The Complete Toolkit for Small Business

Control your business's sales, productivity, marketing, and more with one simple solution

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The DNS Manager

You’ve probably heard your web developer ask you for something called the “DNS.”

What in the world are they on about? If you aren’t particularly invested in the technical side of your business, and as long as your website is running and fully functional, it probably doesn’t matter too much to you. That’s why we’re here! This is a quick and simple rundown of the enigma called DNS.

Imagine a contact in your phone’s address book (or your AllProWebTools CRM). Under a singular contact, you could have their cell phone number, office number, email, Skype and a bunch of other mediums. In the end, it’sstill one person, albeit with multiple ways to get in touch with them.

A website works in a similar fashion. There are multiple facets of the site that exist, all of which can be traced back to your main URL (for example, “notarealsite.com”). In fact, you’d need access to your DNS records to get both your email and website up and running. DNS can also be used to verify that it’s actually you sending out an email, and not some shady phishing website.

Click HERE To Finish Reading The Post “The DNS Manager!

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Adios, Lalo!

Having to say goodbye is always bittersweet. To some, it may seem like letting go. To others, it’s a bountiful process that opens more doors. 

Today was Lalo Rodriguez’s last day at AllProWebTools, and although we’re sad to bid him farewell, we find solace in the knowledge that his time here can only lead him to bigger, better opportunities. 

I had a chance to speak to Lalo about his time here, and learnt things about him that I was previously unaware of. 

Some of these include his Colombian heritage, salsa dancing skills and the fact that if he was a cartoon character, he’d be Disney’s Robin Hood, the fox.

His reasoning behind the choice: “…Justice?”

I agreed.

 Click HERE To Finish Reading This Post!

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4 Tips To Make Networking More Effective, Profitable, & More Fun!

Does this sound familiar? You’ve heard over and over again how valuable networking is to your business, but you can’t shake the feeling that you “aren’t doing it right.” You’re spending a lot of time and effort on your networking, but it’s not bringing you the returns you imagined, and you’re considering giving it up.

I hear these frustrations all the time, and as someone who spends a lot of my time networking, I get a lot of people asking me how I make it worth my while. Luckily, a lot of the things I do to make networking more fun also make networking more effective! I’m happy to share all I know, so you can take your next experience with networking from frustrating to awesome. Let’s get started!

Tip 1: Find Your Turf

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of networking groups, events, seminars, meetups, classes, etc out there? Yeah, there are a ton. But there’s a very good reason why that is. Networking with people who aren’t on your wavelength is a waste of time.

There are so many different groups out there because not everyone is looking for the same kind of thing from a networking opportunity. The bad news is, you might have to try a few that aren’t quite the right fit. The good news is, there’s almost certainly a group out there that’s exactly what you’re looking for.

Don’t be afraid to experiment and try out new groups, but also don’t be afraid to cull groups and events that aren’t what you’re looking for. Sometimes it takes going two or three times to meet the right people, but make sure to stay skeptical. Are these people potential customers? Do they know your potential customers? Can these people help you grow your business?

Finding the right group makes all the difference in the world in terms of both the amount of fun you have and how effective you are while you’re having all that fun!

Tip 2: Bring a Posse

This is one of my favorite networking tips, guaranteed to ensure you have a great time, but it’s also great for getting a good ROI on your networking efforts. Bring people to networking events with you! That includes your employees, your partners, your friends, and even your prospects!

Showing up to a networking event with a posse has a few major advantages. First, you immediately look super credible, busy, and important to everyone else in the room, and that makes you a very desirable connection. Second, the event organizer and all the regulars will absolutely love you for bringing in new faces, and they’ll remember you better next time.

Inviting your prospects in particular is a great way to add value to them, and prove you’re more than just a salesperson. You’re looking for ways to help them, whether you make the sale or not. Even if you don’t end up winning their business, they’re likely to refer you to someone else that’s a better fit.

Plus, you get lots of time to interact with them and and show them what you’re about. They’ll hear your elevator pitch, see you interacting with other people that know and like you...all this is a recipe for closing the deal, while also having a great time.

Tip 3: Save the Sell for Later

It might seem counterintuitive, but one of the best ways to increase your ROI from networking events is to focus less on the sell while you’re actually at the event. But ultimately, networking is never about selling to the person you're in front of. It’s about creating relationships that you build on gradually.

Rather, your goal is to prove yourself to be a person worth knowing, talking about, and introducing to others. This will pan out for you later when you follow up and ask each of those connections you made who they can refer you to.

Remember that each person in the room while your networking knows hundreds of people (statistically about 600!), and will continue to meet more. You aren’t selling to the 30 people in the room with you. You’re selling to the hundreds that each of them knows, hoping they’ll think of you when they next hear of someone who has the problem you solve.

To that end, keep your focus on branding and differentiating yourself, rather than on selling yourself. This will lead to more referrals, but it will also make networking feel more like fun and less like work.

Tip 4: Follow Up Like You’re Friends Already

Click HERE To See Tip 4, “Follow Up Like You’re Friends Already”!

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How AllProWebTools Email Marketing Stacks Up Against The Competition

Email marketing is by far one of the most powerful tools in a small business owner’s arsenal. It has the ability to be highly personal, while also being easy to automate and track your results. Technology is improving all the time to make email marketing for small business continually easier and more effective. But how do you choose which email marketing system is right for your business?

While most of the major platforms share a number of common features, they certainly aren’t all created equal. You have to weigh price, credibility, reliability, and of course, effectiveness at helping you improve profitability through email marketing over time. We’ll help you understand what factors matter to you when choosing a service, and which are standard, and help you understand what you’re getting for your money.

Constant Contact and MailChimp are two major players in this space, but don’t count out AllProWebTools. We have a lot to offer small business owners — features that Constant Contact and MailChimp don’t even begin to touch on.

Addressing the most common questions we get ourselves, we hope these answers will help you understand the email marketing options available for your business, and give you some information about an up-and-coming, affordable, but proven and reliable solution you may have questions about.

First, Let’s Talk Price

Constant Contact:

For 500 subscribers or less, offers plans for $20/month. Price increases as you add more subscribers (501-2,500 costs $40/month, 2,501-5000 costs $60/month) with discounts for prepaid contracts.

Many features require their Email Pro plan (see below chart for details), which starts at $45/month for 500 users, plus an additional $20 or so for every additional 2000 subscribers.

MailChimp:

You can get a free account if you have fewer than 2,000 subscribers, or you can pay for one of their more advanced account types (see below chart for details). Their mid-tier account type starts at $150/month, with $5/month added on per additional subscriber.

For those upgrade features, prices start at $10 per month for 500 subscribers, increasing by $5 per month for each additional 500 subscribers.

AllProWebTools:

Basic Email Marketing from AllProWebTools costs $20/month, which is $10 for your basic AllProWebTools account (we’ll explain what that includes later on) and $10 for the Email Marketing WebTool.

If you need extra customization for your marketing emails and would like Email Marketing to integrate with the AllProWebTools Workflow Timeline, the Email Pro WebTool is an additional $15 per month. Click here to learn more about Email Pro.

With AllProWebTools, you’ll also need a back-end email marketing provider. This is a different service from the company that maintains your email address, and different from the front end where you build your emails and manage campaigns (that’s us).

