Cutting your software costs
I want to help you save money and I am never going to ask you for anything in return.
Every year I save thousands of pounds by not spending any money on software. This whole exercise began when I was looking at NetSuite pricing as I needed one system to manage the key functions in my business. I have learned that I can do most of my key business tasks using free software. They dont teach this at Harvard. I am greatly saddened by the number of people in small businesses who are not aware of this approach.
I just follow these three steps to get the free tools.
- Ten minutes every day searching for a specific type of tool.
- Go to www.evernote.com and sign up to this free “memory” service.
- Ten minutes at the end of each day trying out what you find.
In just one month you should not only have a fabulous list of tools, but have learned a great deal about what free software you have on hand to do a better job. Start by looking at the tools listed below just to get a feel for the stuff I work with on a regular basis.
To make this simple to understand I have listed the zero cost software on the left and the software you will have to pay for on the right, the chances are you have heard of the software on the right because they spend a large proportion of the money they take from you on marketing.
Here we go:
Just type the name of the free product to the search engines
One system to manage customers and accounting
salesorder.com pricing: free NetSuite pricing – really expensive
Sorry I couldnt resist this one…
Creating and writing Documents
Google Docs pricing: $0 Microsoft Office pricing – at least $100
Or
OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org)
Sharing ideas online
Bubbl.us pricing: $0 Mindjet pricing – at least $200
Making videos
Jing pricing: $0 Camtasia Studio pricing – at least $300
Teleseminars
DimDim pricing: $0 AdobeConnect pricing – at least $200/month
My thanks to the NetSuite pricing incident for the inspiration to write this up and help you out.
More soon…
