VoIP Now: VoIP Can Save A Small Business

July 03, 2006

VoIP Can Save A Small Business

Back in the 1990s, while going through my second round of college to get a Master's, I started a print magazine. At the peak of this short-lived but popular monthly rag, there were over 100 contributors, most of whom lived out of town, or even across the country. My phone bill was usually a whopping $500-800/ month, for a small regional magazine with a max circulation of 8,000.

This was just before the time of phone deregulation in the US and Canada, and new companies were just starting to offer bulk minutes in "regional" calling packages: 500 minutes across North America for $29.99, or somesuch.

But until I got myself one of these phone plans, near the end of my magazine, I barely squeaked by on my operating costs, being a student and all. Even after I got a phone plan, I had one talkative out-of-town friend/ editor who I'd call up daily to talk business with, and who would literally talk for up to 45 minutes without stopping. Back then, I wasn't the kind of person to tell people to shut up, and ultimately, this editor/ friend cost me a fortune, using up a lot of my minutes.

Primarily because of this person, to cut back on phone costs, I started visiting my out-of-town contributors. (Gas was less than half the current price, and I had an energy-efficient stick-shift Suzuki Swift at the time.) Unfortunately, these visits took time and chewed into my distribution and ad sales time. Ultimately, my overall costs outweighed my incoming ad revenue, and I had to fold operations.

Now most small mags are doomed to failure anyways, but I can't help thinking that had VoIP been available back then, my magazine might have survived. Of course, that's just wishful thinking, because the Internet had barely gone public then.

My recent experience using VoIP and IM clients is not only a huge savings in cost, but because I can multi-task on my laptop while having a VoIP conversation (or an IM - Instant Messaging - text session), I also save a lot of time overall. VoIP is an inexpensive way to communicate with customers and team members, especially virtual teams. Skype is an efficient way to VoIP.

My current favorites are Skype and Gizmo Project for VoIP. (I mostly use Google Talk for IM, but have been evaluating Trillian and Gaim.) I find I have to run a variety of programs for now, mainly because of what my business contacts have. Skype is not "open" and thus cannot currently communicate with Gizmo. So I need both. Now, I only wish I could convince my friends to by microphones and headsets instead of wasting my cell phone minutes.

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July 3, 2006 in Business | Permalink