Building a business online, not just a website

If you need a quick and easy way to create awesome HTML5 forms in seconds then you’ve come to the right place!

Easy web form builder does just that. It’s a simple and quick way to create very beautiful HTML5 web forms to embed in your website.

These are ideal for web designers or developers who code a lot of websites and want to save time.  It is also a great tool for any entrepreneur, single founder or online business owner who wants to create a quick form and doesn’t have the time (or knowledge) to create it from scratch.

Just drag ‘n’ drop, export and upload. Voila!

Why is this awesome?

• The interface is really intuitive with drag ‘n’ drop and all fields are a click away
• There’s cool HTML5 fields and all major field types like Text, Text Area, Radio Buttons, Password, Date and more more
• You can use one of the included themes or edit the CSS after export to style the form exactly how you want to embed it smoothly into your current web project design
• Fields have validation attributes so that users enter the right data into your form
• You can export as a zip file or opt to just get the source code for each file to copy&paste into your project site
• The forms created are compatible with all browsers including that well know 10 year old browser : )

How can I use this?

Easy web form builder - go and build yourself a form today

Go to easy web form builder and build yourself a form!

Just click the (+) button next to the form element you would like to add. To edit an element, click the edit button and edit the validation or title of that element.

Any form element can be deleted by pressing the delete button (x).

You can test your form by pressing the preview button and clicking download to download your form when it’s ready to use and how you like it.

How does this work with my site?

After downloading the zip folder of your final form, unzip the contents and upload them to where you will be using the form.  Link to the index.php file in the form folder and that’s it. Your form is ready to go go go.

Alternatively, style and embed the form into your existing design. For styling the form you can use your own CSS styles or the Uniform Plugin as used with this tool.

Validation is done on the form automatically and uses the  jQuery Tools Validator.

For implementing the processing logic of the form, please edit the process_form.php file if you want the form to send the information to a database, email the form to an email address or redirect the user to a new page upon completion of the form.  There are examples of how to email the form and redirect the user within the process_form.php file.  Just follow the instructions included in the file once you have completed and exported your finished form.

Problems?

Usually problems with the forms are easy to diagnose.  The sample form uses the basic mail() function, which is built into php. If you’ve entered your email address correctly and you aren’t getting any errors then the email will be sent correctly.

However, sometimes it might get caught in a spam folder (check in there) or the address gets typed in incorrectly when the form is setup or your host may not all you to send email via php.  Check with them too! Firebug will show any php errors.

Is there an even easier way?

Yep, as there always is!

Want an easier way to integrate forms into your small business website with no code at all, no hassles and no styling issues?  Need something with the same drag ‘n’ drop ease as this but already built into your website?  Something where you can just edit the form elements without having to edit the code and back end stuff? Something where you can start collecting data today?

All latteperday customers get access to an incredibly easy to use form builder that is already built into their website. Here they can add unlimited forms, collect and store results in the backend of their site for later exporting, viewing or reviewing.

There are more dynamic field options included such as a better date picker, price field, address box laid out as per country idiosyncrasies (you select the country address format), it emails the form to as many recipients as needed for quick following up, it integrates into the newsletter sign up process for email newsletters using yuzoolmail.com, it can take payments or order details.

Some of the great uses for this latteperday feature include taking simple enquiries, receiving hotel bookings, booking consultation time, creating customer surveys, event registration, part invites, lead generation, bug tracking.. and so on. Get in touch for more details.

What to do next?

Go to easy web form builder and try and build yourself a form and upload it to your site. Come back here and post your feedback!

I’d love to hear how it made your life easier and work faster. That’s the idea and helpfully it improved your website and allowed you to capture enquiries faster and more efficiently.

Happy easy web form creating!

There are lots of great invoicing and billing online tools out there.  Some of them are free, most are for a monthly sum.  For people starting a business today and just want to send out a handful of invoices a month there might be is a better way.

Easy billing is a fast and free way to create an invoice right now. Today.

There is no need to signup, nor create an account, hand over any credit card details or anything else.

The idea is that a freelancer, entrepreneur, single founder, business owner, consultant <insert anyone else here who needs to invoice> can just load up the page in there browser, add the amount, the address and click print.  Stick it in an envelope and mail.  Or, export to pdf and email. Invoicing in minutes!

Why is this awesome?

1. It’s fast (takes 3 minutes if you can type quickly…)
2. It works
3. You can use any currency $ ¥ £ ₨ – enter it yourself manually
4. It prints and displays Japanese characters correctly and likely others too as it’s in standard UTF-8 coding format**
5. If you’re running a decent browser like Firefox the invoice will save in the browser’s cache and upon reload present the last sent invoice. Handy to avoid having to keep typing in your address
6. You can upload your logo
7. There’s lots of room at the bottom of the invoice to add your terms, payment details, thank you notes, reasons to love you and work with you again
8. It’s free to use
9. No login required
10. Exports pdf (have to use “print to pdf”. Macs have this feature built in and it prints great looking invoices. For Pcs, you need a print to pdf plugin installed.  Try dopdf if you don’t have one installed under “file”, “print” and “print to pdf” or “export to pdf”.
11. You can play with it from your iPhone or Android smartphone – haven’t sent an invoice this way before but it could be done on the road
12. You can access invoicing from any computer anywhere with any computer or any browser.  *Scenario* You go to a client’s office and forget to bring your invoice. Jump on a computer and quickly type one up before the meeting and print. Blushes saved and you can get paid.

**This was the main gripe and reason for setting this up.  A lot of the other *cough* invoicing apps printed out Japanese characters as question marks and other unreadable dingbat characters.  It was just unusable and so frustrating.  So, for anyone wanted to print in other languages with other characters, this should work for you.

