New book · Kindle ebook
The Small Business Technology Guide
Practical Advice for Owners Who Would Rather Be Running Their Business
By Danielle Lemons. Coming soon to Amazon Kindle.
Coming soon to Amazon Kindle Get the free checklist
About the book
Technology should not be the part of your business that keeps you up at night.
Danielle Lemons has spent more than 20 years leading operations and delivery teams in technology. In this guide she gathers her practical advice for small business owners into 33 short chapters. Each one stands on its own, so you can start with whatever is costing you the most right now.
Inside, you will learn how to:
- Brief a web designer, choose between a template and a custom website, and decide what a maintenance plan should cover
- Read your Google Business Profile numbers, ask customers for reviews without feeling awkward, and show up when customers ask AI who to call
- Ask the right questions before you switch business phone systems, keep your number when you change providers, and move offices without losing phone service
- Prepare for internet outages and storm season
- Understand what managed IT services really mean, and what to ask a managed service provider before you sign
- Decide whether one technology vendor or several is right for you
The book is organized in five parts: Your Website, Getting Found, Phones and Internet, IT and Security, and Running Operations. The advice is plain-spoken and built for owners who are not technical and do not want to become technical.
Tech support should be simple. This book makes some of it simpler.
Table of contents
Five parts, 33 chapters.
Part One: Your Website
- 1Why I Build Your Website Before You Ask Me a Single Question About Price
- 2How to Brief a Web Designer So You Get the Site You Pictured
- 3Template Website or Custom Website: How a Small Business Should Choose
- 4Your Small Business Website Doesn’t Need to Look Like a Fortune 500 Brand’s
- 5How Many Pages Does a Small Business Website Need?
- 6What to Put at the Top of a Local Business Homepage
- 7What a Website Maintenance Plan Should Actually Cover
Part Two: Getting Found
- 8Three Things I Check First When a Local Business Website Isn’t Bringing in Calls
- 9How to Read Your Google Business Profile Performance Numbers
- 10How to Ask Customers for Reviews Without Feeling Awkward
- 11When Customers Ask AI Who to Call: How a Local Business Shows Up
- 12Why Middle Tennessee Small Businesses Can’t Market Like a National Brand — and Shouldn’t Try
Part Three: Phones and Internet
- 13Before You Switch Business Phone Systems, Ask These Six Questions
- 14Switching Phone Providers Without Losing Your Business Number
- 15A Dropped Call Is a Missed Job: The Real Cost of Unreliable Tech in a Service Business
- 16Phone Reliability Is Customer Service
- 17Moving Offices Without Losing Phone Service
- 18Five Questions to Answer Before Your Business Internet Goes Down
- 19Storm-Season Outage Prep
Part Four: IT and Security
- 20What “Managed IT Services” Actually Means for a Small Business
- 21What Tennessee Small Businesses Should Expect From a Technology Partner
- 22What to Ask an MSP Before Signing
- 23Managed IT Onboarding: The First 30 Days
- 24Backups: Four Questions Every Small Business Owner Should Be Able to Answer
- 25Cloud Backup vs Local Backup
- 26Cybersecurity Basics for a 10-Person Office
- 27Password Managers for Small Teams: Where to Start
Part Five: Running Operations
- 28Forty Projects at Once: What I Learned About Keeping Client Work From Slipping
- 29What Forecasting $1 Billion Taught Me About Running a Small Business
- 30Why Every Small Business Needs a Written Process, Even a Short One
- 31What a Good Project Kickoff Looks Like: An Operations Leader’s View
- 32A New Employee’s First Day: The Technology Checklist
- 33One Vendor for Phones, IT and Your Website: The Honest Pros and Cons
A free checklist
Want a place to start? Grab the free checklist that goes with the book.
About the author
Danielle Lemons is Vice President of Operations at DirecTech Connect, a Nashville provider of business phone systems, managed IT services, websites and digital marketing. Since joining in November 2024 she has overseen the company’s managed services for VoIP and telecommunications, managed IT for small and medium-sized businesses, and client project delivery.
She has spent more than 20 years leading operations and delivery teams in technology. At Avnet Technology Solutions she spent nine years and rose to Customer Operations Manager, responsible for forecasting $1 billion in annual revenue. She later led technical project delivery at Tragic Media in San Diego and at Blattner Tech Digital Agency in Nashville, where she served as Project Management Operations Director and Senior Manager of Small and Medium Business Services. She began her career in the Army National Guard as an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) specialist.