An email marketing provider is responsible for making sure that when you send out emails to your list, those emails do not end up in spam folders. These providers are tried and tested in the industry, and we’ve built AllProWebTools to integrate with several providers. Click here for the details on pricing with our providers.

What’s “Standard?”

All of these email marketing platforms have some basic features in common:

·         Solid, reliable deliverability of emails

·         Compliant with the Federal Government’s CAN-SPAM regulations, allowing your subscribers to opt-out of emails they don’t want to receive

·         Ability to grow and manage contact list

·         Signup boxes for your website

·         Tracking email open rates, click-throughs, and unsubscribes

·         Ability to build emails from templates or from scratch

·         Image library to store content online

Give Me the Details

Ok, so what sets these plans apart? What’s standard in one plan, but costs extra in another? We’ll break it down for you, based on the features we think are most important to a small business owner’s email marketing success.

Click HERE To view the full article and see what differentiates AllProWebTools from their competition!

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What I See In AllProWebTools

After four years in college; familiar faces; memorable surroundings, you forget what it’s like to feel out of place. Admittedly, that’s how it felt to walk into the AllProWebTools office on day one. 

I had taken extra precautions that day, hair and attire done up with extra care, cheeks carefully trimmed to the happy medium found between fresh-plucked-chicken and disgruntled lumberjack. Whether or not these minute details actually affected their opinion of me didn’t matter, all it really needed to do was boost my confidence and quell my nerves. Did it work? I wish.

The first thing I noticed about the office was its energy: clean, but caught up in a tangled mix of ambition, pride and unfathomably pure dedication. A convoluted mix, for sure, but what would you rather have at a startup that’s steadily advancing how small businesses operate? 

The people here believe in the work they’re doing, and that’s what kept me coming back for an entire week’s worth of training. There’s no monotony to be found when you’re lost in the throes of building something you love. I wanted to be a part of that dynamic, I wanted to help these people achieve what they set out to do, because I saw something substantial in their work.

One week in and I was voraciously learning more about the people I shared goals, an office and a product with. I was constantly surprised at the depth of functionality the toolkit possesses, while somehow managing to stay unassumingly simple on the surface. 

It combines the functionality of a website editor, Asana’s tasking system, Slack’s chat service, and your phone’s address book, before turning around to snicker at just how much you haven’t seen yet. I’m still in awe, so we’ll see what I think in a couple months when I’ve been around the software long enough to delve into the finer details.

As I write this, three weeks have gone by, and one of the most gratifying experiences I’ve had so far was getting to meet the two young entrepreneurs from StarDog Logistics: Jake and Amber. It didn’t take much to get along with both, owing to the closeness of our ages, Jake’s love of cars, and Amber’s background in marketing - three traits I shared with the young couple. 

Soon after, I was able to spend some time with Amber, giving her a tour of the AllProWebTools software while learning more about StarDog and the aspirations the young couple have for their firm.

Click HERE To Finish Reading This Story!

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Tips For Successfully Managing Your Very First Employee (Part 2)

Ready to hire your very first employee? If so, congratulations! There’s no other business growth milestone quite like it. Prepare yourself for a whole new set of challenges, but if you can learn to manage your first employee effectively, you’ll be in a great position to continue growing your team and your business!

Management doesn’t always come easily, but I maintain that anyone can learn how to do it. In Part 1 of this post(click here to read), I shared 6 tips to help ensure your new employee will actually save you time, rather than becoming needy.

In Part 2, I’ll share my tips for helping your employee grow as a confident, productive member of your team, as well as what to do if you eventually lose them.

Clarify Processes, Policies, & Procedures

The key to success in a growing business is organization. As a solopreneur, you undoubtedly had tons of systems and processes in place to ensure that priorities got tackled, tasks didn’t fall through the cracks, and your time was used efficiently. Now it’s time to scale that up.

Before your employee’s first day, spend some time thinking about your systems and processes. Which ones work really well? Which ones need a revisit? Which ones work well when it’s just you, but will fall apart when more people are added? Do all you can to ensure your processes are air airtight and well-documented.

When your new employee starts, you’ll inevitably find problems with your company processes, but the better-prepared you are, the fewer walls you should hit. Also, if all your processes are well-documented, it’ll be easier to figure out where a problem starts and ends.

Having these processes laid out clearly will also help encourage your employees to document their actions in a day. As a manager, the better your employees’ work is documented, the less time you have to spend getting status updates in one-on-one meetings and the more time you can spend being proactive about growing the business together.

Have employees track their time, even if they aren’t paid hourly. This will help you to understand and better manage where employee time is being spent. We also recommend having your employees document all interactions with customers, progress on tasks, and, of course, any sales they make.

AllProWebTools makes it easy for your employees to leave this kind of documentation, through a tool called theWorkflow Timeline. This live feed of all your business’s updates is ideal for ensuring your employees and your business as a whole are on track, all at a glance. Click here to learn more about the Workflow Timeline.

Plan Their First Successes

Nothing boosts confidence like success, and confident employees are vastly more valuable to a small business than timid ones. Confident employees will be able to direct themselves, make important decisions, and lend charisma to your business. So it’s crucial to give new employees a taste of success as soon as possible.

Have some assignments ready for them that you know they’ll be able to complete on their first day, and devote a significant amount of time to discussing your and their goals for the position. As much as possible, avoid having the first day be a day full of unimportant “busy-work.” Instead, an “engagement-heavy” first day, where your new employee works on meaningful tasks, will instill much more confidence.

I can’t express enough how much AllProWebTools enables this. First of all, the tasking system makes it easy for you to have a number of pre-loaded “success generator” tasks in their console, which they can work on whenever they have time. Second, the system encourages employees to self-learn and self-direct, again boosting confidence.

Unchain From the Office

If you chose your new hire carefully and implement the tips from this blog post, as well as Part 1, you’ll quickly develop a self-sufficient, empowered, confident employee. Once you’ve built some trust, you might be able to get even more productivity out of your employee by allowing them to incorporate some flexibility into their scheduling.

Allowing your employees to work when and where they’re most productive has both short-term and long-term benefits.

·         Take advantage of your employees’ most productive hours, even if those aren’t between 9 and 5

·         Increase your odds of having employees stay with you for the long haul

·         Make your team more resilient against things like flu bugs, snow days, and technical difficulties by making work from home an option on those days

Worried about accountability with work-from-home employees? Try AllProWebTools, which allows you to get insight into what your employees are working on and how long it’s taking them.

Future-Proof the Position

 Click HERE To Keep Reading How To “Future Proof The Position”!

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AllProWebTools 4.4 Release

When it came to planning our 4.4 version, we decided to focus on all those "little things" and clean up the interface so that it will be even easier to perform those repetitive tasks.

Here is a listing of some of the new features that I think you will really enjoy:

1. First of all, we have added an extended "undo" feature for when you are editing your webpages, blogs, and emails. You can now save several versions of the same page, and recall past versions. We hope this new feature will prevent users from losing their changes if something goes awry.

2. There were a few things about the commerce WebTool that were not quite right. One of these adjustments was updating the "your item has just been shipped" email to include the items that were ordered and the address they were shipped to.

3.   -

Click HERE To Finish The Story & See The New Features Of AllProWebTools 4.4!

