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May 2015
In this issue. . .
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Letter from the President |
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11 Ways to Generate Word-of-Mouth About Your
Business |
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Start Here with Windows 10 |
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Create your email signature in Outlook 2013 |
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Lunch & Learn |
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Business Continuity Tip |
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Cartoon & Quote |
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Reserve the Date and
Have Lunch
on Us!
Different Type of
Business Entities
Wed.,
June 10, 2015 11AM-1PM
Jan Stockton,
CPA of Stockton & Associates, P.C. will be
presenting what the various types of
business entities choices there are (ie,
sole proprietor, LLC, Partnership, S Corp
and C Corp) and what the effects are both
legally and tax-wise.ntering
numbers, text and formulas.
To
register by Monday June 8th, click on this
link:
June Lunch and Learn
Using MS Outlook
Wed., July 8, 2015 11AM-1PM
Gary
Dunsworth, Engineering Services Manager of
CCSI will be presenting tips for working
with Outlook. Some things he will cover is,
searching in Outlook, creating an
appointment or meeting from an email. Create
quick steps for creating template emails
Message options and Rules in Outlook.
To register by
Monday July 6th, click on this link:
July Lunch and Learn
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Business
Continuity Tip
9 Ways to Prepare for Spring Weather
It's important to prepare before a big storm hits. And while the importance of
heeding this advice is always in good fashion, it couldn't be more true during
springtime. Here's why.
Unlike the arctic storms of winter, or hurricanes of summer, the severe weather
that manifests during spring, such as flooding and tornadoes, are some of the
most unpredictable weather disasters that occur. Often, these events only offer
a few moments notice before they strike, leaving those who are unprepared at
serious risk.
Head into the spring season with confidence by downloading Agility's whitepaper
containing the
9 Ways to Prepare for Severe Spring Weather. You'll learn: How to ensure
you have proper insurance, how to ready your office for spring weather, key
things to consider as spring weather approaches, and more!
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If there is anything that a man can do well,
I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
- Abraham
Lincoln
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Laugh a Little
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Letter from the President
I was talking with a recent college graduate who
I was training on some Microsoft Excel skills and
she said that all of the way through high school and
college she never received any training in Word,
Excel, Powerpoint, etc. She said that it was very
common for other students to struggle with their
assignments, or produce inferior work because they
did not have the basic skills needed to produce a
document.
How often do you think that happens
in your place for business? How important is
training to your people and your organization?
Proper training and keeping your employees skills
sharp not only benefit the quality of work produced,
but it lets your employees know that you are willing
to invest in them and help them be better at what
they do.
A recent article by
Brian Benton of Line/Shape/Space gave a list of
six reasons to train your employees:
- Untrained Employees =
Unhappy Employees. Employees who
feel inadequate, underachieving, or unsupported
are unhappy. They aren't satisfied in their
work, which will cause them to underperform,
make mistakes, and not care about their work
product. That costs the business in lost time
and money.
- Untrained Workers
Have a Low Production Value. The
quality of their work is lower and of less
value. The quality in performance is lower than
it could (or should) be.
- Untrained Workers Are
Inefficient. More time (and
therefore money) and effort is spent when
employees aren't fully or properly trained to
perform their tasks or to fulfill their
responsibilities. It takes them longer to do the
work.
- Lost Time/Money Due
to Mistakes. When an untrained
worker makes a mistake, the time and materials
used are lost. The work then has to be done
again. Or worse, the inadequate product was
delivered to the client.
- An Increase in
Miscellaneous Expenses. These
are more difficult to track or attribute to
untrained workers, but they are there. Creating
a CAD drawing incorrectly means reprinting the
file. That means it takes more time to fix the
mistake, more materials cost in paper and ink,
and more time rechecking the work. If it were
done correctly the first time, these costs
wouldn't be there.
- Lost Customers.
Untrained employees can cause many of the
mistakes listed above, and those mistakes and
inefficiencies can cause your business to lose
customers. That is the worst possible scenario,
but it can happen.
Please let us know if we can help your employees
find training classes. We partner with several great
training operations here in the Portland area.
Scott Huotari, President
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11 Ways to Generate Word-of-Mouth
About Your Business
used with permission
from SBA.gov
by Rieva Lesonsky
 In a recent study by Infusionsoft, SMBs far and away
said "word of mouth" was their most effective marketing tool.
Sixty-two percent cited word-of-mouth as their best marketing
tactic -- nearly twice as effective as the email, the second-rated
tactic (34 percent).
How can you boost word-of-mouth marketing for your small
business? Try these 11 ideas.
1. Set goals for word-of-mouth. Just as
with any other type of marketing tactic, vague goals like "getting
everyone to talk about us" are too nebulous to be useful. Create
measurable goals, such as getting X number of new customers
through referrals per month, obtaining press coverage in three
places per month or generating X number of leads per month via
word-of-mouth marketing.
2. Create a system for generating referrals.
Offering bonuses, freebies or discounts to customers who give
you referrals to other customers is a good way to encourage
the practice. (Read more in my blog post about generating referrals.)
Read more |
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Start Here with Windows 10
used with permission
from Microsoft for Work
 Windows 10 is the productivity software that individuals
and corporations have been asking for. It has been built collaboratively
with customers, and embraces its history while learning from
the past to create something that's both functional and familiar.
With this combination, Windows 10 is the operating system that
takes us from the modern day into the future.
The different facets of Windows 10 fall into three categories:
what's back, what's familiar, and what's new.
What's back?
The Start menu is back -- and it features some of the coolest,
most useful improvements. Rather than just bringing the Start
menu back, we revisited the idea and also made it more functional.
Read more |
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Create your email signature
in Outlook 2013
 Your email signature can provide helpful information (your
name, company, contact details, and sometimes more) to recipients.
You can quickly and easily set up multiple automatic email signatures
in Outlook 2013!
To create a new email signature
- Click the File tab at the top of your
email.
Read more |
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