April 2011
In this issue
►Letter from the President
►Ricky's Corner
►Disaster-Proof Your Business
►Virtual Office Management
►Find an Extra Hour
►Simplify Repetitive Actions
►Business Continuity Tip
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Simplify Repetitive Actions with Quick Steps
Microsoft Office Demo
 Many of the most common actions most people take on e-mail messages involve multiple steps. For example, reply to a message and then move it to another folder, or forward a message to your team. Outlook 2010 includes Quick Steps, a gallery of commands that turn these multiple-step tasks into one click.
Watch this video to see how Quick Steps help you act on your e-mail messages more efficiently, and how to make custom Quick Steps to do your own repetitive tasks.
Business Continuity Tip
Prepare for the first 72 Hours
The crisis in Japan is heart wrenching and hard to fathom. It's been said that this will be one of the most closely examined disasters in history. The lessons learned will help generations for years to come. But what can you do today to prepare your business and family for a large scale event? Simply put, prepare to go it alone for the first 72 hours.
FEMA recommends to be prepared with adequate supplies for the critical first 72 hours after a disaster. This includes operating under the assumption that utilities (phone, electricity, gas) as well as public safety (police and fire departments) may be unavailable. The following items should be included in a 72 hour "go bag" or kit:
• Clothing: Each person should have two sets of clothes.
• First Aid: You should have a fully stocked First Aid Kit and include any over the counter medications.
• Water: Water is critical. Each person should have a minimum of one gallon per day.
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Laugh a Little
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All things being equal, people
will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like and trust.
- Bob Burg
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Letter from the President
Tim Rettig
Will Blog for Food
This month we updated the design of our website and added some new features. A major addition to the website is a blog with content contributed by everyone in the company. I say major because it is no small task to get everyone in the company to contribute content on a regular basis. First, it was an experiment to see if we could get everyone to contribute, and now that everyone has at least one article in, we will see how long we can sustain it. To see how we did it, read on. . .
When we began the task of redesigning our website I had the vision of a blog with content from everyone in the company. I didn’t want to just use a news service that would provide us content, and I didn’t want to have just a couple of people write articles. I wanted to get a broader point of view of all the different ways we use technology. We have a very broad and diverse set of clients and I thought they would appreciate the many different topics we could come up with.
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Ricky's Corner
Ricky Phipps
Managers of INTRUST GROUP: Nick Giordano - Professional Services Manager
Nick Giordano is responsible for our Professional Services team. To everyone not in-the-know of our internal jargon, this means that the account managers and the people who design and implement new solutions for our customers report to him. The facts I shared when I kicked off this series are below.
Nick loves sports and other “manly” outdoor activities. He has broken 14 bones over 22 years as proof. His spouse has since benched him. Fortunately, changing the diapers of four children is relatively safe, at least as far as broken bones is concerned.
I see the facts above as tells about his personality and how he brings value to the Company. More on that later. Considering Chad Adams (see my March 2011 article for more on Chad) has wandered through a host of entirely unrelated jobs, Nick’s path through now has been basically direct. If nothing else, it’s certainly been remarkable.
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Disaster-Proof Your Business
by Jeff Wuorio
used with permission from the Microsoft Business Site
 If you're a business owner, you need to know how to protect your business.
Try as we might, there's often no way to skirt disaster — whether it's national, personal or weather induced. But there are strategies to cope with it as best we can, no matter if its source is a burst river levee, a thoughtlessly discarded match, or the deranged actions of others. Knowing what to do in the event of a disaster is crucial for anyone, of course, but particularly for a small-business owner, whose livelihood may depend on a small storefront or home basement office.
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Virtual Office Management
by Jeff Wuorio
used with permission from the Microsoft Small Business website
 Carole Martin has a marketing expert upon whom she relies for sharp ideas and provocative sales angles.
What's interesting about this is that the two have never met face to face. Their business relationship is truly "virtual."
"It takes many skills and personality types to run a business, even a small business. You really can't do it alone," says Martin, a Burlingame, Calif., writer and coach. "It's a strange world we live in." Read more
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Find Out How To Get An Extra Hour Every Day
used with permission from the HP Small & Medium Business Site
 Time pressure is acute and frustrations such as commuting, inflexible working hours and tedious meetings make it worse.
To get things started here are ten sure-fire ways to get an extra hour a day.
Do emails on the go. With an HP notebook with 3G Mobile Broadband, you can get ahead of your emails before you even get to work. (Broadband connections require separately purchased wireless data service contracts.)
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