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Entrepreneurship For 6th Graders!

Yesterday I had the privilege of teaching a classroom of 6th graders at Severance Middle School how to create a new product and prepare it for market. The program was created by Junior Achievement Rocky Mountain, a non-profit organization that is "dedicated to inspiring and preparing young people to succeed in a global economy". As an entrepreneur, I was impressed with the quality and accuracy of the curriculum - it translates directly to how real business is done.

I started the day off in the auditorium where several classes (167 students in total) were presented with the challenge for the day. Oogie's Gourmet Popcorn, a local company based out of Denver, presented business problem to the students.

While their snacks are popular with adults, they are looking to expand their market to the 13 - 18 year old market and asked for ideas for flavors that appeal to that demographic. There would be a contest at the end of the day and the winners idea would be sent to the company to possibly appear on store shelves!

Next, we all went to back to the classroom where I lead a class discussion about what makes a product appeal to certain demographics, and not to others. It was great to see realizations setting in for the students as they discussed the brands that they were familiar with - and the ones they did not care so much for. I was surprised to find out that Costco is quite popular with 6th graders. Facebook is definitely not a favorite with the 6th grade demographic, while Instagram takes the cake!

My job was to prepare the class, which was divided into 6 groups of 4 students, to brainstorm ideas, perform market testing, design promotional materials, and create a pitch to be judged in 2.5 hours. Quite a tall order for such a short time, but not unlike a real work environment.

After sampling 2 of the existing "adult" flavors of Oogie's popcorn, the students set off on brainstorming new ideas for flavors. Now it was time to do some market research to see which flavors would be most popular with the 6th grade demographic.

For this, we headed back to the auditorium, where all the students used tally sheets to poll each other on their preferred flavor. The students from each group then added up the totals to determine the winning flavor from their brainstorming.

I thought this was a great real-world example of a problem I find very often while coaching business owners. Many times, the idea that an entrepreneur is most passionate about, is not the winning idea with the target audience. Even after releasing a product, it is very important to poll your existing clients for ways that they would like to see the product improved.

Now that each group had settled on their proposed flavor, it was time to build the marketing plan. This included the Logo, branding, promotional materials, pricing, and place where the product will be sold.

Logo:

We discussed as a group some popular brand logos and the fact that they are actually quite simple in design. We also discussed how each company has a specific set of colors incorporated into their logo. The students started a very interesting discussion about the Nike brand. Three students were wearing shirts with the Nike logo and the logo was a different color on each shirt.

Branding:

I asked the class to picture a couple going out on a date to a "really nice restaurant", then I asked if that restaurant would be McDonalds. The all roared, "NO!" We then discussed what type of restaurant they had pictured - Olive Garden was a popular choice along with Pf Changs. We then discussed the difference in feeling of the Olive Garden brand vs. the McDonalds brand.

Promotional Materials:

Each group was provided with a blank billboard, Internet popup ad, and TV Commercial storyboard to design ads for their chosen flavor. Here are some of the concepts they created:

Pricing:

Click HERE To Finish The Story & To See What Happened During The Fun “Pricing” Discussion!

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AllProWebTools For WordPress Developers

WordPress developers are constantly learning new technologies in order to stay up to date in the fast paced world of the Internet.  Workflows for businesses continue to evolve past the paper and pen and Rolodexes of yesteryear to numerous apps and software programs.

On the technology side, Developers have had to become educated with:

·         Responsive design

·         HTML5

·         CSS3

·         Bootstrap 3

·         and many other technologies

On the software side, Developers have familiarized themselves with programs such as:

·         WooCommerce

·         Hubspot

·         MailChimp

·         Eventbrite

·         cPanel

Strong Developers are always learning about new software and technologies for their clients.  This document will serve as a resource for WordPress Developers who want to learn more about using AllProWebTools.

Can a client use AllProWebTools and WordPress at the same time?

Of course! Using AllProWebTools does not mean that a client is required to host their website with AllProWebTools.  We offer free website hosting as an added benefit to our clients, but it is by no means required.  Most clients use AllProWebTools primarily to access the integrated business tools such as:

·         CRM

·         Email Marketing

·         Ecommerce

·         Task management

·         Password management

 By hosting their website with AllProWebTools, they can manage the majority of their business from a single platform.

Why host with AllProWebTools?

AllProWebTools is a complete business toolkit for small business owners.  Your client is probably using AllProWebTools primarily for its tools which are unrelated to web hosting, yet critical for running their business.  Your client has probably asked you to build a website on AllProWebTools because web hosting is included with their AllProWebTools subscription.  We also offer many tools that are much more tightly integrated when combined with our free website hosting.

As a developer, hosting a website with AllProWebTools can eliminate a lot of headache and responsibility.  You will save time by:

·         avoid dealing with conflicting plugins

·         eliminating chasing hackers and security issues

·         no need to upgrade WordPress and plugins

·         no more searching forums late at night to fix problems

As a developer, you get direct access to the support team at AllProWebTools via phone, email, chat, forum, and screenshare.  This access is unlimited and is provided at no cost to our Certified Experts and Providers.  If there is a problem, just report it to us and go to bed and get some sleep – we will stay up all night addressing the issue for you and your client.

When you have questions or need help with your WordPress installation, WordPress does not offer support by phone or email (only public forums)- so there is no one to contact to directly for emergency help.  This can be a problem when reliable uptime is critical to a small business.

Does the client own their website if it is hosted with AllProWebTools?

The client absolutely owns their website! 

·         Even if it was hosted with AllProWebTools

·         Even if it was built by AllProWebTools

·         Even if it was built with an AllProWebTools theme

The client is free to move their website content, theme, images, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery over to any other host of any other platform at any time.  The client does not have rights or permission to the AllProWebTools application code and this cannot be moved.  This is similar to moving all of your Google Docs to Microsoft Office – you can move all of your files and data, but you do not own the actual code that makes Google Docs operate.  This same policy applies to sites hosted with Wix, SquareSpace, and Weebly.

We recommend using www.httrack.com to capture a fully functioning HTML version of the clients website (hosted on AllProWebTools) that can be published on the Internet. 

Moving an AllProWebTools website to WordPress

Your client is free to move their website that is currently hosted on AllProWebTools (free web hosting) over to WordPress at anytime.

AllProWebTools is a month to month service with NO CONTRACTS to “lock-in” users.  AllProWebTools also does not hold any customer data hostage, this includes their domain name, website theme, images, etc.

AllProWebTools clients can access any of their data anytime and download it by choosing “Settings” and “Import/Export” from the main menu in their console.

Their website theme can be downloaded at anytime from the console by choosing “Settings” and then “Themes” from the main menu.

For a complete backup of every page on the website, we recommend using www.httrack.com to capture a fully functioning HTML version of their AllProWebTools website that can be published on the Internet.  Please note, some functionality provided by AllProWebTools will not be available when the website is not hosted with the AllProWebTools free web hosting.

SaaS application

AllProWebTools is a Software as a Service (SaaS) application.  Most of us use a SaaS applications every day.  Examples of well known SaaS applications are:

·         Facebook

·         Gmail

·         Google Docs

·         Twitter

·         MailChimp

·         HubSpot

The fact that these business tools are SaaS does not deter their use in the small business community.  The services provided by these applications are reliable and trusted.

