SMB Nation Blog

About one third of the people in the world are entrepreneurs today. And about half of them are not successful in this fast growing economy. One of the biggest reasons of this failure is because they are handling there business without any mentor or a helper. What do they think of themselves? Superman-The man of steel?
Nowadays, entrepreneurs are focusing more on increasing their business revenue. They want to do all the tasks alone, and don’t have the time to do it. Then the downfall begins. The only person that can leverage your working hours and help upfront your business is the virtual assistant. There is no harm in hiring a competent virtual assistant, seriously. They become a part of your business and can remove that entrepreneurial stress from you-somehow.
Now, most of the entrepreneurs are oblivious of what and how they can outsource. They didn’t know what could a VA do for them or what tasks should we give to them.
Here are 7 main tasks you can give a Virtual assistant to increase or improve your business.

EMAIL MANGEMENT OF FILTERING:
Checking emails again and again in your inbox while doing a hard tasks will probably be a waste your time. A virtual assistant will manage your inbox and respond to most of emails on your behalf. Managing emails is easy but you should provide your account, password and some guidance to reduce the risk of getting an error.

DATA PRESENTATIONS:
Doing the research and collecting the data is a hard process. But turning that data into presentation or excel can be a time waster for entrepreneurs. Hiring a virtual assistant having an expertise in Microsoft programs can give you great benefit of saving time you would be wasting on smashing your head to make a word document or presentation.

BOOKKEEPING:
To hire a Virtual assistant to manage all the bookkeeping like making invoices, recording payments and extra bills is probably the hardest task to give. Because in this, you have given personal information of accounts and password to him or her. But if find a trustworthy virtual assistant, then thank God for this because that assistant will shave your working hours and that billing-paying stress too.

ONLINE RESEARCH:
If you are having a content writing job, you would know how hectic is it to gather all the information by doing research. So why not hire an assistant to find that relevant information. All you need to give is clear and sound instructions and a topic. So, easy, right?

Former Amazon executive John Rossman shares his checklist for developing an internet of things strategy for your organization.

By Thor Olavsrud  | Follow
Senior Writer, CIO | FEB 20, 2017 6:53 AM PT

Credit:Thinkstock

The internet of things (IoT) may present the biggest opportunity to enterprises since the dawn of the internet age, and perhaps it will be bigger. Research firm Gartner predicts there will be nearly 20 billion devices on the IoT by 2020, and IoT product and service suppliers will generate $300 billion+ in revenue.

Successfully leveraging that opportunity — bringing together sensors, connectivity, cloud storage, processing, analytics and machine learning to transform business models and processes — requires a plan.

"In the course of my career, I've estimated and planned hundreds of projects," John Rossman, who spent four years launching and then running Amazon's Marketplace business (which represents more than 50 percent of all Amazon units sold today), writes in his new book, The Amazon Way on IoT: 10 Principles for Every Leader from the World's Leading Internet of Things Strategies. "I've learned that, even before you start seeking answers, it's imperative to understand the questions. Guiding a team to a successful outcome on a complex project requires understanding of the steps and deliverables, necessary resources, and roles and every inherent risk and dependency."

Before you start the hardware and software design, and before you figure out how to engage developers, he says, you need to start with a better set of questions.

Rossman says there are three key phases to building a successful IoT strategy. While he presents the steps sequentially, he notes that many steps are actually taken concurrently in practice and can be approached in many different ways.

Part 1. Develop and articulate your strategy

First and foremost, Rossman says, you must narrow and prioritize your options. IoT presents a broad swathe of opportunities. Success depends upon understanding your market, evaluating the opportunities with deliberation and attacking in the right place.

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Will the Starship bot be the future of takeout?
By Cici Zhang January 27, 2017

Starship Technologies, co-founded by Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis of Skype fame, raised $17.2 million in January to build a fleet of six-wheeled delivery robots. More feasible for large-scale rollouts than drones, these delivery bots are scheduled to have their American debut in Washington, D.C. and Redwood City, California in early February.
On test day, the Starship company will have an employee walking behind the bot—which is basically a secured container box rolling along at 4 mph—to deal with unexpected incidents and too-curious pedestrians, according to CNN Money. For the lucky crowds who are going to live-tweet this scene, the spectacle may bear resemblance to a parent following their toddler as it learns how to walk, the parent ready to save the little tyke from tripping and crying.

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Data theft is no more targeted at only large companies. To be fair, large companies can spend on building firewalls and pay for top notch enterprise security. Small businesses are being targeted and why not?!

Attackers want easy targets, but you are also not going to let your hard work slide into the wrong hands. You do not want third party information stolen, or the record of clients compromised. Whether you are an individual entrepreneur or a small business owner, the last achilleas heel you want attributed to your operations, is your inability to keep data safe and secured. You do not also want to lose your hard-earned client data because windows will not start or because your hard disk crashed. Here are 5 ways to effectively combat data theft and data loss;

1. Acquire a MiFi or a Personal Hotspot
   The ability to work on the go is a model which increases productivity. Sometimes the idea is not to move away from the office to work at the coffee shop, but it does happen, that you will receive a call requiring you to remotely solve a technical issue on your online shop to enable waiting customers make purchases. A situation like that can make you hurriedly connect to the open Wi-Fi at the coffee shop, forgetting that you are exposing your entire company to attackers. If you can acquire a MiFi, great, but if you are on a tight budget, speak to your network provider about the option to expand your data package to include a Personal Hotspot. This is a feature available in both Android and iOS. That way you can securely connect to your own network and not risk connecting to a public network which might just be betting on the wrong horse.
2. Learn to Create Impregnable Passwords and Data Backups
   The password needed to log into your laptop should be close to impregnable at least. Always include CAPS, NUMBERS, lowercases and Symbols. Be shrewd about it, and do not concentrate all the characters in your password at one side of your keyboard. There is also the possibility of your laptop getting stolen. Make use of the free cloud space Google Drive and OneDrive offers. Budget for more if you must, because a hard drive can crash unexpectedly. Make local backups as well and change your HDD to SSD if you can afford it.
3. Storage and Backups are not Enough
   So, you have been prudent by backing up your data online and locally on an external hard disk. That is not enough. Ransomware lurks all over the internet. Other malwares that can compromise data are multiplying. You need a strong anti-virus software which comes with a firewall that will manage your network connections and keep your computer safe when you connect to the internet or plug in a USB drive that is not yours. You also have to regularly keep an eye on the software which is responsible for syncing your files with your cloud storage to make sure backups are up to date.
4. Collaborated Efforts can go Wrong
   Mistakes do happen, but some people are just careless and negligent by nature. These days collaborating on a project in shared files and folders are great, but there is always the danger of one colleague wrongfully deleting some files or exposing his/her computer to a data theft. You need to have your own local backup for whatever file your team is working on. Do not assume everyone will be careful, because all your efforts can go down the drain because of some elementary mistake by a colleague. Always assume the worse and look out for yourself and the team.
5. Use Secured Links and Send Password Protected Documents
   Your business exists for your customers and you need them to achieve short and long term goals. As a small business, you cannot have your reputation ruined for mistakenly sending the right file to the wrong client. If that ever happens, only a password can save you, because you know only the right client has the password to access that file. Enterprise level security grants secured file sharing platforms and systems, and that makes working remotely safer. Small businesses cannot always afford such a service. Beware of sending sensitive links, and make sure there is some level of security created for clients to access their private data.

Microsoft researchers Shital Shah, Ashish Kapoor and Debadeepta Dey are leading development of the Aerial Informatics and Robotics Platform. Photography by Scott Eklund/Red Box Pictures.

Posted February 15, 2017 By Allison Linn

When most people with normal vision walk down the street, they can easily differentiate the things they must avoid – like trees, curbs and glass doors — from the things they don’t, such as shadows, reflections and clouds.

Chances are, most people also can anticipate what obstacles they should expect to encounter next — knowing, for example, that at a street corner they should watch out for cars and prepare to step down off the curb.

The ability to differentiate and anticipate comes easily to humans but it’s still very difficult for artificial intelligence-based systems. That’s one big reason why self-driving cars or autonomous delivery drones are still emerging technologies.

Microsoft researchers are aiming to change that. They are working on a new set of tools that other researchers and developers can use to train and test robots, drones and other gadgets for operating autonomously and safely in the real world. A beta version is available on GitHub via an open source license.

It’s all part of a research project the team dubs Aerial Informatics and Robotics Platform. It includes software that allows researchers to quickly write code to control aerial robots and other gadgets and a highly realistic simulator to collect data for training an AI system and testing it in the virtual world before deploying it in the real world.

Ashish Kapoor, a Microsoft researcher who is leading the project, said they hope the tools will spawn major progress in creating artificial intelligence gadgets we can trust to drive our cars, deliver our packages and maybe even do our laundry.

“The aspirational goal is really to build systems that can operate in the real world,” he said.

That’s different from many other artificial intelligence research projects, which have focused on teaching AI systems to be successful in more artificial environments that have well-defined rules, such as playing board games.

Kapoor said this work aims to help researchers develop more practical tools that can safely augment what people are doing in their everyday lives.

“That’s the next leap in AI, really thinking about real-world systems,” Kapoor said.

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What differentiates a good sales person from a bad one is often the ability to ask good questions and really listen to the answers. In fact, almost 50% of your sales effort should be put in understanding the business needs of your potential clients. Once you understand the business reality as well as the processes, problems, challenges, and goals, the sales part is quite easy.

Microsoft Office 365 provides an all-in-one modern workforce designed to provide customers with a single solution for all their end-user cloud productivity and collaboration needs.

Your Office 365 sales team has to use a systematic approach to collect the right information from your clients. Building this approach relies on your ability to:

• Identify Office 365 selling scenarios
• Position the right product benefits to solve the client’s top pain points
• Address security and compliance concerns with Office 365
• Overcome the most frequent client objections with counter arguments

Our white paper lists top questions every sales person should be ready to answer about Office 365, plus different customer buying scenarios.  You’ll also find a list of the most common values that Office 365 offers an SMB and how these values are linked to 4 core business goals.

Christian de Looper / Digital Trends

Microsoft’s Hotmail email service became Outlook.com in 2012, and since then the company has reworked it into arguably one of the best email services on the market. As a part of Microsoft’s Office 365 productivity platform, Outlook.com offers a full range of email, contact, calendar, and other capabilities to compete with services like Google’s Gmail.

Outlook.com has been going through a complete revision to its online experience, and Microsoft has been previewing a premium subscription that adds even more functionality. Now, Outlook.com Premium is officially available, although only to users in the United States, as Thurrott reports.

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Small and medium businesses are constantly faced with maximizing their marketing and advertising budget, which unfortunately, comes in dribs and drabs. They want to stay competitive, attain brand awareness, even brand loyalty … but the issue is always a budget which throws cold water on all those goals. The good news is, the 10 points below might just put you (yes you, the small business owner) on cloud nine; call it the “five-finger discount” to achieving marketing and promotional goals with little or no budget!

1.  Your first target market should be friends, family and acquaintances. Do not underrate the power they have to recommend your product or service to others in their circles. Also, market all the time. Utilize your time at the coffee shop by telling a stranger about your product. If you drive, take the bus or train sometimes and share the unique features of your product or service with strangers.
2. Learn to give recommendations and referrals. Believe that that favor will be returned. If your shop is on the same block with another small business, recommend their products or services. However, you should do this only after you have used their product or service yourself. You do not want to recommend a substandard service or product to dent your reputation. You can even heighten the idea by collaborating with other small businesses in your environment to promote each other’s products. You can agree to leave flyers or brochures at each other’s shop.  
3. Get an attractive logo and a catchy phrase. Make it available on your products, website, emails and anywhere possible. Be shrewd with branding; one that easily identifies your product or service. 
4. Attend public events and give a speech if the opportunity presents itself. You do not have to be an expert in giving public speeches to take this up. For instance, if you know someone in the community who passed on, pass through the memorial service and ask the family members to share some few words. Make yourself known through supporting people in the community. They will surely return the favor.
5. Create a blog for your business. Dedicate some few minutes weekly to write a post about the services you provide or the unique features of your product. Take advantage of developing trends when they relate to your products or services and write about it. Provide useful information on your blog and optimize words which will promote your goods or services.
6. Create a loyalty program which would not take so much away from your profit. You can give discount coupons or voucher codes which will make customers make a return.
7. Make follow ups and ask for feedbacks. Contact customers about their experience with your product or service to create or build a lasting relationship. Studies have shown a positive correlation between good customer services and recommendations.
8. Give free trials in new markets. Be confident to entice customers to try out your product or service. Do not forget that people are more likely to purchase a product or service they have tried.
9. Associate yourself with a group which is involved in community service or charity events. Organize blood donation events, get involved in volunteering activities and create relationships.
10. Finally, tap into the power of social media. Do not underrate the power of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and any other social media platform out there. Do not be shy to ask for retweets. Grow your followers, generate interesting content on pages and beware of plagiarism. Try to be creative and make sure you have your products or services at the back of your mind at all times.

