Virtual phone systems, also known as virtual PBXs, are a sound solution to help facilitate any home based business. Home based businesses today have many of the same communication needs as their larger counterparts. Customers and vendors need to be routed to the right person within a company; and when a business is home based, this is usually one person-the owner. Like any other company, a home based business needs to be competitive, with such communication tools as voice mail for messaging and toll-free numbers for customer convenience.Even though the communication needs may be similar for most companies, the unique circumstances of home offices often make finding the right type of phone system difficult. Home offices are usually too small for elaborate systems with lots of equipment and hardware. For many home based businesses, a virtual PBX is a viable alternatives.Virtual phone systems manage communications at an off-site location without the need for additional land lines or new hardware. This process is generally cheaper than traditional systems. Moreover, because the maintenance of virtual phone systems is done off-site, there is never any interruption to the home business. A virtual PBX does not require extensive training to learn how to use either. Finally, all of the customary features of traditional systems are available with the virtual systems as well.When home based businesses use virtual phone systems, in-coming callers will not be able to discern any noticeable difference. The system will be easy to use and will project the same professional image as a traditional phone system. With a virtual PBX, businesses will be able to create a unique message for in-coming callers, as well as an extensive menu of options from which callers may choose. If a home based business has more than one employee, the virtual phone system will be able to route calls to the appropriate person based on the callers’ menu choices.Call forwarding is another important feature of virtual phone systems. In-coming calls can be routed to the appropriate people wherever they happen to be-at work, on the road, or at home. Routing can be changed simply by logging into the system-a user can choose to receive calls at the home office in the morning, and then by mobile phone in the afternoon, all with a few simple commands. This feature makes virtual PBX systems truly portable, an important advantage for any home based business owner.Besides voice communications, virtual phone systems can also manage both in-coming and out-going faxes. In-coming faxes are received as email; out-going faxes are handled like any other fax sent from a computer. Customers will not notice any difference when faxing to the home based business. Even more, all faxing will now be paperless saving valuable space, money and resources.Virtual phone systems can substantially reduce a company’s communication costs. Installation and set-up expenses are substantially minimized. Existing hardware usually does not need to be replaced. With the customized menu options, there is no need for a person to be on duty simply to answer the phone. Digitized faxing eliminates the need for fax machines and paper.Beyond cost savings, virtual phone systems make good business sense for reasons of productivity. Because faxes are digitized, they can be saved more efficiently on a computer and then printed out only when needed. Users can have in-coming calls routed by the auto attendant to wherever they are during the day, resulting in fewer missed calls and greater responsiveness to customers’ needs. The menus can be customized to provide customers with important information without a live person answering the phone. When a live contact is needed, the menus help the customer to get the necessary support more quickly. This will have a significant impact on customer satisfaction.

If you are involved in your own Internet home based business and are looking for a way to build your success as fast as possible, then look no further, because the following four tips are four of the best ways to not only speed up your success-rate, but they are excellent for your personal growth as an online home based business owner.The following four techniques will help you to achieve faster success in your online home based business:#1 – Get your name in front of as many people as possibleIf you want to build a successful business, you have to get your business name and your name in front of as many people as possible. Do whatever it takes to get this job done, whether it be writing hundreds of articles, posting to plenty of popular blogs, or creating videos and submitting them to YouTube, whatever you choose to do be sure to do it on a large scale. See what works for you and dive in at full-force, which will ensure the best results.#2 – Write as many articles related to your niche as possibleArticles are not only a great way to get your name out there, but they are a great way to pre-sell your reader on your expertise. One of the most important aspects of running a business is proving to your potential customer that you do in fact have what it takes to help them, and when you write quality articles that provide the reader with helpful information, you pre-sell them and let them know that you are worth their time investment.#3 – Ask every new customer added to your list for helpA great way to speed up your progress is to ask each new subscriber to your autoresponder list exactly what their goals are, what has held them back from achieving them in the past, and what you can provide them that will help them overcome their problems. When you do this, you get plenty of good ideas of what your target-audience wants, and this will prepare you in the future when someone tells you they need the same type of help. All you will have to do is tell them about your product and let them know that it can help them out. It’s really that simple, and this is a great technique for speeding up your progress.#4 – Give your prospects plenty of free helpSo you are building your list and nobody’s buying from you? Don’t worry, keep helping people out with as much information as you can provide them, and eventually your efforts will be worth it. You can’t expect money overnight, you have to build the business first, and providing free help is a part of this process. It will eventually pay you back in the form of paying customers.

One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.

However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.

Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.

But why?

In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!

So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)

The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.

Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.

Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.

By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.

You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.