Knowing exactly what your clients and prospects are thinking is a big part of the marketing game.

Often times small business owners think they know what their customers want, but assumption is a primary tool of choice drawing these conclusions.

The best way to really know what a market thinks about something is to ask. Run the idea up the old flagpole and see what kind of response you get. The Internet is spawning a whole new set of tools that can help the smallest of businesses tap the collective wisdom, or least collective opinion, of the masses when trying to make even the simplest business decisions.

Online surveys have become a powerful tool for the small business. By asking your clients everything from how much should I charge to what's the best color for our logo you can effectively test your assumptions before you push something out to the market.

Surveys are also a great way to monitor how you are doing in the eyes of your customers. Creating simple satisfaction surveys and serving them up to each individual customer allows you to find holes in your customer service and collect comments, good and bad, from the street.

2010 is over half over. What better time than now to remember your New Years Resolutions made back in January? Were any of the below a resolution for you and are they sticking?

1. Create Better Work/Life Balance
2. Implement Time Blocking to Manage your Day
3. Keep in Touch With Clients
4. Say Goodbye to Spam
5. Sign Up for Online Banking
6. Say Hello With VOIP
7. Get Together With Web Conferencing
8. Spread the Word With Pay-Per-Click Advertising
9. Talk Right Now With Instant Messaging
10. Let Cybertary Help Contact Cybertary now!

Share with us; we love to hear from you!

Happy Labor Day to all this Monday September 6th, 2010.

We hope you enjoy a day off work spent with family and friends! Traditionally, Labor Day symbolically indicates the end of summer, but not to worry because the official end of summer isn't until Wednesday September 22nd.

Have a safe, fun holiday and relax!

It is tradition to BBQ on Labor Day; are you BBQing this year?

Are you drowning in a sea of paperwork and files 'just in case' because you're not sure what you're supposed to save and for how long? Develop a clutter-free lifstyle by following these simple tips:

Keep for Three Months

• Credit card statements
• Insurance bills
• Paycheck stubs
• Utility bills

Keep until you have Checked Against Statement

• ATM and debit receipts
• Deposit slips
• Purchase receipts (unless they apply to a warranty or tax claim, then keep with warranties or taxes)
• Utility bills

Keep for One Year

• Canceled checks (unless they apply to a tax claim)
• Check registers

Keep for Three Years

• Bank statements
• Tax returns and all related receipts

Items to Keep for a Long Term

• Insurance policies (until they go out of effect)
• Legal documents, such as adoption papers and contracts
• Military papers
• Mortgage paperwork (until three years after you move)
• Patents and copyrights
• Records relating to the cost of home or property improvements
• Warranties (until you don't have the item anymore)

Items to Keep for a Lifetime

• Automobile titles
• Inventory of home and wallet
• Life documents (birth, marriage certificates)
• Property deed
• Stock and bond certificates
• Trust papers (will, power of attorney, health care directive)

Toss Every Month

• ATM And bank-deposit slips, after you've recorded the amounts in your check register and checked them against your monthly bank statement.
• Credit-card receipts, after you've checked to make sure the item appears correctly on your monthly statement.
• Sales receipts for minor purchases, after you've satisfactorily used the item and if it has no warranty.

Toss After One Year

• Monthly bank and credit-card Statement (if you don't itemize deductions).
• Monthly or quarterly brokerage and mutual-fund statements, after you've reconciled them with your year-end summary.
• Monthly mortgage statements, as long as your year-end statement clearly shows the total amount you've paid in interest and property taxes over the course of the year.
• Phone and utility bills (as long as you don't have a home office, use your phone for business calls, or anticipate any need to prove long-term residency).
• Paycheck stubs, after you've reconciled them with your annual W-2 or 1099 forms.

Retain for Seven Years

• W-2 AND 1099 forms.
• Year-end statements from credit-card companies.
• Phone and utility bills (only if you deduct any portion for business expenses, have more than one home, or have moved within the past few years).
• Canceled checks and receipts/statements for: annual mortgage interest and property taxes, deductible business expenses, child-care bills, out-of-pocket medical costs, or any other tax-deductible expense.

Keep Indefinitely

• Your annual tax returns. Your year-end summaries from financial-services companies.
• Confirmation slips that list the purchase price of any investments you own.
• Home-improvement records.
• Receipts for major purchases. (any item whose replacement cost exceeds the deductible on your homeowners' or renters' insurance policy).
• Beneficiary designations.

Be sure to shred the documents you can now discard! How many of you can now free up some file space?

• Select and customize your newsletter template
• Learn how to import your contact list and add new contacts
• Format your content and add graphics
• Learn how to view and analyze your newsletter statistics
• Leave with a working newsletter that you can start using immediately to market to your customers
  

Last Thursday, June 10, 2010, Cybertary Roseville had a booth at the Roseville Chamber of Commerce Quarterly Mixer held at the Denio's Corporate Office.  The weather was perfect, the food was delicious, celebrity Jack Gallagher was hilarious, and the turnout was impressive.  We met a lot of new businesses as well as connected with our old friends and colleagues.

This was an especially important mixer for us because we launched a new offering we are particularly excited about - our new Hands-On e-Newsletter Workshop.  While there are other e-newsletter classes available, all of them teach you about WHY you should use an electronic newsletter as part of your marketing strategy.  Our workshop is different in that we actually SHOW you how to create one.  Attendees will bring their laptop to the workshop, and we will literally walk them through setting up the various newsletter sections.  When participants leave the class they will have an actual working newsletter that they can then start to integrate into their marketing efforts.  For many business owners, just getting a project like this started is more than half the battle. 

If you've been thinking about starting an electronic newsletter, or you just want to check out what is involved in setting one up, this is an excellent opportunity for you to do just that.  Right now there are two sessions to choose from - June 24, 2010 and July 14, 2010 from 11:30-1:00 on both days.  If you would like more information about the class, please contact us at roseville@cybertary.com or (916) 303.4550 or click here to register for one of the upcoming newsletter workshops.