In September 2009 the Australian government established the Small Business Support Line to offer guidance to small business owners, or those considering setting up a small business.

Since then the service has reportedly received more than 10,000 calls!

With access to a range of State and Commonwealth departments and services across the country, the Small Business Support Line staff are available to advise on all manner of small business questions, including:

• how to set up a business
• cash flow management
• funding
• grants
• licensing
• workplace health and safety
• employing staff
• marketing
• and much more

If you operate a small business in Australia or are thinking about starting your own business you can contact the Australian Small Business Support Line on 1800 777 275.

Australian Small Business Support Line A Hit is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

If you’re running a small business and meeting with clients or associates frequently, you probably make appointments almost daily.

Some people, particularly in larger organisations, may be fortunate enough to have an assistant who is assigned the task of ensuring that no double-bookings occur and no appointments are missed. This method is somewhat time consuming and inefficient when it comes to canceling and rescheduling appointments, and even more so if you’re responsible for managing your own appointments along with so many other duties.

This is where an online program can be so handy.

Once you setup this software or your online account, you’ll find many appointment-setting programs also give you the options of selecting email (and possibly phone call) reminders.

Online appointment setting programs generally work in a similar way.

You can log into your online calendar and select the times when you’re available for appointments. You then send a link to those clients and associates whom you’d like to make an appointment time with. These people can then easily visit the website by clicking on your link, then click on the appointment button. A calendar appears, showing your available dates and times,  and your customer or colleague can choose one of your available appointment times that best suits them.

That’s it! Your appointment is there … booked and saved.

Online appointment-scheduling programs have certain benefits and advantages such as freeing up staff (or yourself) for more important tasks.

Just think about it … what more productive tasks could you do in the time you would generally spend scheduling (and re-scheduling) appointments?

Here are 4 of the best online appointment-setting programs I’ve found:

1. Tungle
2. Web-Appointments
3. GenBook
4. Appointment Plus

Forgetting appointments or poor scheduling techniques could put your organisation and business at a clear disadvantage. So have a look at these online appointment-setting programs to simplify the way you manage your appointments.

Top 4 Online Appointment Setting Programs is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

Last year I came across a HTML editor that’s really easy to use either for creating web pages from scratch or editing existing HTML pages, such as website templates.

I’ve been ‘playing’ with PageBreeze for a while and have been quite impressed by how easy it is to use. You can create and edit pages in the HTML or ‘normal’ (WYSIWYG) view, preview how it will look when published to the internet, easily add page title, description and keyword details and publish with FTP.

It also has a form editor which makes it easy to create forms if necessary.

Best of all … there’s a free version or a more advanced ‘cheap as chips’ version.

The basic Pagebreeze software is free for personal, not-for-profit and educational use. Or the more advanced version for business (or ‘for-profit’) use is only a one-off payment $29.95.

Free HTML Editor

If you don’t really need web development software with all the bells and whistles, it’s worth giving PageBreeze a try.

My Latest Great Find – Free, Easy HTML Editor is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

An important part of running a successful business is having a plan.

You may need a business plan to obtain finance and for contracts or agreements. Most importantly, you need it to determine your business’ viability, what you hope to achieve and how you will do so. You can also plan for challenges.

Preparing a business plan is something that scares or confuses a lot of small and micro-business owners, but it doesn’t need to be this way.

To help you out, I’ve decided to give away a comprehensive Business Plan Template to guide you through the planning process. Consider this my Welcome to 2010, special New Year’s gift to you. 

FREE Business Plan Template

Free Business Plan Template is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

There are a lot of agencies, departments and organisations around the world that are there to help small businesses – from planning and setting up your business, managing and growing it, through to closing or selling your business. But sometimes it’s hard to know where to look when you don’t really know what you’re looking for, right?

So to help you out, I’ve compiled a list – well, 6 lists in fact, of some of these organisations for you:

• Useful Business Agencies – Australia
• Useful Business Agencies – Canada
• Useful Business Agencies – New Zealand
• Useful Business Agencies – South Africa
• Useful Business Agencies – United Kingdom
• Useful Business Agencies – United States

If you know of any others that should be included here, please email the details to me.

Useful Business Agencies Around The World is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

The other day I was recommeded a book and decided that I wanted to have it. And of course, it was one of those times when you know you want something … and you want it NOW! But I wasn’t able to get to the shops for at least a few days and it was driving me crazy.

So I thought perhaps I could buy it online.

Sure enough, it was available online and if I ordered it straight away it should arrive within 10 days. But I couldn’t wait 10 days!

As luck would have it, the book was available on Audible. Now don’t get me wrong … there are times when nothing beats holding a physical book – especially if you’re lazing on the beach or by the pool. But when you want quick, easy access, you can’t beat the simplicity of logging into your Audible account, clicking a few buttons and downloading your book. All done within 5 minutes.

What Do You Do When You Want A Book … And You Want It NOW? is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

A lot of people ask me for tips on how I manage to get so much done all the time. I’m more than happy to share my strategies, tips and ideas, but I thought it might make it easier for everyone if I wrote a guide about this very topic and gave it away freely.

So… introducing… Multi-Tasking Sucks! The High-Achiever’s Guide To Squeezing The Most Out Of Every Second.

I’ve also included lots of resources and tools that help me run my business efficiently.

If you’d like your copy of this brand new guide, go to Multi-Tasking Sucks! and simply enter your name and email address.  Once you’ve verified that you’d like a copy of this, you’ll receive an email giving you the link to download it.

Multi-Tasking Sucks! is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

I’m not ashamed to say it … I’m a bit of a geek at heart. I love my gadgets and electronic toys, and I don’t mind watching movies traditionally thought of as ‘for geeks’. (Have you watched The Big Bang Theory? I love that show).

So I was over the moon when a friend of mine introduced me to the Think Geek store. Actually, she gave one of their catalogues to my teenage son but we ended up giggling, ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ through it together before going online to place an order… and sign up to their newsletter, of course!

If you’re into electronics and science gadgets, love watching Star Trek, Red Dwarf and Star Wars, or you just like cool new attachments and tools for your computer and iPhone, you might want to check them out too. They’ve even got stuff for ‘Geek Kids’. Best of all, half of my Christmas shopping is now done

Something For The Geeks Amongst Us is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

There’s no doubt about it – professional graphics can make a huge difference to your website, just as they do with print publications. But you don’t always want to go to a graphic artist every time you want a couple of general graphics to tizzy up your web page, do you?

Then again, it can be a time-consuming nuisance trawling through one website after another trying to find some free or low-cost graphics to use, then reading the license terms to ensure that you’re allowed to use those graphics for a commercial purpose.

I’m so pleased I recently found this great little resource – Copy and Paste Graphics. For only $9.97 you get literally hundreds of web graphic images including backgrounds, headers, bullets, buttons, web 2.0 images and even some animated buttons.

I really love these (can you tell?) and can’t wait to start using them. Here’s a small sample of them, just to give you an idea of what they’re like:

Where To Find Affordable Website Graphics is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

At the World Internet Summit, Australia, last March Sean Roach introduced us to this clip.

Thankfully I’ve been working from my home office for the last 11 years+ so I can’t really relate to it, but it brings back memories of an earlier job and makes me grateful for the job I have. I’ve watched this clip a few times now and it still makes me laugh every time.

I’m looking forward to catching up with Sean again at the next World Internet Summit set for July 23rd-26th in Auckland, New Zealand. I’d love to see you there!

My Cubicle is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins