The Cheap Revolution

Elance vs Odesk: Choosing the Best Outsourcing Site for Your Business

Running a business is no easy task, especially when you’re just starting out. There’s much to do and since many business owners are new to a lot of the daily tasks, it can become very time consuming. In the past, this used to mean either working 80-90 hours a week (at least in the first several months of being in business), or spending a large percentage of your budget hiring employees to do some of these things.

These days, the world is changing. With the rise of the internet and the global marketplace also comes the ability to hire workers from virtually anywhere in the planet to complete tasks that don’t require the worker to be in the same city (or country) as the employer. Some of the popular tasks that a businessperson can outsource include:

• Market Research

• Data Entry

• Administrative Assisting

• Internet Research

• Content Creation

• Computer Programming

• Website Development & Maintenance

• Marketing

• Call Center Customer Sales/Service

• Video Creation

• Advertising

• Accounting

• Legal Services

• ...and any more!

The advantages to outsourcing are many. Hiring contract workers means not having to deal with the headaches of maintaining a regular employee such as doing payroll, paying taxes, benefits, etc. An outsourced worker can be hired often at a more affordable rate and can be paid either hourly or for a specific task to be completed.

Picking the Right Freelancer Website

The internet is full of sites that offer business owners the ability to hire outsourced workers. The challenge is that many of them are unreliable and produce lower quality workers. A business owner looking for the lowest price may find themselves often frustrated by sub-par work and having to waste more time getting the work re-done by someone else. To avoid these pitfalls, it’s recommended that you use a reputable outsourcing site that protects both the buyer (that’s you) and the service provider (that’s the freelancer). Our top request from our "Finding the best freelancers: Odesk vs. Elance vs. GetaFreelance vs vWorker" is to compare Elance & Odesk, two of the most popular and well-respected outsourcing sites. We've utilized both and have put together this post to help you navigate their differences. 

Elance at a Glance

Founded in 1998, Elance is one of the pioneers in the outsourcing business. Currently there are over 250,000 providers in varying categories offering their services through this site. To date, upwards of $300 million in total billings have changed hands through Elance, making it among the most trusted outsourcing sites on the web.

How Elance Works

Elance is set up with the goal of finding the right balance between protecting both the buyer and provider. Toward that end, the site has some unique terms and conditions that are not seen anywhere else (that we know of) in the marketplace. First of all, the provider is limited in the amount of jobs he/she is allowed to bid on. Upon creating an account, the provider must pay Elance monthly in order to bid on projects.

The lowest monthly fee is $10 and it can go up to several hundred, depending upon if the provider is a one person operation that only wants to bid on a smaller number of jobs per month up to a major firm that hopes to land thousands of jobs monthly. The effect of this monthly fee is that providers are forced to be more selective and are more likely to bid only on jobs where their pricing is competitive and they are confident they can perform the job satisfactorily.

Buyers undergo a certain level of screening as well. Upon registration, a buyer must pay a $10 fee before posting a project. Buyers must also verify they have a valid credit card to insure they are actually going to pay. When it comes to payment, Elance has an escrow system where money can be deposited and released to the provider upon satisfactory completion of the job. Buyers can choose not to pay through escrow, but if you go that route, don’t be surprised if you get far fewer bids for your projects.

For hourly projects, Elance has a ‘Work View’ system that allows buyers to get screenshots of a provider’s desktop while working on their project in order to ensure that they are actually using their time to work on your project and not off surfing the net doing personal stuff. The ‘Work View’ system also protects providers in the case of a dispute as it can offer proof that they have indeed put in the work they were assigned to do.

Odesk at a Glance

Odesk has been around since 2004 and has rapidly grown into one of the premier outsourcing sites on the Web. Since its founding, Odesk has had upwards of $200 million in total billings with a present work force of around 700,000 providers. This is nearly 3 times the number of providers on Elance, the reason being that Odesk does not charge a monthly fee to providers, which attracts more of them.

How Odesk Works

The Odesk interface is similar to Elance and is relatively user-friendly, allowing you to search for providers based on category, skill level, feedback scores, geographic location, and price range, and several others. Odesk also pioneered the time-recording screenshot system for ‘pay by hour’ workers, making it a very popular site for those looking to hire freelancers on an hourly basis. The big difference from Odesk to Elance is that providers on Odesk are not required to pay a monthly fee to bid on projects, and buyers are not required to pay a fee to open an account. There is also no escrow system for ‘pay by job’ projects.

Let’s look at how Elance and Odesk compare:

                                                                                              Elance                                Odesk           

 

Who’s the Best?

Both Elance and Odesk have their strengths. Each of them has many satisfied buyers and providers. With both services, you can tailor your provider searches based on a number of criteria, and both have skill tests for providers to prove they have the qualifications they are claiming to have.

Though you can find good quality workers from both sites, Elance's difference is the monthly fee providers have to pay weeds out most of the scammers and forces providers to be much more careful about the jobs they will bid on. One word of caution when hiring from Elance; make sure your job description is crystal clear. Remember, providers have to be very choosy on the jobs they go after, so if you are too vague in your posting, you may find yourself getting little or no response.

