Business on a Mac: Fodeo

This is our first in a series of weekly posts looking at how Macs are being used in different types of businesses. It's not always easy, and sometimes it's downright challenging to use Macs for business. Other times, The Mac gives a distinct business advantage.

Countryside, Illinois - based Fodeo provides in-store and online dvd photo montage services. While we'll see in some of our future profiles that Mac integration isn't always headache-free, Fodeo is doing just fine. Here's a Q & A with Fodeo's Valarie Moody:

Give us an overview of your business:
Our business solves the question of what to do with digital photos when you have very little time or technical knowledge.

How do Macs fit in your workflow?
We use Macs for everything! (Well, except for our POS right now, but that will change). Our video editors use Final Cut Pro, our project coordinators use Photoshop on a Mac for retouching photos before editing or printing, our accounting person uses Quickbooks for Mac, and we will also be tracking our shipped items via a Mac when we switch our POS system to Lightspeed.

What percentage of your business uses Macs?
98%

Why do you use Macs?
Their friendly and reliable!

Would you recommend Apple to other retailers?
Definitely. We've had no issues with viruses or crashes in 4 years of business. Because of our retail set up, many of our customers are surprised to see so many macs. All of the macs are networked with the rest of our equipment, and we've never had a problem with any of the computers, which we can't say the same about the one PC we have.

What specific software do you use on your Macs?
We use Quickbooks software. I use my MacBook Pro as my lifeline. I use all of the Office products for planning and budgeting.

What's the biggest advantage to using Macs for you?
Speed and simplicity, which means less labor costs. Not to mention the more creative things you can do with Macs vs. unreliable PCs.

What's the biggest drawback/issue to using Macs for you?
It used to be the lack of good POS software, but now that's not an issue. The only other drawback is the unfriendliness of some websites dealing with Safari. But even that is barely an issue these days.

If you have a business running on Macs, let us know: feedback@thedigitallifestyle.tv

The iTunes music store could have some competition, if only...

Business is hard. The digital music business is really hard. Or is it? On paper at least, you need to create an easy user interface, have a wide selection, and offer unique features. There's one other part of the equation everyone seems to keep forgetting though: advertising.

Amazon has a decent mp3 store. It has a fine selection of tracks, and the best way to get your music into your iTunes library without using the iTunes music store. So why then, isn't it more popular? No one knows/remembers it exists! Other than the promotion with Pepsi, (which didn't have the same ad support as the previous Pepsi deal with Apple) have you ever seen an ad for the service?

Now Amazon is expanding to the UK, where we're told most digital downloads are in a protected Windows Media format. What a great opportunity for Amazon to expand their marketshare, but if the y make the same mistake as in the U.S., they will be a very distant second place at best.

The only digital music competitor to sink any real money into advertising was the failed buy.com music store. Maybe the failure of Buy caused everyone else to be gun shy. The problem with Buy was never the advertising though, it was a clunky store with a small selection, of wildly varying price points. Any company serious about taking on Apple will have to match ad for ad with them just to make any impact. Think about all those Coldplay commercials from Apple, who easily has the #1 position. There's no magic wand to make your music store competitive with Apple. People need to know the store exists, and then be reminded of that at every turn. It's a simple business principle

Mind Your Business On a Mac: CRM Continued

Welcome back to MYBOAM, where I cover business on a Mac. We're going to continue outlining some CRM options for your business on a Mac. If you missed the first post, check it out, but be sure to stop back to get the continuation.

Zoho CRM

What I like: For companies of 3 users or less this solution is complete FREE. That’s right kids, Zoho CRM is completely free for up to 3 users. This solution is also web based so you can access your Zoho CRM from any computer connected to the web. Zoho is fully featured from contact and lead management to email marketing campaigns, you can do it all with Zoho CRM. Zoho also provides reporting to help you gauge how your business is performing.

What could be better: Free doesn’t mean unlimited. Zoho caps your free usage at 100MB of data. I’m unsure how far 100MB of database get you, but should you need more Zoho is happy to oblige for a $5/month fee. Internet dependancy makes getting to your database difficult if your internet goes down.

Price: FREE for up to 3 users, $12/month for unlimited users.

Salesforce.com

What I like: Another web based solution only requiring an internet connection. What’s even better is that Salesforce.com offers a offline version of your database should your internet connection go down. Salesforce.com also offers a 30 day free trial to see what you’re getting. Salesforce.com fully integrates with Google Apps to power your email and collaborate on documents and is fully customizable for your business. I also like the built in analytics to gauge how you’re doing. Reporting is also fully customizable.

What could be better: Pricing. The smallest package is for 5 users and is fairly costly (See below).

Price: Group edition $1200/yr for 5 users.

The bottom line on CRM: There are many different options with varying integration with your current apps and your current budget. You should think about scalability when selecting your CRM software so think about where you'll be in 5 years as the cost of switching might be steep. I like Zoho for it's robustness and pricing.

Mind Your Business On a Mac: CRM

Episode 1: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

In this first installment of Mind Your Business On a Mac (MYBOAM) we take a look at CRM solutions. Great businesses are obsessed with their customers and CRM software is your way of keeping everything straight. CRM has evolved to become more than just a glorified address book and calendaring program. CRM now can manage your marketing campaigns, keep track of finances and produce detailed and customizable reporting. I’m going to highlight some of the best CRM solutions for the Mac. I won’t insult your intelligence and spit back what’s on the fact sheets. I’d rather tell you what I like about the offering and what could be better.

Marketcircle Daylite 3
What I like: The great part of Daylite 3 is the level of integration with native OS X applications such as Mail, Address Book, iCal, and iSync. This means that you don’t need to spend valuable time recreating information that may already exist on your machine. I also like the 30 day full featured FREE Trial available on the Marketcircle website.

What could be better: This solution is installed on your Mac which means you need to have your mac with you to access the information. I’d like to see a web portal to your information so no matter where you are, you can access your information from any location.

Price: $149

File Maker Pro
What I like: You might not think of File Maker as CRM software. It doesn’t have an address book, calendar, and it doesn’t integrate with Mail or any other Apple native applications. What you do get is a fully customized database platform. That means you can create a CRM solution based on your companies needs. File Maker also scales with your business and offers a server version so many users can access the same database.

What could be better: The database requires a level of customization that may require hiring a File Maker consultant to develop your database. This can be costly. File Maker doesn’t offer a web portal or sync features so your not going to be able to take your database with you or have access to it from a different computer.

Price: $299-$499 OR $999-$2499 (for server version)

Bento
What I like: Based on the powerful File Maker platform, Bento offers up a slimmed down version that syncs with native OS X applications. Bento comes with ready to use templates right out of the box so setup time is minimal. Should you not like the layout, customization is as easy as drag and drop.

What could be better: Bento is not a sharing platform so if you have several employees or partners don’t plan on sharing the database on your network. While Bento does sync with iPhone and other PDAs (does anyone use a PDA anymore??), it does not have a web portal to the database.

Price: $49.95 (1 license) OR $99.95 (5 license)

This concludes the first segment on CRM solutions for your business. Check back for my continued review including some web based options. If you have questions about the above offerings feel free to leave a comment.