Over the past few years, the use of extranets and intranets by law firms to share critical documents with co-workers, clients and co-counsel has been firmly established.

One area in which an extranet is particularly useful is in litigation, where a large number of parties require a massive number of documents over a fixed period of time.

Keeping things organized
An extranet provides a single location dedicated to the individual case. Access to documents can be defined by the need of the user. For example, documents relating to clients are very different than those required by co-counsel. An extranet allows everything to reside in one place, but access can be defined by individual needs. It also automates alerts – so that users know the instant a new document has been posted, and can find it quickly in a dedicated folder.

Many extranets go beyond the simple sharing of documents. Many include tools such as a comment function, calendars, project trackers, and approval functions. These tools can be used to report on the all activities and on the progress of the case.

Providing a permanent record
All actions taken within the extranet are recorded, and most extranets provide powerful search tools that allow users to quickly see who did what, and when they did it. All actions are name and date stamped, providing a complete record of activity in what is often a fast moving environment where documentation is difficult to manage.

Easy to setup and use
Extranets that are offered by application service providers can be created and used in a matter of days. It’s a simple matter of subscribing to a service that provides all the technology and training. Many are so intuitive that they require no training at all – they’re as easy to use as email.

A secure environment
Managing legal documents requires the highest level of security. Extranets require an id and password for access, and many provide encryption of all transmissions.

And when the case is over . . .
It is fast and easy to close the extranet and download all of the information. Often, litigators will create an extranet for each case they handle, and simply close it at the conclusion of the case.

Companies increasingly prefer using an extranet over email to communicate with their team members, clients, and suppliers for document sharing because it ideally suits the groups engaged in collaboration; whereas, email is best-suited for one-to-one communication only. Generally email programs are ineffective to prioritize messages and attachments. In an email, everything arrives in the same place and in the same order in which it was sent. Whereas, with an extranet, all project related documents are automatically captured in a folder dedicated to the particular project.

For instance, if a company intends to send a power point presentation to a specific group engaged in a particular task through email, it has to break the presentations into small parts with each section attached to a separate email. The sections do not arrive at the same time, which could create confusions for everyone involved. However, with an extranet all these presentations can be sent at the same time, all intact, automatically filled into a single project folder with all the other related materials.

Moreover, extranets generate automatic email alerts, informing the recipients that the presentations are available; they also provide a comment function that allows each user to share their point-of-view.

Extranets can handle large files

Additionally, an extranet can handle any size of document for document sharing purposes. With e-mail, however, there is a risk of large attachments not passing through the company firewall. An extranet assures that important documents get to the right place, ready for instant response, and puts related documents and messages together. Thus, the budget, schedule, strategic plan, power point presentation, notes, and comments - all appear on the same page. There is no sorting required through a long list of unrelated emails.

Although an email is electronic and instantaneous, it is not a project management tool and does not offer many collaboration functions, whereas an extranet supports the concepts of an organization, workflow, and security. Therefore, extranets can effectively organize a company’s marketing, external and internal communications.

A secure environment

In addition, many extranets are secured with 128-bit SSL encryption. Email, on the other hand, can be accessed by anyone and does not protect the confidentiality of a company’s information.

Selling products to Mexico is easier than ever. Mexico is the #1 importer of US products in the world. There is a need for all types of products including food, beverages, electronics, cars, tools, candy, toys, clothing, everything.

Mexicans are so eager to buy that they come to the USA looking for products instead of waiting around for someone to call them and sell them something. They visit US trade shows, organizations and many companies. I constantly have someone in San Diego visiting from Mexico to speak with me on how they can find products of all kinds to export.

Who’s looking for products? Mainly wholesale distributors and retailers. They are looking for products to sell in retail stores or to other distributors in Mexico, most of the time they will buy truckloads of product and export them to Mexico themselves, handling the shipping, imports and tariffs.

Why do they do this? Why are they so eager to buy US products? Simple, they don’t have Mexican made products they can sell and they want to be the first to carry a new American product. They know if they are the first to market with a new product they can make a lot of money very fast. After that they just restock their customer’s shelves.

The big question I’m asked by my consulting clients is: how do I get started exporting to Mexico?

To export to Mexico you can be passive or active. You can go after the business or wait until they come looking for you, and believe me, if you have a good product, eventually they will.

—Passive Approach—

The passive approach to getting business is to make sure Mexican businesspeople can find you. Here are a few tactics on how to reach exporters:

-You have to make sure your products are in US trade shows. You don’t have to go yourself, maybe a customer sells at trade shows or you hire a broker that goes to trade shows.

-Make sure all your products and sales materials have an international phone number (not just a USA toll free number) as well as an email address. This includes your website, product labels, business cards and brochures.

-Have the right information ready. Make sure you already know what your international price will be. It’s usually much lower than your US price, especially if they will pay the export fees and transportation. You also need all the product specifications like weight, dimensions, case count or pallet count.

—Active Approach—

If you are serious about selling to Mexico and would like to do it NOW you have to be more active. You can’t just wait for people to find you because it can take months or even years if you don’t have any promotions in the marketplace.

