Sequios Consulting based in Albury/Wodonga, specialise in business telephone systems, website design, SEO, we do things a little bit differently.

Every business is unique and so it goes without saying that the solutions every business needs are also unique. Sequios takes a holistic view of your organistaion in recommending solutions to provide advice, present your message, manage leads, increase efficiency, improve communications or even your brand awareness.

Whether its consulting to your team, working with them as an extra set of hands to deliver a project on time, IT project management services or a complete turn key solution Sequios is the technology partner you have been looking for.

No nonsense advise and straight forward solutions in an ever evolving industry, we keep abreast of the latest technologies so you don’t have to and advise which are fads and which are worthy of your time or investment.

We also offer a range of services for start-up businesses to ensure that their entire ICT needs are addressed and that their online persona matches the real world vision they have for their new venture.

Our ICT guide for start-ups is a free resource we have provided to help guide those first few steps of your new adventure in business, if you are a tradesman or in the professional services industry or any other business or organisation for that matter, we hope this guide will be of some assistance.

Business can be an exciting adventure, so if you are after a new company image, website design, social media, IT consultant, understanding what is “VoIP”, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), email marketing or just some straight up good old fashioned IT advise for your adventure.

Sequios is available to work with you on growing your business in line with your vision starting today.

Sequios ICT Consulting, Albury/Wodonga web design, VoIP specialists, business telephone systems.

Sequios is a group of young enthusiastic individuals who have grown up speaking g33k (geek) from birth with keyboards at our finger tips – technology is our life, and its in our blood.

Specialising in consulting to organisations with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) needs, by imparting our extensive technical knowledge and experience or just a set of hands.

We work with clients that have a range of understanding towards their ICT requirements, from working with CIO’s and IT managers who are seasoned veterans in the industry right through to single person businesses with little or no technical knowledge or experience.

We want our clients to feel confident in their ICT decision making process, and provide them with a service to achieve just this. Technology shouldn’t be an alien language and if it is we are here to translate and deliver your project on time and budget.

Whether your project just needs another set of hands in planning and design, or if you are looking for a complete turn key solution, Sequios is available for you.

The team at Sequios has years of experience and expertise is in the following fields

• IP Telephony, Telecommunications and VoIP
• New Media and Social Media Marketing
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• ICT Consulting
• Project Management
• Wireless Technologies
• Mobility
• Interactive Design
• Website Design
• User Interface Design
• Software and Application Development

We take efficiency very seriously and know through looking at both the internal and external processes of many organisations, technology can provide greater efficiencies and greatly reduce operating costs and increase profits.

The positive impact that technology can bring to a business is immense. An clear example of this is website design, as it allows you to directly market your business and its products and services 24 hours a day 7 days a week, plus with the use of free tools such as streaming video you can get your customers to promote your services through testimonials.

If these solutions sound what you are looking for your business, or you just need help on your own team, contact Sequios to experience our difference.

Sequios, Albury/Wodonga web design, SEO specialists, VoIP evangelists and business telephone systems consultants.

Sequios is a wholly Australian owned ICT consulting firm based on the NSW, Victorian border in the twin cities of Albury / Wodonga.

We service clients predominantly on the east coast of Australia, offering them a range of technology, communications and internet related services for both the public and private sector.

Its the perfect place to base our firm as we day trip to Sydney and Melbourne to see clients and can be back at the office to get stuck into the project with none of the city distractions or delays.

If you need assistance on your next project or a complete solution drop us a line.

Sequios provides an efficient and professional typing service.

With many years experience working within the administrative, book-keeping and secretarial industries, our staff have a high level of knowledge and understanding. This experience includes working for government organisations, private companies, typing personal memoirs, resume design, marketing and web design.