If these strategies will cost you anything at all, that will be time, but believe in the short, medium and long term returns they promise. If you have to take a free course online to learn a new skill to enable you implement any of these, try coursera.org and edx.org. The primary theme which seems to run through all these strategies is to engage people and create relationships. The money helps, but even those with the money to advertise are also engaging people. Above all, make your product or service kick-ass!

Ryan Matthew

Running a small business poses many different obstacles that you must overcome. It is important for small businesses to address these issues before they become major hurdles to the progression of your company. Some of the biggest mistakes small businesses can make are in regards to technology. By either failing to stay with the times or improperly applying new technology, a business can be set back far behind the competition. However, there are consultants that can help you avoid these common tech mistakes that most small businesses make

.Failing to Stay Up to Date on Hardware

When you are upgrading your technology, it can be easy to purchase new software updates instead of staying up to date on the latest hardware. Staying up-to-date on the latest hardware technology will help your business stay ahead of the curve and up to the task of any technological issues that may face your organization. Even though software companies are spending millions of dollars to advertise their newest releases, invest your money where it counts and keep your hardware up-to-date.

Not Having the Right Digital Security

When your small business doesn't have enough digital security, your risk factor goes up greatly. There are hackers that are ruthless when it comes to destroying websites and stealing valuable information. There are consultants who can help your small business fortify itself against these potential attacks. Not having the right digital security can be a tech mistake that can end up being very costly in the long run.

Failing to Utilize Social Media

When you are trying to reach a new audience online, social media is key. There are millions of potential clients and customers who are constantly checking their social media. It is important to take advantage of the great traffic on these social media networks in order to get the word out about your small business. Social media can be a great way to get people on board with your vision. Building a loyal customer base is easier than ever before with the rise of this new technology.

Failing To Back up Your Data

Companies today are very reliant on their records and data which are almost completely stored electronically. This is very true if you are a media company that may have to access old files in the future. Make sure that you are always making physical hard-drive or cloud-based backups of your files. This will help give you the peace of mind that even if your main hard drives crash, you will still have backups of all the files you may need. There are now backup programs that will automatically backup your files on a regular basis.

Not Being Mobile Friendly

More often than not, your customers are going to see your website for the first time on their mobile device. It is important that your site has great mobile capabilities. This will allow you to be able to make a great first impression with your mobile  friendly website. This will help your small business grow more than you ever imagined.

The secret to your success? Cold calls.

Alex Berman
Entrepreneur Network Contributor

In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Alex Berman explains how useful cold calling is and an exact strategy you can use to do it well.

Berman and his team have found great success in cold calling. In fact, they've landed six meetings with six Fortune 500 companies just through cold calling.

To start, pick a Fortune 500 company that you want to cold call. Look at your past case studies to see who might be best suited for what you have to offer. Next, find the marketing director of that company -- this is simple and can be done through LinkedIn.

Research the company and come up with some innovative ideas. Most public companies publish goal sheets online. For example, if you search "Coca-Cola goals 2017," you'll see the company's blog posts and goals and can use this to help come up with ideas.

Now it's time to cold call! You probably won't get an answer the first few times, but keep trying. It takes an average of five times calling at different times during the day to get through, says Berman.

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by Judith Lindenberger

How do you write an employee handbook for your small business? What do you need to put in it? Whether you're writing your first employee manual or you're updating one you've had for a while, this article explains the topics you should cover.

Employee handbooks should be designed to do more than just communicate information and answer routine questions; your handbook should help you achieve your organizational goals and objectives. Thus, while a list of rules of conduct and a summary of benefits are important information, you should evaluate your handbook on its ability to help your organization meet its objectives.

One purpose of your employee handbook is to help you attract and retain employees. Your employee handbook should help your employees answer — hopefully in the affirmative — two important questions: “Why should I work here?” and “Why should I continue working here?” If your employees are not receiving a positive message about your organization, your handbook is not doing its job.

Your handbook should also help convey useful information about hours of work, paydays, leaves of absence, and benefits. More importantly, your handbook should help create an atmosphere of trust and respect and give your employees a sense of belonging.

At the same time, your employee handbook must help you comply with your legal obligations and ethical requirements. It must also help you protect management’s right to make changes and adapt the organization’s policies and programs as needed.

Since your organization and its employees are affected by all of your written and unwritten policies and procedures, you should ensure that your employee handbook incorporates as many of your organization’s written and unwritten policies and procedures as practical. You must further ensure that your handbook communicates top management’s commitment to your policies. As a result, your handbook will promote consistency and assist you in preventing claims of disparate treatment.

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There are two known options to dealing with malware and viruses; to clean or wipe and restore. It must be acknowledged that the main difference between the two has to do with convenience. Many argue that wipe and restore is the most effective way of dealing with viruses and malware, but to clean is equally effective and comes with certain advantages. For Small and Medium-Size Businesses (SMB) or Managed Service Providers (MSP) who are into the business of troubleshooting computers for a fee, it is very important to weigh the convenience each of the two methods bring to you and your clients.

There are some factors to consider when deciding on which method to use; time, cost, loss of irrecoverable data, etc, while ensuring that the primary objective of cleaning the computer or device of all malware and/or viruses is kept intact. Make sure that the client is satisfied with your work; you do not delete important files and folders that a malware has hijacked. You also want to ensure that there is a significant improvement in the performance of the computer; applications open faster, there are no popups or unauthorized applications running in the background and consuming vital memory space.

From the perspective of most clients, “wipe and restore” is how a lazy MSP gets the job done. The “I could have done that myself” feedback should not be unexpected. Wipe and restore, even when requested by a client, backed by a signed agreement, should be used when absolutely nothing can be done to recover files and applications. Truth be told, the client could have called his or her nephew in high school, or even the neighbor’s kid to do “wipe and restore” instead of hiring your services. It is clearly a bad idea to wipe; recovery files don’t receive updates, drivers which have been installed to work with peripherals will have to be reinstalled … too many inconveniences if we are to be fair.

• 
  To thoroughly clean is to first disconnect the computer from the internet and boot into safe-mood. This is a preventive measure to ensure that the malware does not spread or steal and transfer personal data via the internet.
• Run a Disk Cleanup to clear all temporary files. Aside creating useful space for the client, this will also get rid of some malware and improve the performance of the computer.
• Install a good malware software and run an on-demand scan to clean the computer. If client already had one installed, it obviously must be uninstalled since it failed to prevent the malware from spreading.
• The next step is to reconnect to the internet and have Malwarebytes installed. After installation and checking for updates, disconnect the internet again and run the program. If you do not want to risk an infection, download it on a clean computer and use a USB drive to install on the infected one. This will remove all threats not detected by the earlier scan. It is not recommended as a first option because some malwares are designed to prevent its installation even in safe mode.

There are some damages you would not be able to repair or restore, but the client will be far more satisfied to have almost everything running normal than to start Windows from scratch.

Getting technical support has been listed as one of the top 5 challenges small businesses face when they move to the cloud. Although Microsoft offers some assistance to Office 365 end users, the service does not fit this type of companies’ needs. Moreover, costs for a guaranteed, top-level support are high and only a few small businesses want to go that route.

CSP Direct and Indirect partners are not just reselling licenses; they have to offer a full customer experience that includes technical support. Guaranteeing the same level of support as Microsoft or better requires partners to know about:

• How to set up a first-class technical support service
• How to choose the right pricing model for your support services
• Hiring and training employees
• Managing customer satisfaction

As a VAR, MSP or SI, offering support service is a unique opportunity to improve customer loyalty, free referrals, plus cross-sell and upsell options. Being your customers’ first point of contact for either sales or support matters will keep you aware of your customer needs. As a result, you’ll be able to help them better adopt Office 365 services and come up with complementary solutions.

Malwarebytes acquires Italian cybersecurity firm to enhance threat detection, removal and remediation across the entire enterprise.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – February 7, 2017 – Malwarebytes™, the leading advanced malware prevention and remediation solution, today announced the acquisition of Saferbytes, a security start-up with a proven track record of building advanced technologies with anti-malware, anti-exploit, anti-rootkit, cloud AV, and sandbox capabilities. This acquisition will greatly enhance Malwarebytes’ enterprise remediation offering and threat feeds, in addition to further advancing the company’s market approach and global strategy. 

One of Malwarebytes’ core competencies is the removal of advanced threats from infected endpoints. With the Saferbytes acquisition, Malwarebytes plans to leverage the company’s popularapplication, as well as its sandbox expertise, to enhance existing solutions with new IOC and threat feeds and equip businesses with superior threat intelligence. The acquisition also serves as a continuation of Malwarebytes’ global expansion strategy and market focus on the enterprise.

“We are committed to keeping customers safe from the most dangerous cyber threats through continued advancement of our technologies,” said Marcin Kleczynski, Malwarebytes CEO. “Adding Saferbytes to the Malwarebytes team is a crucial step in enhancing our incident response offering and expanding our global footprint as a company. We have been incredibly impressed with what they have built and look forward to working together to keep businesses safe from cyber threats.”

“The entire Saferbytes team and I are truly excited to be joining forces with the exceptional and highly talented people at Malwarebytes to build advanced threat detection technologies,” said Marco Giuliani, Saferbytes CEO. “I have always envied the team at Malwarebytes for building innovative technologies and developing one of the most popular anti-malware solutions on the market. Since meeting the Malwarebytes executive team for the first time, it was clear to me that we shared the same vision for building technologies to enable our customers to have the best protection available.”

About Saferbytes Deepviz
Saferbytes’ Deepviz is a cloud based, self-learning threat intelligence platform powered by Deepviz Malware Analysis Engine. With Deepviz, users can start from an IP, domain, string, filename, e-mail or anything else they have to quickly rebuild the whole history of a targeted attack and identify malicious domains, similar malware and C&C infrastructure.
Deepviz easily integrates into the existing security workflow. Deepviz for Splunk allows users to enrich Splunk data by adding threat intelligence details to IP addresses, domains and hashes. Analysts can spot suspicious connections, find out what malware is connecting to them and identify malware on the network. The intel gathered by Deepviz will greatly enhance the

Malwarebytes portfolio and holds significant potential for enhancing existing Malwarebytes enterprise solutions.

Saferbytes is based in Perugia, Italy and was founded in July 2012 by Marco Giuliani. The company consists of an innovative team committed to protecting Internet users from all current and future cyber threats. For the near term, Deepviz will retain its current name, supplemented by Malwarebytes branding. Malwarebytes is committed to maintaining the mission of the Deepviz product and its features. Malwarebytes believes this will aid growing awareness for the Malwarebytes brand in areas of rapid growth within Europe, Asia and further countries outside of the United States. Malwarebytes will also integrate many of the proprietary techniques and detections into their flagship products.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

About Malwarebytes
Malwarebytes is the next-gen cybersecurity company that millions worldwide trust. Malwarebytes proactively protects people and businesses against dangerous threats such as malware, ransomware, and exploits that escape detection by traditional antivirus solutions. The company’s flagship product combines advanced heuristic threat detection with signature-less technologies to detect and stop a cyberattack before damage occurs. More than 10,000 businesses worldwide use, trust, and recommend Malwarebytes. Founded in 2008, the company is headquartered in California, with offices in Europe and Asia, and a global team of threat researchers and security experts. For more information, please visit us at http://www.malwarebytes.com/.

Malwarebytes founder and CEO Marcin Kleczynski started the company to create the best disinfection and protection solutions to combat the world’s most harmful Internet threats. Marcin was recently named “CEO of the Year” in the Global Excellence awards and has been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Rising Stars of Enterprise Technology list and the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award, adding those to an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Leveraging the power of content and social media marketing can help elevate your audience and customer base in a dramatic way. But getting started without any previous experience or insight could be challenging.

It's vital that you understand social media marketing fundamentals. From maximizing quality to increasing your online entry points, abiding by these 10 laws will help build a foundation that will serve your customers, your brand and -- perhaps most importantly -- your bottom line.

1. The Law of Listening
Success with social media and content marketing requires more listening and less talking. Read your target audience’s online content and join discussions to learn what’s important to them. Only then can you create content and spark conversations that add value rather than clutter to their lives.

2. The Law of Focus
It’s better to specialize than to be a jack-of-all-trades. A highly-focused social media and content marketing strategy intended to build a strong brand has a better chance for success than a broad strategy that attempts to be all things to all people.

3. The Law of Quality
Quality trumps quantity. It’s better to have 1,000 online connections who read, share and talk about your content with their own audiences than 10,000 connections who disappear after connecting with you the first time.

4. The Law of Patience
Social media and content marketing success doesn’t happen overnight. While it’s possible to catch lightning in a bottle, it’s far more likely that you’ll need to commit to the long haul to achieve results.

5. The Law of Compounding
If you publish amazing, quality content and work to build your online audience of quality followers, they’ll share it with their own audiences on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, their own blogs and more.

This sharing and discussing of your content opens new entry points for search engines like Google to find it in keyword searches. Those entry points could grow to hundreds or thousands of more potential ways for people to find you online.

6. The Law of Influence
Spend time finding the online influencers in your market who have quality audiences and are likely to be interested in your products, services and business. Connect with those people and work to build relationships with them.

If you get on their radar as an authoritative, interesting source of useful information, they might share your content with their own followers, which could put you and your business in front of a huge new audience.

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Your company's goals will only be effective if you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve--and how.

By Peter Vanden Bos

A smart CEO understands the inherent value of goal setting in steering a growing business in the right direction. Unfortunately, figuring out exactly what the right direction is—and the road map to get there—isn't as much of a no-brainer.

More than 80 percent of the 300 small business owners surveyed in the recent 4th Annual Staples National Small Business Survey said that they don't keep track of their business goals, and 77 percent have yet to achieve their vision for their company.

Though the statistics are grim, they should make sense: establishing business goals involves a fair amount of introspection into what makes your business tick, and what you want its future to be. Devoting the proper amount of time to do that can be difficult in a struggling economy, but your goals will be more achievable and effective if you do.

"You have to know what you're going for, and do it with your eyes wide open," says Francisco Dao, founder and president of The Killer Pitch, a firm based in Tarzana, California, that helps companies and entrepreneurs refine their message, and former business coach and columnist for Inc. "Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what it's going to take to achieve your goals."

Here's Inc.'s road map to setting (and achieving) business goals.

Setting Business Goals: Determine Your Long-Term Aims

Start by distinguishing your long-term goals from your short-term ones. Your long-term goals should have a timeline of about three to five years, says Maria Marshall, an associate professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who has conducted research on small and family-owned businesses.

They should articulate your company's mission statement, reflecting the reason your company was founded. "When you think about why the company is there in the first place, goals take on a whole different meaning," says Bill Baren, a business coach and founder and president of Bill Baren Coaching, based in San Francisco. "There's more energy behind them. They don't feel forced."

Marshall says that these types of visionary goals usually fall within four general areas: service, social, profit, or growth:

• Service - Goals related to improving customer service satisfaction or customer retention.
• Social - Goals that focus on giving back to the community, through philanthropy or volunteer organizations, for example
• Profit - Goals set to increase profits by a certain percentage
• Growth - Goals related to the expansion of the company, through new employees, for instance.

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Ransom + ware = Ransomware (for newbies to the term) is a malicious software which hijacks your computer until a ransom has been paid. A ransomware attack typically denies access to one’s own computer. The mild ones will target useful files and certain applications. Most ransomware attacks are known to demand ransom in the form of cash, but Microsoft reports that there are known cases where attackers request victims to complete surveys to regain access … bizarre, but nothing will be more irksome than doing everything a cybercriminal requested and still not gaining access to your computer; a phenomenon which should not be unexpected.

This malicious software, commonly used by cyberattackers, has gained momentum over the past year. As elaborated earlier, they are traditionally built to hold operating systems, files and applications hostage, but the cyberspace watchdogs are reporting on their threatening evolution; they are now designed to (in addition to blocking access to one’s computer) steal personal and financial data from victims. Studies on cybersecurity suggest that cybercriminals building ransomware are adding more atrocious features to it. Malwarebytes State of Malware Report 2017 also reveals the possibility of ransomware making modifications to a computer’s Master Boot Record (the part of a computer’s system which manages booting into the operating system).

As cybercriminals are enhancing their malwares, security agencies are also working their fingers to the bone. Europol (European Police Agency), Intel and Kaspersky have already teamed-up to crack down on ransomware. They unveiled an online platform, called No More Ransom, to create awareness and help victims to regain access to their computers, programs and files without paying any ransom. Last year, the master decryption key of TeslaCrypt (a notorious ransomware) was released, rendering it completely useless. But the fact remains that as at November 2016, ransomware accounted for two thirds of all malicious attacks and that can only get worse, looking at how the malware has advanced from 2014 to 2016 (a Kaspersky report showed that ransomware attacks increased from 131,111 to 718,536 within that period). Lucky, referred to as the successor to TeslaCrypt, is continually evolving and menacing.

The United States suffered the most ransomware attacks in 2016 worldwide. To stay protected, back up files and apps regularly, if possible in the cloud as well and update software regularly. It must be acknowledged that very little attention is being paid to antivirus software; a good one represents the first prevention barrier to cyberattacks.

The Windows Azure public cloud platform is one of the three pillars of Microsoft’s Cloud OS vision that will transform the traditional datacenter environment, help businesses unlock insights in data stored anywhere, enable the development of a wide range of modern business applications, and empower IT to support users who work anywhere on any device while being able to manage these devices in a secure and consistent way. The other two pillars of the Cloud OS are, of course, Windows Server 2012 R2 and Microsoft System Center 2012 R2, and Microsoft Press will soon be releasing.

General Availability (GA) of these latest versions of Windows Server and System Center is currently scheduled for October 18, 2013. In sync with these two releases, the Windows Azure platform has also been enhanced in recent months with preview releases of new services like Windows Azure BizTalk Services, Windows Azure Traffic Manager, and Windows Azure HDInsight. And in the same timeframe, services that were previously in preview like Windows Azure Web Sites and Windows Azure Mobile Services have now reached the GA milestone.

At the core of the Windows Azure platform is its ability to execute applications running in the cloud. Windows Azure currently provides four different models for doing this: Web Sites, Virtual Machines, Cloud Services, and Mobile Services. Together these four approaches comprise the compute services portion of the Windows Azure platform, and they can either be used separately or combined together to build more complex solutions that can meet specific business needs.

Windows Azure Web Sites is a scalable, secure, and flexible platform you can use for building web applications that run your business, extend the reach of your brand, and draw in new customers. It has an easy-to-use self-service portal with a gallery of the world’s most popular web solutions including .DotNetNuke, CakePHP, DasBlog, WordPress, and many others. Or you can simply create a new website from scratch and then install a tool like WebMatrix—a free, lightweight web development tool that supports the latest web technologies such as ASP.NET, PHP, HTML5, CSS3, and Node. You can use WebMatrix to create websites and publish applications for Windows Azure. And if you use Microsoft Visual Studio as a development environment, you can download and install a Windows Azure SDK so you can build applications that can take advantage of the scalable cloud computing resources offered by Windows Azure.
When you create a new website you can also have the option to create a database for storing the data for your web application. You can choose to create either a SQL database or a MySQL database for your website. You can also choose to publish your website from source control. This sets up continuous deployment from source control providers like Team Foundation Service, CodePlex, GitHub, or Bitbucket.

The running applications on machines in an Internet-accessible data center can bring plenty of advantages. Yet wherever they run, applications are built on some kind of platform. For on-premises applications, this platform usually includes an operating system, some way to store data, and perhaps more. Applications running in the cloud need a similar foundation. The goal of Microsoft’s Windows Azure is to provide this. Part of the larger Azure Services Platform,Windows Azure is a platform for running Windows applications and storing data in the cloud. The Windows Azure Compute service can run many different kinds of applications.

A primary goal of this platform, however, is to support applications that have a very large number of simultaneous users. (In fact, Microsoft has said that it will build its own SaaS applications on Windows Azure, which sets the bar high.) Reaching this goal by scaling up—running on bigger and bigger machines—isn’t possible. Instead, Windows Azure is designed to support applications that scale out, running multiple copies of the same code across many commodity servers. To allow this, a Windows Azure application can have multiple instances, each executing in its own virtual machine (VM). These VMs run 64-bit Windows Server 2008, and they’re provided by a hypervisor (based on Hyper-V) that’s been modified for use in Microsoft’s cloud. To run an application, a developer accesses the Windows Azure portal through their Web browser, signing in with a Windows Live ID. They then choose
whether to create a hosting account for running applications, a storage account for storing data, or both.

Once the developer has a hosting account, they can upload the application, specifying how many instances the application needs. Windows Azure then creates the necessary VMs and runs the application. It’s important to note that a developer can’t supply their own VM image for Windows Azure to run. Instead, the platform itself provides and maintains its own copy of Windows. Developers focus solely on creating applications that run on Windows Azure.
A developer can use only Web role instances, only Worker role instances, or a combination of the two to create a Windows Azure application. If the application’s load increases, they can use the Windows Azure portal to request more Web role instances, more Worker role instances, or more of both for his application. If the load decreases, he can reduce the number of running instances. To shut down the application completely, the developer can shut down all of the application’s Web role and Worker role instances.

The VMs that run both Web role and Worker role instances also run a Windows Azure agent, as shows. This agent exposes a relatively simple API that lets an instance interact with the Windows Azure fabric. For example, an instance can use the agent to write to a Windows Azure-maintained log, send alerts to its owner via the Windows Azure fabric, and do a few more things.

To create Windows Azure applications, a developer uses the same languages and tools as for any Windows application. They might write a Web role using ASP.NET and Visual Basic, for example, or with WCF and C#. Similarly, they might create a Worker role in one of these .NET languages or directly in C++without the .NET Framework. And while Windows Azure provides add-ins for Visual Studio, using this development environment isn’t required.

by Jillian Stampher on January 26, 2017 at 8:41 am

(jmiks/iStock.com via Pew Research Center)

Even after being hacked, most Americans fail to properly protect their personal information online, finds a Pew Research Center study published Thursday.

Pew surveyed more than 1,000 American adults last year to determine their perception of cyber security and what measures they take to keep their online information safe. According to the study, most are failing to use best cyber security practices in their personal lives.

(Pew Research Center Graph)

Though 64 percent of the people surveyed had been victim to a cyber attack, just 12 percent have ever used software to manage their passwords. Most (84 percent) still rely on memorizing passwords or writing them down as the main way of keeping their information safe. Pew also found that 41 percent of people have shared their password to at least one online account with another person.

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According to recent evaluation by Department of labor, the average tenure of a U.S. employee is less than two years – a short 18 months!  There are numerous reasons why individuals change jobs. Nowadays, it is rare for someone to get a job and stay with it for the rest of their life. There are many other open doors and our lives are filled with flexibility and diversity. However, there are many people who leave their jobs to seek an ideal environment — and it isn’t just about the money or the location.

But as for the business holder, losing a great employee is a terrible thing. Finding, onboarding, and training a replacement costs both time and money. Not to mention you don’t know how a new employee will work out. There's the hardship on the rest of your staff until the position can be filled.

So, why did you lose your great employees?

Here are the five top reasons that makes an employee to quit.

Overwork
Nothing blazes great employees out quite like overworking them. Employesr, and clients expect more work out of these that work hard, which makes them feel as if they are being punished for good performance.
If you want to increase the work of your talented employees, you should increase their status as well. Promotions, title-changes, and raises are all acceptable ways to increase workload.

No career progression
Humans can no longer just do the same thing for the rest of their lives. They want to learn more and progress in their careers. Staff expect to be educated and trained so they can build their experience and skill. If a job provides no opportunity for career progression, chances are workers will leave and seek an ideal environment with better opportunities elsewhere.

Undervalued.
People want to be recognized and applauded for a job well done. Recognizing employees, in business, is not simply a nice thing to do but it is an effective way to show your appreciation for their successes and efforts while also strengthening those behaviors and actions that make a difference in your organization.  Lack of appreciation drives people to leave and find another job.

Excessive hierarchy
Every workplace needs an initiative structure, but an inflexible organization makes your employees unhappy. If your best performers know they're expected to deliver without contributing their ideas, don’t feel empowered to help make decisions, are always deferring to others on the premise of their title rather than their expertise, they don't have much to be glad about.
Most of the people who leave their job do so because of the boss, not the organization or work. Ask yourself what you may be doing to keep your best employees.  

