Convinced you need an iPad to make your life complete? You’re not the only one! The latest estimates say that there are some 7.5 million iPads already being put to use by rabid consumers world-wide, and those numbers are bound to rise even further with each holiday season.

So if you want an iPad, what’s the next step? Here’s what you need to do:

Decide if you want to buy from Apple or from a reseller

I always recommend buying from Apple, because of the added confidence you’ll have in being able to get repairs or a refund if something were to go wrong. Also, if you purchase an Apple product elsewhere than the Apple Store, they will not replace it if there’s a problem. The lower price isn’t worth the hassle; go with Apple.

Decide if you want to buy online or from an Apple Store

With over 300 stores world-wide, there’s a good chance there’s an Apple Store near you. But if you don’t want to deal with parking, lines, and “the mall” (where most Apple Stores are located), you can buy your iPad online with free shipping. Just go to their website or copy and paste this link in your browser to see your choices:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad

Choose a 3G or a Wi-Fi model

There have been problems with the Wi-Fi model; our next door neighbors barely picks up the household signal, even when their iPhone and laptop are picking up a strong wireless signal. If you plan on using it outside your home at all, I recommend going with the 3G; the monthly data plan is very reasonable, and the ease of being able to pick up a signal anywhere is a huge convenience.

Choose your size

$200 for four times the storage space seems like a no-brainer to me, but I’m one who firmly believes that bigger is better, at least when it comes to hard drives! However, if you don’t plan on using your iPad to store videos or audios, you may find the smaller sizes perfectly adequate. Remember though; just as with closets and garages, if you have the space, you’ll use it. And the more space you have, the more you’ll use your iPad.

That’s it. The only other question you may have is what accessories you’ll want, and if you want to engrave a pithy saying on the backside of your iPad (think of it as an electronic tattoo). The process is painless, as it should be. And setting up your new baby will take even less time than buying it did.

What would you do if you lost everything in your Gmail account? It’s happened to some people – some Gmail users recently suffered a data loss. Gmail was able to get everything back for them eventually. However, it woke many people up to the possibility of losing everything in their account.

If you use Gmail, chances are your life is stored in those archived messages. So how do you protect it?

A Variety of Choices

There are actually many services you can use to back up your Gmail. Backupify is a paid service that backs up Gmail, Facebook, Flickr, Google Docs, Twitter, and many additional web applications. It’s a “set it and forget it” type of backup security system. Another option is to use TrueSwitch and back up your Gmail into a Hotmail account. Gmail Backup is another free option for backups. If you prefer to have all of your backup data in your possession, rather than stored on an outside server, then consider Thunderbird.

Thunderbird is Mozilla’s free email application. If you use Firefox as your browser then you may be familiar with the application. The steps to backup with Thunderbird are easy.

Step #1 Download Thunderbird

Simply visit the Mozilla Thunderbird download page and click to download. Save the set-up exe file on your computer. Once it is saved, open the file and click “Run” to install.

Step #2 Change Your Gmail Settings

In the meantime, log into your Gmail and change the settings to enable POP for all mail, and set Gmail to keep its copy.

Step #3 Finish Installation

Follow the procedures to finish the installation and set-up for Thunderbird. You can import your Outlook or Outlook Express settings if you use that software.

Step #4 Back In Gmail

On that same settings page “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” in Gmail, you’ll see a link at the bottom of the page. It says, “Configure your email client (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, iPhone) Configuration instructions.” Go ahead and click the link. Follow the instructions for Thunderbird and you’ll be good to go. Your information will now be backed up on Thunderbird and you’ll have a second tier of protection.

If you like to have a third tier of protection, consider backing up everything to an online service. This way, if you’re ever hacked and they gain access to everything, you haven’t lost anything.

Email marketing often involves a tightrope walk between selling and connection. If you sell too much, you’ll lose your customer’s interest and burn out your list. Focus too much on connection and not on selling and you won’t generate enough revenue.