The major strength for Odesk is the ‘pay by the hour’ projects, though Elance now has the same feature. Still, hiring a ‘pay by the hour’ worker at Odesk will lessen the chances of getting an unqualified individual, because they know the time they spend working will be recorded. This helps level the playing field in terms of quality of workers between the two sites.

Related post: Finding the best freelancers: Odesk vs. Elance vs. GetaFreelance vs vWorker.

Note: This Elance and Odesk review contains affiliate links which may provide the CheapRevolution.com with  compensation.  If you find this blog helpful, please patronize our advertisers using the links you find on the site.  

Review of Hubspot's Inbound Marketing System – An Entrepreneur’s Perspective

A brief history of Hubspot

After meeting at MIT in 2006, Hubspot’s founders created a digital search marketing platform designed to leverage the disruptive effects of the Internet to enable businesses to “get found”.  Just five years later, Hubspot.com ranks as a top 1000 Web Site globally and is in the top 350 most trafficked sites in the US per Alexa. 

I started using Hubspot a few years ago as part of my digital marketing business.  After watching a demo of the tool's capabilities, we decided to try using Hubspot within our company.  We quickly introduced it to some of our entrepreneurial clients as well.   I don't use Hubspot in my Philadelphia marketing consulting business today.  I'll explain why later, but first... 

Our Hubspot Review

In this review of the Hubspot platform, we explore what Hubspot does and how a startup or small business may benefit from using their software.

Hubspot’s message is all about Inbound marketing, a term Hubspot has rallied into a brand phrase.  What does Inbound Marketing do?   It allows you to turn your Website into a lead generation tool for customers.

What is HubSpot?

When I started using Hubspot, the central tools revolved around on-site organic search optimization.   The tool would help you discover a dynamic list of keywords that you could attempt to capture with your site optimization efforts.   You were able to track your competition's performance on those keywords as well, providing valuable insight into how their website's were positioned.   Coupled with the website evaluation tools, you were able to quickly optimize a site for organic search traffic.

The Hubspot platform seeks to take the realm of organic search and digital marketing out of the hands of the Internet marketing insider and put it into the hands of the entrepreneur or small business owner.  It has numerous marketing tools and tricks that allow a business owner to:

• Optimize keyword content on blog posts
• Track visitors and user engagement
• Analyze social media feeds
• Create and manage email marketing
• Nurture web leads
• View reports that measure the effectiveness of your marketing

Hubspot also supports their platform with a variety of training and advice.  They have webinars, downloadable white papers, community forums and conferences that support the Inbound Marketing experience. 

Indeed, you can tell Hubspot eats their own dog food. They offer free eBooks to their customer base on how to improve their marketing initiatives as a way to capture leads. A few worth nothing are:

• The Ultimate How-to Marketing Guide 
• Twitter for Business 
• How to Monitor Your Social Media Presence in 10 Minutes a Day
• 100 Awesome Marketing Stats, Charts, and Graphs 
• 101 Awesome Marketing Quotes

How HubSpot Works

Hubspot provides six categories of marketing software capabilities:

1. Search Optimization – Hubspot’s first priority is to get your business found in search engines.  Helping your business to optimize its digital presence for the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing is where Hubspot got started.  When I used Hubspot, I was impressed with the ocean of keyword data that I could sort through.   Hubspot helps you with finding the best keywords for your business, prioritize them and use them effectively on your Web site.  
2. Blogging & Social Media – Social and Search work closely together today with personalized searching that draws on  the rapid growth of people’s social networks. Hubspot provides the tools for integrating blogging and social media monitoring, as well as  analytics  for both, into  your marketing efforts.  
   OTHER OPTIONS: If blogging is a central part of your digital strategy, bloggers may want to consider the popular Wordpress blogging platform.  While it’s nice to have everything in one place with Hubspot, the number of plug-ins and the broad community support make tools like Wordpress a must-have tool for serious blogging strategy.
3. Lead Generation and
4. Lead Management  - These two categories fall into the realm of the digital marketers' secret weapon of conversion optimization.   If you are serious about getting quality business leads from your website and social media presence, you must pay attention to where visitors are landing when they come to your site.  Application of best practices can dramatically improve your number of leads! Hubspot tools allow non-technical business owners to optimize the “Landing Pages” and to track exactly what people did when they visited your site.   Before you call the lead back, wouldn’t it be nice to know which pages they read, which videos they viewed or which whitepapers they downloaded.  Hubspot tells you all of that and more, making it a powerful lead nurturing platform.
5. Email & Automation  - like blogging, if you are looking for a “one stop shop” then you may want to consider Hubspot.  However, the areas of Email Marketing and Lead Nurturing have really matured in the past few years and, depending on your needs,  you might be better served by email marketing alternatives like Constant Contact, iContact or Mailchimp.   Lead Nurturing giants like Eloqua, Marketo, and Pardot are worth considering as well.
6. Marketing Analytics – Hubspot’s analytics are organized and focused on driving sales for your business.  Understanding ROI by marketing activities and channels, running comparison tests (A/B analysis) and which channels get the best leads are organized into Hubspot’s “ full-funnel view closed-loop reporting”.  This is a results-driven marketer’s dream!  