Lack of recognition
Even the most selfless people want to be rewarded and appreciated for a work done well. It is the nature of human beings. When you don’t reward or appreciate your good  employees, you're not only failing to motivate them but also missing out on the most effective way to reinforce great performance. Even if you don't have the budget for bonuses or raises, you can provide them recognition by a money-free way-- although, a word of appreciation is free. If people are not noticed, they won’t care.

Hire and Promote the Wrong People
Hard working and good employees want to work with smart professionals. When managers don’t hire good people, it’s a annoying thing for those stuck working alongside them. And if you promote the wrong people, the condition becomes much worse. When you strive to give your best effort only to get a promotion or just an appreciation that’s given to someone who glad-handed their way to the top, it’s a big offense. It makes the good people leave you.

Richard Branson’s story is the one that’s been told several times. It’s a tale worth fawning over; a rags-to-riches tale that gives many hope as they try and develop their own flagship brand.

The biggest reason for Richard Branson’s success is because of customer service. B2C companies, like Virgin America and Virgin Records are the most famous companies of all. Branson has said, “Simplicity and good customer service will win every time’.

1. Leave it if you don't enjoy it.

A lot of blood, sweat, and tears (and caffeine) makes a business successful. Branson said in a press interview, " When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn't set out to build a business empire ... For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that's going to make a real difference to other people's lives."

2. Build a great team around you.

If you want to be successful, never forget to build a great team around you and reward them for their hard work. Understand what incentivizes and motivates your teammates. This is one of the most important skills an entrepreneur must have.

3. Take pride in your work

I enjoyed this year’s Virgin Stars Awards, where we celebrated some of those people who have gone the extra mile for us around the Virgin world. Many different companies, nationalities and personalities were there under one roof and it was very interesting to see what qualities they all have in common. The most important trait they all had was pride in their work and in the company they represent. You should always focus on helping your staff and take pride in them. In return they will shine through in how they treat your customers.

4. Take Risks
“The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all!” This is one of Sir Richard Branson’s favorite sayings. What I loved about him, was his ability to take risks to save the business he believed in.

He did whatever it took to save the company, and even mortgaged his own house. Virgin Records was sold to get the financing needed to keep the airline business alive. It was a hard decision for him but a right one (I guess). If I had to point out one thing that he does not lack, it’s guts.

Now I am not telling you to put your life at risk, but you should take risks and chances in what you believe. You are the one to determine what your business means to you and what it can become.
Just hold a vision and assess whether the risk is worth the return and if there is a chance that it might be... Go for it!

5. Think Simple
Your enemy is complexity. Only a fool will make things complicated. But It is hard to make something simple.I know it’s hard not to overdo things, when you’re still starting out. It is just because you want to make everything right, and you always tend to do things in a more complex way. The best way to solve business problems is to think simple (sometimes).

If you overthink and make things complicated you’ll only put pressure and tire yourself. When you face a challenge, calm down and analyze the situation thoroughly and then decide if it is a source of worry or not.

Think objectively and always have a game plan!

Defining Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure is a cloud service launched in October 2008. In direct competition to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure comes out a more progressive and diverse cloud computing platform. Deploying different tools and frameworks, Azure provides cloud service to global clients. It focuses in three areas of cloud computing, remote monitoring, asset management and predictive maintenance.

Remote Monitoring through Azure
Millions of devices collaborate with millions of systems at one time through Microsoft Azure. This exceptional collaboration describes the resourceful Azure remote monitoring system, where every program is synchronized in a distinctive way. The system regularly checks status of devices and monitoring happens every single minute. A backend Analytics team of Microsoft is always there to support fast data exchange between devices and the Cloud. The idea of how Enterprise resources should be well-connected is actualized in Azure remote monitoring system.

Asset Management & Predictive Maintenance through Azure
Azure works on enhanced security protocols. By using unique identities and credentials, devices are brought to full protection in Azure Cloud messaging system. Confidentiality is maximized in such highly-vigilant communication system.

Microsoft Azure details the process of digital asset management.  It automates media management workflows, optimizing time taken in organizing or sharing corporate media files. Azure provides self-service portals for exchange or transfer of media files. It gives direct access of assets through Microsoft Word or Powerpoint extension. Azure aligns with other external Hypermedia such as Application Program Interface (API) to manage assets’ records in a more user-friendly way. It gives strong backup and recovery during Big-Data storage.

Azure Machine Learning is an artificially intelligent logical workspace to predict flaws of a Cloud system. Using work histograms such workspace predicts remaining life of a device, equipment, machine or anything huge such as an overall system itself. Predictability is inevitable with Microsoft Azure workspace, allowing strategists to bring more improved and productive solutions for business.

Plus the four steps to make your habit work for you.

Lewis Schiff
Contributor
Author, Executive Director The Business Owners Council, co-founder of BEN Global Mentorship

September 28, 2016

It was during a team-building exercise many years ago that I first discovered a talent I had no idea I possessed. The exercise itself was pretty run-of-the-mill -- name one special skill or talent for each person in the room. I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear anything life-changing, but I was taken aback when multiple people told me that I was very good at asking questions.

It was not really something that I had ever considered to be a personal talent. It was, and is, just something that has always come naturally to me -- something that I’ve never really had to think about. And that’s the thing. Your true talent isn’t something that you need to focus on to do it well, and it isn’t something that you will consider remarkable.

Rather, it is something that you should work on honing once you discover it, and it is definitely something that should be incorporated into your career. I’ve spent years working on turning my knack for asking good questions into a career and have helped thousands of other people do the same with their own talents.

Asking good questions and translating the answers to help other people access great insights has become what I call my “language” -- the way that I communicate with the world. One key thing that I’ve found really successful entrepreneurs have in common is that they’ve built their businesses around their own languages. They’ve identified their own innate special talents and have worked to build careers based on their ability to do what they do best. No wonder they wound up so successful!

Once you identify your own talent, you’ll know your own language, and you’ll be one step closer to building a successful career. This is such a basic, foundational insight that I call it “The First Habit.”

Why do I refer to this as a habit instead of an insight? Because knowing your talent isn’t enough. Making your talent work for you is an ongoing process, requiring you to develop it, hone it and build it into a viable career. The obvious applications for your talent probably won’t jump out at you immediately, but don’t get discouraged. It may take a few nights -- or weeks -- of brainstorming to come up with a viable business idea that really takes advantage of your skill.

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In part one of this series, located HERE, we discovered what AWS offers. In this second installment, we discuss the advantages of suing AWS. Let’s get started.

Advantages of using AWS:

AWS carries all the advantages that a conventional cloud-hosting platform provides, along with some unique aspects that make it an indispensable and unmatched tool for startups and SMBs. To paint you a realistic picture, in a survey carried out by Pacific Crest, 50% of the 300 SMBs reported AWS as their choice of cloud service. And this is not surprising considering the so many advantages AWS offers:

1.    Growth:

AWS is designed keeping the growth of businesses in mind. All the services offered by Amazon are completely scalable. You can start from choosing the cheapest available pricing for your needs. Once you grow, AWS takes care of the demand surges. The pay-per-use model ensures that there is a linear relationship between your business profits and cloud-hosting expenditure.  

2.    Performance

With AWS, you use an infrastructure which is hosted on world-class data centers and servers. When you first setup your cloud infrastructure, AWS allows you to choose a location to set-up your virtual IT infrastructure. This location may either be closest to where the majority of your users are or where your developers and administrators are based. This allows you to optimize your services for either your user base or for your developers in the development phase.

3.    Security & Compliance

AWS offers extra layers of security to address the misuse of resources, which is highly likely using a resource as AWS, where you can set up and erase production servers with just a mouse-click. There are obviously, many recommended practices such as not to create a super-user with unlimited access and allocating users to groups with varying levels of permissions. Additionally, AWS offers MFA (Multi-factor authentication) both in hardware form, wherein it comes as a key fob manufactured by a third-party, Gemalto and in virtual form, through MFA apps by Google and Amazon on all the mobile platforms.

4.    Integration:

With AWS, it is super easy to integrate your app or web development program. AWS offers enhanced compatibility with your applications by supporting numerous languages in it’s SDK program such as iOS, Java, Android, .NET, PHP, Ruby, etc.

5.    Learning Curve:

While a certain degree of IT background sure helps to accelerate the development process, the learning curve is a lot smoother, shorter and user-friendly. You can develop and deploy applications in a matter of days that would take you months to develop conventionally. For small businesses, which prefer the DIY method or do not have the resource to employ the services of a developer, this is a deal-breaker. Moreover, AWS boasts of a large global community where members help each other and even share pre-designed instances.

6.    Cost

Lastly, the most important feature of AWS is the low cost of the services. It is a pure pay-per-use model and you are not bounded by any contract or long-term commitment while deploying a service.

Moreover, to offer a more transparent system, AWS provides a monthly calculator, where you can calculate the costs of the deployments you use by adjusting the network usage and storage levels used. Based on this estimate, you can decide whether or not to deploy a service. The ‘Spot instances’ allow you to deploy services at a highly discounted rate if you are fairly certain of your usage levels. These and the many additional cost-reduction features make it a perfect tool for SMBs.

AWS is one of those cloud-computing solutions available to small businesses which allow you to grow while not compromising on the features. It is not surprising that AWS is the favorite of the majority of the small and medium-sized businesses and even used by popular companies such as Netflix and Spotify. If you are still relying on in-house IT infrastructures, make sure that you check out AWS and boost your results.

By Nate Teplow, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Continuum

Business challenges are inevitable, but figuring out how to effectively identify and overcome these obstacles means the difference between scaling profitably and stagnating.

If I were to ask you to name your biggest pain point, you'd probably say “cash flow,” or “lack of time,” or “not enough bandwidth,” but dig deeper. Is the primary issue that you can't simultaneously generate new business while supporting your existing client base? Does your clunky technology stack eat up valuable staff time and talent? Perhaps you have a talent problem and struggle to hire or retain qualified personnel.

There's no shortage of challenges, but to adequately address each you have to tackle the root cause. To help you paint a clearer picture, we’ve outlined 14 common problems that MSPs face daily. Read on to see if any sound familiar and check out a new tool we created to help you overcome each.

1. Too Many Tickets

As an MSP, you’re in the business of managing tickets. But ticket overload can be a huge drain on productivity and profitability. Finding ways to reduce ticket volume will help your team stay more productive, spend more time with your clients and focus on driving revenue for your business. Make sure the solutions and processes that you’ve implemented are helping to reduce ticket volume, not adding to it.

2. Building in RMM Alerting Conditions

RMM solutions are ideal because they allow you to monitor just about anything when it comes to your client machines. But typically you need to tell the solution what to look for before you start generating meaningful data. This can lead to dozens, if not hundreds, of hours that your team needs to spend setting up and configuring your solution.

3. Maintaining Your RMM Solution

The work is not done after setting up your RMM solution, however. You constantly need to update your alerts and configurations to make sure you’re monitoring the right thresholds and events, which can dramatically impact your business’ profitability. Using solutions that require minimal maintenance and updating will reduce your total cost of ownership and add money to your bottom line.

4. Catching Issues Proactively

Once you know what to look for, RMM solutions deliver. The problem is that you usually have to experience an issue first-hand before you know how to configure your alerting conditions. This can lead to reactive service, rather than proactive service, and oftentimes strains your client relationships.

5. Profitable 24x7 Monitoring

Your clients expect you to monitor their systems 24x7, but this can be very hard to do profitably. Staffing technicians around the clock can be an enormous cost, but not having people available to fix issues at any hour will reduce your ability to provide proactive services. This leaves a very small window for you to operate proactively and profitably.

6. Finding New Skillsets

If you want to compete for new projects and new clients, you need to have the right team and expertise in place to support them. But we all know how difficult it is to find technical talent. Make sure you have access to resources with different areas of expertise so that you have the opportunity to compete for new projects and new clients.

7. Technician Churn

If you’re like most MSPs, at some point you’ve probably lost a technician, scrambled to find a replacement and struggled to provide quality service. When faced with technician churn, the time spent searching for a replacement takes away from time you could be spending on client-facing activities. Again, having access to technical resources will reduce your risk of lost profits if a technician does leave.

8. Too Many False Positive Alerts

While RMM solutions are great at notifying you of issues, they can also be great at notifying you of non-issues! RMM solutions typically generate lots of false positives, which means your team has to investigate more issues before determining there isn’t a problem. Reducing false positives will make sure your team is only notified when action needs to be taken, which can dramatically reduce time to resolution and increase the amount of tickets your team is able to manage.

