The Intuit Community Blog

How do you advertise your business?

There are many methods of advertising out there. I think by now we all know that word of mouth advertising is the strongest method of getting our product name out. Especially now that the internet is such a widely used medium, customers can not only tell their friends and family but just about anyone who happens across their website or blog.

 

An interesting site I thought I’d share is bzzagent.com. This website works with businesses to offer free products or services to a specified amount of users. These users are then encouraged to go out and spread the word about the product or service. Users of this service give honest opinions back to the company about the product, so you will receive useful data as well.

 

This is such a great way of getting the word out about your business. You can focus the WOM (word of mouth) to a specific area, or country-wide. Check it out. As a business owner, it may be a beneficial, low-cost way of advertising for your company. As a participant, it’s a neat way of getting free things to try and talk about.

A customized Intuit Search Engine

The search box below will search the web for anything Intuit or QuickBooks related.

What's your time worth?

In these troubled economic times, small businesses need to concentrate more than ever on cost efficiency.  Most small businesses have payroll to contend with and many of them manage their payroll with spreadsheets or even pencil and paper.  While it may seem to be cost efficient to handle payroll in this way, there are hidden costs involved. 

The biggest cost, of course, is time.  I worked for a small auto parts store a few years ago where the owner did his payroll by hand.  When I asked him about it, he just smiled and said "My time costs me nothing".  That may be true in a technical sense, but it may have cost him much more than he thought. 

We had a total of 5 hourly employees plus myself and the owner on a salary.  We did payroll weekly for the hourly employees and bi-monthly for the salaried.  I tabulated the hours from the time sheet and gave the totals to the boss.  He would calculate the net pay for each employee and give the totals to me to write paychecks.  The whole process took about an hour.  Add to that the time it took to fill out and mail monthly liability forms and payments...probably another hour.  Add to that the quarterly liabilities and the end of year activities such as the form 940 and W2 forms.  Perhaps another 3 or 4 hours.  On occasion, he made a mistake and would have to spend time finding and correcting the error.  The point being, he probably spent 70 to 80 hours a year on payroll...just because it didn't cost him anything. 

Now, suppose you had 70 to 80 hours of free time.  What would you do?  Of course, there are lots of choices.  You could find new customers.  Or spend time with existing customers.  Or develop a new product to sell.  Maybe take a vacation.

Intuit has provided a way to give that time back to you AND save you money.  As part of the Intuit Small Business United campaign, you can now subscribe to Intuit Online Payroll FREE for 6 months and only $9.95 a month after that.

Imagine the time you can save and the stress you can avoid by not valuing your own time as being worth "nothing".  And, if you use Quicken Deluxe, Premier or Home & Business 2007 and higher or QuickBooks Pro and Premier 2007 and higher, you can import your IOP data right into your file saving you the time and effort of double entry.

So, what have you got to lose?  It's free for 6 months!  Give Intuit Online Payroll a try.  I think you'll be glad you did.

An update about yesterday's issues

Wanted to share this with you. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me

Network Delay Response Statement from Intuit
Feb. 3, 2009 3:30 p.m.

Several Intuit online services, including IMS, QuickBooks and TurboTax, are running today after network difficulties caused intermittent delays on Monday. Some customers trying to access these services Monday may have experienced delays during an approximate six-hour time period.
TurboTax is managing volume to deliver the best possible user experience for customers using the product. As a result, some customers may be unable to immediately access the site. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest they try back later this evening.

Several of our customer support organizations have extended their hours to assist customers who may have had problems related to Monday’s delays.

Customers choose Intuit to provide the high-quality service they've come to expect from us. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate their patience. We know that customers need and expect our services to be available when they want them, and are working to prevent this from happening again.