SaaS applications are services that you login to, store data with, and may be accessed for free or for a fee.  The software that actually runs the SaaS application is usually closed-source (unavailable for download or modification).  Has anyone downloaded the source code for Facebook?

SaaS applications take the responsibility to make sure that their code is bug-free, that their servers stay up and running, monitor the system for threats, and install updates.

This is becoming more and more popular with savvy small business owners who prefer to have a fully managed solution for their business.  These small business owners appreciate the ability to call the company directly when they have issues so that they can keep their business running and focus on growing their business.

Services such as Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, and AllProWebTools are pioneering this new approach to web hosting.

Who is responsible?

WordPress is a program that you download and install on your own server and configure so that it works.  Wordpress is not responsible to make sure that it is working at all times on your server.  This is your responsibility to upgrade it and mitigate threats as well as maintain your server.

With WordPress, you will likely use a cPanel or perhaps some other web hosting control panel to manage your server’s settings.  You will also likely use FTP to access the WordPress code and make changes directly to the code that serves as the foundation of the website.

AllProWebTools does not use cPanel and therefore cannot offer access to cPanel.  AllProWebTools is not Open-Source software, so accessing the core functionality is not possible – no more than Facebook or Google Docs provides open FTP access to change the code that runs their applications.

How do I install AllProWebTools on my own hosting account?

AllProWebTools is a SaaS application that does not require it to be hosted, see the above section titled "SaaS application" for more information.

Theming AllProWebTools

AllProWebTools offers many themes that are ready to be used with AllProWebTools.  You can access them from AllProWebToolsThemes.com

Any Web Developer will know how to build anything they need with access to these fundamentals of web design.

Although access to the core software that runs AllProWebTools is not provided, FTP access is still provided to access the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, and images and assets that make up the theme of a website hosted on AllProWebTools.

What about using a WordPress Theme?

You may have a WordPress theme that you would like to use with AllProWebTools.  This can be done by manually converting the theme to work with AllProWebTools. 

A WordPress theme cannot simply be downloaded and installed into AllProWebTools anymore than you could install it into Joomla, Drupal, Wix, Squarespace, or any other system.  WordPress themes and plugins are designed to work ONLY with WordPress.

So how do you convert a WordPress theme to work with AllProWebTools?

First, load your theme into WordPress then view source and take the code that you need and paste it into the appropriate areas of the default AllProWebTools theme.

AllProWebTools websites are built on the popular HTML framework, Bootstrap 3, making it easy to theme! There are three essential files to any theme with any software: Header, Footer, and Stylesheet. AllProWebTools developers can access these from the AllProWebTools console by going to "Settings" and clicking on "Administrator" from the main menu, here you will find the Theme Editor where you can customize every section of the website.

When converting a WordPress theme, it is often easier to use "View Source" or "Inspect Element" on your browser versus looking at the WordPress code on the backend.  This is because both WordPress and AllProWebTools are written using a dynamic programming language, which can cause some of the content not to be straight forward and tedious to move.

Every AllProWebTools website already includes many external scripts that web developers need including: jQuery, Bootstrap 3, jQuery UI, AddThis, and Fancybox.

For additional information about theming, click here.

What about WordPress Plugins?

Click HERE To Find Out How WordPress Plugins Are Used In AllProWebTools!

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How Do I Get Support In AllProWebTools?

How Does AllProWebTools Support Work?

We’ll answer the basics first. AllProWebTools has two tiers of support: Unlimited and Premium. First, we’ll explain the difference, then we’ll get into the specifics of each option later on.

Unlimited Support Options

Unlimited Support options are always freely available to all users.

·         Training Webinars

·         Help & Suggestions Forum

Because these options are free, they may take a little more time. But rest assured, we will address your issue as quickly as we can.

Premium Support Options

Premium Support options allow you to get directly in touch with us through your toolkit.

·         Screenshares

·         Online Chat

For your first month using AllProWebTools, you’ll receive 10 hours of free Premium Support time. After that month is up, you will get 30 minutes of Premium Support per month. Your free Premium Support time DOES NOT roll over to the next month if you don’t use it.

You can always choose to purchase more Premium Support time if you have used up all your allotted time. Any time that you purchase DOES roll over to the next month if you don’t use it.

How Do I Access Support?

All of your support options are accessible through your AllProWebTools console. At any time when logged into AllProWebTools, just click the “Support” button to see available options. You can find the support button on the far right side of the screen, under your username, profile picture, and business name.

"When logged into AllProWebTools, just click the “Support” button to see available options."  [Tweet this]

When you click “Support,” a blue sidebar will appear on the right side of your screen. This sidebar has a few features we want to draw your attention to:

Help & Suggestions Forum

By clicking this link, you’ll be taken right into the forum. You’ll already be logged in and ready to post. We’ll get into the specifics in the next section.

Live Support Options

Need to talk to a real person? This will take you deeper into the Support Center, where you can access Premium Support and manage your support time. We’ll cover these options in more detail in the next section.

Once you click here, you’ll also be able to see how much Premium support time you still have available. If you need to buy more support time, you can also do that here.

Related Videos

These tutorial videos are related to the page you’re on in AllProWebTools. If you have questions about how to use or set up a specific feature, these videos will likely be able to help. It might be your fastest option to give these a try before you use up your Premium Support time!

How Do I Choose Which Support Option To Use?

The answer will depend on how urgent and complex your issue is, the day or time of day you need support, and whether or not you have remaining Premium Support time. First, let’s go through all of our support options in some more detail.

Unlimited: Training Webinars

These free “guided tours” are scheduled at regular times throughout the week. You can sign up for as many as you like. You may end up sharing webinar with a few other business owners, but it’s likely that they’ll ask questions that apply to your business too!

Use Me When:

·         You’re new to AllProWebTools or would like to explore a new feature

·         You’re looking for a basic walkthrough of common features and questions

·         Your issue or question is not time-sensitive

·         You’d like to chat with our representatives and other business owners

·         You want to explore the toolkit

Unlimited: Help & Suggestions Forum

We monitor the Help & Suggestions Forum Monday-Friday, 9am-9pm MT, so if you post a question at that time, we should be able to respond within a few hours.

Here are the different categories of forum posts:

·         Help/ How to Use: Here’s where you can post your questions about AllProWebTools. Do a quick search before you post to make sure your question hasn’t already been answered!

·         Report a Bug: Post here if you find something with the software that isn’t working correctly

·         Suggestions / Feature Requests: Got a great idea for a feature that would make AllProWebTools even more useful for your business? Check and see if anyone else has had the same idea. If they have, please post in the same thread to second their request. If not, go ahead and create a new thread.

Use Me When:

·         You have a specific question that you can explain in writing

·         You suspect that the toolkit is operating incorrectly

·         You have a great idea for a new feature

·         Your issue came up outside of office hours, and you want it addressed ASAP

·         Your Premium Support time ran out, but still want to get helped quickly

Premium: Online Chat

Talk in real time with a member of our Support Team over live online chat.