9. Lead Generation

Buying lists and relying on referrals – two common indicators that an MSP is having a hard time generating their own leads. It’s hard to run a business and service your clients, and even harder to find time for marketing as well. Take control of your growth, and make sure your partners provide knowledge, support and materials that help you market and sell your services.

10. Ticket Categorization

Not all tickets are created equal. Some issues need to be resolved immediately, while others require certain expertise or can wait until the weekend. Effectively categorizing and routing your tickets will help your team operate more efficiently and fix issues faster.

11. Level 1 and 2 Client Support

Supporting your clients is part of the MSP job description. But basic support tasks, like password resets or connecting to printers, can be incredibly disruptive to your team’s productivity. Offloading Level 1 and 2 support can free up your team to work on more complex, revenue-driving projects and reduce technician fatigue.

12. Patch Testing and Management

Clients have visibility into patch management, so it’s especially important that you adhere to best practices and monitor what gets deployed. The problem is that it can be incredibly time-intensive to thoroughly test patches to ensure minimal impact on your clients.

13. Maintaining Margins

Managed services can be a volatile business. One minute everything is under control, the next you have four clients calling you at the same time because their systems are down. This makes it incredibly difficult to maintain consistent margins and profitability. Outsourcing some of this support enables you to fix more of your service costs and stabilize your margins. \

14. Calculating Total Cost of Ownership

The cost of your solution(s) is a lot more than the invoice you receive from your vendors. In a services business, you need to understand all of the factors that contribute to the cost of ownership, in particular, the amount of time your team spends using and managing the solution. Make sure you’re looking beyond the sticker price to calculate your service costs.

So Now What…

With the New Year, review your business and identify inefficiencies that you can improve going forward. If any of these common challenges sound familiar, you should take a look at your solution(s), your processes and your strategies to make sure you are maximizing business efficiency and profitability.

Is it time for a change? Our new tool lets you select your worst pain points and tells you what to look for in an RMM solution. Check out the RMM Wish List Generator here!

Nate Teplow is a Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Continuum, currently managing the company's RMM marketing initiatives. Nate's experience spans inbound marketing, content strategy, marketing communications and B2B lead generation. A proud Miami Hurricane alumni, Nate enjoys staying active, traveling to new places and performing A/B tests.

Janakiram MSV, Contributor

At CES 2017, Microsoft announced that it is building a platform to enable automobile manufacturers to deliver connected car experiences to customers. Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform is a set of services that is integrated with Azure, Cortana, Office 365, Power BI, and Skype.

In the last couple of years, Microsoft has doubled down its investment in machine learning (ML) and analytics. The company is embedding ML in almost all its products. Powered by Azure, these new set of services such as Azure ML, Microsoft Cognitive Services, Cortana Intelligence Suite takes advantage of the abundant compute and storage resources exposed by the underlying infrastructure. Microsoft is also expanding its portfolio to enterprise IoT that delivers predictive maintenance, remote monitoring, and asset tracking solutions. Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform is yet another abstraction built on top of a variety of existing cloud and ML technologies.

Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform is not a finished product that automobile companies can buy. It is a framework that brings multiple technologies together to deliver the latest in consumer experiences. Car manufacturers can integrate In-car infotainment systems with Cortana for immersive conversational user experience. They will be able to take advantage of Bing for search, location-based services, and hyper-local integration. Office 365 and Skype would deliver presence information, calendaring, and conferencing capabilities. The combination of Cortana Intelligence Suite and Power BI become the brain of the connected car that capture, analyze, present, and predict various metrics related to the automobile. The heavy lifting involved in storing and processing the data will be handled by Azure Compute and Storage services.

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Azure is Microsoft’s own offering of the integrated cloud services with a wide range of features that can empower you to build enterprise-class apps and platforms. As with any cloud-hosting service provider, Azure provides you the flexibility and agility to handle your fluctuating business demands, while the pay-per model ensures that you only pay for the resources you consume.

Before we dive deeper into the built-in solutions and managed services that Azure provides, let’s take a look at what makes Azure different from other cloud computing solutions, or on-site IT implementations for that matter.

Why use Azure?

1. Ease of Usage:

Just like AWS, Azure boasts of multiple tools and pre-built templates or instances that you can use to build your web, mobile or Internet of Things app very fastly and efficiently. With Azure, build your product and launch it to your customers in a matter of days for what could take months by conventional means.

2. Integration:

Azure allows ease of integration not only with your existing apps and platforms but also with your existing on-site IT infrastructures.
Almost all the popular OS, programming languages, platforms, frameworks, databases, and tools are compatible with Azure. So you can either build your app with PHP, Javascript, .NET or build back-ends for your mobile apps across various operating systems.
Also, through hybrid database and storage solutions, Azure can easily integrate with your existing data centers to give you the best of both onsite and cloud computing implementations.

3. Scalable:

As with most of the cloud hosting solutions, Azure hosting solutions scale as your business demands grow. You are never committed to a resource and Azure’s ‘pay-as-you-go’ service ensures that you only pay for what you use.
Besides, Azure boasts of Microsoft-managed datacenters across 32 regions in the world, which is currently more than AWS and Google Cloud combined.

4. Security:

Many SMB executives are still doubtful when it comes to security in the cloud. Microsoft Azure is one of pioneers in cloud security and protection. Azure was the first major cloud hosting providers to embrace the new international cloud privacy standard, ISO 27018 and adhere to the EU privacy laws. Additionally, Azure has launched ‘Azure Government’ especially in the US to adhere to the compliance requirements of US public agencies.

Some Azure solutions ideal for SMBs

While the above advantages are offered by pretty much any cloud provider, including the big players in the industry, it's actually Microsoft’s brand name along with the ready-to-use solutions offered by Azure which make it a great tool for small startups and businesses. For each of these solutions, Microsoft provides you the complete technical documentation and access to partner resources to help you get started easily. Azure has a vast list of such solutions; let’s take a look at some of which are particularly suitable for SMBs.

1. E-commerce:

Azure provides a flexible and open e-commerce platform which allows you to sell products to your customers ‘intelligently’. Through the built-in tools, you can analyze factors such as site traffic, conversion optimization, abandonment zones and customer behavior & history to create personalized sales funnels and tailor-made offers and recommendations for customers. This results in a more personalized shopping experience and increases customer retention.

Azure also extends these functionalities to your supply chain and customer service sectors. You can build self-help portals for suppliers to streamline your supply chain, improve inventory management and reduce support costs. Besides, the scalable solutions by Azure assure you of a continuous uptime even at times of peak demand, so that you can devote your time and resources to business-critical functions rather than IT infrastructure.

Azure has many related products and services to aid your e-commerce venture and also offers pre-built e-commerce frameworks in the marketplace to help you get started.

2. Digital Marketing:

Azure offers in-built tools to handle the Digital Marketing functions of your business that acts on real-time data and analytics. The platform makes use of customer data, feedback, history and behavior along with intelligent predictive analytics to devise and understand different customer profiles. It then builds personalized marketing campaigns for these profiles and analyzes and optimizes these campaigns in real-time based on user behavior and responsiveness.

3. Business Intelligence:

Azure offers a wide range of predictive analytics services such as Machine Learning and Cortana Analytics, which helps your business to make better-informed and smarter data-driven solutions in real-time. Azure allows you to use the numerous ‘Power BI solution templates’ to create a feature-rich BI platform that will provide you with intelligent insights. These platforms also allow you to make use of data to create fully interactive and visual apps for your users.

4. Apps:

Azure has many functionalities when it comes to user applications.

Azure makes use of predictive analytics and machine learning to help scale your SaaS apps as your business grows, helping you to scale your business model efficiently. Further, you can rest assured that your customers’ data is always protected as Azure allows you to isolate data in separate databases. Azure also allows you to use ‘Power BI Embedded’ to deploy sophisticated features as Image Recognition in your apps and deliver rich and interactive visualizations to users.

The ‘Dev-Test’ solution by Azure provides you cross-platform functionality to test and build your applications. Deploy and use virtual machines on a pay-per-use basis to expedite your development and launch new features and updates in a matter of days.

Azure’s MBaaS (Mobile Backend as a Service) allows you to develop mobile apps for your business across all the operating systems by compiling in a single language. MBaaS allows you to find and fix bugs easily and distribute beta versions of your apps to a development community to collect real-time data and improve your app.

5. Backup & Recovery , DR:

Azure offers the ‘Backup as a Service’ and Restore Solutions that enable you to run your business even when your onsite IT implementations are damaged. Reduce the expense on storage devices and tapes as your business grows and leverage Azure’s pay-per-use cloud storage model to make a backup of all your business instances.

Azure’s DRaaS provides you with business continuity during natural or artificial catastrophes. Eliminate the cost of secondary datacenters and losses due to downtime by making use of Azure’s data recovery solutions which assure you low RPOs and RTOs for every business-critical instance at affordable rates.

Cloud solutions such as Azure open up a world of possibilities for your business where you can scale your business model without any initial heavy expenditure. Azure is made to handle any type of business load: from a small dev-test project to a global product launch. More than 66% of the Fortune 500 companies use Azure. If you are still relying on onsite IT infrastructure, it’s time you give cloud solutions as the Azure a shot. It’s free to get started!

Steve Weisman, Special for USA TODAY

I first warned you about the dangers of ransomware in early 2015,   and its increased use was one of my cybersecurity predictions for 2016.

Unfortunately, that prediction has come true, and my motto of, “Things aren’t as bad as you think — they are far worse,” has proven accurate. In fact, the FBI has recently warned that ransomware attacks against hospitals, schools, government agencies, police departments, businesses and individuals are dramatically increasing.

Ransomware is a type of malware that once installed on your computer locks and encrypts files.   The cybercriminals who send it to you then threaten to destroy your files unless you pay a ransom, generally in untraceable bitcoins.

Phishing or its more sophisticated version, "spear phishing," is often used to spread the malware. Emails lure the victim to click on a link, which downloads the ransomware.  Spear phishing targets specific victims by personalizing an email to make it appear especially legitimate.

Cybercriminals can do this by gathering information from various sources including social media accounts.  By putting too much personal information on social media, we often become our own worst enemy.

Ransomware is also spread through malvertising, which is apparently legitimate advertising, and on bona fide websites. But click on it, and you've downloaded the malware.

Yet another way cybercriminals strike is by infecting legitimate websites such that merely going to the site without clicking on anything is sufficient to infect your computer.  A newer version of ransomware called CryptXXX is being spread in this manner and was used to infect the website of American toy maker Maisto.  Fortunately, there is a free decryption tool for this particular type of ransomware, available from Kasperksy Lab.

Often the websites are infected through attacking vulnerabilities that exist in plug-ins such as Adobe Flash.  As long ago as 2010, Steve Jobs complained about this vulnerability.  Despite security patch after security patch, new problems kept coming up with this software.  It would appear that just as companies retire certain programs when it is just too difficult to continue to patch them (as with Windows XP), this may well be the time for Adobe to retire Flash. And if the company doesn’t do this, you should consider retiring it yourself and replacing it with another plug-in that performs the same function.

One of cybercrooks' newer methods is deploying ransomware against smartphones. While this tactic is less common, it is only a matter of time before the myriad of devices that make up the Internet of Things could be subject to such attacks.  Just imagine the dangers of Internet-connected medical devices such as pacemakers and insulin pumps being compromised.

Rarely is paying the ransom a good option, although in a controversial statement at a Cyber Security summit in 2015, FBI Assistant Special Agent Joseph Bonavolonta indicated that sometimes the FBI advises victims to pay up.  The FBI, as would be expected, has since backed off of this statement.

New versions of ransomware are constantly being developed by cybercriminals who often — rather than merely using the malware themselves — will sell it on a part of the Internet referred to as the Dark Web, where less technically sophisticated criminals buy and sell malware as well as stolen information, such as credit card numbers.

Cybersecurity predictions for 2016

Some cybercriminals are even taking advantage of the general awareness of ransomware to trick their victims into downloading malware that merely locks their screen while a pop-up message appears telling the victim that they have become a victim of ransomware and that they must pay a ransom or their data will be destroyed although the data has not been locked or encrypted.  Merely restarting the computer can often get rid of the pop-up and end the screen lock of these wanna-be ransomware criminals.

