Helping Out

We try to help out in the community where we can, both as a company, and as individuals.

When Hurricane Katrina struck, we provided free fax services to the American Red Cross to help their communications.

We also gave free faxing to MyFax customers in the affected areas, who clearly had more to worry about than their internet fax service. (But one notable customer insisted that she pay anyway, because MyFax let her continue her business even while she was uprooted.)

Closer to home, we're rallying for the fight against cancer. Cancer has touched people close to us, and inspired our team to get active fundraising. Today we sold MyFax T-shirts; next week is a barbeque. You can help too - visit the American Cancer Society or Canadian Cancer Society Relay For Life .

And if you want to buy a MyFax T-shirt just drop me a note!

Three ways to avoid irritating travel charges

I was travelling last month, and was surprised to get hit by fairly large "off-net" roaming charges with my new phone. (Note to self: read the fine print).

It reminded me of all the hidden charges that add to the cost of travelling, and my Top 3 List of Ways to avoid the irritating costs of travel:

1) Use your cell phone. (Well, first get a plan that includes roaming!). Hotel charges are wildly expensive.

2) Take the hotel shuttle when you can, and avoid the taxi charges (plus tolls, tips, minimums, etc.)

3) Don't eat breakfast at the hotel. It's convenient, but you're held hostage. Walk next door - the fresh air is good for you!

Many customers choose an online fax service like MyFax when they're travelling - and the only other alternative is to pay your hotel $3 per page or more. If you can get your email, you can get your fax - or you can download your fax from our secure web site.

Road Gladiator has some more good tips.

Top 5 Tips for Job Hunting with MyFax

Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters by David Perry and Jay Levinson is a good guidebook to using guerilla tactics to get a new job. I subscribe to Levinson's Guerrilla Marketing newsletter which usually has some simple and effective ways of promoting products and services. The book applies the same approach to marketing yourself to new employers.

GM for Job Hunters recommends using MyFax to get your resume noticed. Email applications often got overlooked - and they certainly all look the same when they are sitting in a cluttered inbox. Faxes generally get hand delivered to the hiring manager.

Here's 5 tips for using MyFax effectively in your job hunting:

1. Use the fax cover page effectively. The cover page gets read - make sure it includes your best pitch.
2. Be brief. Effective resumes use white space to draw attention to key points. This is especially critical when faxing your resume - lots of dense text looks unappealing.
3. Be specific. Use the hiring manager's name and department. Remember that many fax machines are still shared, and unaddressed faxes only reach the recycling bin.
4. Don't spam. By email and by fax, spam is bad. Focus your sales pitch.
5. Follow up. Phone the day after you send the fax. Get voicemail? Draw attention to the fax.