Services

• Processing hand written word documents
• Diary and appointment reminders
• Data entry into excel spreadsheets
• Creating powerpoint presentations
• Creating business forms
• Proof reading
• Mail merge and labels
• Stationery template design
• Resumes and selection criteria
• Tender and grant applications
• Invoice template design
• Project plans
• Report writing and preparation
• Flow charts and diagrams
• Image manipulation
• Meeting notes and minutes
• Bibliography

Sequios will provide accurate and high quality typing in a confidential and secure environment. Our staff can work from our local office, or within your organisation to take meeting notes if required.

We ensure a fast turn around, and will pick up and deliver completed work. Any typing work can also be mailed, emailed and faxed (see contact details below).

Charges

Word processing
Resume	$55.00
Typing, per 1,000 words	$60.00 / approx 3 x A4 pages
Letter	$15.00 / A4 page
General secretarial services	$60.00 / hr
Document Format
Digital	$3.00 / C.D.
Digital - on your media device	$1.50 / transfer
Email send	$1.50 / send
Print	$1.50 / page
Fax	$1.50 / page

All prices are exclusive of GST, effective as at 1st January 2010.

Volume discounts available on request, prior to commencement.

Contact details

Office Manager: Adele Griffiths
Email: adele@sequios.com

Website Design Wodonga

Sequios, Wodonga web design, SEO specialists, VoIP evangelists and business telephone systems consultants.

Wodonga has undergone amazing growth and development over the past decade, leaving its northern sister city, Albury, behind in most regards. Investment, development and even population growth have all been exceptional on the Victorian side of the border. But, has your business benefited from this investment, have you developed a web presence or grown your customer base?

One easy way to expose your business to a large audience of potential customers is with a dynamic and eye catching website design. Promoting your key messages to your target audience and potential customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year is easily achievable with a website that matches your real world reputation with your online presence.

The process of developing a website will both identify and exploit the value you have built in your brand by leveraging your established goodwill and well crafted search engine friendly content. Having a website will drive your message to new audiences and create new opportunities for growth and revenue for your business, bringing customers to your door from Wodonga’s surrounding districts, like Albury, Baranduda, Beechworth, Tallangatta, Corryong, Chiltern, Corowa, Rutherglen, Wangaratta, and even Shepparton.

There are a lot of benefits to having a website, both tangible and intangible, there are too many to list here, so we have written an in depth article on the subject “why I need a website design” so that you can read more about the benefits of bringing your business into the digital age.

As an example, have you ever wondered how your message will get heard when even in Wodonga, there are many other businesses providing similar products and services that you offer? In a world flooded with images and marketing, new media drives interaction with your brand and has statistically higher retention rates at a lower cost per impression than all other marketing mediums.

We offer the following services to your business to help you get online quickly and with great results ~

• Website Design Wodonga
• Copywriting Wodonga
• Website Marketing Strategy Wodonga
• Hosting Wodonga
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Wodonga
• Web Development Wodonga
• Domain Name Registration Wodonga
• Corporate Identity Wodonga
• Graphic Design Wodonga
• Logo Design Wodonga
• Business Start-up Design Packages Wodonga

If you want to take advantage of the potential opportunities taking your business online through a professional web design will bring, then Sequios is here for you to help spread your message through your new Wodonga website design.

Drop is a line and we’ll get back to you promptly.

Website Design Albury

Sequios, Albury web design, SEO specialists, VoIP evangelists and business telephone systems consultants.

Living on the border is great, we are in the centre of the major capitals surrounded by national parks and the snow fields, some of the many benefits of living in Albury/Wodonga. However, being on the border line when it comes to making a decision is not so great, especially when it involves marketing your business and your online presence.

But the sad fact is that just over 50% of Australian small businesses have a web presence. This is an alarming statistic when you really consider it, as most businesses themselves will actually use the internet to find or source products and services, yet they themselves think that their business is immune from this type of enquiry or to put it in direct dollar terms, that they are not missing opportunities from these type of enquiries.

The design of your website is critical to the success of your business. Its not just about pretty pictures, but how it looks does affect how prospective customers perceive you. And its not about fancy writing, but what content is available for your customers shows how much you value them or simply whether or not you can be found.

