Post on 15-May-2015
http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza
LEVERAGE FREE AND CHEAP TOOLS FOR YOUR BUSINESS Lachlan MacPherson
RUNNING A BUSINESS
Ø What are the “time sucks” in running a business?
Ø Finance / Accounting
Ø Sales
Ø Marketing
But, All very essential
XERO Ø Home grown in New Zealand
Ø Automate your accounting
Ø Bank feed connected to your account
Ø Automatic reconciling
Ø Set up recurring invoices
Ø Automated late payment reminders
Ø $50/month
Ø Compare this to a bookkeeper’s cost
Ø In the cloud
Take the pain out of accounting
http://www.xero.com/
MAILCHIMP Ø Add customers to mailing list while you sleep
Ø Schedule emails into the future
Ø Drip feed emails over time
Ø Measure your success:
Ø See email open rates
Ø Bounce backs
Ø Click through rates
Ø Track sales
Ø FREE up to 2000 emails
In a nutshell -> Find out what works for you!
http://www.mailchimp.com/
WHAT IS A BLOG? Ø Time sensitive news
Ø Dead Simple publishing
Ø Easy for people to follow and subscribe
Ø Easy to start a conversation with commenting
Ø It’s a timeline for your business.
Who has heard of WordPress?
WHAT IS WORDPRESS? Ø WordPress is an open source content management system
Ø WordPress powers 16.5% of the top 1 million websites
on the web
Ø 54.1% of the top 1 million sites that use a CMS are
powered by WordPress
Ø 22 out of 100 new domains purchased in the use
WordPress WordPress is to the web as MS Word is to Desktop Publishing
http://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/content_management/all
DO YOU LOVE YOUR WEBSITE? Ø Content hasn’t been updated in years?
Ø Maybe you don’t even have a website
Ø If you do, you pay way to much to have it updated
Ø Do you even know how successful your website it?
Ø How do you measure this success?
What do you hate most about your website?
WORDPRESS Ø Open Source
Ø CMS / Publishing Platform
Ø Schedule Blog / News posts
Ø RSS Feeds
Ø Visitor Participation, through comments
Ø Scheduling of posts
Ø Auto post to Social Media (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter)
WordPress is open source and free to use
http://www.wordpress.org and http://www.wordpress.com/
BARE MINIMUM Ø Domain Name
Ø Hosting
Ø Theme
Blue Host 1 Click WordPress install
http://wordpress.tv/2009/02/09/one-click-self-installation-
of-wordpress-with-blue-host/
WordPress is open source and free to use
http://www.bluehost.com/
WHAT IS A PLUGIN? Ø WordPress has over 13,000 free plugins!
Ø Many, Many paid solutions available.
Ø Plugins are like apps for you website.
Ø Forms, Polls – Gravity Forms $39
Ø Automated Backup – Backup Buddy $39
Ø Shopping Cart – WooCommerce $0
Ø WP Super Cache - $0
WordPress is open source and free to use
http://www.gravityforms.com/, http://www.ithemes.com/plugins/,
http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce/
WRAP UP Ø Automate you Accounting (as much as possible)
Ø Automate your marketing. Get their email and start a
conversation.
WordPress is open source and free to use
http://www.gravityforms.com/, http://www.ithemes.com/plugins/,
http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce/