Inside this month's issue:

In addition to being easy to use, LinkedIn is well adapted to the needs of an insurance agency. Sign up today!

A successful marketing program is vital—but you must have a strategy before you implement any new technology.

If you’re thinking about passing your business along to your kids, make sure to avoid common traps.

Introducing GoToMyPC, DropBox, Mozy, and Jing—4 Web-based services you may find useful.

Is your brand and message being tarnished by sloppy e-mails, faxes, letters, and proposals?

Ready to move? Take note of some lessons learned before you travel too far down the wrong path.

In part 5, learn to succeed at e-business by measuring progress, setting milestones, and purchasing gear.

LinkedIn makes improvements; BCBS suffers $7 million data breach; insurance industry launches personal lines initiative.

Quickly find missing contact information using LeadResearcher, an intelligent research tool.

March 2010

Small Agency Power Corner

Ed Higgins

Tips for an Office Expansion: Part 2

Editor's Note: Ed shared his initial thoughts on renovating and expanding his office in the November 2009 issue of TAAR. In Part 1 of this follow-up article, he provided a review of what he learned in the process about cabling and workstations. This month, he wraps up with lessons learned about placement of the server/hub/router, wiring, breaking down walls, and more.

Server placement

Where is the best place to put a new server/hub/router? The clear best choice is a central location so that the furthest workstations in every direction have about the same cable run. Make sure you wire everything that is electronic (network cable, phone/fax) twice to allow for a possible failed connection down the road. If you do the cable runs yourself, the only investment is your free time. If you have someone else pull the wires, this is a task for a high school student. If you want to shortcut some expense, don't attach finished ends to the backup computer network cable. They cost $5.00 each. We used 150 connections, which cost $750, plus our own in...

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