At Sequios we take business seriously and more importantly we take your business seriously. So whether your website needs your organisations full history, an online shopping cart, a contact page or just to be visible on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing through a structured SEO campaign, Sequios is here for you.

As with all business owners you spend a lot of time ensuring that the perception you have of your business matches your ethos, personality and even your morals to a certain degree.

But if you look for your own business online, does it match the identity you are trying to portray to your customers?

Sequios specialise in unlocking the value in your established brand and reputation and that all your hard work matches what customers see on the internet. A web site can be used to speak to your customers, inform them of your successes and why they should be apart of it.

Drive your brand and increase growth and revenue for your business in Albury with a website and bring customers to your door from all surrounding districts, like Wodonga, Thurgoona, Beechworth, Tallangatta, Howlong, Walla, Wangaratta, Shepparton, Wagga Wagga and any where people can get online, your business can go global.

If you still don’t know why you need a website, we’ve written an indepth article on the subject – why do I need a website design.

Using the latest technologies and our innovative approach to interact and capture customers and ensure they retain your brand and message, your Albury website design can attract customers 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Sequios offers the following services that will help your business reach its potential -

• Website Design Albury
• Web Development Albury
• Copywriting Albury
• Website Marketing Strategy Albury
• Hosting Albury
• Domain Name Registration Albury
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Albury
• Graphic Design Albury
• Logo Design Albury
• Corporate Identity Albury
• Business Start-up Design Packages Albury

Sequios is the perfect solution partner to help spread your message through your new Albury website design.

Drop is a line and we’ll get back to you promptly.

Sequios offer the following telephony services

• customer service – this should always come first
• telephony consulting
• business telephone systems
• wireless solutions for intra-site IP and VoIP services
• IP and digital PABX – the future technology is here today, lets use it
• services consulting – are you getting what you pay for
• full bill analysis and comparison
• project management – we can manage as little to as much of the project as you need
• for the IT department – you want to manage it all, we can make that happen

Have you heard of VoIP or other technologies that can improve your business processes or simply reduce your costs. The days of requiring a physical office are gone. You can be at work anywhere with

One key area of business planning is Information and Communications Technology or ICT, which is often insufficiently prepared for, either in considering its importance or financially in the budget.

Not all aspects of ICT as covered in this article, are required by all businesses, but it is a much better situation during your planning to leave something out consciously than to forget a critical aspect of running your business and having to backtrack.

After all you want your business to continue to move onwards and upwards.

As such we have prepared a simple checklist for businesses to use so they can make sure that key aspects of a business’s ICT requirements don’t get missed.

We will break the checklist down into the following sections –

• Physical Equipment
  • Server vs. Workstations
  • Telephone System
  • Printing and faxing
  • Networking appliances and cabling
• Software Needs and Licences
  • Understanding licensing
  • General Business Software
  • FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) alternatives
• Online or Internet Related Concerns
  • Email
  • Website design
  • Domain registration
  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
  • Intranet (internal information resources)
  • The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)
• Consumables
• Security
• Acceptable Use and Privacy Policies
• Faults and Escalation Procedures
• Ongoing Support
• Staff Skills

Physical Equipment

When starting a new business one of the greatest costs is all the equipment that is required, in the case of ICT this includes servers, workstations, printers, laptops, switches, routers, telephone system and the network cabling to connect it all together.

With most small businesses the extent of ICT planning is going down to the local electrical mega store and putting everything the salesperson tells you, you need on 24 months interest free or even to lease/rent* the equipment because the terms sound so great. Now this may work for you, but it is a rather haphazard way of planning a large and ongoing operating cost to your business.

*VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Speak to your accountant before making any purchase decisions, they will advise you on what is the best way to invest your funds. Then ALWAYS read the fine print of any rental/ lease arrangement, do not ever take what the sales person tells you on face value especially the buyout figure for equipment at the end of the period.

Take notes during your conversation and then get the crucial points in writing, attached and signed to the agreement, then get it witnessed, preferably by a manager as they are considered a legally authorised representative of the business. If the supplier won’t agree to this, ask why, there is no legitimate reason why they wouldn’t if they are reputable.