Once again, there are big dogs that only do analytics like Google Analytics or Adobe Omniture, but those systems require someone who knows those platforms to craft the equivalent “conversion funnels” and channel analysis. Compared to Hubspot, those platforms are going to provide a broader range of analytics capability, but Hubspot trumps them on providing easy access to the most important numbers.

HubSpot in Real Life

While I used to employ Hubspot for my marketing clients and my company, we used it to manage landing pages and do our SEO research.   More recently, I've come across companies who use Hubspot for the analytics and the drip marketing capabilities.  Given the rich set of features, there are endless combinations of approaches to using HubSpot.  

Did it work?   Take a look at this graph of a client we launched using Hubspot for landing page optimization and search engine optimization.  

Using HubSpot, we helped this client grow their monthly traffic from zero to 15,000 in roughly six months, including a comparable growth in leads. 

We stopped using HubSpot when our client's using HubSpot took their marketing in-house.  From a digital agency perspective, that kind of sucked.  From the entrepreneur's perspective, this was empowerment - and they took full advantage of it.   

We kept HubSpot around for a while, but it requires a monthly fee and, THIS IS IMPORTANT, it requires ongoing attention and time to work.   When we stopped using HubSpot in late 2010, our small band of merry marketers did not have the time to justify the monthly expense.  But the lesson here is that someone - whether an outside agency or your internal team - must be willing to invest the required effort to use HubSpot and keep abreast of their latest additions to the toolkit.

If you're willing to make the investment of time and aren't afraid of the monthly investment (see Pricing below), then HubSpot is worth checking out.  Friend and colleague David Newman of DoItMarketing provided this review of how he walks the walk and talks the talk with Hubspot. 

Hubspot has totally lit up our visibility to our target market, independent consultants and small professional services firm owners who want to grow. We are now much more findable, visible, and credible. We get between 3-4 leads per day through our Hubspot-powered website AND in addition to that, we get several leads each week via email and phone from people saying, "I just found your site and I'm calling to see how you might be able to help us." Working on both sides of the fence (we are also a Hubspot Certified Partner), it is now very easy to share the value with our prospects and clients because we were the first to "eat our own dog food" and we continue to invest in our own inbound marketing efforts as we help our clients do the same!

If you have the technical and business skills to use an online bill payment system (e.g. from your bank),  online accounting system (e.g. Quickbooks) or navigate an online portfolio (.e.g from The Vanguard Group or Fidelity), then you can use Hubspot.  Some Hubspot capabilities will require an investment of time to be able to use them productively, but there are a host of educational resources from Hubspot.  

Hubspot support ranges across online videos, white papers, best practices seminars and an active and responsive community of marketers using the platform.   It is an exceptionally well-supported product.

Why You Should Care About Using HubSpot

Bottom line: if you are a marketer for your company, this is the most cost effective way I know of to get multi-channel, agency-level marketing help with a DIY  approach.   If you can run an email marketing program, or can get around Quickbooks, then you can use Hubspot.

Using HubSpot requires an investment of time and money - and it requires you to adopt the HubSpot methodology and platform for a lot of what you do.  Some companies, particularly larger ones, are better served by a collection of best-in-class tools.  I believe HubSpot is best suited to startups and smaller businesses. 

Try it out and let us know how it worked for you. You can get your free trial by signing up here.

HubSpot Pricing

HubSpot has a monthly fee.  As an entrepreneur, this is a strategic investment that you'll need to carefully consider.  For entrepreneurs, you can get started with the Basic, Professional or Enterprise version with $200/month up to $700/month.  

What’s the difference? 

The more advanced levels provide advanced interaction and lead nurturing techniques like A/B testing and custom lead scoring.  These are tools that you can adopt over time.   The Basic package has all of the core offerings and provides an excellent Inbound Marketing starting point.

 

Pricing captured from Hubspot site (www.hubspot.com/pricing) on 01/22/2012.

Even if the pricing doesn't work for you, there are a number of free resources from Hubspot.  Consider checking out the Hubspot Grader for a free Web Site assessment.

In Summary: Our HubSpot Review Conclusion

While HubSpot is straightforward to learn and use for the do-it-yourself marketer, it does require a serious investment of time.  In effect, you are in-sourcing your digital marketing agency.  Be ready to get to work!  If you do, the results can be dramatic. 

If you are using Hubspot, please include your experience in the comments below.   We want to hear your stories – good and bad!   By leaving your experience, you benefit the whole community of entrepreneurs reading this review of Hubspot.

