Key Business Partners, LLC

As this year is already 1 month deep, I thought I had better get this post out there before it gets too much later.

I wanted to share my FAV list for 8 Must Have Business Tools (your own personal key business partners…hehehe) for 2008!

Paypal
- If you are seeking to find an easy, convenient and secure way to invoice clients and receive payments, paypal is the way to go. All you need to have is a valid bank account and you can set up payments for your products and services through Paypal. There is a small transaction fee when processing the fees back and forth. I believe it is about 2% on your received payments. But I personally believe it is so worth it because it is so worry free for me.

Skype – This is a internet communication system that allows you to make and receive phone calls over the internet. Oh yes, I almost forgot….for FREE! Yes, you read that right…F.R.E.E. It is so great. I have a hard time wondering how they are allowing me to call over seas for FREE but hey, I am soooo NOT complaining. It is fantastic.

Basement Ventures – This used to be called Free Teleconferencing.com however, they changed management and owners (I believe). Anyway, this company does provide teleconferencing services (again, it is FREE). You can register to have an account and within about 10 minutes you can be up and running with a call in number and pin to start a whole teleseminar series for your business. How cool is that!

WordPress – This is just one of the many blogging formats you can utilize for your business. I personally like this better because I find it to be very user friendly. (And it is also because it is the only one I have ever tried.) So the others, such as Typepad or Blogger, might be just as easy and user friendly. With a blog, you can set it up like a website (having a static home page) or have it set up like a journal (recent blog entries on home page) and the big plus to having a blog as your website format, you can be placed in the control seat with updates (or you can have your assistant do the updates for you).

Aweber- When you have an online business, you need to build a client list either by creating a newsletter or promotion products such as ecourses, teleclasses, or seminars. Aweber is an autoresponder system contributing to building a customer list for business owners. Aweber is a low cost program allowing the online business to reach customers on an ongoing basis when promoting a product, service or event. The cost for aweber is about $20/mo.

Survey Monkey – While growing your online business, it is important to gain the opinions, wants and needs of your potential clients or target market. One of the best ways to do obtain this information is by conducting surveys. Survey Monkey is a FREE services that allows online business owners to create simple surveys. It will create the html code for you to send via email or place on your website once the survey is complete. Survey Monkey also collects the results for you.

Color Cop – Have you even been on a website and really liked a certain color and wish you could have it on your site or newsletter but didn’t know the color code to use. Well, with Color Cop, you can. Color Cop is a nifty little software program that you can download and then keep it on your desktop so you have it handy when needed. Oh, yes, and this is FREE as well. Color Cop has a “eye dropper” feature you can drag and click on any page you see and find out what the color code is and then you can go (or your virtual assistant can) into the cpanel and update the color.

WE Magazine-This is the official magazine for The WECAI Network(tm). This magazine is FULL of useful resources and helpful articles for all women business owners and entrepreneurs. I am proud to be one of the Editors at Large of this fine business magazine.