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Sep 23, 2009 -

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could run your entire franchise operation from a Mobile phone?

All franchise systems revolve around sales. Your customers or clients are either coming into your place of business to purchase your products or services, or you are out and about locating customers or clients that will purchase your products or services.

Let’s discuss franchises that focus on going out and finding customers. Here are some specific examples;   

•  Valpak- This direct mail franchise offers its franchisees the opportunity to purchase an exclusive territory, and hire a team of sales professionals to sell advertising programs to the local small business market. 
• Sandler Training- For 25 years, this sales training franchise has attracted top sales performers. Sandler franchisees do two things; they sell the Sandler sales training system to businesses that have sales staffs, and they conduct the sales training sessions. 
•  Expense Reduction Analysts- Franchisees of this concept call on businesses of all types, and consult with them on cost reduction strategies, which will help their bottom lines. The cost savings are then split between the businesses and the franchisee.
• Filta Environmental Kitchen Solutions- Franchisees call on restaurants, hospitals, and other food service businesses, and provide the filtering of fryer oil which extends the life of oil and limits the amount of disposal. Once the life of the oil has been maximized, the Filta franchisee will remove the oil from the business, and they can turn it into Bio-Diesel.
• United Shipping Solutions- Shipping packages to and fro is huge business, and the franchisees of this chain offer all in one shipping solutions for the small business owners that they call on. They can even arrange trailer type shipping for larger customers. 

Here are some iPhone apps;

• Roambi- Track your current Excel® spreadsheets, Salesforce.com data, and download any CSV data from your computer, right to your iPhone.. You can even share the info with other iPhone users. Instant historical data right at your fingertips, no matter where you are.
•  SiteCatalyst- Monitor your website’s stats remotely with this cool app from Omniture . Find out if your current online marketing campaigns are working, and make needed adjustments on the fly, from your iPhone.  Impress prospective customers with live stats from your website.
• Quickoffice- PC World calls this a “Top 10 Must-Have iPhone App.”  You can edit Word® documents, transfer desktop files via WiFi, email files directly via iPhone, and even mount your device as a drive. All this plus 100% data integrity.  
• Daylite Touch- This is a business productivity manager for the iPhone, designed as a companion to Daylite on the Mac. Winner of a 2009 Macworld Best of Show award, Daylite Touch helps you manage your business and your team, keeping everyone on the same page and helping you stay on track and deliver on time.  This one is for the sales manager on the go. {Which may be you}
•  iXpenseIt- Instead of collecting  all of those little paper receipts from client lunches, office supply purchases, and entertainment expenses, this app let’s you take a picture of the receipt with your iPhone camera, and send it back to your office for easy recordkeeping.

For Blackberry users, there are also terrific apps that can help you as a franchise owner;

• Documents To Go Premium Edition- Create, open, and edit Microsoft Word®, Excel®, and PowerPoint files® files while on the go. This app includes InTact Technology which ensures that the files do not lose their original formatting. No worries about forgetting important paper documents for your new customers to sign.  They are now right on your Blackberry.
• trackIT: Vehicle Edition- If your operation has multiple vehicles, this app enables you track all of them at the same time. You can keep track of mileage, repairs, and fuel usage.  You can even schedule future maintenance needs based on each vehicle’s odometer readings.
• My Employees- This tool can help you keep track of important details about all of your employees. Everything from their current pay plans-including year to date income and deductions, to their current and past work assignments now have the ability to be reviewed by you right from your Blackberry. Now, you don’t have to call your office for this information. It’s at your fingertips.
• My Customer- This app allows you to input and save all the important information about your customers. There are three different customer priority levels, and it includes an easy to use search tool. You can export via SMS text or email.
• BugMe!- Do you ever have great ideas for your business while you’re on the go? Jot them down as notes on your Blackberry with BugMe! You can share your BugMe! notes by SMS text or email, or store them in your calendar or task manager for retrieval, anytime. BugMe!'s note taker even recognizes web addresses, email addresses and phone numbers, which enables you to reach out to specific people and businesses as you are writing the note.

There are literally thousands of mobile phone applications available, with new ones coming out every day. Plus, it’s not just about iPhones, and Blackberry’s anymore.  There’s the new Android phone, with its own applications, plus I’m sure there will be others as we all start going a little more mobile, all the time.

Do you know of any other mobile business applications that can help your fellow small business owners? Please share them with the OPEN Forum community!