- Skip Shuda

Note: This Review of the HubSpot marketing platform contains affiliate links which may provide the CheapRevolution.com with  compensation.  If you find this blog helpful, please patronize our advertisers using the links you find on the site. 

The 10 Slide Pitch Deck for Entrepreneurs

Starting your own business can be an overwhelming task, especially if it is your first time building a business from the bottom-up. You will quickly realize the only one available to complete all the assignments is you, which means your time is a precious commodity. Writing a full-blown business plan is probably an intimidating task at the top of your list. However, a standard business plan is not necessarily needed for your business to open up shop.

Guy Kawasaki, author of The Art of the Start , advocates a pitch deck method that most entrepreneurs with basic computer knowledge can learn. Skip Shuda, founder of CheapRevolution, put together this six minute instructional video to explain the methodology in detail. The ten slides in the Pitch Deck are summarized below for your convenience.

The 10 Slide Pitch Deck

 1. What It Is – Your first slide should contain the name of your business and what your intentions are for your business. Also, feel free to add any contact information on this slide.

2. The Problem – The purpose of this slide is to get your audience to agree with you that there is a problem. You do not necessarily need to explain all the details of your problem to your listeners, but you do need to convince the group that there is a problem. Use bullet points to help you achieve this goal.

3. The Solution – Present your solution for the problem to your audience. Explain how your business will address the problem being discussed. Again, use bullet points to condense and emphasize your solution.

4. Business Model – How is your business going to make money? What  business model (e.g. fee for service, license fees, product sale, etc.) are you going to use to produce profit for your business? Explain to your audience how that particular model will produce income for your business. This slide will be particularly important to potential investors.

5. Underlying Magic – What is going to stand out about your business? What does your business have that other businesses in your niche may not have?

6. Marketing & Sales – How are you going to get the word out? How are you going to close deals? Do you have any projections? Create this slide to outline the marketing plan for your business.

7. Competitors – What does the competitive landscape look like? Show your audience who your potential competitors may be in your particular niche. Why do you consider them to be competitors? How do they stack up compared to your business? What are they doing differently? Can any of them be potential partners?

8. The Team – Your audience will want to know who the members of your team are. What have they done in the past? Which team member is accountable for what assignment?

9. Projections – This is primarily your financial slide. If you are unable to put together a financial slide by yourself, it is important to hire someone that can. You want financial investors to have confidence in your financial model and assumptions. 

10. Status Timeline Mometum – What is your current status? What does your timeline look like? Can you demonstrate momentum? What have you accomplished recently? What do you plan to focus on next?

Your first pitch deck should be put together in only a few hours, as a general base. From there, go through your deck to pick out what needs to be worked on and improved. Create a sounding board of friendly listeners to test your ideas. Always remember to present, listen, iterate, change your version level and repeat the process. With the information above, your business will be one step closer to heading in the right direction.

Cheap Design Resource - 99Designs Crowdsources Design of your Wordpress Theme or Logo

Crowdsourcing is a new tool in the entrepreneur's arsenal.   According to Wikipedia, the term crowdsourcing first appeared in a Fast Company article in 2006.  The term is defined as:

the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to a group of people or community (crowd) through an open call.

For entrepreneurs this provides an amazing opportunity to tap into a global pool of talent for everything from designing your Web site to designing a tee shirt to creating your logo at very affordable prices.   Platforms have emerged to manage the process of crowd-sourcing and savvy startups are using them to move quickly with a splash of style.

Today we spotlight one such crowdsourcing platform in 99 Designs.   99Designs is one of the original leaders in crowdsourcing and has provided businesses with over 50,000 designs.   While they started out with logos, 99Designs can now be used to help design:

• Logos
• Web sites
• Wordpress themes
• Stationary and business cards
• Tee Shirts
• Banner Ads

I've used 99Designs in the past and they provide a well managed process which moves along very quickly.    If you need a design in a pinch, they provide a great solution for startups.   Starting at just $99, the price point grows as more designers and more customization is added.  However, entire Wordpress themed sites can be designed and built for $595.   

In our work with entrepreneurs, finding good Wordpress themes has become a pressing issue.  99Designs gives you a professional platform, backed by a money-back satisfaction guarantee to ensure you are satisfied with your design and project.   Given the challenges in finding quality designers who can deliver, this is a terrific option to consider.

The process is straightforward. You fill out a brief detailing information about your Company and what you're looking for. After you determine how much you're willing to pay and set a time duration, you post your contest and designers submit their designs. This is the most exciting part of the process as you get to see the various directions you can take your logo. Tip: Provide feedback from the beginning by rating the designs, disqualify designers who are not providing the type of work you're looking for and answer questions as soon as possible. The more engaged you are during the process, the more likely you'll receive something you're happy with. 

Are there any drawbacks to crowdsourcing approaches like 99Designs?  Sure.  As with anything, there are pros and cons.   Designers may recycle some of their design concepts to get started quickly.   After all, to make 99Designs work for them, they have to bid on several projects.   That means you may end up with designs that aren't 100% unique to your business. To combat this, be viligent about checking their previous designs and ratings. 