Read More

There is much to talk about when it comes to Internet of Things (IoT) in the Food industry. There are several emerging Food Startups that have adapted IoF and have integrated it into their business processes. The trend of Internet of Food (IoF) is enormous, as business are experiencing major difference after adapting these technologies.   Let’s look at two startups who are embracing IoT and bringing them into the food industry.

BovControl
BovControl is a Brazilian group which that keeps all information regarding Cattle farming on it’s data collection and analysis tool hosted on the cloud. This tool allows Farmers and Shepherds to track the Cattle and keep updated record of stock and trading. Using multiple digital tools such as charts and inventory graphs, BovControl controls effective exchange of information with farmers. After this first successful adaptation of IoT, BovControl is about to launch a second Cloud Offering which will provide information to Food providers. This is how BovControl applies Internet of Food (IoF) technology in it’s emerging business model.

Consumer Physics
When it comes to scanning, or analyzing content of food, Consumer Physics has kick started the market. With a mission to empower people to have a better understanding of our physical world, Consumer Physics has developed and produced a scanner that helps users identify the composition of food, medication, and plants.
Scan meat, dairy, fruits and vegetables for macro nutrient values (calories, fats, carbohydrates, and proteins), produce quality, ripeness, and spoilage analysis. Not only does this scanner work for food, but it is designed for you to create your own DIY material sensing applets to identify different materials of your choice. The possibilities are endless.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), having been around for a decade, is the market leader by miles in the cloud-based computing industry, providing the foundation and framework to power application developments, storage and data processing. However, growth figures, as reported by Synergy Research Group for 2016 (53%), puts them behind Microsoft’s Azure (100%) and Google’s Cloud Platform (162%); even for a business with 45% market share (more than twice the size of the next three competitors combined), those growth figures will make them shake like a leaf.

Market share figures may suggest absolute dominance in the short term, but AWS is aware of the growth waves of the other competitors; a clear indication that the market will most likely look enormously diverse in the long run, probably even before their second decade. The power of Google is also intimidating even from a distance; Android developers are increasingly finding Google’s Cloud Platform preferable. Also, both Google and Microsoft are heavily resourcing their research and development departments and the fruits have been a rhythmic launch of new products. AWS though, seems to want to focus on a new target market; Enterprise customers.

Enterprise customers was widely referred to as wealth beneath the soil. These are large organizations using systems such as SQL Server, MariaDB, MySQL, Oracle … and are either slow or reluctant to migrate onto any cloud platform. Amazon is trying to make migration from any of these systems seamless with their AWS Database Migration Service. The aim is to be the market leader for enterprise customer; to sweep every organization that falls under this category as Google and Microsoft focus on startups and individual developers. However, Microsoft is also tapping into its long-standing relationships with some of these organizations to have them migrate onto Azure. Google though, was a major winner last year when Apple signed up for their Cloud Service for some of its iCloud services. Clearly, Microsoft and Google will also focus on this market sooner than later, but AWS would have lead the market by the nose.

Another area AWS seems to want to revamp is security. TechCrunch reported earlier this year that AWS has acquired a cyber security firm called harvest.ai; a startup which is known for using artificial intelligence to assess and analyze the behavior of users around a company’s IP to automatically nullify any attacks. This will eliminate the need for third party security for some AWS subscribers. This will also enhance the work of Amazon Inspector; a security service that enables users to analyze the behavior of applications used in AWS to unearth potential security threats.

Some may find AWS decision to focus on a new market a major risk; others may find making startups an opportunity cost costly, but that is business. Enterprises are continually looking for new ways to get work done faster, smarter and cheaper. Startups are most likely going to deal with Google anyway. AWS has been shrewd to say the least, and they will continue to rule the roost this year.

As seasoned IT professionals running a small-sized business, you probably must be aware of the advantages cloud-based platforms bring over in-house deployment of hardware.

Most of the small business and startups lack the budget and workforce to purchase, install, handle and maintain on-site data centers and servers. Cloud Computing has long been known as the solution for such businesses, where rather than deploying in-house IT hardware, the business model is deployed on the infrastructures hosted by a third-party. Most of these providers use a pay-per-use model and the initial investment is almost negligible.

Cost aside, cloud-based solutions offer flexibility and scalability. If you are using an in-house IT infrastructure, scaling up your business systems demands heavy investment in hardware, often at the cost of downtime for your business. With cloud hosting platforms, the peak demands are automatically met through the pay-per-use model without any additional hardware costs.

There are numerous cloud-hosting providers in the market currently. Unarguably, AWS (Amazon Web Services) is the most popular one, especially when it comes to catering to small businesses.

What does AWS offer?
AWS includes numerous cloud-based computing, storage, database, networking, administration, security, mobile services and enterprise-based applications. When you open the main console of AWS, you will see more than 30 tools available in each section such as EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) in Cloud Computing, S3 (Simple Storage Service) in Storage and Content Delivery, RDS (Relationship Database Service) in Database and many more.

Here are some noteworthy features of AWS:

1.  Prebuilt AMIs (Amazon Machine Images):

It is extremely simple and easy to build your product with the wide variety of prebuilt Amazon Machine Images. Additionally, there is a marketplace where there are user-built Machine Images (MI) and a vibrant community that creates and shares such MIs. With AWS, you can build a product and reach your customer within a matter of hours.

2.  Understand your usage of IT applications and save more:

Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring tool within AWS to monitor your use of IT applications. This tool provides you multiple insights and metrics that will aid you in choosing the correct price model for the service you want to deploy- be it Amazon EC2 or the S3 .

3. Automated infrastructure:

AWS offers auto-scaling through services such as Amazon Elastic Beanstalk, which automatically scales up your service capacity when the traffic spikes and downgrades it when demand is low and helps you decrease costs while ensuring 100% uptime for your business.

4. Cost management:

AWS offers a very transparent billing model with many instances where you can cut down your expenditure. The Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances can cut down your hourly costs by 50% if you invest in a reserved capacity upfront. AWS also offers Spot instances, where you bid your own price based on a fixed usage of resources and this can significantly reduce your costs. The ‘Cost-aware architecture’ allows you to monitor and tweak your architecture to control the usage to adjust to your business’ growth over time.

5. AWS Activate:

AWS Activate is a global program developed by AWS and directed at SMBs to help them develop their products easily and provides them the same computing power and technology used by global corporations. With AWS, you can get started for free to try out the many services within AWS and see if it is fit for your business and budget.

How to get a one-man consulting shop off the ground

By Tim Berry | Contributor

Thinking of starting as a consultant? Even in these tough times? Maybe you've always wanted to. Maybe some things just went wrong for you, so you have no choice; you have to.

I can help. I did consulting for Business International in the 1970s, for Creative Strategies in the 1980s, for McKinsey Management Consulting for one brief period, and for myself and my family, on my own, through most of the 1980s and early 1990s. Eventually, that became Palo Alto Software, but it was consulting first. And I learned a few things that might help you if that's where you're heading. Here's my list:

1. Get that first big client.
Most successful consultants start with one big client. The best scenario is to leave your current job as a consultant, billing the company you worked for, for as long as you can. That happens a lot. The employer is relieved not to have the fixed cost but also to have your expertise available.

2. Focus on distinguishing differences. Build your business identity.
Success is related to focusing on a narrow something that you do differently from and presumably better than all others. You need an angle. The first time I went on my own, it was as a computer-literate M.B.A. (back in 1983, when not every M.B.A. was computer literate) who had lived in Latin America and spoke Spanish. That gave me an angle.
Look for your own angle. We all tend to generalize and think inclusively about the different things we can do. Instead of that, think of what you can do that nobody else can (or only a few). Don't just do business planning, for example; do growth planning for retail businesses or manufacturing or something else you know. If you can make that focus be legitimately green—energy efficient but not greenwashing—that's even better.
Bill Cosby once said, "I don't know the secret to success; but I do know that the secret to failure is trying to please everybody."

3. Build it on value.
Make meaning. Nothing drives a business more than believing that what it's doing matters to people and is important. Whether you're offering more healthful free-range organic meats (butcher), more healthful organic baked items (baker), or poverty-repelling candles (candlestick maker), believe in the value you're giving. Or get out of business.
Imagine yourself closing the office at the end of the workday. Do you feel good about what you've done all day? Is what you do for your clients good for them?
Ultimately, business success is rooted in having people who want to buy what you're selling. Are you giving them real value?

READ MORE

Mobile-Optimized Website Builder with Smart Learning System Headlines New
GoDaddy Service for Managing a Complete Online Presence

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., January 25, 2016 – GoDaddy, the world’s largest cloud platform dedicated to small, independent ventures, today announced the launch of GoDaddy GoCentral, a new service that combines a mobile-optimized website builder with an integrated set of marketing and e-commerce tools to help anyone create an audience for their idea or business. GoCentral ushers in a new era of smart website creation defined by a focus on results, including attracting visitors and driving sales.

GoCentral enables people to design a professional website in under an hour, even on a mobile phone. With support for more than 1,500 ideas or industries, from plumbers to hairstylists to soccer coaches, users simply type in their name and industry or idea, and GoCentral’s smart learning system produces a near-complete website, pre-filled with relevant sections and professional images. GoCentral’s intuitive user interface helps anyone, including technology and design novices, easily customize and update their sites on the go. All sites created on GoCentral are built fully responsive and look great on phones, tablets and computers.

“Traditional DIY site builders got it wrong by forcing people to focus their time on tweaking page layout instead of generating results,” said GoDaddy Senior Vice President and General Manager Lauren Antonoff. “Many small businesses struggle to attract visitors to their sites, and the little traffic they do get is largely coming from mobile devices. We’re fundamentally changing the approach by creating a mobile friendly experience that lets customers focus on achieving their goals, rather than worry about site designs. GoCentral is unique in that it helps customers get noticed, reach audiences wherever they are, and drive real results, including sales.”GoDaddy’s smart learning system surfaces insights and actions to

GoCentral users to help them achieve their goals. For instance, upon logging in, customers receive engagement and activity updates and key ways to improve results, which might be something as simple as attaching their website to a social network or advice for developing a geographic-targeted Facebook advertising campaign. GoDaddy’s learning system is powered by smart algorithms and machine learning that evolve with customers throughout their lifecycles to optimize results.

Build an Audience & Sell Online
GoCentral’s integrated marketing features enable people to quickly improve their search rankings on Google and get their business on Facebook, leveraging the information and photos from their GoCentral website. This same information helps customers jumpstart email marketing campaigns so customers, even those with no email marketing experience, can engage existing contacts and collect new ones.GoCentral’s Online Store includes everything needed to sell online, with a focus on making sales happen. New improvements allow customers to check out fast with a streamlined mobile checkout with reduced taps and swipes. Apple Pay support is built directly into the product, as are major credit cards and Paypal. Integrated product and inventory management and customizable shipping simplify the selling setup experience.

GoCentral’s Super Bowl Debut
GoDaddy will give GoCentral the center stage in this year’s much-anticipated Super Bowl commercial. A special thirty-second TV spot is being created to kick-off a fully integrated GoCentral marketing campaign. The big game commercial plays to the cultural and commercial power of the Internet by way of iconic images and humor. It’s set to air in the first quarter of the Feburary 5th broadcast event which is expected to be viewed by more than 100 million viewers. It’s the first time GoDaddy has used its famed Super Bowl spotlight to feature a new service.

To find out more about GoDaddy GoCentral, visit http://www.godaddy.com/gocentral.

About GoDaddy
GoDaddy powers the world's largest cloud platform dedicated to small, independent ventures. With more than 14.5 million customers worldwide and more than 63 million domain names under management, GoDaddy is the place people come to name their idea, build a professional website, attract customers and manage their work. Our mission is to give our customers the tools, insights and the people to transform their ideas and personal initiative into success. To learn more about the company, visit www.GoDaddy.com.

Source: GoDaddy Inc.

Matt Keener
Contributor
President of Keener Marketing Solutions

Some things are just better left unsaid. Knowing when to hold your tongue can make the difference between success and failure. To ensure success, avoid letting these phrases slip out of your mouth.

1. What should I do?

You are a consultant, which means it's your duty to be three steps ahead. By asking for your next move, you're defeating the purpose of your professional existence. Stop, and think about this question from a client's perspective. He is already busy and stressed out. The last thing he needs is the additional responsibility of keeping you busy.

Of course, consultants want to stay busy. Aside from begging for your next task, there are ways to arrive at the same outcome without sounding so desperate.

For example, you might spend time reviewing old meeting notes to identify projects that never got off the ground. Or prepare some talking points about a recent case study. Weave these points into your next discussion with the customer. Use this as a launchpad toward new projects and - most importantly - new work for you.

