Partner Offers
GH in the news- @Grasshopper
- Find some of the GH Labs crew & @Chargify at #SXSW http://bit.ly/aGLNUC
- @picobits - We have no immediate plans to implement a softphone feature.
- RT @OPENForum: 4 Employee Benefits at Little (or Zero) Cost. http://www.bit.ly/a42ABx
Company Blog
Empowering Entrepreneurs to Succeed. That's our core purpose and the company blog is dedicated to doing just that. Get information on Grasshopper, tips & tricks for entrepreneurs, small business advice & more.
Empowering Young Entrepreneurs to Succeed – GH Goes to DECA
High school kids rock. Especially the ones I had the pleasure of meeting last week at the Massachusetts State DECA Conference in downtown Boston. DECA is an organization that aims to empower young people to pursue careers in marketing, management, and entrepreneurship through education and leadership development events. 185,000 high schools students participate through 5,000 chapters across the U.S.
Along with my colleagues, Jeremy Butler (DECA alumni) and Jon Kay, I served as a judge in the Entrepreneurship category and Grasshopper donated scholarships for the top three participants in our category. The scholarships we gave will help out the winners of our category with travels costs for the DECA National conference. Over the course of three days, we each heard from between ten and fifteen groups of young entrepreneurs who pitched us their entrepreneurial ventures. Their businesses ranged from internet properties to landscaping companies and everything in between. The vast majority were outstanding.
We were also given the opportunity to do a couple of workshops on Friday afternoon. Jonathan presented on generating buzz and Jeremy and I teamed up for a workshop on the basics of ecommerce. The workshops were well received, but at that point I think our audience was ready to go to the pool or go shopping.
These were some of the most ambitious, smart, and outstanding young people I’ve met in a long time. When I was 18, I was, well, not doing anything close to what these kids are achieving. I was impressed by not only the events’ organization and production quality, but also by the sheer size. Read more »
Save $$$ with a Virtual Office
A virtual office can be a great asset for any small business. It can be even more valuable for an entrepreneur just getting a company up and running. With the economy still struggling and everyone working hard to stay profitable, cost-cutting measures are vital.
A virtual office can help you save money in three main areas:
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Office Space
Whether you are working from home, a coffee shop or a co-working space, you can save a lot of money by not leasing out a big office. There are no costs for rent, furniture, office equipment or utilities.
Even more importantly, if you find yourself traveling a lot, working from home or just not spending much time in the office, you are not locked into a lease.
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Travel Expenses
With the average cost of commuting ranging from $110-$648 a month, traveling to work can be expensive. You have gas, maintenance and for some, tolls.
Grasshopper in the News: February – March
It was a big month for Grasshopper in the news as our ‘Entrepreneurs Can Change the World’ video helped raise $20,000 for charity and the launch of our newest video ‘The New Dork’ made headlines all over the internet. Check it out!
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Learn Social Media by Example: Chocolate Grasshoppers!
Thoughtpick breaks down the Grasshopper re-brand campaign and explores how a small business can use social media.
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12 Useful Resources for Entrepreneurs
Fuel Your Venture gives us 12 great tools for entrepreneurs, including the Grasshopper virtual phone system.
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Does Your Small or Online Business Have a Toll Free Number?
Denise Griffits shows us how she uses Grasshopper and how a toll free number can be a great asset for any small business.
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“Entrepreneurs Can Change the World” Video Helps Charity
Youth Venture discusses how the Grasshopper “Entrepreneurs Can Change the World” video helped raise $20,000 for their organization.
Should You Have a Local Number for Business?
If you are a regular reader of the Grasshopper blog, you know that a main feature of our virtual phone system is the toll free number. What many people may not know is that we also offer local numbers for cities across the United States.
While a toll free number is a great way to give your customers an easy way to communicate with you, a local number can have a positive effect as well.
There are two main advantages to having a local number:
Create a Local Presence
The great thing about having a local number is that you can create a presence in a particular city. As a bigger company, it can be beneficial to have local numbers in cities where large percentages of your customer base live.
Local numbers also allow you to increase your local presence through local business listings, phone books, online search results and more. This could prove to be especially important as search engines like Google continue to show more and more localized results to searchers.
Hey Jay-Z, Meet the New Dork in ‘Entrepreneur State of Mind’
The official music video of entrepreneurs everywhere. Enjoy.