If you are hoping to build an intimate, long-term working relationship with your designer, then the arms-length process managed by 99Designs might not work as well for you.   The designers are mostly anonymous, which is necessary to make the 99Designs business model work. 

For most startups, these tradeoffs are minor compared to the advantage of inexpensive, professional quality design that a 99Designs project can provide.   Check 99Designs out and see how they can help you get started on your brand. 

Disclaimer: 99Designs is an affiliate marketing partner of CheapRevolution.com that provides advertising revenue to this blog.

Using Webinars to Grow Your Business

 

Whether you’re a multi-national corporation or an aspiring entrepreneur, webinars can play an instrumental part in reaching your target market and growing your business. They provide a platform for you to engage with your core audience and allow you to showcase your expertise to your target market at the convenience of you and the listener.  You can easily record webinars and post them online so that your audience can listen to them whenever and wherever. You can let your users help you promote your brand by encouraging them to share the webinar on their social media channels.  In this post, we’ll talk about webinar best practices, and provide a comparison of the best webinar platforms online.

 

Webinar Best Practices:

An Enticing Webinar Title : The title of your webinar is just as important if not more important than the content itself. An enticing title will attract prospective attendees to learn more about the webinar and your services. Without a compelling title,  you will lose the opportunity to entice your core audience. If you need a source for inspiration, try Richard Bayan's Words That Sell.

A hot topic in your field: Choose a topic that has staying power and will be relevant in a month's time. Look into seasonal trends within your industry to find a topic that your audience is interested in.  The topic should help your audience learn a new skill, become better informed about a certain field, or improve use and understanding of a product. 

For example, if you’re in the gourmet food industry, a great educational webinar in the summer would be "How to Make your own Olive Oil Gelato."  If you are a yoga instructor, a great webinar topic on healthy living could be “Is Yoga Enough to Keep you Fit? How to Create a Healthy Lifestyle.” Marketing companies can capitalize on the Google Plus new release and discuss how businesses can leverage it.

Ease of Understanding v. Complexity : Because the success of your webinar hangs on your audience retaining the webinar in one sitting, the topic must find the right balance between being understood easily while being intriguing. Since your audience is investing their time in you, you want your audience to feel smarter than they were 15 minutes ago. Always include time for a Q&A session at the end to provide them the chance to have their questions answered by you or your speaker.

Don’t assume the webinar is going to market itself: Take the time to develop a plan on how you’re going to get promote the webinar to your target market. We found a great list on this post.

 

Webinar Platforms:

 1.      GoToWebinar - One of the most well-known solutions.

Features: Allow the host to create a registration page and invitation emai to send, branded with your Company logo. Some of its core features include the audio conference by phone and the computer, full desktop or specific application sharing, recording, drawing tools, chat, etc. You can also submit post webinar surveys. And GoToWebinar automatically sends out follow up emails to attendees. This platform provides support for the most attendees of the platforms we surveyed.  So if you anticipate big audiences, GoToWebinar may be your option. It is compatible on PCs and Macs.

Price: All plans offer a 30-day free trial. The smallest plan allows for up to 15 attendees at $49/month. $99 per month for up to 100 participants, $399 per month for up to 500 participants, or $499 per month for up to 1,000 participants. Each plan has a corresponding annual pricing plan which comes out to be 20% cheaper.

 2.      Budget Conferencing

Features:  Pay as you go service plans ranging from basic services to operator assistance for each event. Capacity for thousands of attendees at no additional charge, mp3 audio file download is available for participants (at an additional cost).

Price: 12 cents per minute for standard webinar features, 18 cents per minute for one dedicated operator, or 24 cents per minute for multiple operators.

3.      Adobe Connect

Features: Connects to your mobile and tablet. In addition, Connect helps you manage and plan your webinars. They also have great customer service. 

Price: $55 per month per host for up to 25 participants (I had to call them for a price check since the price is not easy to find on their website). The annual contract is $540 which comes out to $45 per month per host.

 4.      MyMeeting123

Features: File Sharing. Money back guarantee within the first 14 days of use. Cancel anytime and get refunded on the unused months.

Price: $209.85 for 3 months, $419.70 for 6 months, or $755.40 for 12 months (10% off for yearly subscription). All plans host up to 100 participants (including host).

 5.      Intercall

Features: Integrates with MSN Messenger, Lotus, and MS Office Communicator Messenger.  Free iPhone, Android, and Blackberry app.

Price: $42 per month for up to 20 participants or use the pay as you go plan at $.17 per minute. The pay as you go plan can host up to 125 participants.  

6.      Yugma

Features: Yugma integrates with Skype so you can invite your Skype contacts to meetings and share your screen with them. The Yugma A plan contains audio conferencing while the other plans do not. 

Price: Webinar registration is $19.95 per month or $199.50 annually on top of the price of the plan that you choose. The price depends on the number of participants allowed in a webinar. Plans range from 2 participants at no charge or up to 500 participants for $159.95 per month or $1599.50 annually.