What’s the right balance?

Between 10% and 20% Selling

Generally the right amount is somewhere between 10% and 20% selling, with between 80% to 90% of your content being focused on quality, solving the customer’s problems and making a connection.

80% to 90% content is enough to get your customers in the habit of opening your emails. They’ll know that by and large, emails from you will be of a high quality.

Having 80%+ of your content be connection-based also does one other thing: it essentially buys you the right to sell to them.

When someone gets immense value from the emails you’re sending, they won’t feel resentful when they read a sales message. In fact, they’ll read your sales messages with an open mind, knowing that there’s a good chance they might get value from the product you’re offering.

If you oversell, people will resent being sold to. If you consistently provide high quality content, people will look forward to your next product and eagerly read your sales message.

The 5 to 1 Email or the “At the Bottom” Style

There are primarily two different ways you can split your selling and connection content.

The first method is to send only emails that have connection and problem-solving content, then every once in a while send a 100% sales message.

If you use this method, make sure that your sales messages also provide value. Even if you regularly send out quality content, you still can’t just send out a spammy ad. Instead, you have to provide value even as you’re selling them.

By sending only one sales message every 5 to 8 emails, you keep up with the 10% to 20% rule.

The other method is to sell regularly, by putting an advertisement or one or two promotional sentences at the bottom of every email.

This method works very well, because instead of trying to get a home run of sales in one email, you’re getting a steady flow of sales with every email that you send.

Try to tie in your sales message with the email itself. For example, if your email talked about all the most common obstacles graphic designers run into when looking for clients, then pitch an easy way to find clients in your promotional sentence, even if your product covers a lot more than that.

Walking the fine line between over- and underselling in email marketing can be a little tough. As a rule of thumb, sell between 10% and 20% of the time to maximize customer connection while still pulling in strong revenues.

Website analytics can tell you a lot. For a solopreneur, understanding web analytics is a crucial skill. Your analytics can tell you whether people understand what you’re offering, whether people like your brand and whether or not your website is helping you make money.

Here are some of the important numbers every small business should be watching in their web analytics.

How Many Visitors Are You Getting?

The first and most important number you should be watching is how many visitors you’re getting. In addition to the raw number, also pay attention to whether the visitor count is going up or down.

As your marketing efforts progress, you should see a direct boost to your visitor count. It might not happen right away, but within a couple months you should see a measurable increase.

How Many Hit a Goal?

Every website should have a very clear goal. For example, your website might be designed to get someone to fill out a form for a free sample. Or it might be designed to get someone to print out a coupon for a free appetizer and bring it into your restaurant.

Whatever the case, you should be carefully tracking the goal hit rate for your website.

Use the “Goals” feature in Google Analytics to track this.

Geographic Location

Are the people who’re landing on your website the right kinds of people? If you have a small local business, check to make sure the traffic you’re getting is actually from your area.

Where Does the Traffic Come From?

How do people end up on your website? Do they type something into the search engines and end up on your site? Or do they enter your URL manually? Is someone else sending people to your website?

Tracking your traffic sources and your referrer data can give you valuable information about what’s working and what’s not working when it comes to generating traffic.

The Bounce Rate

The bounce rate measures the percentage of people who land on your website and leave without visiting a second page on your website.

A high bounce rate usually means that visitors came to your site expecting one thing but didn’t find what they were looking for. If your bounce rate is above 60%, you might have some serious revamping to do. Of course, if you are looking at the stats on a one page sales letter, your bounce rate is irrelevant.

Are People Coming Back?

Finally, check to see whether or not people who visit your website come back again.

For some businesses, this is an irrelevant statistic. For example, a restaurant’s website doesn’t really expect to get repeat visitors. People just use the website to find the address or phone number so they can show up.

But for most solopreneurs, you do want people to keep coming back to your site. If people are coming back time and again, that probably means people are finding your website useful. Check your returning visitor rate to see how well you’re doing in this department.

