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Drum Up Business On-Line

When Debbie Dewey started her business-services company, Executive Project Service, she sent out 500 direct-mail letters and followed up each one with a phone call. She also spent money to advertise in local business publications. The disappointing net result: one client.

Then Dewey joined CompuServe's Working from Home Forum. She quickly gained two major clients and several minor ones. Now she uses the forum to make contacts and recruit clients. She also uses the service to exchange ideas and tips with other home-based businesses and has recently helped start a private-investigator's section on the forum. In addition, she has developed a side business with a CompuServe acquaintance, Nate Lenow. Their Online Detective Agency, based in Memphis, Tennessee, conducts investigations on-line.

Using an on-line service to drum up business, conduct research, and exchange information with colleagues and clients offers several advantages for self-employed businesspeople. Such electronic foraging extends your reach nationally or internationally. You have access to far more people than you could possibly meet in person. What's more, you can sign on every day, you don't have to wait for special meetings to make contacts, and you never have to leave your home or office.

Here are short descriptions of the major sources of small-business information.

COMPUSERVE'S WORKING FROM HOME

FORUM

CompuServe's Working from Home Forum comprises a message board, libraries, and a conference area. The message board allows users to post and read public messages in such areas as business basics, marketing, pricing, accounting and tax, free-lancing, consulting, office hardware and software, and business networks. Data libraries hold files on many of these topics, including hardware and software reviews from HOME-OFFICE COMPUTING. Users post about 1,000 messages a week, according to sysop Paul Edwards (coauthor of the monthly Working Smarter column in HOME-OFFICE COMPUTING). One section of the forum contains member profiles.

Forum members pay CompuServe's regular $12.50 per hour connect charges. For more information on CompuServe, call (800) 848-8199.

GENIE'S HOME-OFFICE ROUNDTABLE

GEnie's Home Office/Small Business RoundTable is similar to the Working from Home Forum, but not nearly as active, primarily because CompuServe has more subscribers than GEnie. Nevertheless, the Round Table offers a library of informative articles, a message board for asking and answering questions, and useful software that you can download.

One major advantage of the GEnie service is its price. The bulletin-board area of the Home Office/Small Business RoundTable is one of GEnie's basic services; GEnie subscribers pay $4.95 per month for unlimited evening and weekend access to this and other basic services. Other GEnie services, including the file libraries, are billed at $6 per hour during evenings and weekends. GEnie, like CompuServe, can be accessed from any computer with a modem and communications software. For more information on GEnie, call (800) 638-9636.

MICROSOFT SMALL BUSINESS CENTER

America Online offers the Microsoft Small Business Center, which hosts a message board as well as news and extensive information about running a small business. The Center also offers libraries from which you can download shareware software packages, spreadsheet templates, and articles on running a small business (including articles from HOME-OFFICE COMPUTING). Although the forum is sponsored by Microsoft, members are free to exchange information about software from other companies.

This relatively new service, introduced last March, is far less robust than the CompuServe forum or GEnie RoundTable. However, America Online is easier to use than CompuServe or GEnie because it has a graphical user interface. You can move from one section of the service to another by selecting icons with your mouse or keyboard.

America Online, available to both Macintosh and MS-DOS users, requires special software. Macintosh users pay $5.95 per month and get one hour of free access time. MS-DOS users pay $9.95 per month, which includes three free hours. After that it costs $5 per hour during evenings and weekends or $10 per hour during the business day. To contact America Online, call (800) 227-6364 or (703) 893-6288.

PRODIGY

Prodigy is more of a consumer service than a business tool. You can't, for example, download software. However, Prodigy does offer articles and software reviews from HOME-OFFICE COMPUTING as well as the Computer Club bulletin board, where you can ask questions pertaining to IBM PCs and Macs. Users can download and print out these articles. I write a regular column for Prodigy and answer questions on the Computer Club bulletin board, as do the editors of HOME-OFFICE COMPUTING.

The service is a good place to get your questions answered, but Prodigy rules prevent members from using the service to make business connections or promote goods and services. Prodigy does, however, sell classified advertising to anyone wishing to use the service for business development.

# posted by Medical Information : 2:01 AM