2. You're wrong.

We’ve all heard the cliche that the customer is always right. Nothing in business is absolute, and no one is perfect. This is particularly true of your clients. Despite your clients’ shortcomings, it is important that you reduce unnecessary friction when possible. Although it is your job to provide your opinion, tact is an artform worth practicing.

When you disagree with a client, first try to find common ground. Ease into the disagreement rather than being brash. You might say, “While I certainly agree with your first point, I think we need to spend more time looking at…”

Clients appreciate being challenged so try to be constructive, and avoid totally crushing their egos. Remember, they’re paying the bills.

3. My rates are increasing.

As you add new clients, it is natural for your market value to increase. You’re becoming a scarce commodity, which leads to more money for you.

What about your existing clients? Most clients never think about your ever-increasing value to the market. They’re happy with the work you do, but they’re also content with your current rates.

Read More

Microsoft announced on January 18 the availability of Clear Linux OS for Intel on Azure, which makes them the first public cloud provider to offer that. Linux users now have a foundation to experiment and create systems with the option to choose a much preferred and suitable bundle. Clear Linux also has the Docker container platform; a straightforward approach to bundle an application and its runtime conditions into a solitary compartment and provides runtime independence which empowers the container to keep running crosswise over various forms of the Linux Kernel. It is also preloaded with common open source tools to enable Linux users develop machine learning applications.

Aside the packed features, Microsoft believes that bringing Clear Linux to Azure will streamline sustentations and arrangements which will be as vital as infrastructure scales by isolating the framework defaults and ensuring circulation best practices from user preferred structures. This demonstrates their continual support for open source options which creates the much-needed agility in the cloud. It demonstrates their flexibility and a direct focus to attract organizations which fancy open source options. The collaboration between Microsoft and Intel last year to make this possible on Azure is a milestone both celebrate for strategic alliance and competition purposes. The collaboration also ensured that Clear Linux was finetuned to maximize the performance and value of Intel architecture.

Microsoft made it possible in August last year for anyone to run Ubuntu and Bash on the anniversary edition of Windows 10. This was a partnership with Canonical and the product, the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), has been successful. Currently, it is also possible to run openSUSE Leap 42.2 on Windows 10. SUSE is providing tutorials for that online. In a market where Amazon holds the reins, Microsoft needs to turn every stone to solidify its grasp on certain segments of the markets in other to keep growing. The focus on open source appears to be one of those steps and by the end of Q4 this year, it will be known to what extent this move has been a contributing factor to growth and profit figures.

Internet of Things (IoT) is already impacting working and living environments with exciting trends. It has come a long way and 2017 looks promising for tweaked and heightened possibilities. Technology continues to make mass production cheaper, almost every electronic device is built to be wi-fi ready and  close to half of the world’s population now have access to the internet, compared to just 20% in 2007. As broadband internet becomes cheaper to connect and use, it is only fair to expect a tsunami of IoT from 2017. The concept of IoT is to connect every powered device to the internet; once it can be turned on and off, why not hook it up to the internet?

Imagine your alarm waking you up at 6:30 am and sending an instruction to your water heater to warm your bath water, and your coffee maker to start brewing. Imagine if your car could communicate parts which are due to be changed to a supplier and automatically schedule a date for replacement after interacting with your calendar to know when you will have the time. What about the possibility to have your printer place an order online for new supplies of paper and cartridges … the possibilities are endless. The kitchen is one area in the house where IoT can be optimize for efficiency to reduce waste and power consumption and this year will see a lot of focus accordingly.

Last year provided the opportunity for companies to build devices ready to take advantage of the IoT concept. CES 2016 showcased most of those devices; as the big companies and the known brands were flexing muscles, startups were also showcasing what the big companies were overlooking. Now there is internet and its penetration is unstoppable; let everything that can be connected be connected now! Apple and Google launched home products last year to connect lights, locks, thermostats and other home devices to the internet to enable them to be seamlessly controlled even away from home.

With the seamless connection of everyday useful items to the internet comes the concern on security and hacking. Last year, IoT took a nervous hit when reports suggested that Dyn, a cloud based internet performance management company which provides services to companies like Twitter and Netflix, was attacked. It was believed by experts that the attack was caused by Mirai bot, which scouted the internet for IoT devices with default usernames and passwords, using them for the attack. This partly prompted the release of the security framework of Industrial Internet Consortium. Hackers will not backdown on their malicious activities, but security will also be continually heightened. Nevertheless, a major security breach is probably just a click away.

IoT will not be limited to homes, offices and cars this year. Cities will also work effortlessly to have transportation, traffic, waste and energy management all coordinated with IoT. Q4 last year saw a lot of work to bring artificial intelligence to mobile. IoT will tap into those possibilities as well. Strategic alliances and collaborations will also be made by small and medium scale organizations to produce low cost items to increase patronage of IoT ready devices. This will ultimately set the right tone for a much bigger wave next year.

Part 1 – Charting the Waters

Recurring revenue is the life-blood for IT consultants and managed service providers these days. The challenge for us is to find new products and services that can be added to staples like network management and Office 365, which are the low-hanging fruit that we have already adopted. The conundrum we face is that new solutions typically require a significant commitment of time and money in order to learn how to implement, manage and sell them while generating an acceptable return on that investment as quickly as possible. As a result, inaction and procrastination hold us back when we should be proactively expanding our solution stacks.

One area that has not been fully explored is mobility. Although we may deploy mobile devices – tablets, notebooks and phones – for our clients, it is easy to construe the devices to be solutions when they are merely tools. The power of mobility actually resides in the ability to connect people to the information that they want and need wherever and whenever they need it. Studies by comScore have shown that nearly two-thirds of all digital media access is now done through mobile devices. Furthermore, the bulk of that access occurs through smartphone mobile apps.

Given the prominent role that smartphones play in connecting people to information, it follows that many of our clients have businesses that can benefit by making it possible for their customers to connect with them via their mobile devices. This opens the doors for us to enter the mobile app market on behalf of our clients, but few if any of us are able to become app developers.

In Part 2 of this series, we will take a look at the things that have been holding us back from adopting a mobile app practice and what can be done to overcome them.

Over the years when digital world has taken revolution, Cloud Computing has grown tremendously as a service. Today it is described as one remote service to store, process and manage information. Cloud Computing is management of vast set of information infrastructures. It is management of information tools, systems and architectures.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been a recognized Cloud service provider since 2007. It operates from 16 different host destinations providing exclusive Cloud service to global clients. It features On-demand Cloud, Elastic Cloud Computing, Simple Storage, Internet of things and much more in comprehensive Cloud Computing.

What is AWS and what are its salient features is matter of our discussion. We will elaborate on AWS basics to make Cloud users a slight more aware about AWS.

Simple Storage and AWS

Simple storage (S3) through AWS means a highly flexible and always available web storage service. It is a round the clock service to store major sets of information in optimum time. Using S3 gives good flexibility in accessing data to any assigned URL. S3 provides effective access control with resourceful data protection. Robust backup and expiration times are further notable features of S3. It is simple and indeed very convenient to use.

Elastic Cloud Computing and AWS

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a scalable technology that provides cloud computing to multiple virtual computers. Every virtual machine is assigned with an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) containing tools, infrastructure and any web service that is rented to machine’s user. For EC2 provision Amazon applies ‘Pay as you Go’ price model which means on-Demand computing service. EC2 caters and manages virtual machines that are provisioned independently and with frequent modifications. Instead of buying a conventional server during changing or unpredictable workload, EC2 is most preferred.

Internet of things (IoT) and AWS

Amazon IoT platform offers diverse and adaptive cloud computing, adapted by virtual user to connect their devices with cloud applications. Controlled interaction between devices is possible through AWS platform. IoT at AWS means organized exchange of messages between billions of devices at one time. Fast and effective exchange of trillions of messages is made possible through AWS IoT.

AWS IoT integrates with other devices for managing larger groups of data. It integrates with devices to build and organize IT infrastructures. For building web applications. AWS IoT effectively integrates with Amazon Dynamo, Amazon Machine Learning, S3 and Kinesis.

I wanted to share a few recommended readings for you to consider with the start of 2017. Why? Because it’s essential you are always in life learner mode as a technology professional. You want your medical doctor to read the latest journals, right?

I’ve scoured the Office 365 community for content that can add value to your professional journey. Here are my findings.

HOW TO PROFIT FROM SELLING OFFICE 365

Just the other day, I posted a provocative statement on my personal Facebook page. I asked everyone to take an oath that “I will not work for free in 2017” as a response to some of my own experiences and that of others last year. Loosely translated, it means I’ll only do things that make money in my professional realm. Someone I respect even extended that thinking to include his sentiment that he’ll only commit to a day long workshop if it will help him make money. Fair enough.

So the “HOW TO PROFIT FROM SELLING OFFICE 365” book that I’m recommend hits the nail on the head. This thoughtfully written guide hits a major issue in our MSP community head-on: how to make money with Office 365. There is a lot of context to this observation. Some SMB Nation members are still smarting from the perceived lost profits now that the server-side, Big Iron era has passed. And while its unlikely we’ll “make servers great again” in 2017, it’s time to navigate the “new-new” of profiting from Office 365. Specifically this recommended guide will let you discover how to package, market and sell your Office 365 offers. Granted I see this as a foundational part of the cloud money maker pathway but it’s a not the entire answer. That said, don’t be a monkey and follow the money by downloading the guide HERE.

MAKING OFFICE 365 A ONE-STOP-SHOP FOR EMAIL RECORDS COMPLIANCE
I’ve been involved in more conversations lately about returns to specialization and riches in niches as a 2017 strategy for MSPs. We’re basically talking verticalization and it doesn’t have to be a geography or economic sector. Instead it can be a specific skill area. Such is the case with this white paper concerning email records compliance.

This whitepaper offers organizations planning a migration to the Cloud a 'considerations roadmap' for migrating their legacy email records. It also provides guidance on the critical aspects of sustaining the integrity and value of your legacy email records as they are migrated to Microsoft Office 365.

Key insights include:

10 things to consider as you migrate legacy email records to Office 365
Moving journals into the new Office 365 model
How Microsoft replaces the journal in Office 365
Enhanced eDiscovery in Office 365

Additionally this paper is positioned as an advisory piece for all key stakeholders that should be involved in a migration project. That is, not just the IT team, but also the legal department, records managers, business leaders and advocates acting on behalf of users.

If the shoe fits, download this whitepaper HERE.

Granted many of the SMB Nation readers are experienced IT Pros. But one layer below, many MSPs have a rising star. Typically a “newbie,” this individual is being eyed for bigger things. Which gets me to my point. Chip Reaves of Bigger Brains and I teamed up with Emily Wilson a just over a year ago to create the Networking Essentials: CompTIA Network Plus Exam Prep course. I proudly consider this the 20th publication I’ve been an author or co-author of (full list here).

It is my belief that this courseware is suited for the “newbie” mentioned above. However, even hot shots can benefit from revisiting the fundamentals of networking. Think of it this way. One of my annual New Year’s Resolutions is to re-read a book (albeit I might speed read it). And I always remember something I forgot and learn something new.

So here is the offer. Chip recently engaged with new distribution channels for this courseware. With high honor, I share with you that “Networking Essentials: CompTIA Network Plus Exam Prep” course can now be purchased at Udemy for a significant discount (68% discount. Consider purchasing this to support Chip’s efforts and perhaps give it away as a gift. Maybe be a Secret Santa!

So what is the courseware all about?
Description: Network Essentials is designed to give an experienced Level 1 tech a good foundation in networking technologies, both for real world benefits and to pass the newest CompTIA Network Plus certification (Exam N10-006).
Lecture: 63 modules
Length: 12.5 hours
And it even includes a certificate of completion.

Purchase HERE. Your support is greatly appreciated! (Thank you!)

Looking for a year-ender what will give you an edge on annual earnings? Consider migrations in December. There are a couple of important reasons for this.

Use it or lose it. There is a reality with your mid-sized companies on a calendar fiscal year that they need to spend baby spend in December or lose the mula. This is especially true in your government accounts but they tend to be on a non-calendar fiscal year. You get the point – call your fav “M” client today and secure the funds to complete any migrations to Office 365.

Downtime is migration time. When I was a day-to-day consultant, I likened the traditional December holiday season to a quiet time where I could actually get some real work done. From December 15 – early January was also an IT consultants dream to perform technology surgery at client sites. Heed the call to migrate your customers between Thanksgiving and New Years. Happy customer; happy life.