These are some of the many things that your analytics system can tell you. Learning to understand analytics can really help you steer your small business in the right direction.

Do you have a new business? Are you revamping your existing business? Whether your business is old or new, you can greatly benefit from a proper business plan. Many people think that a business plan is only beneficial if you are trying to raise money for your company and while this is one reason to write a business plan, it is certainly not the only one.

Creating and writing a business plan for your company is a great idea to ensure the success of your business. Your business plan will greatly increase your chances of being organized and successful with your business. When you have a plan with set goals, it is easier to achieve those goals. This is a much better business practice than leaving things to chance or being so unorganized that you can not track your progress.

What is included in a business plan?

So what does your business plan need to include in order for it to be sure it is successful and complete? You will need to have a description of your business, details of what it is and how it will operate, some information regarding ownership, a start up summary as well as market research and target market information.

You want to walk through the business and the function of your business from the beginning all the way through. What is the purpose of your company? Do you sell a product? Do you provide a service? What are you offering to customers? How much experience do you have and how are you qualified to perform the job duties? Ask the same questions of your employees or business partners.

Why Create your Business Plan?

So why is it worth your time to write and create a great business plan? There are different reasons, as we mentioned before. One popular reason why people choose to create a business plan is to try to convince potential investors and lenders to fund money to your business.

Most of all a good business plan will help you determine whether or not your business has a good chance of producing profit. If results show that you will not make a good profit, you might need to adjust your business plans and goals somewhat. It can also serve as a great way to estimate your start up costs and needed investments to start or continue the business.

Do you want to spruce up your business plan or create a simple, easy to use plan for your business in 2012? Join me for the Business Planning Work Day on Monday, January 2nd. Find out more information by going to:

www.solopreneur.biz/planning/

Don’t you just love technology? A few short years ago it really wasn’t possible to run your business from your phone. Now you can do almost anything with the help of applications for your iPhone.

Writing/Editing

There are a number of apps that let you view and edit documents directly from your smartphone. One of the most popular is called Documents to Go. It lets you view and edit documents right on your phone.

You can also find text-based writing tools like PlainText and iA Writer that are inexpensive and easy to use.

Desktop Communication

You can use the GoToMyPC app to connect to your work computer. This makes it easy to access your work files directly. No need to plan ahead. You can also use Apps like Dropbox and CloudTalk to share and store information that is accessible both from your computer and your smartphone.

Communication

With Skype you can have voice chats (and video chats if your device has a camera) with customers and contractors.

You can also use dictation applications like Dragon and QuickVoice to record your thoughts or create business content or documents.

Payment and Invoicing

PayPal offers an easy to use payment application that lets you send invoices and manage your account from your smartphone. Many banks also offer applications that let you manage your account from your phone. Intuit, the makers of Quicken and QuickBooks also have a payment processing application called GoPayment that you can use on your smartphone.

Blogging

Like to blog on the go? Check out the WordPress application that makes it easy to write, edit and publish blogs from your smartphone.

Social Networking

There are myriad applications to manage your social networking for both Facebook and Twitter. You can post pictures, comments, and stay in touch with your friends from just about any mobile device. Check out Friendly and the iTunes Facebook app for Facebook. Check out the HootSuite application for Twitter.

Organization

Last but definitely not least are the wide number of organization and brainstorming applications that you can find to not only grow your business but also to manage it from your phone. Check out MindNode for mind mapping applications. Evernote and One Note are both fantastic note taking, clipping, and organizational tools.

And don’t forget the basics. You can access your Google accounts with Google applications which means you can check your AdSense earnings, analytics and of course you can check your email too.

Smartphone applications make owning and operating a business easier than it has ever been before. You can network, invoice, pay bills, brainstorm, publish content and launch new products – all from your phone.

Most word processing software programs don’t come cheaply. Even the most commonly used, MS Word comes at a hefty price tag if it wasn’t preinstalled on your computer. If you’re looking for a top-notch word processing software that is absolutely free, don’t look any further than Google Docs.

Google Docs is Google’s answer to a web based documents system. To use the software all you have to do is have a Gmail account or go to http://docs.Google.com and register for a Google account. It’s absolutely free. In addition to word processing, you can create spreadsheets, forms, and presentations.

Once at the Google Docs website the rest is easy.

Step #1

Click on the Create button in the upper left hand corner.

Step #2

Choose the type of document you want to create. If you’re familiar with Excel, MS Word, and PowerPoint, these document types will look and feel familiar.

Step #3

Once you’ve made your document choice a new document will open. If you have chosen to create word processing document you’ll see the same type of toolbar at the top of the page. You can format your content the same way you would a Word document. You can choose your font type, size, and formatting. You can justify the page right or left, highlight, list items, and include text links.

Step #4

After you have created your document, the final step is to save it and here’s one of the ways where utilizing Google documents really pays off. You’ll save your document as a Google document. It won’t really ask you how you want to save your document. And it will store the document in a main folder or you can create sub folders, this allows you to label and organize them how you see fit. Whenever you sign into your Google or Gmail account you will have access to all of your Google documents.

Step #5

If you want to export the document and store it on your desktop or hard drive all you have to do is click on the file menu and choose “download as” from the pop up list. There you will see that you have the option to download the document as HTML, Open Office, Text, Word, RTF or PDF. That means if you’re sending the document to someone who uses MS Word, you can download it as a word doc and send it to them quickly and easily.

Step #6

Here’s the final reason Google documents is a great resource, you can share your documents by simply clicking the word “Share” in the upper right hand of the document toolbar. There you will see you have a number of options including sending a link to the document to a person, emailing the documents to a person or persons, inviting people to view the document or publishing as a web page. This makes collaboration very simplistic.

Google documents is one resource that makes creating, editing and sharing documents quick and easy and perhaps best of all, it’s extremely user friendly and it’s free.

Email is a great way to stay in contact with friends and family. It has become an essential part of doing business in today’s economy. Because email is so easy to use, it’s easy to find yourself overwhelmed with the number of email messages you receive each day.

This clutter can become a source of stress. If you take an active role in addressing your email clutter, you’ll be able to reduce this stress. You’ll also spend less time dealing with your emails. And you’ll have time left over for more important things. Below are a few steps you can take to assist in your email clean-up.

Prevent Unwanted and Unsolicited Emails

Major email service providers such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail have gotten very good at identifying and filtering spam email, but you can help them get better. For example, if you’re a Gmail user, click the “Report Spam” button to identify any spam messages that you happen to receive. Hotmail users should use the “Junk” button.

When enough users identify a certain sender’s messages as being junk or spam, then the service will be able to better filter future message from that sender.

Prioritize Your Incoming Emails

One way to reduce future clutter in your inbox is to have a system that can help you prioritize new emails as you receive them. If you can deal with the important emails right away and leave the low priority emails until later, then your inbox won’t get cluttered quite as quickly.

Most email providers give you the ability to create rules or filters by which you can identify emails which come from certain people as being the most important. If you use Gmail, consider giving Gmail’s “Priority Inbox” a try if you haven’t already. This feature does a great job at automatically highlighting the emails you’re likely to find most important.

Organize the Emails You Must Keep, But Delete as Much as Possible

Another key element of the decluttering strategy is to identify the emails you absolutely must keep. Also identify why you must keep them. If you’ve already acted on the email but still need to keep it, then get it out of your inbox and into a storage folder or archive. If you don’t need to keep the email, simply delete it.

Finally, one of the most important things you can do is identify those emails that you can address in a few minutes or less. Once you identify those emails, take the necessary action – right away – so that you can be done with it, and delete the email. Simply leaving these emails and telling yourself you’ll “deal with them later” leads to more clutter.