We will start off with your actual requirements

Server vs. Workstation

When designing a computing system the main things you need to consider are the tasks you require the computing system to perform or the “needs” of the system and the physical number of staff or users that will use the system.

All software programs use resources on your computing system and it makes sense to make your primary purchasing decision based on the needs of the software your staff will need to use, ensuring that the system is capable of supporting their system requirements. Below are two links to demonstrate the system requirements for Integrated Productivity Software solutions so you know what to look for.

System Requirements for OpenOffice.org 3

System Requirements for Microsoft Office 2007

Now once you have determined all the software that will be used, how many staff will be using this software?

Once you have more than about three staff resource sharing becomes an excellent way to reduce costs and centralise information sources, providing the benefits listed below. If you decide on a centralised system then you should set aside a significant portion of your ICT budget to the specification of the server(s) rather than individual workstations, as it will be the backbone of your computing network. If you have sufficient resources in your budget, it is a good idea to look at improving the system memory and hard disk capacity (use RAID5 for hard drive redundancy).

Centralised Server Benefits
• centralised storage of business information
• easier backup of data
• share standard business documents and forms
• document version control
• email server – record all company electronic correspondence
• run server based applications that are shared by all users
• teleworking, remote sales staff and branch office access

Telephone System

A telephone system can be the life blood of your new enterprise, taking incoming enquiries for your products and services and making calls to follow up on opportunities, so it is a “mission critical” part of your success. Yet little thought is given to the system as an independent device to the service being provided, in most circumstances telephone systems are sold as part of a bundle with services for an extended period, sometimes as long as five years.

When looking just at the telephone system, a five year agreement with a vendor is quite practical and industry practice, with the vendor providing agreed maintenance and support during that period. However, call costs set for five years with a single provider is not as practical, nor is it in line with the reduction in call costs due to the introduction of new IP based telephony, VoIP services and greater competition within the sector.

Telephone services should always be considered independently from the telephone system.

This doesn’t mean that a vendor’s services are not valuable but they should always be analysed on their own merits.

What do you need the phone system to do?

Every business is different and the way they use their telephone system can vary completely, does your business need bells and whistles or a system that simply makes and receives calls?

The following is a list of typical features that a modern telephone system will have, which of these do you actually need to carry out your daily business and which are just nice features that are more want than need.

• auto-attendant – a recorded message that instructs callers how to reach a department or person they are looking for
• voice mail / unified messaging (voicemail in your email inbox)
• conferencing
• music-on-hold
• intra-site calls (e.g. between branch offices)
• call-barring / filtering
• electronic facsimile send/receive
• call logging / audit / boundaries

Consider the ability to upgrade your telephone system during its lifetime, does it have the ability to connect additional key stations and how many before it reaches capacity and requires a major upgrade or complete replacement. You as a business owner need to plan for where you see your business in five years and this will be done for most other aspects of a business including staffing and facilities management, but critical part of that growth is the systems you use. Make sure when you qualify suppliers that they are interested in your businesses goals and aspirations.

Printing and Faxing

Printers are quite simple to share within a Local Area Network (LAN) either by directly connecting the printer to a workstation. However, it is recommended where ever possible that the printer has its own network connection, either via an installed network card or a dedicated print server.

In most small businesses it makes sense to have two printer appliances, a black and white laser for general everyday printing and a higher quality colour laser for presentations, proposals, tender responses and other marketing collateral. It is also useful to consider the paper quality, size and availability of dedicated printer trays for letter head stationary and envelopes to improve your efficiency as part of this appraisal process.

But as we are discussing start-up businesses, a combination or all-in-one printer/fax/copier /scanner may be perfect for your everyday business printing and faxing requirements and with the lowering in costs in these commodity products over the past few years, even a small investment can provide your business with an excellent quality device. Outsourcing your colour or marketing printing to a professional printer will also reduce the higher capital cost during start-up.