Download the MP3 (right click on link)
3 Ways to Not Suck at Chat Support
I don’t think online chat is the best way to communicate. In fact, it’s probably the worst. So it may surprise you to hear that we’ve been considering adding chat support to our lineup of support options at Grasshopper.
Why do I think chat sucks?
For one thing, you never really know if the other person is still there, if they’re AFK (that’s chatspeak for away from keyboard) or if they’ve fallen off the face of the planet (that’d be FOTFOTP).
Still, I’m convinced that there are great uses for it. For example, asking quick pre-sales questions when you’ve got laryngitis. That’s why I go out of my way to try other company’s chat support. I’m looking for the company that’s finally found a way to make it work.
I’m told that chat is great because it’s instantaneous and convenient. Well, if that’s true, why do I always feel like I’m waiting for the service rep on the other end to finish their 15 other chats before they finally get back to me? Read more »
Choosing the Best Phone System for Your Small Business
When you start a business there are obviously a number of things you need to think about. One of these things is your phone system. While it may seem fine to start with your cell phone, eventually you will want to expand, have a dedicated number, hire employees and so on. Using your personal cell phone probably isn’t going to work for long.
What is it you will really need though? A big expensive PBX system? An extra phone line? A virtual phone system is a low cost solution that may be exactly what you need.
Here are a few things to consider when choosing your phone system & plan:
Phone Numbers
Your phone number is the first thing to consider and hopefully will stay with you as your business grows. Your phone number will be how your customers communicate with you.
Visual Voicemail vs. Voicemail Transcription
With the launch of Google Voice there has been a lot of talk about visual voicemail, voicemail transcription, voice to text, voicemail to email, etc. There are so many different terms it can be confusing!
Here at Grasshopper we offer a feature to our customers called ‘Read Your Voicemail‘. When a customer subscribes to this feature, they are emailed a transcription (and an MP3) of their voicemail immediately after receiving it (we offer human transcription at no extra charge for better accuracy). They can then read the voicemail on their computer or Smartphone.
However, one of the questions we often get is, ‘Do you offer visual voicemail?’ The answer to that is, it depends.
Here is how others describe ‘visual voicemail’:
Verizon
“Visual Voice Mail allows customers to see a list of all of their voice mail messages with important information, such as date and time of receipt, as well as message duration, in order to prioritize and efficiently manage their voice mail messages directly from their phones.”
Entrepreneurship, It’s Personal
Nash Kabbara, co-founder of Motors On Wheels and ZipZoomAuto provides insight on building and sustaining a business.
About Me
When I was about 12 years old, mom would stop the car at the local bakery; I would jump out with a pocket full of change and buy a dozen pastries. It’s Sunday, family dinner day, and I knew what everyone’s favorite pastry was. I also
knew which uncles had the most money and which ones did not. As everyone was finishing up their dinners, I set up a table and marked each pastry with a price. Needless to say, the uncles who drove BMW’s had the highest markup!
I’ve always wanted to make a billion dollars by creating something that makes people better at what they do. At my last job I thought I was doing just that, but I was wrong. I cut my losses and quit with about $10,000 in the bank.
Sustainability
Ten thousand dollars might look like it has enough zeroes in it, but it doesn’t go very far. I needed a way to stay afloat while I waited for the billion dollar idea to come to me.
A friend of mine was in the car business. He suggested I buy a car from him at wholesale and resell it myself. I did. I made $1,300 in about 5 hours of actual work!
“Entrepreneurs Can Change the World” Video Helps Charity
Something very cool happened recently, and I wanted to share it will all of you.
In May of 2009 we created a video that inspired and motivated entrepreneurs across the globe to follow their passion. Our video is nearing 350,000 views, and has been translated into over 4 different languages. A very interesting (and fun) reaction to this video was the blitz of phone calls and inquiries we received. Being the employee whose phone number is posted on the website, you can imagine I took the brunt of these calls. I heard everything from “Can I use this at our conference?” to “Can we use your video and just put our logo at the end?” (shame on the person who asked that).
Months later in December of last year I got a call from an IP lawyer over at Nestle (yes the people who make Nesquik, Butterfinger, and KitKat!). Apparently they loved our video and music so much they wanted to use it for an internal video. We weren’t super open to people using our music, and just changing the words around a little as we didn’t want what started as, a jolt of inspiration for entrepreneurs, to be tainted.
However, they brought an interesting offer to the table…they were willing to give us money in exchange for our cooperation.