7.      Maestro Conference

Features: Participants can share the webinar link to their peers on   Facebook. The "green room" provides a private chat room for webinar staff to coordinate prior to the event.

Price:  $47 per month for up to 50 lines, $97 per month for up to 100 lines, or $187 per month for up to 200 lines. Contact the sales department for a quote if you are interested in adding more than 200 lines.

Already a pro? Let us know what webinar program you use and how webinars have impacted your business. If you're a webinar vendor, feel free to leave additional comments or clarifications on your product.

Photo credit to the Missouri League for Nursing

 

Alternatives to Mozy: Which backup service is right for you?

 "43% of people lose irreplaceable files every year"

Updated as of March 2011: Mozy.com is one of the most popular online backup services for individuals. The main reason is due to it's low price point (now $5.99 a month for 50GB of storage). They recently changed their pricing and no longer allow for unlimited storage. In addition to the 50GB plan, they also offer 125GB for $9.99 a month. 

I use the service personally and while it currently suits most of my needs, it lacks two main functions I would love to have. First, it doesn't have mobile access so I can't retreive my computer files or photos on the go. I recall seeing an announcement that it will be available when I subscribed six months ago and I'm still waiting. The second is the constant number of unsuccessful backup attempts I’ve experienced. Without fail, the application stops updating once a month and I have to contact Mozy and provide them with remote access to fix the issue.

I opted for the Mozy annual plan when I signed up because I saved ten percent. Will I stay after my subscription is over? Unless things change, probably not. I’ve explored other solutions in the meantime and found the top four Mozy alternatives available using an Internet and Twitter search. If you'd like a quick overview by comparing backup solutions side-by-side, check out this chart.

Note: These Mozy alternatives are in no particular order and have been pre-screened to ensure they meet standard security specifications.

1. SugarSync.com – Close to Mozy’s monthly subscription at $4.99 (for 30GB of storage), the most notable features of this service include:

• A 30-day free trial of any plan from 30GB to 250GB of storage
• It is compatible with PCs and Macs
• Multiple computers can be backed up using one account
• SugarSync offers mobile applications. (Nice twist: photos and music are automatically synced to your computer without needing to download them)
• They allow file sharing 
• You can restore documents for up to 5 versions

2. ElephantDrive -This service offers plans specifically for individuals and families starting at $9.95 for 100GB of storage or $19.95 a month for 500GB of storage. See below for a list of their top features:

• A free 2GB trial
• It is compatible with PCs and Macs
• Up to two PCs can use the personal account and 5 devices can use the family account
• Mobile access is provided
• File sharing is available
• File versioning is offered for the last 30 days (for the personal account) or one year for family account)

Bonus: This ElephantDrive coupon link is currently offering two months for free when you purchase their annual plan.

3. Carbonite - Carbonite used to be a top contendor as a Mozy alternative because they were so similar in featuresets. However, that has changed with Mozy's new pricing scheme. Carbonite only offers unlimited storage so you're not limited by size constraints (a big appeal to their service). Another difference is they don't have a monthly subscription. Their annual plan starts at $54.95 (about $4.58/month) for one computer. Some of their noteworthy features include:

• A free 15-day trial with unlimited storage
• They are compatible with PCs and Macs
• Mobile applications are available
• File versioning is offered
• Email & phone support are provided

4. Dropbox - Boasting more than 6 million users, Dropbox had to make this list. They offer two plans - 50GB for $9.99/month or 100GB for $19.99/month.  In addition:

• A free 2GB trial with an extra 250MB for each referral you provide
• Compatability with PCs, Macs and Linux
• Multiple computers can be backed up using one account
• Mobile access is provided
• File sharing is available
• File versioning for the last 30 days or you can upgrade to their pack rat feature which saves your history forever

What are your favorite backup options and why? Are there other Mozy alternatives you want us to know about? Leave us a comment and we’ll add it to the list.

 

By: Yasmine Mustafa

Yasmine is a former Team and a Dream-er. She is currently the Founder of 123LinkIt.com. The Company creates tools for bloggers to help them monetize their sites. A free affiliate plugin for WordPress is now available.

Moving my desktop to the cloud: A packrat's need for speed

(Cloud Image from wallpaperstock.net) 

My old HP Tablet has had a flickering display lately.  Moving on four years old, it seems that the heart of this old workhorse is about to give out.  However, I always dread moving my desktop from one computer to another. It takes hours of planning and hair-pulling effort.  

I decided to use this opportunity to move as much as I could to the cloud.  For me, the cloud mostly means that I moved to Google, although there are plenty of options out there.  My reasoning?

1) in the future, moves to new computers will be much easier

2) let someone else worry about backing up my data

3) the cloud applications are cheaper (mostly free!)

