Selling Products Internationally Just Got Easier

The red tape and regulations associated with exporting goods has kept many small businesses from considering international marketing. Frank Lavin, CEO and founder of Export Now, is determined to change that. He’s founded a company that will handle all the logistics and make it easy for small U.S. businesses to market their goods to hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers. Read More »

Tags: Chinese Consumers, Chinese Export, Council Staff, Department Of Commerce, Distribution Center, Exporting Goods, Frank Lavin, Innovative Thinking, International Marketing, International Trade Laws, Mega Mall, Middleman, National Security Council, Red Tape, Retail Outlet, Small Business Owner, Small Businesses, Staff Member, U S Department, Undersecretary

Why all your files should be green

I’ve worked with companies whose file folders were color-coded: Blue meant one thing and red meant another. And chances are, if your files are color-coded, your office (like most others) uses a filing system of bland corporate beige. In this blog, I’m suggesting that your files should be all green!

No, this isn’t a pre-St. Patrick’s Day prank. Green files are far better for your business in a number of ways.

When I say “green” files, I don’t mean that they are green in color. I mean that they are ecologically-friendly. When I say “green” files I’m referring to scanning your files and paperwork and storing it online instead of in those giant filing cabinets that seem to multiply like rabbits in a busy office.

Online file storage companies offer a variety of services relating to storing and sharing your files. Now, I should make a clarifying point here: Some sites tend to have a greater emphasis on sharing. Sites like Box.net and YouSendIt.com are sometimes lumped into the online file storage industry but these sites are primarily there to help you ship big files from one place to another.

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Tags: Blog, Busy Office, Disaster Proof, Electronic Filing, File Folders, Filing Cabinet, Filing Cabinets, Filing System, Paperwork, Piece Of Paper, Rabbits, Scanning, Secure Storage, St Patrick, Storage Companies, Storage Industry

Save the Planet AND Get Control of Your Incoming Mail

Every morning I collect the mail left by the postal service. There’s a ton of it and somewhere I think I can hear a rain forest weeping.

The junk mail – usually marked “to current occupant” – doesn’t even get opened. It goes into the shredder. The newsletters, fliers, newspapers, and magazines get sorted into a “likely to read” and “unlikely to read” piles for the coffee table or the recycling bin respectively. And then there’s the other mail: Bills, reminders, letters from Mom. It goes into a “must open” pile. It’s the stuff you have to read and act on. Unfortunately, even that pile can be a big stack. And once you’ve acted on it, you sometimes still need to keep it around. Bills and tax forms, for example, are things that you probably don’t want to through out. You act on them but, after that, you might need them for tax purposes or reference, so they go into a file folder. Those file folders can swell over the year. By the end of the year, you’ve got a filing cabinet drawer devoted to papers you hope you never need again but can’t throw away. Problem is, these papers need to be kept around for various bookkeeping, tax-related, or review purposes… perhaps for a few years!

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Tags: Coffee Table, Digital Image, Dr Seuss, Dr Seuss The Lorax, File Folder, File Folders, Filing Cabinet, Fliers, Incoming Mail, Junk Mail, Mail Bills, Mail Service, Mail Services, Occupant, Rain Forest, Recycling Bin, Scanning Services, Shredder, Stacks Of Paper, Tax Forms