As a financial planner and business owner in Michigan, I have been cautious of implementing technology into my practice until recently. This might sound odd, but I have two good reasons for avoiding the lure of technology.
The first is the expense; anything that will save time in the past has just cost too much. And the second is getting tied up with a provider who becomes more of an anchor than a partner. By this, I mean I became too tied to their services to break free if something better comes along.
With the cost of technology services today not being an issue, and the fact more programs are intuitive and can work with your system, I've found there are plenty of reasons to throw my old ideas out the window and embrace change.
Make free phone calls. With an invitation to Google Voice, you have a way to replace your landline phone, as well as reduce cell phone costs by cutting your plan minutes. I plan on dropping my cell phone bill by over $600 annually by reducing my plan options because of internet phones.
Google Voice is currently free for 2011. Another low cost option to consider is Skype, which allows for unlimited calls to the US & Canada for as low as $2.99 / month.
Send files electronically. Sign-up for Dropbox.com, which is free for up to 2GB of files. By implementing this in my business, I expect to save at least $500 per year on mailing costs, and several thousand dollars on similar solutions offered by product providers for our industry.
While it may not cut your costs, implementing an electronic filing system will clear the clutter around your home and office, and reduce the time it takes for you to find items.
Create your own website. I've looked for webdesigners in the past. Generally, what I find is for anything less than $5,000, you won't get anything you can be happy with, it's probably only a design, and even at that price you'll get something vanilla.
For $99 at Wix.com you can have a flash website, that if you have the patience, you can have a hosted website for one year. The benefits to using their service are the template websites, and the flash widgets that remove the need for programming simple flash animation. This can give you a memorable site, without the cost.
Stop paying for web meeting services. Using the free Mikogo.com as opposed to costly web meeting hosting programs can save several thousand dollars per year.
Use a free e-newsletter service.Mailchimp.com is another free version of a necessary business communications tool.
Robert Schmansky is founder and personal financial advisor at Clear Financial Advisors, LLC in West Bloomfield, Mich.
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