Toshiba Phone Systems and More

Planning ahead is probably the most important thing to do with an upcoming office move. Check out this post as it relates to finding a mover. 

But when you coordinate an office move you need to think of your office technology equipment. We had a customer once call us the day before they we set to move and had just realized that they didn’t consider an office phone system in the new location. We had to scramble to get them a new pbx phone system and get in there and cable for them before they moved. They are a doctors office so their office phone system is critical to their business. We did help them but it’s not the way we like to do business.  So if your are planning an office move, here are 7 things to consider BEFORE you move.

1. Establish a realistic deadline and timeline-if your new space is new construction build in 2-4 weeks cushion into your move in date. This will give you time consider either moving your existing pbx phone system or looking at purchasing a new office phone system. There are many productivity enhancements available today that perhaps weren’t available when you bought your existing system or it wasn’t important then to do more with less. Things such as unified messaging, VoIP,  voice and data convergence and integration between a phone system and computer are all ways to work more effectively. An office move might be just the right time to consider these helpful changes.

2. Select an Experienced, Reputable Telecommunications Company-Ask vendors for references. Ask your peers who they use. Customer service and technical support as well as the experience of the telecommunications partner you pick are equalling as important as the products you purchase. Most products these days all have similar features, with the exception of the productivity enhancing tools,  so how you will be serviced during and after your move is critical. Picking a vendor who is a “partner” not just vendor can mean the difference between a smooth move or a disaster.

3. Evaluate your local, long distance and internet services-Again now is a good time to look at whether you are getting the best deal  on the appropriate services for your business. Today companies are looking to save anywhere they can, this is an area that you may not have thought about since you first got your services, but you may be over paying.

4.  Don’t forget about the voice and data cabling-whether you are moving to an existing space or building new, now is the time to consider your present and future cabling needs. Ask potential vendors to visit your new site and give you their imput on number of drops and whether now is a good time for voice and data convergence of your infrastructure.

5. Is it time to upgrade our IT equipment-the way servers and PC’s have evolved over the past few years, now might be the time to look at moving to that faster server with more memory. Make sure your vendor is talking to you about real time data backup solutions, and I don’t mean tape, you want to actually be able to restore your data should you have a disaster. The other critical item is your network security with all the new viruses and threats generated daily and all the compliancy issues a company has to deal with, ignorance is not an excuse to leave your network vulnerable. Make sure your vendor has experience and ask for a project plan to make sure you know what you’re paying for.

6. Protect your stuff-Now that you’re moving into a new office space,  you may want to keep an eye on things. Again with the “do more with less” mentality- consider installing a video surveillance system to not only watch your employees and assets but also as a deterrent to crime.

If you can find a telecommunications partner that can provide you all of the services in one place, that’s even better. It’s hard having to deal with and coordinate a large number of vendors and contractors especially if you have other duties within your company. Often the responsibilities for the office move are put on an office manager or facilities manager, finding a good communications partner that can take ownership of the technology piece of your move will take a large burden off of you and make your move a success. Don’t forget to notify your vendors and clients of your new contact information so they can find you after you move.

If you are planning an upcoming office move and would like to talk with an experienced telecommunications partner in the CT area, contact me    or give us a call 866-887-5792 so we can help you plan a successful move.

We have been working on new ways to get ourselves “found” on the web. More and more people are doing research, looking for products and services via the web. It’s not enough anymore to just have a website, you have to have a blog.  Google is still the master of the search engine, while Yahoo and Live Search are hanging in there- you need to be found by Google- do you pay someone to manage this ever-changing “mystery” of SEO. We tried that once, but it didn’t work, we spent a lot of money and got nothing. You need to be careful who you work with, there are a lot of people that profess to be SEO experts but there are scam artists out there. Video looks to be the next big thing – google likes video. I won’t do it but my partner has started to do some of his blogs in video-

Fresh content, social marketing sites, like facebook  and twitter will also help make connections, links and backlinks…all foreign to me but I have to say I’m learing a lot. It does take time to build and keep it going.

Here’s a great article on this topic from someone I follow in Twitter http://tinyurl.com/cnpnbq
If you’d like to find me: Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/5pllqb 

With the economy tightening up, small business owners have the luxury of being able to be flexible in the marketing efforts.  Larger companies can’t always be as flexible and respond as quickly to changes that need to be made. We were talking with our business coach yesterday about  this. When the environment you have been operating changes you can’t continue to do the same things and expect to achieve the same results. What’s the definition of insanity? “Do the same things over and over again expecting a different result.”  The numbers game just got a lot bigger. Is it harder to find new business? Absolutely but not impossible -you just have to be creative, respond quickly and change your thinking. I have been spending the last several days learning about social networking, trying to figure out a way to make this work. Working on SEO, partnering with other small businesses who we can forge a mutually beneficial relationship with. That means  re thinking everything we are doing on a daily basis. We are refusing to participate in this recession. One other thing you need to do is to stay POSITIVE. All the doom and gloom portrayed by the media is only adding to the worsening economy. We have new leadership but we all need to do OUR part. The  responsibility for your success lays within you. Think outside the box, be creative and innovative in your marketing efforts, test and measure, and move forward. I saw a good blog posting -  on growing your service business and it got me thinking, we are all in this together and can help each other out to more prosperous times. What are you doing differently to generate new business or hold on to your existing business?

We know social and digital marketing is the future. Our kids use Facebook and MySpace everyday and networks of thousands of “friends”- we know that search engines like Blogs and fresh content but Blogging is hard to do! We want to drive more traffic to our website.

We want to write about interesting things but… Blogging is hard to do. We are a communications technology company trying to reach the upcoming generation who are digital – social networkers and bloggers. These are becoming the decision makers.

I don’t know we might be missing a gene that this generation has for ”speaking” via text, facebook, myspace, and blogs- email is even going the way of the telephone as a means of communicating. I hope these kids will be able to talk face to face to people someone too. But I’m finding Blogging is hard to do!

How about you?