Other points to consider are the cost of replacement cartridges and other consumables when determining the total cost of ownership.

Fax Servers are a good investment that can reduce your paper requirements and integrate into your email to allow receipt of faxes in your inbox and even to send faxes from your desktop. Make sure you check the ongoing licensing costs of these appliances as they can vary from vendor to vendor.

Networking appliances and cabling

How will your business operate from day to day, who will sit at which desk and what do staff need to carry out their roll, how does it all fit together (e.g. workstations, servers, printers, network equipment, fax and photocopier). This physical jigsaw needs to be determined before any cables or network can be designed, let alone installed. So get out your pad and pencil and do a quick sketch of the office layout. Mark where you need desks, power points, phones and other appliances as a quick visual reference, this will also help determine where any structured cabling needs to run.

A combination of fixed networking and wireless may be perfect for your business, but you need to ensure the vendor you choose understands the limitations of such networks and the security implications of wireless.

Software Needs and Licences

Every business needs software, whether its the pre-installed applications that come with your computer or from the acquisition of specific software that you want installed to carry out your business.

This brings is to a key point, all software will have some form of license, and this will affect your business and the use of that software.

Understanding licensing

Software licensing comes in many forms, from single user, to server based licenses, FOSS (see below) and Creative Commons. Licensing can be a nightmare and also costly for businesses if not managed correctly.

A common breach of End User License Agreements (EULA) is using personal versions of software for commercial use or sharing copies with more devices than the license allows.

Do not be tempted to “borrow” a copy of software from a friend or download it from a torrent site. In your business if you can’t afford software licenses, look for an alternative solution until you can.

Generally software licences cover the single computer they are installed on with a single user EULA, and the licence will also clearly state whether it is for personal of commercial use. If you stick to the terms of the licence you should have an unhindered and pleasant experience using the particular software.

You may be able to save considerable capital outlay by purchasing server based versions of required software, rather than individual versions, as you may receive a group or bundle discount.

General Business Software

Every business has fundamental needs to carry on its operations and as such will need some form of Productivity Solution, whether MS Office or a FOSS alternative (see below). These are critical for every business we have ever come across for a number of basic reasons

• Write proposals, tenders and or other legal documents
• Developing collateral and other marketing materials to promote your business
• Record transactions between your business and customers
• Customers/Vendors will send you documents in these formats, you need to be able to open them

Most computing systems come with a Productivity Suite preloaded or at least a trial of one, it is quite straight forward process to purchase the licence and continue using the pre-installed software and this is perfectly adequate for most businesses.

The only time we would recommend not using MS Office is if your budget cannot support it. As a proponent of FOSS this may be a strange position, but at the end of the day you are running a business to be successful in however you measure that success. And the one common software tool to most businesses is MS Office.

We have been through the pain of trying to open documents from suppliers that have macros (small embedded programs) in them that will not run in OpenOffice or having developed documents in OpenOffice that would not open in MS Office and spent hours re-writing them.

In your start-up you may have the time and not the capital to resolve these small issues, but they can add up and the efficiency your business will get by just using the same product as everyone else cannot be underestimated – your time is money.

Now that being said OpenOffice is a perfectly adequate solution if you are just using its basic word processing, spreadsheet and publication features as these will not incur the compatibility issues of complex documents.

Once you have established these basic solutions within your start-up business there may be other industry specific software required. And we always recommend that you get referrals from other users, even ask for their contact details so you can have a chat. If the vendor knows what they are doing this should be straight forward.

The better the tools you have at your disposal are, regardless of industry or organisation, the easier and more productive your job will be. After all the whole point behind business software is to improve the speed, quality and efficiency of that business.

FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) alternatives

As we have just discussed software licensing can be a complex subject. Now we will look at Free and Open Source Software and what this entails.

Typically, it has very liberal licensing to grant users the right to study, change, and improve its design by making the source code available to developers. This model has become a commercial reality with many successful applications being developed and in use by millions of users.

