Sign up for Skype

McAlister is a Mac guy, so we searched for cross-platform solutions to stay in touch. Skype made it possible for us to spend more than 15 minutes a day on the phone; when you’re apart for weeks at a time, that’s very important! The best part was the cost; almost nothing! On one 3-week trip, my 24 HOURS of phone calls cost me only $32.

Skype is also good for business! I call into the teleseminars hosted by my mentors using Skype. My SkypeOut account lets me prepay for computer-to-phone calls, and the cost is miniscule. Using Skype makes it possible for me to listen to as much training as I can aborb.

I have recently begun using HiDef Conferencing for my webinars and teleseminars. This plan allows my callers who have Skype accounts to call in using Skype instead of calling on a land line! That saves them time and allows me to offer a service that can open up my webinars to a global audience. Skype is extremely popular everywhere else besides the USA, so I am confident that offering a Skype Conference number will attract new business.

Sign up for Skype!

Networking with colleagues and clients is a tricky process! I have stacks of business cards from people I have met through the National Speakers Association, from current and potential future clients, and colleagues. I bet you do too! All too often those business cards end up in a drawer, and we never follow up. Here is where our print and electronic worlds clash: if only we could get those printed cards into some kind of electronic format!

Well, if there’s a “portal” between printed information and electronic communication, it’s Cardscan. I have a Cardscan scanner and the accompanying software, and it’s terrific. It’s not just that you can get the card into an electronic format, it’s that the scanner also captures and populates the information in the card into a database that you can synchronize with Outlook. In fact the scanner is jaw-droppingly accurate at getting the Name in to the Name field, the Zip code into the Zip code field, and so on. It doesn’t seem to matter where the information has been positioned on the card itself; Cardscan finds it, snatches it, and puts it where it belongs.

By the way, the most current scanner is a COLOR scanner, so what you see on the original card comes through online. I don’t know about you, but there’s something about being able to see that card again to help jog my memory. In the speaking profession, many people have their photos on their cards, so it’s even more important to keep an image of the card even if I don’t retain the card itself. That’s where Cardscan excels.

I’ve been using Cardscan for several years. I’m now on my second card scanner from CardScan and the 3rd version of the software. This lastest release of the software is truly impressive in its ability to capture the information accurately. The scanner itself is very light and small enough to toss in your laptop bag or suitcase, so there’s no excuse not to scan those cards as soon as you get them, even if you’re traveling. I think that’s the key to really getting value from business cards: scan them, make notes, add your Outlook categories, and network with your new contact right away.

Cardscan also comes with an online contact management system called AtYourService. You can synchronize your Cardscan contacts with AtYourService so that your information is always available online, even if you leave your laptop at the hotel or in your office. You can look up the information on any computer or PDA with an Internet connection, and you’ll appreciate the encryted, secure access to your valuable contacts.

So open the drawer, pull out those business cards and start scanning! Turn those brief conversations with others into truly valuable networking colleagues by getting organized and getting connected.