Use Me When:

·         You have Premium Support time available

·         You have a quick, simple question

·         You aren’t sure how serious an issue is

·         You don’t have time for a screenshare

·         Between 9-5 MT, Monday-Friday

Premium: Screenshare

If you’re looking for phone support, the closest equivalent will be to get into a screenshare. We do screenshares instead of phone calls simply because most support requests can be resolved most quickly when our technicians can also see your screen. You’ll be able to talk with a technician and actually show them what you need help with.

All you need to do is click on “Start a Screenshare,” and we’ll walk you through the setup.

Use Me When:

·         You have Premium Support time available

·         Your question is confusing or in-depth

·         Your issue is time-sensitive

·         You’d like to talk through your issue

·         Between 9am-4:45pm MT, Monday-Friday

How Do I Buy More Support Time?

It’s really easy! Just get into the Support Center, as explained above, and click on “Live Support Options.” Next to where you see “Premium Support Options,” there’s a green box that says “Time Remaining.” The amount of time listed there is your time remaining for the month.

Click on the plus sign to add more time to your plan. Remember, any minutes you buy DO roll over to the next month.

What Do I Do If I Want Big-Picture Help?

AllProWebTools is most effective when you can consistently work with an expert who really knows the software. That’s why we started our AllPro Experts program, where we connect small business owners with pros who can really help them dig in and make the most of their new toolkit.

Hiring an Expert gives them access to your console, and they will get in touch to learn how they can help you. You’ll be able to retract access at any time, or limit the features your Expert can access.

AllPro Experts are approved, certified, and ranked by AllProWebTools, to ensure that you can pair up with the Expert that’s going to really be able to help you. You can always browse our directory and see if there’s anyone you might like to work with.

Types of AllPro Experts:

·         Web Development

·         Customer Retention

·         Bookkeeping

·         Virtual Assistants

·         Marketing

·         Business Coaches

·         IT

 How Do I Get In Touch?

Click HERE To Finish Reading The Article & To Find Out How To Contact Our Friendly Support Staff!

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[allprowebtools]

How AllProWebTools Shaped My Future

Today is my last day at AllProWebTools, and I’m definitely experiencing the very definition of “mixed feelings.” Working with the team on the challenge of growing this incredible startup has been incredibly rewarding, a huge learning experience, and has inspired me for the future.

I’m moving on next to an online editor position at F+W, a media and ecommerce company specializing in hobbies and special interests. For example, I’ll be working with with their weaving and spinning communities, writing blog posts, social media, and other content for those sites.

Without AllProWebTools, I never would have gotten this opportunity.

When I graduated from college, I found myself, as so many other people my age do, in an awkward position. I had a degree in writing, but little experience. I spent over a year applying for jobs and trying out a few opportunities, living with my parents and panicking about the future.

A True “Learning Experience”

Then I saw the job posting that brought me to AllProWebTools. I submitted my application and came in for an interview with Dave, AllProWebTools’ founder. I could tell even from the interview that AllProWebTools was the kind of place where learning was a major value and priority.

Once I got the job, I started learning so much so quickly that I was sleeping 10 hours a night just to process it all. I learned about writing for the internet, I learned about SEO, and I learned about what it takes to be a small business owner.

I think this focus on learning is what makes AllProWebTools a really special place to work. Watching how much our interns grow in just a few months, seeing some of them become full time employees and continuing to grow, and seeing the company grow too as a result has been really special to witness.

One of the best things about working for AllProWebTools is how much things change day-to-day and month-to-month. I’ve worn so many hats in this role, and that’s only increased my opportunities to learn new skills and learn what I like to do.

Managing Management

One of those skills has been learning the basics of managing an employee. I had the chance to work with two great interns in my time here, and the AllProWebTools toolkit was a great way to learn the art of management.

Even if I don’t have AllProWebTools in my next management role, I can pull some key lessons from the mindset behind the software. I’ve learned how important it is to get key tasks in writing, and how much of a difference your organizational systems and processes can make on productivity. I’ve also learned some really valuable lessons about how to manage for self-reliance and confidence.

An Entrepreneurial Future?

Click HERE to finish reading the full post  and see what Andrea has planned for her future!

[allprowebtools]

Why I’d Never Run a Sales Team Without AllProWebTools

If you’ve met me or talked to me on the phone, even for just a few minutes, you know that the whole “meeting people and being friendly” part of sales isn’t really a challenge for me. But that’s not enough to be a great sales rep — it takes a lot of organization too. And that’s not as much my natural talent.

Luckily, I’m a sales manager at AllProWebTools, where we’ve built a software solution that is designed to take the organizational aspect of sales from nightmarish to really, really easy.

I get a lot of people asking how I personally use AllProWebTools to manage my leads, sales pipeline, and orders. Hopefully these tips can help you get your sales process super organized and efficient!

Finding New Leads

Do you ever pay for leads? It can be incredibly useful for some businesses, but man is it expensive! Lots of lists cost a dollar per name, which would be hard to justify for me.

AllProWebTools includes a much more affordable system for finding new leads, called the Acquire Leads Tool. It’s only $25 per month, and you get up to 5000 leads each month. It works out to half a cent per lead. That’s more like it!

I also really like the way the tool searches for new leads. You drop a pin on a Google map and enter in keywords for the type of business you’re looking for. So, for example, I might drop a pin right here in Loveland, Colorado and search for “massage therapists,” if that’s the kind of business I wanted to target.

The founder of AllProWebTools, Dave Kramer, uses the Acquire Leads tool all the time when he drives up to Denver for a meeting. Since he drove all that way, he likes to try to get other meetings the same day. He’ll drop a pin where he is in Denver and try to find someone else to meet with nearby.

Finally, the Acquire Leads tool is completely integrated with the AllProWebTools Sales Pipeline, which makes it much easier to stay organized. If I’m making cold calls I have several options: I can either add them straight to my pipeline, save them to come up in the tool later, or remove them so they never show up again.

If you want to learn more about that tool, check out this blog my fellow sales rep Kyle wrote about it!

Entering Leads

Imagine this: you get back from a big networking event with a three inch stack of business cards. You’re tired and want to take a rest. So you decide the leads can wait until morning. Then something comes up and those leads get pushed back until you can barely remember who these people are that you talked to.

Sound familiar?

Now, I gather business cards when I’m networking, but I won’t just build a stack. I have a simple system for marking cards I’m especially interested in with a dog ear, and other ways of reminding myself of information — folding cards in half, pen marks, etc. You can also just take notes on the cards.

Those notes give you a little bit more of a memory buffer — a real life-saver for me, and other business owners who have a hard time finding an hour or two to sit down and just enter in leads.

Dave, always Mr. Digital, usually just enters his leads into AllProWebTools right on the spot. You might not know that you can log into AllProWebTools from your phone through your browser, but it’s super convenient if you don’t want to have to worry about entering in leads later. Up to you!

Planning Follow-Up

Our CRM and Sales Pipeline are a great combination, allowing me to stay focused on people (my natural inclination) while also taking into account the business’s needs — and my potential commission!

When I add a new contact to our CRM, I’m creating a live record for all my future interactions with this prospect. If I close the deal, that record lives on and helps customer support keep up later.

Under the “Account Insight” panel on the CRM, I note their status as a lead (I can even segment Hot Leads to ensure I follow up right away) and put myself as the Account Manager. That ensures that any alerts about them come straight to me, and adds them to my pipeline.