The term “free” can cause some confusion to people not within the development community. In FOSS, free refers to the freedom to copy and re-use the software, rather than referring to the Recommended Retail Price (RRP) of the software.

An example of FOSS is OpenOffice which is the strongest competitor to MS Office’s suite of Productivity Solutions. It has an equivalent to the most popular MS Office Applications and can even read and edit files in MS Office format. It started development over 20 years ago and is a well supported and mature software application.

With studies showing that it is easier and cheaper to move to OpenOffice.org 3 from MS Office than to upgrade to MS Office 2007.

The following is a list of the equivalent software in Open Office.org 3 and MS Office.

• Word Processor ~ Writer – MS Word
• Spreadsheet ~ Calc – MS Excel
• Presentation ~ Impress – MS Powerpoint
• Art ~ Draw – MS Paint
• Database ~ Base – MS Access

For start-up businesses this provides an extremely tempting option to implement FOSS as a straight up replacement for other Commercially Licenced software.

We at Sequios think this is great, but we also recommend to proceed with caution, make sure you research the product well before rolling it out within your organisation. This is because we try and use many FOSS solutions ourselves, for example this website is designed on WordPress blogging software, the most widely used blogging application in the world with countless millions of users.

We think its great because we have been able to modify the code for our own uses and now use it as a website Content Management System. We can add any number of the thousands of user contributed plug-ins to provide functionality that if we were to develop from scratch would cost our customers a great deal more in development time.

However, we have also found some solutions that don’t meet our expectations or are built and supported to a level that would mean they can be confidently rolled out in a commercial environment.

Rather than name and shame here is a list of software that we have used internally and also for clients, after our own benchmarking and internal testing we have implemented a number of these solutions successfully for clients with rave reviews.

• WordPress – Blogging and Content Management System
• OpenOffice.org 3 – Productivity Suite
• SugarCRM – Commercial Open Source Customer Relationship Management
• LimeSurvey – Web Based Survey Building, Management and Reporting Tool
• Vyatta – Router, Firewall, VPN, Intrusion Prevention, and WAN Load Balancing services

With just this simple list of tools most start-up businesses can carry on traditional business processes and functions. The only caveat to this is we are yet to find an adequate and compliant bookkeeping solution, we haven’t found a way to replace a good accountant, yet…

FOSS is definitely here to stay and with the strengths of its peer-to-peer development model and rapid commercial adoption it won’t be long until you are using a FOSS solution to run your business without even knowing it.

Online or Internet Related Concerns

Email

Website design

Next on the agenda is telling the world who you are and what you do and for that you will need a website, websites are no longer an extravagance but a necessity in modern business. We have written a previous article on this that covers the reasons for a website design in greater detail.

Domain registration

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Once you have promoted your products and services to prospective customers, it is invaluable to record all interaction with them so that you can retain as much pertinent information about them to build trust and make them a happy repeat customer. This is where an integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution is needed.

CRM allows you to manage your customers contact details right through to recording conversations, organising meetings and follow ups so that hot opportunities don’t go cold. The saying goes – strike while the iron is hot and as a start-up it is important that you make the most of every opportunity. CRM will also assist you in building sales pipelines so you can measure performance and set benchmarks for sales based on activity.

Intranet (internal information resources)

The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)

This section of the document applies to the Commonwealth of Australia and the resources and links provided here are only relevant for businesses and start-ups operating or intending to operate within an Australian state or territory.

Resources for your business to make sure you comply
Privacy Laws for your State or Territory

Consumables

Security

Acceptable Use and Privacy Policies

It is important that your business consider the use of electronic resources and the handling of confidential data about your business and its customers. As such legal advice should be sought, but as with most small businesses reducing start up costs is essential and so we have collected a number of free online templates that can be modified for your business and its needs until you can afford to get a lawyer to write you one.

A point to consider is that lawyers also use templates to write these standard business documents so, make sure you are getting what you paid for if you use the services of a lawyer and that the document is written specifically for your business and what you do. If you are unsure ask them where they get the basis for the document from and ask for a copy of the original template.