You can save a ton of money on tax write-offs if you’re running your own business. For many small businesses, taxes are one of their larger expenses, sometimes even their largest expense. Are you aware of all the write-offs you can use to reduce this expense?

Sample Write-Offs

Home office space – You can’t claim your entire house as a deduction, but if you have a specific room or area of the house that’s solely used as a home office, you can claim that space as a tax write-off. Just figure out the percentage of the square footage in your home that your office space takes up and divide your monthly rent or mortgage by that amount.

Health insurance, self employment taxes and contributions to retirement plans – Your health insurance is most likely completely tax deductible. You may also qualify for tax breaks depending on your retirement plan.

Internet and phone – If an internet connection is required for business operation, chances are you can deduct it. The same can be said for your phone. You can’t deduct your primary line, but if you have additional lines specifically for business it can probably be deducted.

Filing fees – In most states, you have to pay some sort of filing fee to maintain your corporate or business license. These fees can almost always be deducted.

Any office supplies – Staplers, paper, pens, etc. can almost always be deducted.

Computers, printers and scanners – So long as the digital equipment is used primarily for business, you can probably deduct it.

Domain, hosting, shopping cart, etc. – Any expense that you incur as a result of having your website up can be deducted.

Meals – You can deduct 50% of your business meals. What is a “business meal?” A business meal is basically a meal you have with one or more persons who are in some way related to your business.

Recording Tax Write-Offs

Save all your receipts. If it’s not self-explanatory what the receipt was for, make notes on the back of the receipt so that when tax day comes it’s clear to you or your accountant what the expense was.

If you’re deducting a meal, make sure you write down who the meal was with on the back of the receipt as well.

In general, if it’s an ordinary expense, you won’t raise any red flags at the IRS. On the other hand, if you start creatively deducting things that generally aren’t considered business expenses, you risk getting audited.

If you keep good records and keep abreast on what your write-offs are, you can greatly reduce the amount of taxes you need to pay at the end of the year.

Google Cloud Print allows you to print any email from anywhere, with one click from an Android or iPhone device. It’s a revolutionary service that makes printing easier for professionals on the go. How does it work and could you benefit from it? Let’s find out.

How Google Cloud Print Works

To get started, you need either an Android device or an iOS device. You also need a Windows PC computer connected to a printer. Linux and Mac aren’t currently supported, but will be supported in the near future, according to Google.

Download and install Google Chrome, Google’s proprietary browser. Connect your Google Chrome browser to your printer in Chrome.

Once that’s set up, you can now print from any portable or even non-portable device by clicking “Print” in any email. Note that you need to be using Gmail for this to work.

Once you’re set up, do a test print from your Android or iPhone device to make sure the connection is working properly.

Who Benefits Most from Google Cloud Print?

Naturally, Google Cloud Print is most beneficial to people who are on the go often, and who also often need things in paper form. This could include people such as lawyers, product based businesses, coaches and really just about anyone who often gets work-related emails that need to be printed.

Since so many people read their emails on the go today rather than when they’re sitting at their desk, it really doesn’t make sense to force people to wait until they’re at a computer to print everything out.

You should be able to read, delete, archive and even print all your email from a mobile device on the go. Google Cloud Print allows you to do this.

Google Cloud Print for a Business Address

One further use for Google Cloud Print would be to attach it to your office’s printer rather than your own printer. That way, anyone who needs to print on the go can use your office printer to print things out.

Create one email address that’s shared among employees. That email address is connected to Google Cloud Print and any employee can forward emails to that email address, log in and print documents from any mobile device anywhere.

In other words, you can effectively wire a printer in such a way that anyone working for you can print any document anyone needs, no matter where they are.

Google Cloud Print may be a truly revolutionary technology for offices all around the world. Would your office benefit from using Google Cloud Print? The only real way to find out is to give it a try. Since it’s included in Google Chrome, it’s quite easy to install. Getting started only takes five to ten minutes. Why not give it a shot?