ................................................................................................................................................................ 3. Recommended Reading: Andrew's Marketing Tip Don't feel obligated to be a Gold Sponsor at a Conference!! One of the great marketing money pits that developed over the past decade or so is the sponsorship at an industry event. The organizers of these events have done a masterful job of creating marketing and sales programs based on what I call the Lemming Effect. They tell you that all of the big players in your industry are sponsors and if you want to be seen as a player you need to buy in at the Gold or Platinum level. This is more hype than reality and my experience is that the ROI from these sponsorships is somewhere between miniscule and non-existent. Working hard to get speakers on panels and have key people attend and be seen can be more cost effective and less of a strain on cash flow. If you must "buy in" in order to have a speaker or demonstrate a product, choose the lowest level possible. Two days after the event ends no one you met there is going to remember or care whether you were a Platinum or Bronze sponsor. ................................................................................................................................................................ 4. Internet Surveys Professionals Prefer Typing To Talking [META Group, Inc] Hang up the phone and stop scheduling meetings — 80 percent of businesspeople prefer e-mail communication, according to a survey by META Group, Inc. "These findings reveal a major tipping point in the evolution of communications," said Matt Cain, META Group senior vice president and an expert on e-mail and collaboration strategies. "While we had suspected that e-mail was becoming more popular than the phone, we were surprised by the magnitude of the ratio of those choosing e-mail over the phone. Clearly, e-mail best suits a changing business climate characterized by geographically distributed workgroups, extreme mobility, the need for rapid information dissemination, and a desire for reusable business records." Conducted online among 387 organizations, the survey also found that nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of respondents believe being without e-mail would present more of a hardship than being without phone service. [Our Take] e-Mail equates with courtesy. When you e-mail your recipient, you're providing the breadth of time to allow reflection and civil response -sans emotion. Your question isn't anchoring them to a phone while researching the answer on the spot, nor is the technology demanding, much like the phone. Bonus point #1 Don't call your e-mailed recipient to see if they got your e-mail two minutes after you've sent it. Do call if they haven't responded within a certain timeframe; this could be varied among your clients from one day to a week. Generally, I suggest resending the note. Bonus point #2 Don't applying 'Return Receipt' to every email sent; this is overkill. Do include yourself on the BCC if a paper trail is deemed necessary; this will also determine if your server is misbehaving. Bonus point #3 Do keep and organize the emails you send via client name or project; this will provide easy access to 'resend' should the recipient accidentally delete his copy. Bonus point #4 Do save emails as text (*.txt) files and burn them with with other project files onto CD once the project is complete. Once done, this will allow you to remove them from your email application and free-up measureable amounts of hard-drive space. ................................................................................................................................................................ 5. What's New on ECSTEWART.com
			Workplace Serenity Give yourself a cleansing breath while you steal a few seconds of serenity at your humble cubicle. Download any of your favorite Spring botanicals as wallpaper for your desktop designed and photographed by Lisa Stewart. Wallpaper Downloads
		Submit Your Question and if selected, you'll be sporting a free ECS|DC t-shirt! Give us a month or two as surely the questions will overfloweth. ................................................................................................................................................................ 6. SAVANTQuote "Success is a personal responsibility." -EC Stewart, President & Creative Goddess ................................................................................................................................................................ 7. SAVANT Subscriber Tools To get plugged into SAVANTNews, send email to: subscribesavantnews@ecstewart.com To unplug from SAVANTNews, send email to: unsubsavantnews@ecstewart.com For additional questions or more information, send email to: savanteditor@ecstewart.com ................................................................................................................................................................ 8. ECS|DC Contact Info Snail: ECStewart Design & Communication PO Box 6383 Raleigh, NC 27628 Email: SAVANTNews | Editor savantnews@ecstewart.com Marketing & Consulting Inquiries | Andrew Hayden: ahayden@ecstewart.com Print & Interactive Inquiries | Lisa Stewart: lisa@ecstewart.com
		If you have any comments about this monthly feature, or have a question you'd like answered, you can write to the Editor.