In 1998 I worked behind a counter at a popular restaurant where take out was busy in the evenings. Now in those days the process was:

• Call the restaurant and ask for a menu to be faxed to you
• I would run to the back of the restaurant and fax the menu
• The customer studies the menu and calls us back with the order.

…….and then the fax machine broke. I wish I could say all hell broke loose, but small businesses have an exceptional way of coping with challenges and moving quickly, so we just called our sister restaurant and faxed our menu to them and had them fax the customers. Of course this was a temporary fix.

At this time I was also getting more and more interested in the online stuff. I used AOL, I had just bought my first PC and was figuring out HTML. We brainstormed and bought a domain name from Network Solutions of course and then with the help of a geek friend put up a website. (Now preserved in the Internet Archive.)

Now as people called for directions, we decided it would be a good idea to add directions on this website, too. If I remember right, we could use FrontPage Express for free. This was all so interesting that I enrolled for a html class at the Montgomery College in Rockville, and the rest is history.

I think websites for restaurants at a basic level serve the purpose of providing information to customers on the menu, location and specials. Combined with tools like Opentable, etc., they can be leveraged to get additional business, and I am glad we started more than 10 years ago.

Fast forward to today – I was sitting in a auto repair shop last weekend, and no one usually waits here, but I did, and asked one of the two people manning the store if they had wi-fi. They did because I could see the signal on my laptop, but they did not know anything about it. One of them said in the last five years, I was the second person to ask about wi-fi. (I may have been the first guy, too, as I go to this place regularly.) My takeaway here is that if you expect a autoshop to do good auto work, chances are that you may have to forfeit other “conveniences”.

As I sat in this shop, I listened to the guys ordering spares. Sometime I would hear them give out a fax number, and then it happened – the fax machine broke. I watched them struggle to fix it, no sir! It was not the paper. Now it dawned on me – I remembered Ramon Ray’s email signature: “Technology is a TOOL. Use it to GROW your business.” And here was a small business who had technology expertise – automobile technology expertise, but were struggling with a fax machine. I think they fixed the problem by asking the parts company to send an email to their email address.

If you look at the State of Small Business study conducted by the University of Maryland and Network Solutions, business that use six or more of technology tools are more successful. At least in the case of the fax machine, I think they will save the business a lot of valuable time from their techs. What technology tools are you using in your small business?

The above article was first published as a guest post on http://www.smallbizsurvival.com

Author’s note : If you do not have a web presence yet I hope this article was an inspiration. Watch for a new offering that is just in time for the holidays from Network Solutions.  For a limited time, we will be introducing a free website at Network Solutions in a few days. Yes you heard it right FREE WEBSITE. Watch this blog and http://www.networksolutions.comfor more details.

Small businesses (Businesses with 1-2500 employees) make up about 25.85 million of the total 26 million business in the US (Source: Small Business Administration, 2005). That is almost 99% of all businesses in the United States. Still, companies are always looking for advice and tips on running their business.
Because of this need in the marketplace, Network Solutions is happy to announce it sponsorship for, MySolutionSpot.com, an information and networking site for small business professionals.
MySolutionSpot is a new business solutions and networking Web site designed to help executives of small to medium-sized businesses learn about effective business solutions and stay on top of industry trends. MySolutionSpot gives professionals like you the opportunity to build authority status through both forum participation and article submission.
Although it is still under construction, you can begin submitting original articles today. You can also sign up for the private beta launch and be among the first to critique our site. Because we are determined to successfully meet your needs, your feedback will be carefully considered and incorporated into our final product. So go to www.mysolutionspot.com and sign up to get a sneak peek of what is to come!

Greg Cangialosi is a entrepreneur living in Baltimore, MD USA and & CEO of Blue Sky Factory, Inc, an email marketing service provider. He is a avid blogger and podcaster and has authored the blog, The Trend Junkie, since 2003. I have run into Greg at several local tech events and heard him speak at conferences. He has coauthored a book on Business podcasting and is an expert on email marketing and new media marketing.

Here is a video interview of him http://qik.com/video/77877