The first thing you have to do is learn more about your target market. How much are people paying in Mexico for your product or a similar product? How much are they paying to import and transport those products? What are the profit margins for the distributors and retailers? Where could you sell your products? How many stores are there in Mexico?

Once you learn more about your target market and you develop your price strategy it’s time to find customers. Visit Mexican trade shows, look for US distributors already selling in Mexico and find brokers.

After you educate yourself a bit more on the Mexican marketplace you also need to determine what kind of support your new found customers will need in Mexico. Do you have a product that sells itself or do you need store promotion, POS (Point of Sale) material, sales commissions, or some other support.

Many times my customers tell me “I just want to sell my product in the USA and someone can export it, sell it, merchandise it and distribute it”. Well, this is possible. I’ve helped companies sell products like mayonnaise, water, margarine and other products that sell themselves in this fashion. But if your product is not a “first necessity” product or name brand, chances are you’ll either have to do some promotion or give a very good price to distributors and importers.

Here are just a few ways to increase and diversify your income from your consulting business.

1. Sell More Services to Your Existing Clients

Instead of spending all that time and money trying to get new business, why not try to sell more services to your existing client base?

If you are an accounting and tax consulting firm, for example, you likely have clients who need some assistance in their record keeping and documentation. In addition to your year-end tax services, could you provide monthly bookkeeping and financial statements, accounting system setups, training in accounting software, or other services to assist your client?

Monthly services, in addition to annually billed fees, will help you smooth out your cashflow and minimize the seasonal nature of your business.

2. Mass Market Your Advice by Productizing Your Services

Could you produce a folio, special report, newsletter, e-book, book, audio cassette, video, or course? If so, you could enjoy making money even when you’re not billing for your time. While asleep or on vacation, the sale of your information products could be generating additional income for you.

Sell such products through direct mail, mail order, exporting, and Internet marketing (your own website, your own affiliate programs, eBay auctions, and so on).

As well as the passive, residual income that information products can produce for you, they also help establish your credentials as an expert. This, in turn, produces more consulting opportunities for you.

3. Perform Group Consulting

Seminars, workshops, and teleclasses enable you to help many participants in a cost-effective manner. In addition to paying for admission, your attendees may also purchase some of your information products or even become your regular consulting clients.

4. Consider Additional Markets

Could you sell your consulting services to federal, state, provincial, or municipal governments? Could you be an expert trial witness?

If you consult with local clients, could you extend your reach nationally or internationally by using the telephone and Internet?

These few ideas are a starting point for you to brainstorm all the possibilities for exploding your consulting income.

In The Beginning…For Webmasters Things To Consider When Developing A Website (Part 3) - How can your product or service best be explained to the customer in a simple and concise manner?

Previously in this series on website development, we’ve

talked about selecting one message or theme to be

communicated to your customer as a means of defining your website, and considering the customer’s perspective in terms of how the website is developed and presented. Now we’ll discuss how your product or service can be explained to the customer simply and concisely.

Let’s ask this question. When you’re surfing the ‘net, how

long do you want it to take at any particular website for you to figure out if the website has what you’re searching for? Not long. When potential customers are surfing the Internet, you have a matter of seconds to get their attention and convince them that your website has something that’s worth more than a cursory glance.

Some webmasters attempt to accomplish this objective by using a lot of “bells and whistles”, flashy things or goodness forbid, sounds and music. Things like electronic greeting cards, screen-savers or free email services are just a few of the tools used to try and get potential customers to stay at a particular website for longer periods of time. It’s affectionately called making your website “sticky”.

And there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those methods, unless the purpose of your website is to sell vacuum widgets to your customers. If that’s the case, your customer will be little interested in anything other than the smooth, efficient and economical operation of their vacuum equipment, and the products or services that will help them to accomplish that. But, back to our subject.

Your objective then, is to get your customer’s attention and communicate to him simply and quickly what your product or service is and how its purchase will benefit him. This is best accomplished by utilizing the basic question model employed by journalists in developing a news story: Who, what, when, where, and why? For your purposes, you’ll only need to answer three of these: Who, what, why?

“Who” explains who you are or who your company is. This gives you an opportunity to demonstrate either yours or your company’s experience or expertise in the area of the

customer’s interest or concern. “What” explains your product or service, and provides you with an opportunity to highlight for the customer its features. “Why” explains the benefits of using your product or service, and also offers an opportunity for you to distinguish yourself and your product from the competition.

By answering the above questions, you can completely but briefly give your customer enough information to determine whether or not they’re interested in what you’re offering.

Another thing that’s important to remember when introducing your product or service, is to communicate with the customer as if you’re sitting down and having a nice conversation. No one wants to feel as if they’re reading a novel or trying to unravel Shakespeare. In fact, it shouldn’t feel to them as if they’re reading at all. It should feel as if they’re involved in conversation.

Keep things simple, concise and uncomplicated. If you choose to use humor or wit, that’s great because it can keep the interaction interesting and engaging for your customer. Just make sure that you have the talent to be humorous or witty. Otherwise, you may appear disingenuous and your customers may be turned off.

Next: How can the customer be guided to buybuy now?

See you next time!