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Small Business Owners And Used Or Refurbished Laptops

by Blair Stephens

Small business owners are often plagued by technology questions. For instance, if you have remote team members, do you let them use their own computers or do you outfit them with laptops? If you have a sales staff that goes on site, can you really afford to buy the laptops they should have? In some cases, perhaps you are ready to buy a number of laptops for your staff that can be checked out and taken on the road or home in any number of circumstances. But where do you begin? If you have a small business budget, you may not have the capital to go to Dell, Compaq or Hewlitt Packard and buy 6 machines. Even if you did have the cash on hand, are you making the most strategic investment?

If you are ready to buy a number of laptops for sales staff members, you should not just run out and buy. First, how many laptops do you really need to outfit your staff? If you have 4 sales reps for instance, who are inside/outside then perhaps you need 2 laptops that can be kept in the office and checked out for sales calls. If you have only outside sales reps, each staff member will probably need their own laptop. If you have a staff that is made up of both inside and outside sales staff, the outside sales staff should probably have their own machines while the inside staff should have a pool from which to check out on an as needed basis. Consider your staff and the volume of need and then purchase accordingly.

Second, what do they really need in the laptop? If your sales reps are simply going to a call and making a power point presentation or a presentation on the internet, they probably won't need a lot of computing power. If you have staff that wants to work from home occasionally and all they are doing is word processing or spreadsheet work, they too will not need a lot of hard drive or ram to meet their needs. If you have a staff that does graphics work or programming, you may want to have a few laptops on hand that can handle that kind of work. Additionally, if you have technical sales engineers who need to demonstrate a technical or software product, you'll need to ensure that their machines can handle whatever they need to.

Third, you need to consider peripherals. Are they going to take any kind of projector with them? Do they need to be able to burn files onto CD? Do they need multiple USB ports or wireless access on the road? Will they need a larger laptop display for presentations? All of these are important issues to consider and to strategically plan for. You want to make sure that your remote staff can work effectively with no problems while protecting your bottom line.

Finally, you need to consider what kind of laptops you will buy. In today's market of swiftly moving technology, you could conceivably buy used laptops of refurbished laptops to outfit your remote staff or to create a pool of laptops for your company. If you think in terms of your needs and your budget, this may be an ideal solution. You could buy a couple of high end laptops for the staffers who really need to computing power and at the same time you could buy a number of used notebook computers or refurbished laptops for the staff members who don't need the same amount of power. By thinking strategically, you can outfit a remote staff or a sales rep with what they need while avoiding the budgetary stretch you can't handle.

If you are a small business owner, you don't need to outlay cash on technology that won't be used to its fullest extent. Get your technical people the computing power they need to take your products and organization to the next level and make sure your sales reps have adequate laptop computers to optimize their time on the road. With technology constantly changing, if you commit to buying cutting edge computers for your whole staff you may be walking straight into bankruptcy. Buy smart and your business will grow while your budget stays trim.

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