4) I've found that Google applications are generally faster loading than my desktop apps

So, my business partner and friend, Bechara, found me a sweet deal on FatWallet for a new Hewlett Packard G72 Notebook with sweet 17" display, 4 GB of RAM, 350 GB Hard drive and 2.27 GHz In tel Core i3 CPU.  For less than $500, I had doubled my RAM, tripled my hard-drive space and at least doubled my CPU speed.

Here are some of the key ways that I shed my old desktop turtle shell.  

1) Email.  I moved from Outlook to Gmail.  I actually did this a while ago.  As a packrat, I had years (and Gigabytes) of data accumulated in my Outlook files.  Backing the Outlook data files up takes hours, but worse - it literally took 5 minutes or more to start up Outlook.  Now, I run all of my email accounts on gmail (save one Outlook account that a client requires).   Gmail's philosophy is "don't save and archive, keep everything and use search to find it".   While I make heavy use of the Google Gmail Labels, this works really, really well for me.   With 8 Gb of free storage (and growing), I have what I need for my packrat ways!

2) My calendar.  I've been a faithful user of Franklin Covey's PlanPlus application.  This powerful desktop application rolled my calendar, my todolist and my note-taking (I take a lot of notes) into one sweet application.  I already moved this application across laptops once - and my FranklinCovey files are starting to suffer from the same fate as my big, fat Outlook files.  Time to seek a new calendar.  

I checked out the Franklin Covey online software, but it has a recurrring fee (monthly or annual) and didn't have all of the features I use in the desktop software.   So I moved across to the Google Calendar App, much to the delight of my team-mates who have been asking me to update/synchronize with my Google Calendar on a regular basis so they can figure out when I'm available.  Improved team collaboration is an unanticipated benefit of moving to Google Calendar. 

3) My todolist. Also part of the PlanPlus software, I went online to see what was available.   I looked at things like Tadalist and its sister application Basecamp from 37signals.   One was too simple, the other had a monthly fee and was too much (for the purpose of maintaining lists).  So I settled on Google's answer - the Google task list.  Task lists are integrated right into my Gmail.   The only problem I've had so far is that once I built more than 9 "master lists", I found that the Task list chooser started jumping around.  Okay - I can live with 9 lists for now  (client-work, sales, marketing, infrastructure, household, blog/twitter-ideas, special-project, todays-work, competition).

4) My note-taking. Franklin Covey's note-taking organizer was really central to my work and tracking meeting notes, outcomes, etc.   For this, I stayed off the cloud and opted for a Microsoft's Onenote application. I'm still using Microsoft Office for Word processing, spreadsheets and, now, note-taking.  But I'll keep watching Google Apps and other tools as wireless access becomes a given at all of my workplaces. Not quite there yet.

5) Backups.  There are plenty of cloud-based backup systems emerging like Mozy, Carbonite and Dropbox.  Backing up your files to the cloud means that you won't suffer if there is an office disaster (yes this is a first step in disaster recovery). Tools like Dropbox also let you share with colleagues, doubling both as a backup and a collaboration tool.   I'll keep my eyes on these, but the good people at SmartSync (which I purchased years ago) were good enough to send me a registration key for my new computer.  SmartSync syncs my desktop data with an external drive every night.   This also helped me in moving to my new machine.  I simply plugged the external drive into my new laptop - and copied the directories I wanted to the local disk.  

6) Mobile access. My Droid should be easily synchronized using Google Sync. (I haven't tried this yet.) This means that I can see my calendar, my email and my todo lists on my phone.   It also means that I was able to easily move my browser bookmarks from my old machine to another

7) Contacts database. For most of the past decade, my contacts were squirreled away in an old Palm Desktop application. Since I haven't had a Palm device for nearly 10 years, it seems that it might be time to move on. Exporting in VCard format was simple and I imported my contacts right into Google Contacts. This may be a temporary visit as I look at Social CRM apps like Gist, Salesforce or Landslide.

The result of moving my desktop apps to the cloud is a much faster, more accessible and more collaborative desktop. I can take advantage of Google Chrome's blinding load time as a browser and enter my workplace from anywhere. I can access much of my work from the train on my Droid, my mother's PC or a Kiosk at Burger King. I can share calendars with my colleagues.  

I realize I'm just touching the tip of the iceberg here.  What are your favorite cloud-based applications?  How have you migrated from desktop to cloud ?  How has it helped or hindered your work? 

Find the best freelancers. odesk vs elance vs getafreelancer vs rentacoder (now vWorker)

One of the biggest challenges of a startup or growing small business is to find the right people for the right seat on the bus.   You often find yourself with a part-time need from a very qualified individual.

Can you take advantage of the Global effects of Web to help with your search?   

You bet you can! There are a number of platforms for sourcing freelancers or contract hires.  As you can see from this graphic, many of these platforms are drawing hundreds of thousands of visits each month.  That translates into a ready pool of talent for you. 

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/guru.com+elance.com+odesk.com/

Here is what we can share from personal experience. 

oDesk - This is the latest platform that we tried and we love it.  There are so many ways to search, there is such a rich group of contractors and you can find incredibly cost-effective offerings.  We're going to deep dive into oDesk shortly.  

