Many of us become leaders because we have good ideas - a successful startup, at its core, is an innovative idea - but the strength of our thinking can also be a liability. We can become too firm of believers in our own ideas.  As a business grows, its needs and challenges change, and leaders who get too caught up in their own thinking may overlook the problems or opportunities that begin to arise as they add more employees.

Cloud computing is changing the way we communicate. From VoIP phone solutions to data sharing, the channels of interaction are being rerouted in new and exciting ways. I'm sure you've been seeing the cloud pop up in many places, as lots of people, from IT professionals to tech bloggers to social media gurus, have been singing its praises. There's a lot of information out there, and a quarter of this year is already behind us, so I thought it might be helpful to offer a list of the top three trends in cloud communications that have driven cloud adoption in 2013 and will continue to do so.

Many small businesses struggle with how best to benefit from using search engine optimization (SEO) to aid in growing their business. It can be confusing, complicated and it just doesn't seem like it's worth the time and money. While you may not have the big budgets that huge enterprises have, there are some smart ways that you can incorporate SEO into your web presence, and attract customers to your site.

Far too frequently, I hear small business owners grumble about how they would love to incorporate new technology or utilize new services, but that they simply are challenged to take advantage of the technologies intended for large enterprises, whether it be the complexity or price.  I say that this approach is narrow-minded.

Did you know that Fonality has completed over 4 billion calls through the cloud? How about the fact that Fonality is the only business phone provider that can deliver a communication solution either fully hosted or onsite. Fonality is excited to announce the launch of our new online training program for our partner community.  Resellers, Agents, and Referral Partners alike can now access critical product, solutions, and technical training courses that will aide your success in selling and installing Fonality business phone solutions.  This free online program is designed to help gain proficiency in sales techniques, product positioning, and technical installation.  

As marketers - especially in B2B - we strive to generate as many new leads for our companies as we can. New leads translate into new sales and that means an increase in company profit.

One of the easiest steps you can take while troubleshooting a phone that isn't working is to factory flash it, in other words, to restore the default settings and allowing it to re-download configuration files from Fonality. Factory flashing your phone can fix a variety of issues with registration and incorrect configuration files, but you may be unaware of how to go about this process.

Nowadays, it's hard to turn on the television or open a newspaper without seeing an advertisement for the latest and greatest smartphone to come out. Often, these new releases will get some fanfare at the very beginning from the technology community and then often that particular smartphone model will lose its veneer and go back to being just another device on the market that is soon to be obsolete in a few years time. Yet, I'm continually amazed by just how powerful these phones are and by how much they've changed how business works.

One great way to market your business is to position your company as an industry leader by developing and sharing unique content. Content marketing has become very popular in recent years, thanks in part to the advent of social media and online marketing. In fact, the Content Marketing Institute found that nine out of 10 marketers surveyed at the end of 2012 were using content marketing to promote their brand, with plans to do even more content marketing in 2013. B2B marketers are spending about 33 percent of their marketing budgets on content marketing, up 26 percent from last year. And most of them (54 percent) plan to increase their content marketing spending over the next year.