Very easy to use

Easy small business startup billing - intuitive to edit

It’s very intuitive to use.  Just hover over the area you would like to edit and the editable area goes green. Click and type.

The calculations are done automatically and you can add or delete items by clicking on the plus (+) and minus (-) icons.

The currency is also editable along with the due date, invoice number and today’s date. It’s also possible to add deductions for things like discounts or if a deposit has already been paid on a previous invoice and this is just to address the balance remaining on a client’s account.

More features?

It pretty much does what I want it to do at the moment. Fast, easy and straight forward billing.  Sure, there’s a lot of things it doesn’t do, but it doesn’t need to.  It works really well the way it is and will help a lot of people (and that’s the idea).

For latteperday customers, they get a different more purpose built invoicing app.  It will be able to handle taxes, have real export to pdf built in, allow for saving invoices, create and store client address details, record payments made and received, add project management files, get email notifications, share files with clients, chat on projects with clients, have client areas and so on.  It will be an app for managing client contact details, billing and project management and file sharing all in one.  Great for consultants, architects, interior designers, graphic designers, photographers… and loads of other great professionals.

For the other people who want to sell widgets and items through an online store (e commerce) they’ll have a shopping cart feature built right into their site.  For them, customers will come to their site, add to basket and checkout. The site will take the payment, add shipping, track product inventory and allow users to search, find, fulfil, cancel and refund orders all from a simple orders screen.

What should I do now?

Go and send your first invoice using easy billing. Be sure to come back here and comment on your experience, if it makes your professional life any easier and any other feedback you’d love to share.

Happy billing!

A great tip for using Twitter for your small business is to use Twitter as a search engine and see who is right now in need of your product or service.  It’s real time market research and great for building prospects, building connections and extending your network but also for testing products and market needs before you’ve even built or launched your product.

Hot on from the release of this tool yesterday, here are a few quick tips on how to best use twitter pie.

You are an accountant

Let’s assume you’re an accountant.  This is scenario #1. Apart from wanting to be a lion tamer, you want clients and books to check.

So, you go to twitter pie and you type in a variety of searches such as below:

• need accountant
• I want an accountant
• accountant asap
• can’t do my taxes
• need taxes help
• looking for accountant
• taxes need doing
• taxes deadline coming
• too many taxes
• business books messy
• messy accounts
• accountant referral
• accountant questions
• want accountant in [insert your town]

And so on!  Mix and match the above, create new ones.  Get in the zone and crunch out 25 or so phrases to search. Time to get creative ; )

A bunch of twitter results appear on the page.  If you leave the page for an hour or so it just keeps on going (refreshes every 2 seconds if your search is that popular and trending).

Try searching through users tweets (@ search) or the # keys (# search: users use these to categorise their tweets for search) or Custom Search keywords.  See which yields the best results for you.

Then, you reply to the tweet with a piece of free advice, a link, a copy of a spreadsheet that might help them solve their taxes problems or anything else that you can do to help them.

Ask for work

Then after they’ve said “thanks” or asked for more information or advice from you, you can just ask “hey, hopefully those resources helped. If you need me to work with you to save further headache in the future, here’s my details”. (afterall, if you don’t ask you don’t get shit).

You’ll be surprised what happens next.

You’ve found someone at the right moment in need for your help (product or service). Rather than spending time and money on magazine adverts that fail over and over again, this is a perfect example of using a tool to find someone in need of a solution right at this moment.  Your conversion rate will certainly be a lot higher than other ways of advertising. You politely and sincerely come along and give them some help and advice without being spammy or ramming your deals down their throat.

It’s like networking online.

They feel warm, fuzzy and appreciative and can see the expertise and value you can provide them to solve their current hell of a problem (it’s so hellish because they are telling the world about it right now). So, you offer them a way to banish this problem forever with your widget-o-matic and they bite your hand off.  Simple.

It’s one of the ways to approach these things backwards. Like reverse marketing.  You’re giving your solution to people in need for it right now rather than advertising your solution and hoping it finds people who need it.  You’re actively going out and finding them rather than waiting for them to come to you.

What can I do right now to action this?

I only want to provide value here and don’t want you stressing over finer details or reading something that isn’t going to take your small business forward.  So, we need to make this actionable today.

Go to twitter pie now, sit there for 10 mins crunching out searches and see what results start coming up.

When you see a bunch of useful tweets you can respond too, start responding.

Make a note of these searches, add the page to your bookmarks and then make the twitter pie technique part of your weekly marketing routine and do this for 2 – 3 weeks (3 sittings of 20 minutes over 3 days – just an hour a week so easy to fit into anyone’s schedule) and see what clients you can pick up, people you can connect with and help you can offer.

Any comments on how to maximise this strategy or improve on it, feel free to comment below!

Happy Tweeting and best of luck!

Twitter is a great tool to interact with potential customers, people in your network and friends or colleagues too. A lot of people don’t realise it’s a really powerful search engine and second only to Google(!)

It’s a really great way to spy on your competition, search for new customers, check business trends and find out who is looking for and in need of your product right now.

The Custom Twitter Search Tool

What’s the best way to do this? Using this new latteperday custom twitter search tool called twitter pie.

The idea behind twitter pie is to create an easy and fast way for you yo search twitter using the “@”, “#” or custom keywords.

Twitter Pie is awesome

Twitter pie refreshes and looks for another query of your search in every 2 seconds and adds it to the list.  Leave the browser for a few minutes and (if your search is popular) you’ll soon have loads of results to comb through in no time at all.

Go and give it a try now:  twitter pie

Would love to hear your feedback on the tool too: hello@latteperday.com

Happy Twitter searching!