First, lets take a quick look at some other options.  

Guru - They claim to be the world's largest online freelancer marketplace, with over 1,000,000 freelancers to choose from.  We've used it before and found some great project teams... and some not so great.  For a while, we offered a service to help with freelancer screening process (We did a series of posts on how to effectively screen freelancers ).  Guru was our favorite for a while and we wrote a blog comparing Guru with elance and rentacoder.

eLance, rentacoder (now vWorker.com) and getafreelancer - We've heard of good results for these but haven't used them personally. They appear to be an especially great source for copywriters, coders and web designers. The Compete graph above shows eLance to have the most traffic of the sites that we surveyed in Compete. 

As for oDesk, we were impressed by the ability to search across so many different criteria - areas of expertise, feedback from other clients, number of tests passed, test scores compared to their peer group, experience in hours, rates and more. Take a look at the dashboard below illustrating a search for SEM professionals.

With over 300 qualification tests available on oDesk, there are a wide range of hard skills you can use to sort out the freelancers you'd prefer to work with.

Properly finding a freelancer needs a significant time investment.  Beyond finding your ideal candidate based on qualifications, tests, references and rates, you need to check references.  You should also gauge responsiveness and communication.  We recommend starting with a small project and growing from there.  

Have you used any of these platforms?  If you have, please share your experience with us. Are there other freelance platforms, freelance marketplaces or freelance forums our readers should know about? 

Flying Blind: Metrics are #1 challenge blocking online-offline marketing groups

Flying blind just isn't as much fun as it used to be. 

Recently, eMarketer published results from a recent study (Q1, 2009) of marketing organizations.  The marketing organizations are having trouble collecting and correlating information from multiple channels, with diverse vendor-partners managing those channels.  

eMarketer writes:  

Unfortunately, the necessary data is currently scattered across organizations. Data formats are inconsistent and so is terminology. Until these problems are solved, marketers attempting to integrate traditional and digital advertising channels will continue flying blind.

I think the problem is bigger than that, though.  True... finding, collecting and integrating the data is difficult in most organizations today.

But that hides the real question.  

What should you be measuring? With multiple marketing channels, there could be hundreds (thousands?) of variables you could watch...  Which metrics are the right metrics?  Internet market and web analytics have led to an explosion of quantitative data that can be leveraged.  Offline analytics are getting better as well through improved survey techniques, in-store kiosks, video monitoring, etc.

Should you pay attention to num of widgets sold? avg sales price? num of clients? num of visitors? landing page bounce rates? ... 

which leads to:

that depends on your objectives. 

What are  your objectives? 

Do you seek to increase the number of customers or visitors?  Maybe you wish to emphasize a specific product mix?  Are you hoping to find customers who become loyal and longtime members of your community?

Your objectives depend further on your business Goals, Vision and Strategy. Do you hope capture new markets?  Deepen customer intimacy?  Improve brand recognition?  

Choosing the right metrics (or Key Performance Indicators, KPIs) based on your business strategy can help to both simplify the measurement process and improve the effectiveness of conversations around KPIs.

I imagine a lot of organizations don't spend time on metrics because when they do, they are overwhelming.  Instead,  a few, well-placed, well-segmented KPIs can go a long way towards streamlining the understanding of how well your marketing engines are running.  Good KPIs should be simple and easy to understand.   A one page dashboard that ties the KPIs into the specific business objectives can go a long way towards improving your marketing effectiveness. 

It means you can move with nimbleness.  You can react weekly... even daily to what is happening.  Yet all of those actions are aligned with your big picture strategy.

Strategy can take a lot of different forms.  What it really means is that you are taking a comprehensive and integral perspective on the challenge of marketing a product and company.

So... my question, which apparently was NOT on the survey, is:

How many of you employ a strategically-focused marketing approach - one driven by specific goals that are supported by measurable results?

Do you think such an approach is preferable?  Is it practical?  Why or why not? 

Climbing the Pyramid of Marketing Mastery

Team and a Dream's Skip Shuda provides a short introduction on the "Marketing Pyramid of Needs" in this five minute screencast.

This simple framework encourages you to follow the three simple marketing steps towards mastery of "See it, Say it and Be it".  By walking up each step of the pyramid, you can ensure that you have all the elements in place for a successful marketing effort. It can also help you to answer questions like, "When am I ready for a Blog?" or "Can Social Media really help my company?". If you haven't done the necessary preparatory work, then your premature marketing efforts can be wasted.

Furthermore, the framework sets the stage for the successful measurement of marketing efforts.  A marketing metrics dashboard is a key component to ensure that you stay on the path to Market Mastery once you've started your journey. The framework is discussed in more detail on a recent article at the HP Logoworks Blog article "See it. Say it. Be it. Multi-Channel Marketing in a Web 2.0 World" by Skip Shuda.

By: Skip Shuda