wish you a Happy 4th of July and a lovely holiday weekend!

With a Phone.com account you get a phone number that is your phone number no matter where you are and no matter what phone you want to use to dial out of. So when you are in your office near your “real” every day phone you appear calling from your 222-333-4444 number but even if you are at that nice beach using your friends cell phone to make that important call to your client you can still appear to your client as if you are calling from 222-333-4444.

Visit www.phone.com and sign up to any of the plans. They all offer this capability. To learn more feel free to contact the Phone.com customer service team and they will be happy to help you.

Or - just interact with the Phone.com team on the customer forums, Facebook or Twitter. It is easy to find us.

You can transfer your existing phone number to Phone.com at no cost (one time $25 saving).

So whether you already own a Phone.com Virtual Office account or a new customer - take advantage of this special promotion and enjoy all the benefits of Phone.com Virtual Office.

Yes, less than one percent of US firms translate to 61% of revenues however the sales costs of achieving these sales are extremely high.
As Mike points out:

“…the point is that direct sales organizations cannot serve the vast majority of businesses on the planet.”

The web is what is changing this. Quoting Mike:

“Far fewer businesses have been created, at least in high technology, by serving the small- and medium-size business segment as they were hard to reach. But that’s all changing rapidly.”

Though the post addresses the IT industry and primarily business software firms, we can expand to other businesses as well.

There are about 20 million businesses in the US with no employees (only the owner). The opportunity to sell to them is huge but reaching them (unless you are one of those big businesses with a large direct sales force or channel) is only possible if using the internet. Opportunities that were not available a decade ago and that are only growing as the internet and other online tools evolve.

Phone.com is a good example of a business that could not have operated with the low cost model we have in the “old world”. Phone.com does not have a physical sales force and is targeting entrepreneurs and the SOHO (Small Office – Home Office) or VSB (Very Small Business) markets from our website and through online marketing affiliates.
The ability to keep our overhead low allows us to improve our service and pass on costs savings to our customers.

Or perhaps just your childhood area code (or parents number) but your parents moving near you and leaving the phone number area code?

Well, no need to keep the old phone line (or cell phone line) and pay high prices for the pleasure of keeping a number. Just transfer it to Phone.com and with our Phone.com Virtual Number service you can keep the number for just $4.88 per month and you can forward the number to any of your current phone lines or simply send it to a designated voicemail plus you get 250 minutes to use and many other features.

Warrillow & Co. published interesting data in their latest newsletter. They found that around 29% of small business start that way.

From their analysis we can also learn that it does not happen overnight. But it may not be that long of a wait. for most of these businesses 1-3 years is what it takes.

So go for it and don’t give up. Your dream business might be on its way.

OK. The last couple of days were very Twitter eye opening for me.
Here is a link to a story Amy Hoak wrote for MarketWatch that came out Tuesday.

For anyone who is not on Twitter or could not see what and why all the fuss here are 5 reasons why it can be useful:

1. It’s a real-time opinion aggregator
2. It’s a networking tool
3. It’s a way to connect with people offline
4. It’s a customer-service channel
5. It’s a place to track down savings and value

Phone.com is using Twitter and will be using it much more. Mainly we would like to use it to help our customer service.

As Amy writes:

“Instead of writing a strongly worded letter to a customer-service department, politely complain on Twitter. Chances are, the company is listening… If you’re a small business, it might not hurt to give Twitter a try too… even a small boutique owner might broadcast on Twitter when a new shipment comes in or when a sale is launching. The information would help customers and “give them that inner circle feeling” of being kept in the loop about the store.”

So, to all our customer, follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/phonedotcom and let us know your thoughts / suggestions or post questions. We will do our best to tweet back ASAP!

Today I attended the Twitter 140conf in New York City.

As it was ranked second or third on the twitter top trending topics for most of the day (behind the #iranelections) you can certainly read all the comments and learn what the speakers had to say (the event website www.140conf.com or the twitter chatroom (#140conf).

All i want to add is that the event organizer, Jeff Pulver did an amazing job collecting a great group of “twitter experts” and have panels that discussed the influence of twitter on topics from sports to music to entertainment to politics, news (perhaps the hottest topic) and yes… also on business.

You can see some photos on Phone.com’s Facebook fan page.

Please follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/phonedotcom and see how we share our stories with you and would also love to hear more of your feedback and comments on twitter.

With a Phone.com Virtual Number you can keep your cell phone number private and still receive calls on it. You can even choose who can reach you and who goes to voicemail.
Only $4.88 a month (+tax) for 250 minutes. No set up costs and you can cancel any time.