To set a follow-up alert, I go back to that Account Insight section on the CRM record and set a follow-up time. When it’s time to call, I get a popup alert in my console. I can even integrate with Google Calendar, so I get an alert even if I’m not logged into AllProWebTools.

Finally, I scroll down to the Pipeline section on the CRM record and enter in my confidence in closing a lead, my estimated close date if I have one, and the amount I think I can close them for. That updates their information in my Sales Pipeline.

Later, when I access my Sales Pipeline (by clicking “Sales” from the dropdown on my username at the top of the screen), I can see all my leads, the company they work for, and all the other information I entered into the CRM.

But I can also see the total revenue I could potentially bring into the company, and the potential commission I could earn if I closed all those leads. It definitely lights a fire under me to get to work! Plus, it helps me stay organized, with all my leads in one easy-access location.

As I build my relationships, I use the Workflow Timeline feature of the CRM to leave detailed notes about a client’s interests, pain points, dislikes, and so on. When I pick up the phone to call them, I can get my bearings immediately and jump right back in.

Visit the original post to learn how to easily close a deal with AllProWebTools.

If you have any questions about how AllProWebTools can help you grow your business, I’m happy to help! Ask in the comments or go ahead and give us a call!

[allprowebtools]

Lessons Learned My First Day as an Intern at AllProWebTools

Remember the last time you had your first day at a new job?

You know, that gut-wrenching nervousness, sprinkled with overwhelming excitement, making you want to throw up the breakfast you tried to gulp down in preparation for the big day. As you reach for the handle of your new office, your new space, your new everything, you cannot help but imagine the day going all wrong.

My Terror

I had that feeling in full throttle as the clock ticked down to my first day with AllProWebTools, a new career filled with the unknown.

I had scheduled my first day at AllProWebTools a month in advance, which certainly made the build up all the worse. “Nervous” hardly covers the range of emotions I was feeling as the day approached. This start-up has developed a solution that helps small businesses boost sales, improve efficiency, and create professional marketing campaigns unlike any other tool out there.

Friends in marketing call AllProWebTools “the best kept secret of Northern Colorado businesses.” So to land a position with their marketing department was a lot of responsibility. As I walked into the open office of bright green and blue, my heart raced.

I put my stuff down, said my hellos, and woosh: assignments were made. Suddenly I had a client I needed to contact before the end of the day, another client in need of blog assistance, and yet another in need of a marketing analysis.

Wait, what?!

I had never met these clients, but maybe my team would sit down and train me as I went along? I crossed my fingers my first day wouldn’t include a thousand little meetings that would leave me bored and confused. Or maybe the inevitable, disorganized stack of files would come my way later, just when I thought I had things under control.

One thing felt certain: I didn’t think I would be any help to the team’s cause with so little information to start with. They keep saying, “You’ll find everything I need in the AllProWebTools toolkit!”

I kept thinking, “Prove it.”

The Power of the Toolkit

They were right.

AllProWebTools’ toolkit is like magic. There’s no other way to explain this software. I pulled up the cloud-based console from my choice of browser, and the toolkit gave me control within minutes.

Contact Management System

To start, one quick search in the AllProWebTools Contact Management System allowed me to see the history of our work with each client.

In the case of the client I was responsible for contacting on my first day, I was able to see:

●        A detailed record of their most convenient contact information

●        Tasks and deadlines associated with the client

●        A history of past conversations

With any other marketing job, I would have taken up my boss’s time asking a thousand questions. Or worse, I would have wasted the client’s valuable time as they realized how little I understood their unique needs.

Live Chat

Our Live Chat feature allowed for instant communication through the console, with real-time messaging and the ability to look back at old chats later. When I inevitably had questions, either about my tasks or while I was on the phone, I was instantly able to ask for help and receive answers without putting a client on hold or interrupting a teammember.

Tasking and Timecards

When it came to my tasks for the day, I expected a thousand little meetings, and I wasn’t looking forward to them. But to my surprise, not a single one was needed! Instead, AllProWebTools’ management tools kept me accountable for my day’s projects without adding stress to the first day.

Through AllProWebTools’ Timecards and Tasking, I was able to:

●        Work through a list of tasks sent from my team

●        Understand priorities without having to ask

●        Track my time and progress on tasks

This is a big difference from the management tactics of other companies, where I would have had to blindly attack responsibilities and waste time in a thousand little meetings, as I had originally expected.

Our Workflow Timeline

With our Workflow Timeline, I was able to see the status of our clients’ needs so I could stay up-to-date and make smarter decisions for their marketing campaigns. Despite being my first day, nothing I was charged with fell through the cracks, thanks to a team virtually at my side to see my progress and help me with our tasks.

I could simply watch the Workflow Timeline of the client who was waiting on blog posts to instantly see when my teammates had made updates to the articles. Everything was virtual and immediate.

Our Mission to Perfect Clients’ Online Presence

One of AllProWebTools’ missions is to perfect the online presence of their clients’ businesses. Their toolkit gave me the resources to provide professional marketing assistance to my clients, even on my first day.

In the case of the client analysis I was was asked to do, I was able to:

●        See the work already put into the client’s report by other team members

●        Determine what was needed from my analysis

●        Wrap up a report within the hour and alert my team

This is something that would have taken several hours at another company, where I would have very little direction on what was needed at the end of the day.

In short, the toolkit is the perfect program for us and our clients, allowing for productivity, prioritization, and the support I needed to look like a pro on my first day.

See the original post here to read what I realized and learned about AllProWebTools' culture.

[allprowebtools]

5 Branding How-Tos from Successful Entrepreneurs

1. How to Sell a Lifestyle to 250,000 Followers

Candice Galek, CEO & Founder of Bikini Luxe

“I would love to share some of the tips and tricks that we have used to build up a social media following of over 250,000 followers in the last 19 months.

Instead of taking the approach that we want to sell products to our customers we aim to sell them a "lifestyle." We have found this to be extremely effective, as no one wants to be bombarded with sales pitches for new products on a daily basis. But seeing a lifestyle that they wish to attain is completely different.

By using this approach of lifestyle versus just pushing your products, there is the additional benefit of creating customers who become loyal fans to your brand. This is one of the most important things that a business should focus on if they want to succeed in today’s social media driven market. The customer-to-friend referral is the strongest call to action that a company can ever dream of. The trust is built into the pitch for you already!

If you want to succeed with your business on social media you must carefully curate what you present to your followers and customers. Choose not only things that you want them to see but things that they wish to see.

The majority of our social media influence comes from our five carefully curated Instagram accounts but we have also found Pinterest to be a highly effective method to present our brand and images to consumers.”

2. How to Make Your Product an Experience

David Heacock, CEO of FilterBuy.com

“In the last 2 years of building our brand, we have found the following to be a few keys to our success:

1) It’s all about the customer

If you want to really build a brand, you have to put the customer first from user experience, educational resources, and in customer service. This must be in your DNA from the start, forcing you to do things that don’t seem natural (such as refunding that customer no questions asked when you know they were in the wrong).

2) Invest in packaging

When your customer opens a box, the first thing they are going to notice is your presentation. We sell replacement filters, not the most exciting thing to get in the mail, but we have invested heavily in our packaging as we want the customer to feel confident that the product they received is quality.

