CallingAdvice - Calling Cards, Cell Phones and help with national and International calling.

Yesterday, I told you that a friend of mine recently emailed me to ask if I would look at a VOIP business opportunity, and that being the open person that I try to be, I went and checked it out for him.

Remember, you, as an end user, download the dialer to your computer, and it lets you make free calls to anyone via VOIP from your computer (to a Land Line or to another computer which has the software on it).

The company (which will remain nameless for purposes of this article), generates their revenue by running ads in their player while you're on your call.

At first, this seemed like a good idea, but let's investigate a little closer.

Some things I always look at when evaluating a company (which comes from the Harvard Business School) are Company, Need in the Marketplace, Product, Compensation, Competition, and Timing.

In this case, the company appears to be a couple of small start-ups that merged and decided they could make some money. This might be good, but the company has no real track record.

As far as the product they offer, and the need in the marketplace for their kind of product/service, the marketplace needs another way to make calls from your computer about like it needs another type of toothbrush (hint: it doesn't).

When it comes to the compensation, how you get paid is extremely vague in the up-front presentation. It could be good, but it's all based on hypotheticals, and doesn't really give you anything concrete.

When it comes to this kind of service, the competition includes Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Messenger, Flashtalk, and about 180 other companies which have dialers that offer more service.

And finally, when it comes to the timing of this service, this is really a great idea. Don't you think it's a good idea to be able to make phone calls from your computer? It's why Google, MSN, Skype, and Yahoo, all did it with their versions 5 years ago.

Make sure you evaluate what you're looking at with an open mind, but also, make sure you're asking good questions. This will help you determine if something can help you make money, save money, or just be a waste of money, and (more importantly,) time.

Posted by Jonathan at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A friend of mine recently emailed me to ask if I would look at a home based business opportunity in the telecommunications industry.

So, being the open person that I try to be, I went and checked it out for him.

At first glance, I could tell right away that it was not only a home based business, but yet another opportunity to join a telecommunications network marketing company, and one marketing VOIP services.

I have no problem with network marketing as an industry. In fact, there are some very good companies within the networking industry, and ultimately, it's how we all buy products and services anyway.

(Last time I went to Sam's Club, I got a jar of pickles that was so big that...)

So basically, with the idea that this company is a network marketing model, you could hypothetically get paid on the calls you make, as well as on the calls made by the people you refer. Those people can get paid on the calls their referrals make, and on and on, etc.

But, because it's a computer based dialer, it's not like you're making money from the airtime usage (which is one of the ways the now defunct Excel communications made their money, (from home based phone lines) and paid their distributors).

But here's how this works.

You, as an end user, download the dialer to your computer, and it lets you make free calls to anyone via VOIP from your home or business computer to any Land Line (or to another computer which has the software on it).

The company (which will remain nameless for purposes of this article), generates their revenue by running ads in their player while you're on your call.

There was a program on the Internet that used to be very similar to this called AllAdvantage, which (some people will remember) paid you according to how much time you surfed the web, and how many ads you saw while surfing.

In this case, the distributors and the company get paid paid by advertisers, by the minutes or seconds that their ad displays on your computer. They likely also charge the advertisers by clicks (meaning) you have the ad on your screen while you're on your call, and you decide to click to see what the ad is about. The company then pays that click (let's say through 5-10 levels) to people who recruited people who recruited people, etc.

If the call quality is good, it might be worth it. It just depends on the end user.

I just signed up for Skype though, which only cost me $30/year to have unlimited (and ad-free) calling from my computer to anywhere in the US.

But, for the people who don't mind ads, this particular program appears to be free, and free is generally worth it.

But then, on further investigation of the site, it appeared that you could buy in at higher levels in the compensation plan. When it comes to network marketing, this usually means that they're taking some of what you pay to buy in at those levels, and using it to pay the person who convinced you to sign up at a higher level. This is something I'm never really comfortable with, because people should get paid when products and services are marketed, not when someone pays money to join the business.

"You mean I pay $500 to buy in, and $250 of that goes to the person who convinced me to buy in?"

Oh yeah.

The moral of the story, be careful, and really think, before deciding that the next presentation you attend is going to turn into "the next big thing." Telcom is great, and there are a lot of people making a lot of money by marketing Telecommunications products, but really make sure you know what you're looking at.

Posted by Jonathan at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When it comes to calling cards, there are basically two types of calling cards, but they work on the same principle. There are physical cards (like you may see at the front of a grocery store in the "impulse buys" section, and there are "virtual" cards, which you buy online, and the dial-in number, as well as the PIN Code, are sent to your email inbox.

So which is better? Well, the type of card (Physical vs. virtual) doesn't really matter. I prefer the purchase online and get it sent to my inbox method because it's easier for me.

However, what you want to watch out for is the fine print (Isn't that always the case?) So, for example, if you look at the average calling card retailer's web site there will be a variety of calling cards which come up for any search you do. Let's take a hypothetical search for rates from the Continental US to Australia.

At first glance, one of the cards to Australia will appear to be the best deal, because it offers the lowest per minute rate. However, if you look into the fine print of these individual cards, what you often discover is that the card which appears to have the best rate to Australia is actually rounding every phone call by four minute increments. This is great if you only talk for 3 minutes and 59 seconds. But, as soon as you talk for 4 minutes and 1 second, this card will count your call as having been 8 minutes.

And when all your time is suddenly used up, and you wonder how the time on the phone could have gone by so quickly (because you thought you got such a great rate to Australia), you suddenly will realize that the 4 minute rounding rate may not have been your best option.

For this reason, I generally recommend that people should read the fine print before making any calling card purchase. Make sure your calling cards are rounding calls to 1 minute increments, or, better yet, 1 second increments. I've seen cards that will round up to 8 minute increments! If the card you are thinking of using doesn't say what rounding method it uses, I wouldn't recommend it at all.

Whether you are purchasing a physical card or a "virtual" card, read the fine print, and find out what rounding method they use, before finalizing your calling card purchase.

Also, one other quick tip: Generally, when calling Europe (or most other places in the world), calling a cell phone is going to be significantly more expensive than calling a land line phone. There are lots of reasons for this, which I won't go into now, but be aware of it. Make sure that if the person you are calling is using a cell phone that you are looking for the cheapest rates for calling cell phones in the country you are calling.

Posted by Jonathan at 08:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)