Employee Acceptable Use Policy Template by Electronic Frontiers Australia
Website Privacy Policy Template provided by Tasmanian Partnership of Advanced Computing (TPAC)
Other Human Resources related ICT policies

Faults and Escalation Procedures

Ongoing Support

Staff Skills

Q – My business is only small, why do I need a website design?
A – The shortest answer is this – If you don’t have a website, you are losing business to companies that do.

Why not try doing some basic research and type in your business name into a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing and see what results you get. You may see your name in an online business directory or other business service listing and think that at least you know customers can find you by direct association.

That is true, but what other names come up along with yours in these directories?

Your competitors…

This gives prospect the choice to go somewhere else for your product or service.

Now if you consider what if they didn’t even know your name, try doing a search based on your location and industry using terms that would generally describe what you do, e.g. Albury handyman – now what comes up, if you don’t have a website design then you can safely say that your competitors will.

The point of this exercise is to show you how prospective customers perceive your business and the reputation your business has built up is not directly transferred to the web. This is because the web in all of its glory is emotionless; it isn’t driven by the goodwill you have built up over many years of dedicated and tireless service to your customers, but upon content.

A common term used within the media regarding the success of a particular venture is that “content is king” and this applies to print, radio and television. This term also now applies as a rule to website design in allowing prospective customers to find a particular business online, and that is “well written, relevant content is king”.

The internet is seen now as “new media” where even a one man small business website design can have just as much impact as a multi-national company’s website. This is because the playing field is level; you can have access to the same tools that they use to reach your customers or more importantly for you to reach theirs.

At this point we might take the opportunity to describe what good website design is not.

Considered and thoughtful website design is not about just looking good; or style over substance. Website design is not for impressing your mates, your family or even grandstanding to your peers.

But, it is a great tool for attracting customers and your website design can be your online interactive brochure to promote your products and services to a specific audience or the entire world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year – no other form of promotion or marketing can do this.

Taking this line of thought and seeing website design has the same basic requirements as a brochure; it becomes easier to understand the reason for having a website design in the first place and what information needs to be included.

In the same way as a printed brochure you can use website design to generate awareness of your products and services, provide communication between yourself and your customers, and improve your competitive advantage within your industry or profession.

“But my business doesn’t even use brochures so why would we need a website design; our main marketing is by word of mouth from other happy customers.”

In the modern computer age, generally anyone that has access to a computer uses it to find out information, and even if a customer has been recommended to use your business they still may want to check you out for themselves.

Having a professional website design will only strengthen your credibility and turn that prospect into another happy customer.

The last point to consider is what not having a website design says about your business and the easiest way to demonstrate this is to provide an example.

You are a handyman that never uses a computer and none of your services are for sale or even could be sold online, so why should you have a website design.

The simple answer is – that’s where your customers are.

The customers of a handyman are by definition, people that are time poor or lack the skills or ability to perform tasks around their home. They generally have the disposable income to pay for these jobs to be done by someone else and they personally work in an office or professional environment.

“So what, I already knew that…”

Have you considered that those same potential customers are sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day and that the first place most of them turn is the internet to research information about products and services they need. Having a website design is not a luxury or extravagant purchase for a business, but shows to your target customers that you understand their needs and how they look for information during their hectic schedules.

Having a website design won’t ever replace your hard work or great customer service, but it will make you available to customers that word of mouth can’t reach.

Website design is a crucial part of any businesses marketing and promotional strategy; make sure you treat it as such.

Don’t let opportunities slip through your fingers by managing your customers, leads and opportunities efficiently and collaboratively.

No more lost phone numbers, one place to look for all your customers details, even map them online so you can see them graphically or access them from your mobile phone or laptop to optimise your out of office time.

CRM will simplify the following functions in your organisation –

• Sales force automation
• Customer support & service
• Marketing automation
• Inventory management
• Activity management
• Security management
• Calendaring
• E-mail integration

To see how CRM can help your business stay on track and monitor its progress, contact sequios today.