3) Emails that are actually informative and useful

Customers get bombarded with deals every single day. You need to provide value in your email marketing, giving that customer a reason to be loyal to your brand.”

3. How To Cultivate an Authentic Brand

Paige Arnof-Fenn, Founder & CEO of Mavens & Moguls

“I worked at Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and ran marketing at 3 successful startups before I started a global marketing and branding company 14+ years ago.  Here are a few tips from my 20+ year career in branding:

Be original

What makes you unique or special? Whatever it is, use it to your advantage. Can you imagine Barbra Streisand with a different nose, Jay Leno with a new chin, or Cindy Crawford without her mole? Everyone remembers the original, but the copycats start blending together after a while, so differentiate yourself to stand out from the pack. Be remarkable and extraordinary to grab attention and get noticed.  

Be honest

Turns out that telling the truth about what you are and are not, what you can and can't do is very refreshing. Let your brand be known for speaking the truth, and you become the trusted advocate and go-to source.

Be consistent

Develop a cohesive message, and live it every day. The repetition reinforces your key points so people will remember them. Every transaction and experience with your customers is an opportunity to build trust in your brand.

Be passionate

Everyone loves to work with people who are passionate about what they do; it makes life much more fun and interesting. So build your brand around what you enjoy and remember the words of John Ruskin: "When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.”

4. How to Find Your Channel

Andrew & Mary Ross, Autism Swimming Specialists at Sensory Swim

“When we first started Sensory Swim back in 2006, we were following everybody else's advice on marketing. Sell the sizzle not the steak. Make connections, attend seminars and workshops, and network. We were told that connections were where it was at.

We quickly found that did not work at all and that the people we were asking advice from wouldn't tell us straight up that, by doing all of the things they recommended, they were burning out and not moving the needle in terms of progress.

We learned how to interact on the Facebook platform and it's been pretty much smooth sailing ever since. We share information 4 times a day and very rarely pitch anything. We've learned that sharing resources is the smartest thing we've ever done and we will continue to do so. Even if it's good info from our competitors.

This has allowed us to gain over 50,000 fans and over 60,000 email subscribers. Give. Give. Give.”

5. Visit the original post to read how Chief Marketing Officer and Product Designer at Yooniko, Jay Denhart-Lillard, translates passion into impactful branding.

How does your business set itself apart from the crowd? Let us know in the comments!

[allprowebtools]

Fast, Convenient Prospecting with the AllProWebTools Acquire Leads Tool

Need a convenient, inexpensive way to find new small business leads? The AllProWebTools Acquire Leads tool can revitalize the efforts of your sales team, help you find new local opportunities, and save you time and money.

The Acquire Leads tool is fully integrated with our CRM, so whether you’re a sales team of one or twenty, you can keep your leads, follow-up, and sales pipelines coordinated. It’s perfect for finding new markets for specialty products, prospecting for insurance clients, seeking out businesses in need of web development, and much more.

We’ll share how to make the best use of the Acquire Leads tool, what information it includes, and what makes it a great value for B2B small business owners.

How Does It Work?

The AllProWebTools Acquire Leads tool searches for small businesses using Google Maps. You drop a pin on the map anywhere in the world, and the tool . You type in a few keywords about what specific type of business you’re looking for, and get started.

For example, if you were a web developer who specialized in making websites for restaurants and bakeries, you might drop a pin on your hometown (or across the country!) and type in “bakeries” as your keyword.

What Information Do We Provide?

You’ll then see the basic contact information for nearby local businesses, one by one, along with a preview of their websites. For each of these new leads, you can add them right to your Sales Pipeline. You can even tag contacts and leave yourself notes and a callback time from right in the console.

If you aren’t interested in the lead, you can either skip them to move on, or remove them so that lead never comes up in the software again.

So in our example from above, the web developer might look at each of the website previews and add all the ugly websites they see to their sales pipeline. Or they might cold call each business right away and only save the ones who are interested to the pipeline.

AllProWebTools does not provide the name of the business owner nor a specific contact at the business, nor can we offer any background information about the lead. We do provide a preview of the website, the name of the business, the address, and their primary phone number. You can also visit their Google + page right from the console.

Who Can Use This Tool?

This tool is perfect for either a sales team of one or for a small team. It can be used by teams working in an office together, or by teams with remote or in-field members.

As far as industry, Acquire Leads may be used by companies selling to other local businesses (specialty foods, crafts, clothing, equipment) or B2B manufacturers, service providers, software companies, etc.

If you or your team currently spends a lot of time cold-calling local businesses, (compiling lists to call, tracking results) this tool will save you time. You’ll also save on buying lists of leads, many of which run for as much as $1 per name. Acquire Leads is $25/month for 5000 leads — half a cent each.

The Acquire Leads tool can also save time for sales representatives who spend a lot of time in the field. Got a remote sales meeting and want to make other local appointments? Drop a pin in Acquire Leads and find someone local to talk to!

Why Wouldn’t I Just Use Google?

You may be asking why you wouldn’t just use Google to search for local businesses in a certain industry — after all, Google can search based on location and keyword just like the Acquire Leads tool.

The difference is the integration with the CRM and sales pipeline. For business owners who are their own sales team, this eliminates the need to spend your valuable time searching for new leads, entering in their information, and switching between tabs as you work your way down the list.

For small teams, this eliminates the problem of multiple representatives pursuing the same lead. Follow-up can always be coordinated, and lead ownership is clear. It also reinforces the idea that leads belong to the company, not to the sales representative.

Because the tool is mobile-friendly, accessible by browser from any internet-enabled device, you can keep your leads organized whether you’re in the office, in a sales meeting, or at home.

See the original post to add CRM and the Acquire Leads Tool to your toolkit!

How could the Acquire Leads tool help you grow your business?

[allprowebtools]

What Is DNS and Why Do I Need It?

You’re all ready to launch your new business — you have a great idea, a snazzy name, and you just bought an awesome domain. But what does it take to actually create a domain that’s unique to you — one that allows people to easily access your website and allows you to send secure emails?

When you type your new website URL into your web browser, something more complicated than what you see on the surface is happening. Same when you send an email. Let’s take a little deeper look at what’s really happening.

What’s in a Domain Name?

When you purchase a domain name from a site like GoDaddy, you get a URL that is your domain name. You also get an IP address. These are used to make what’s called a DNS (Domain Name System) record, which tells computers what websites the user is trying to visit.

IP Address

An IP (Internet Protocol) address is how computers and servers identify each other across the internet. While IP addresses are very straightforward and simple for computers, humans have a harder time with them. They’re made up of strings of numbers and periods that are difficult to remember.

URL Address

A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) address is how humans remember websites, and is what you type into your internet browser (Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox, etc) when you want to visit a website.

You can learn more about the types of URLs and more terminology by clicking here.

While URLs are very simple for humans to use and remember, they are not easy for computers to understand. When you type google.com into your web browser, your computer can’t just look it up by that name — it has to use an IP address. But how does the computer know which IP address goes with which URLs?

DNS Records and Cell Phone Address Books

You need both an IP address and a URL address, so that both humans and the computers they’re using can find your site easily every time. This is where DNS records come in. DNS records act as a way to translate between humans and computers in much the same way that the address book on your phone translates between you and the phone.

