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Alex Sirota is a smart cookie. Earlier this month, he contacted me via Facebook to discuss the concepts behind The New Small. We started talking about the evolution of emerging technologies and how small businesses can do simply amazing things.

With that, the floor is his.

Modern small business web applications have a very special set of attributes in common. These applications are all

• priced flexibly where you can start for free and pay monthly when you need more features
• used through  with a browser and therefore available anywhere, anytime
• extremely easy to learn and use
• easily backed up, in case you need to have a local copy of your data
• “glued” together to form one seamless information system

That last point is something that is worth explaining a bit more. As a small business investing in modern web-based tools you may be a bit afraid that you’ll have to manage a bunch more stuff and your data will be out there in the “cloud.” Have no fear, though. You’ll be taken care of really well and you’ll have all your tools available from any computer or smart phone in the world. That level of freedom will liberate you to evolve your message, anywhere and anytime.

Furthermore, these tools all “talk” to each other. What this means, is that the data that is collected in one of these systems can flow to another system. No more copy and paste between Microsoft Word and Excel to manage your data. No more looking for documents on your hard drive to update your customer list.

Examples

Here are a few examples how this can work for you to make your business operate smoothly and more professionally.

1. Connect with your clients through an email newsletter sign up form

With a tool like Formstack you can design a simple sign up form for prospects to leave their email behind. Each sign up will automatically flow the data into your customer relationship management system and your email marketing system all at once. This way you can start collecting a set of potential customers and clients.

2. Provide quotes and estimates directly from your website

Prospects visiting your website usually want to know exactly what they can expect to get charged for your services. You can create a simple form with FreshBooks where clients can fill out a few questions and receive a branded, electronic estimate in their email, instantly. Once you start working together, you can bill them electronically or via postal service without ever touching Word or Excel. And you can get paid online as well!

3. Notify your friends on social networks of new content on your website

Managing your presence on the Internet is more complex than ever before. One of the keys of being relevant on the Internet is that you want to be at the top of the queue in your clients’ minds. It’s not enough to put your site up and expect instant traffic. In fact visitors counts spike, only when you update your website and let people know about it. Tools like TypePad will manage your website and blog, and you can automatically post your recent updates to your favorite social media networks, without any hassle.

Phil Simon’s The New Small is a perfect thesis on the new world available to small businesses. I want to thank Phil for giving me the opportunity to blog here. You can look for his blog post on the NewPath Technologies blog as well.

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