Insight Consulting believes in sharing resources, ideas and tools freely with its customers when that will further the customer's goals.

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Resources & Ideas:

Wage Support – Florida and other states offer a special unemployment compensation program called Short Time Compensation (STC) which allows employers to reduce work hours for employees but enables the employee to receive unemployment benefits at a prorated level. See following link for explanation and example: http://www.floridajobs.org/unemployment/uc_prog_stc.html

Supplier Costs – Employers with idle resources and low cash flow should consider approaching suppliers with bartering propositions. If there is no direct complementary need for good or services for a 2 party barter, consider a 3 way barter.

Communications Costs – Many businesses have expensive phone systems and separate voice and fax lines. These can often be replaced by a single phone line hosted through a virtual switch which intelligently sends faxes to e-mail and supports multiple pseudo voice extensions which can be patched to existing cell phone lines. See following link to an example of such services: http://www.datagenesis.cc/

Internet Access/Hosting – All businesses should examine the price they are paying for internet access and internet hosting of their web site and research the current market. Hosting prices have plummeted in the last few years. Some businesses, with proper security, can share internet access with a nearby business neighbor wirelessly.

Market Definition Reconsideration – In challenging economic times all businesses should reconsider any restrictions they have imposed the scope of their target market. Technology makes reaching markets further away much easier in many cases. Services like Magicjack.com allow a business to have local phone numbers in virtually every area code in the U.S. for only $39.95 first year and $19.95 second year.

Used/Refurbished/Sale Computer Equipment – Shopping the market for best buys on computer technology can definitely pay off. There are some services that will assist you in your search. See an example of such services at: www.eGroupTech.com

Legal Guide for Starting & Running a Small Business – Get all the plain-English legal and business information you need to get your business off the ground and running. nolo.com

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Free Online Tools:

Meeting Collaboration:

Meeting Wizard Handy meeting scheduler that polls attendees for available time slots, notifies the meeting planner when all have responded, and sends a confirmation of selected slot. No more multiple iterations of polling everyone to find a good date/time! Free for basic version.

Financial Management:

360 Degrees of Financial Literacy - The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) provides a great set of financial calculators and business advice on this site. Ranges from Benefits and Retirement Plans analysis and calculators to Breakeven Analysis calculator. Good especially for the smallest enterprises. Free

Human Resource Management:

Payscale.com - A salary comparison service based on anonymous submission of current pay information for specific positions. In return for providing your own pay data you get data from other submitters with similar occupations. Employers can use the site as a pay scale reference. Basic information is free, more detailed requires fee.

Organizational Management & Planning:

Free Management Library - A comprehensive and extremely well indexed set of articles and off-line materials addressing almost every aspect of managing and planning organizations. For non-profit and profit entities.

Polling & Surveying:

Survey Monkey - Ever need to poll employees, prospects, customers quickly and inexpensively? With Survey Monkey it's a snap. Just set up a free account, follow the design wizard to record your questions and send out the links to the survey to your respondents. Responses are kept confidential and you can even export the results to an Excel compatible list. Basic version is free. Pay for more bells and whistles.

Supervising & Leading Others:

Wally Bock's Supervisory Leadership Site - Bock offers a comprehensive set of nuts and bolts suggestions on how to lead and supervise people. The range of topics includes performance evaluations, motivation, when and how to discharge an employee, and much more. These articles are free for reading and downloading. Bock makes his money selling his books, speaking to groups and training.