How Phones Translate

When you use your smartphone, you probably aren’t aware of the translation that happens every time you send a text or make a call. Humans remember their contacts in terms of names — often names accompanied by a picture. But this isn’t very helpful for phones.

If used your phone’s voice command system and said, “Call John Doe,” but you didn’t have a John Doe entered into your contact list, your phone would have no idea what to do. That’s because phones think about contacts in terms of phone numbers — which humans have a more difficult time memorizing.

But say John Doe is a friend of yours, and you entered his name and phone number into your phone’s address book. When you said, “Call John Doe,” your phone would look up the contact name and then use the phone number associated with that name to call John Doe’s phone.

How DNS Translates

Similarly, when you type in a URL to visit a website, the first thing your computer does is go to a DNS server, to try and figure out what website you’re looking for.

Your computer will show the URL you typed to the DNS server, and it will look through all the DNS records on the internet, trying to find a match. The Server acts like the address book, translating the URL you typed in into an IP address that your computer can use to access the website.

If it finds a match, the DNS server will then tell your computer the IP address that corresponds to that URL. Now your computer can communicate with the correct server and display the website you want.  

If the server doesn’t find a match, your computer won't know what website you are trying to visit and will show an error. There are several reasons why this could happen, but most often the reason is a mistyped URL.

DNS Enables Secure Email Marketing

DNS records are used for more than just finding and displaying websites. They're used for identifying many different Internet resources, including identifying legitimate email sent from a domain name.  Specifically, they’re used for determining whether the marketing emails your company is sending are spam or not.

When an email is sent with AllProWebTools’ Email Marketing tool, it doesn't travel there in a straight path to the recipient's inbox. The email goes to another server like Mandrill or Mailgun in between, and then to the inbox. Just like when you mail a postcard, it has to go to the post office before it gets into somebody else's mailbox.

An SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a special kind of DNS record, specifically a TXT (text) record, that specifies who is allowed to send emails associated with your domain name. It's similar to telling your friend that they should expect a package coming from UPS. That way, if they get a package from FedEx, they already know it's not from you.

Spam Filters: Is It Really From You?

These SPF records are used by email programs like Gmail or Outlook that try to filter out spam. Spammers usually don't use real email addresses to send their spam from. Instead, they’ll try to imitate someone else — possibly a small business like you.

Gmail will check these SPF records you've created to determine whether this is a real message that should go into your list’s inboxes, or if it should go into their spam folders.

When you send an email through AllProWebTools Email Marketing, Gmail can see more information about that message than you typically see when you check your email. Gmail will be able to see the email address that you are trying to send from, (example: [email protected]) but it will also see that the email didn't come straight from johndoe.com and instead came by way of Mailgun.

This is where the SPF record comes in.

Gmail will try to look up the DNS records for john.com, just like described above. Except, instead of trying to display the website, Gmail is trying to see if john.com has given Mailgun permission to send emails on its behalf.

If Gmail can find the SPF record that says Mailgun is allowed to send emails on behalf of john.com, then Gmail will decide that everything looks OK. If Gmail can't find that SPF record, then Gmail will get suspicious because the email lied about where it came from. Since the email lied, Gmail will decide it can’t be trusted and it will get marked as spam.

While this is not the only method used to identify spam messages, it is a very common and very strict method used by most email programs. Make sure you have proper SPF records when you start using AllProWebTools Email Marketing, otherwise most emails you send will be considered spam.

Services like Mailgun and Mandrill don't want to send spam (even if it’s just email that looks like spam), because it hurts their reputation just as much as it hurts yours. So, they typically will not even let you start sending emails until you have demonstrated that you really own that domain name. They do this by  making sure that you have the correct SPF records created.

See the original post to learn what you should do for a properly set up DNS.

[allprowebtools]

5 Small Business Owners Share Tips to Manage Remote Workers

1. “It takes all kinds to make impactful work.”

Sage Smith, Creative Director, Limitless Interactive

“As a creative advertising agency, it takes all kinds to make impactful work, and our policy is a flex schedule for all employees, no question asked.

One of our art directors is a renowned local painter, and often, she'll have an idea for an ad campaign while painting. She's able to drop in at any hour of the day or night -- last night, it was 1 A.M. -- and submit ideas the team can consider in the morning.

It's allowed us to harness the transient nature of spontaneous creativity in a way no other agency can.”

2. “These benefits have increased employee morale.”

Jacob Savage, President, Speak Creative

“We work a modified schedule of 7am-5- Mon-Thurs, and then 7a-11a every Friday, giving us a 2.5 day weekend. We also have flex time and remote time built in each month that does not count against our vacation or sick time.

Remote time allows us to work away from our normal office, including a coffee shop, a vacation spot, etc but is reserved for normal business hours. Flex time ensures that if we have something personal pop up through our day, we can attend it, and still get our work done.

These benefits have increased employee morale and allow our employees to be more intentional with their time, whether it's to attend a family affair, volunteer somewhere they are passionate, or just take time away to clear their minds. This also allows us to use our best productivity time towards a project, and minimizes lapses in productivity due to distractions.

Challenges we have faced are making sure to schedule this flexible time around our clients who operate in normal working hours. We work hard to make sure we don't let this time put off our clients' needs and that we are still responsible for getting work done within our normal day-to-day. We are constantly using email, IM and project management tools to keep communication flowing even when team members are out of the office.”

3. “They aren’t chained to their desks.”

Ben Walker, President & CEO, Transcription Outsourcing, LLC

“We have remote flexible employees all over the US. It has helped us in a few different ways.

It allows us to be available more hours of the day to accommodate clients in each of the different time zones during their ‘working’ hours.

It also allows our employees the freedom to do other things during the day, such as dropping their kids off at school, or simply going to grocery store. This has in turn helped us increase employee retention and job satisfaction because they aren’t chained to their desks.

It has also helped us cut costs because we have to pay more for employees here in the office in Denver because of the cost of living here, car, time in the car, and clothing. Working from home doesn’t require fancy clothes, a car, buying gas for your car, or a commute time to consider to and from your home every day.

The technology piece is much easier than it was five years ago. Tools help tremendously, but they haven’t replaced meeting and talking in person. That seems to be our biggest challenge with our remote staff. We can’t see each other’s body language, hear the tone of voice, or look each other in the eye when we are speaking. So things can be lost in translation when it’s mostly text or even when we have a conference call and you aren’t quite sure if the other person is upset or not.

Overall I am glad we have done this and we plan to continue.”

4. “Doing it this way has been incredibly effective.”

Noel Wax, President, GroundSwell Group

“We initially got an office but realized it was not the most efficient use of our funds and if we hired professional, mature, hard working people we would get a lot more out of them by giving them the freedom to create their own work schedules as long as the work gets done.

Doing it this way has been incredibly effective. We often email and talk late into the evening, but we also can drop our kids at school, pick them up, attend a 10am yoga class, etc. And we save the minimum 30 minute drive to and from work each day. We meet at coffee shops, hotel lobbies, libraries, and anywhere we want which give us a fresh new perspective.”

5. Visit the original post to read how AllProWebTools founder Dave Kramer encourages employees to work when and where they’re most productive.

How do you manage remote employees in your business? Post your recommendations in the comments!