So what are your next steps. Download the “Enterprise PST Migration to Microsoft Office 365“ informative white paper here.

It goes without saying that Cyber Monday, November 28, 2016, has grown dramatically from its modest start 12-years ago. It’s a media mainstay and you are encouraged to track it’s performance on sites like ChannelAdvisor. But that’s not why I’m here with this blog. Rather I want to impart insights into a startup with a twist launching on Cyber Monday. The Portland, OR startup is called Truece and it has a new twist on an old problem. (See below for a special offer for SMB Nation members - editor)

The issue is the divorce and how it plays out. Why share this story? Two reasons. First is that the SMB Nation membership is 95% male in the 45-year old age range. Statistics show that many divorces occur in this age range. And while I’m not suggesting you should run out and get divorced, it’s likely you know someone who is getting divorced and could benefit from the use of Truece (more on that in a moment). The second is that this is a technology startup and as you know – we have used 2016 to profile and embrace startups as the new-new for you to consider as we pivot our technology practices.

Truece is an application that facilitates communication between parents. It’s a way to record conversations and avoid the confusion of “he said, she said” during the heat of battle. Think of it as a way to reduce the impact on kids.

The Cyber Monday launch of Truece can be framed up this way. With the donated time and energy of 20 dedicated professionals, Truece has built a product and laid the groundwork for a company that will truly make a difference. It’s made great progress, but is asking for your help. Whether you’re a parent in a custody situation where Truece could help, or if you know someone who could use some extra support…please sign up as a Truece ambassador. Word of mouth is the best method, and we know you know people.

What do you get for signing up? You’ll be the first to hear about product updates and discounts, and most importantly when Truece will be available for download. If all goes well, Truece should be ready to onboard its first customers in early 2017. Sign-up here.

PS - Special Offer for SMB Nation! Truece has created an exclusive offer that is a 75% discount here.

Hey Harry,    

We are an old but always evolving  IT provider...who has been involved with SBS since the NT 3.5 beta version...so I’m pretty sure I know the product..     We need you to drop some (not even that old) knowledge on our friends in Redmond ! J I’m betting I’m not the only old reseller getting hit with this silly scenario.

Many of our small business clients are finally (after being under the radar for 30 years) being subjected to a friendly, Microsoft License Verification Process.     This doesn’t really scare us too much...because we’ve always required compliance from our clients...

however, the Microsoft folks working with us on this process seem entirely baffled by the SBS 2011 licensing model!?   They are saying our client has a short fall....they say the SBS 2011 Std product came with 5 Device CALS, so we are short User CALS..

Here’s one example: (we never use device CALS by the way)

Client has 12 people, we have them buy SBS2011 Std (with 5) , and 7 more user CALS = 12 ...right?

Product Description                                          Product Number  Version and Copies

WinSBCALSte 2011 SNGL OLP NL   UsrCAL           6UA-03863 (7-copies)

WinSBSvrStd 2011 SNGL OLP NL  5Clt                  T72-02925 (1 copy)

Nope, Microsoft license verification guy says that’s 5 device CALS and 7 user...so they are short 5. MS Open sales, blank look. MS Open Lic department’s answer? “MS SBS 2011 was only available in retail, and therefore improperly skewed by techdata/cdw on this agreement” Wha? Is the corporate memory loss?

Can you help a crusty old IT guy?

Thanks,

Jim Denison

Seattle Micro Inc.

To help Jim - please post up to the SMB Nation Facebook page here!

SMB Nation Webinar Thursday, December 8th, 2016 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM PST

Presented by: Harry Brelsford CEO at SMB Nation, and Martin Merrell Senior Sales Engineer at Storagecraft

There are 7 ways you can respond to the question, “Do my clients really need SaaS application backup?” All of which have become famous last words:

• Since my data is already in the cloud, it is already backed up and safe
• We have good, highly trained admins and users and very efficient systems
• If we need something, we just put in a request to the application vendor
• No one would ever want to hijack my data, we are too small to be a target
• Our people are careful and would only throw away incorrect or outdated files
• We comply with all necessary government or agency policies and regulations
• We can get what we need, when we need it, and in the original format

In this webinar, you will learn exactly why these phrases are famous last words when it comes to keeping SaaS data safe and readily accessible after a disaster, but more importantly, you’ll learn the easy steps you can take to avoid their disastrous consequences.

By Mary McCoy, Content Marketing Manager of Continuum Managed Services

By now, most MSPs recognize that offering backup is table stakes. Your clients can receive this service from any number of your competitors. In order to stand out and increase monthly recurring revenue (MRR), focus on the disaster recovery (DR) aspect of backup and disaster recovery (BDR). Offer your clients DR testing!
To fully capitalize on the advantages of DR testing, keep the following four best practices in mind when adding this service to your IT portfolio. 


1. Test Everything
Technology alone won't save businesses paralyzed by an IT emergency. DR testing should also engage on the business level, considering continuity of operations and processes along with the validation of actual data availability. How robust is your client's DR plan? Being properly prepared can be as simple as knowing who to call and having an up-to-date contact list. Your DR plan should also avoid ambiguity and set expectations when it comes to designating team and individual roles and responsibilities. Do both you and your clients know what to hold each other accountable for or who to reach out to when something goes wrong?
Pro tip: Your DR plans are not one-size-fits-all, which means your testing should vary across your client base. Each business you serve has different needs. Many organizations have specific compliance and regulatory statutes that they're required to adhere to. You may back up and store some clients' data at a physical location offsite and others' in the cloud. No two clients are alike. When DR testing, processes and procedures should be optimized for each individual client.

2. Test Regularly
How often should you be conducting disaster recovery tests? There is no hard and fast rule, and it really depends on the client in question. That being said, you should run annual DR tests, at the very least. Your clients' disaster readiness depends on every employee's understanding of the current DR plan, which they can ultimately only achieve after familiarization with the DR testing process. And when factoring in employee turnover, testing every year helps acclimate any new hires to the proper procedures and protocol, thereby helping you fine-tune your clients' disaster response. Considering that a company's DR strategy is only as strong as its least prepared employee, you'd think more would advocate frequent DR testing to mitigate risk. According to the 2016 Disaster Recovery as a Service Attitude and Adoption Report, however, 22 percent of respondents test their DR plans less than once a year or in many cases, never test at all. Help them avoid this liability and package regular DR tests into your overall BDR offering.
Sure, testing backups every year should be the standard, but even this may be too conservative in certain circumstances. Let's examine a scenario in which you may want to test more frequently. Perhaps you serve a bank or any other financial services business bound by PCI DSS compliance. To comply with regulatory standards, you may need to test this client's DR plan every three months to ensure your BDR solution meets the necessary requirements. In contrast, a barber shop's DR plan may only need to be tested two to three times per year. Again, when formulating DR plans, always make sure you optimize procedures and processes at the client level.

3. Document Outcomes
Strong DR documentation starts with a client's disaster recovery plan, which should outline everything anyone would need to know in the event of an emergency. This includes contact information, a detailed outline of the steps and procedures that individuals need to follow in order to activate a disaster recovery, expected time frames for recovering data and more.
Only when your response policy is put to the test, can you adequately assess the effectiveness of a DR plan. Maybe certain directions are unclear and create friction across teams. Document any and all outcomes during and after testing. What worked? What didn’t? Where were the failure points? Why did those failures occur? How do you address these in your client's plan? Were any employees or team leads unavailable? In the event that you can't reach these people in the future, who are their backups? Little details like this can mean everything when the clock is ticking and your clients' business continuity is at stake. To help ensure a more seamless DR response, record all results that may be used to improve your clients’ disaster readiness. Then, conduct a post-mortem with all involved, to review lessons learned and areas for improvement.

4. Update DR Plans
Finally, update your clients' DR plans as necessary. This testing is all for naught if you don't do anything with the data you record. It's not enough to simply remember what to do next time around. Recall the conversation around client employee churn. If your client onboards a new hire after your DR test, this employee will only have the existing DR documentation to follow. Rather than repeat the same mistakes in your next round of DR testing, correct now to save your clients later. And remember, disaster readiness is ongoing. Continue to frequently revisit and strengthen your DR plans so that testing runs smoother going forward.

Deliver robust backup data protection services to your clients. Learn how to provide effective business continuity as a service. Download our BDR eBook here!

Meet Mary! Mary McCoy is a Content Marketing Manager at Continuum, where she's worked for over two years. Mary primarily manages the MSP Blog and has consulted with hundreds of partners, lending website, blog and social media support. Before that, she graduated from the University of Virginia (Wahoowa!) with a BA in Economics and served as digital marketing intern for Citi Performing Arts Center (Citi Center), spearheading the nonprofit’s #GivingTuesday social media campaign. Like her school’s founder, Thomas Jefferson, Mary believes learning never ends. She considers herself a passionate, lifelong student of content creation and inbound marketing.

Ben Austin, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Continuum Managed Services

Are you looking to capture additional monthly recurring revenue (MRR) by selling your backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution to more clients? If so, you have to understand the overall sales process and particularly, the Discovery phase, which is meant to help you identify the best candidates for your BDR solution.

To identify those small-and-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with the highest probability of adopting your solution, begin by getting to know them. Uncover their needs by asking the following 10 questions.

Gather Preliminary Information

This first set of questions helps you establish a baseline regarding data management needs. Before you can begin qualifying, you need to know what kind of IT environment you're working with. Are there any constraints? What's the SMB's attitude toward BDR solutions, and do they have a history of backing up data?
 
1. What type of customer records are you storing?
Examples: sales receipts/billing, contact information, private/confidential records

2. How are you currently storing that data?
Examples: physical copies, local laptop/desktop, local server, off-site storage

3. What regulations do you need to comply with?
Examples: HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, HITECH

4. What additional, non-customer related data are you storing on your machines?
Examples: proprietary information/documentation, marketing materials, primary research, competitive data, vendor contracts

Gauge Their Disaster Readiness

At this point in the sales conversation, you should begin asking questions to qualify the prospect. Getting the right answers is all about asking the right questions. What are the right answers? The ones that indicate whether or not the prospect is the right fit for your IT services. You want to weed out any unhealthy candidates that may stall your sales cycle or be "noisy," unprofitable clients down the line. To do this, evaluate their level of disaster preparedness by asking questions that identify whether the prospect needs a business continuity solution. Often, these questions are ones prospects haven't even thought to ask and trigger that "aha!" moment you're looking for in order to close them into clients later.

5. What problems have you faced in the past related to data loss or corruption?
Asking this question gives you historical context that can help you judge a prospect's disaster readiness. It introduces any problems you may be walking into if you sign the client, and helps you later cater your sales pitch or presentation toward real-life scenarios that the prospect can relate to.

6. What percentage of your standard business operations would be impacted if your records/data were temporarily unavailable or deleted?
Asking hypothetical questions like this is a useful MSP sales tactic! By asking this question, you should hope to have your prospect recognize the value of their data. At the same time, the answer they provide can help you judge whether the SMB has a need you can fill and is therefore worth pursuing.

7. How long could you keep your business running without access to your data?
Again, the benefit here is twofold. You get the qualifying answer in discovering if the SMB will benefit from your solution. And at the same time, you gain an opportunity to explain the typical, severe repercussions of prolonged downtime after a disaster.

8. What is your current plan for protecting the integrity and security of your data?
Like the previous sales discovery question, this one helps you position your value proposition as your clients' virtual CIO (vCIO). More often than not, the SMBs you talk to won't have any kind of business continuity plan or disaster response procedure in place. They don't have the time or in-house expertise to compile and manage such a framework. This is where you can really shine as their advisor. If the prospect has no business continuity plan, you can explain the reasons for developing one, walking them through the initial steps of creating and testing it. If the prospect has already implemented a disaster recovery (DR) plan, listen as they provide the details. Don't discount prospects that claim they already have a DR plan. They may be mistaken, it may not be in use or it may require significant improvement that you can provide as their vCIO.

9. What are your top priorities as far as data backup and disaster recovery is concerned?
This is a general catch-all to help you understand a prospect’s general mindset about the value of BDR and what they think you can provide. It's also a more direct question that can help you determine whether a prospect has benefited from having a BDR solution in the past. Perhaps in expressing their priorities, the prospect expresses dissatisfaction with a competitive service. This not only gives you a leg up, but helps you tailor your proposal and eventual onboarding process to best serve the SMB.
Steer The Conversation Back Toward Purchase Intent

The best way to do this is to first ask the prospect what their previous purchases were and what the return was. Notice the subtle difference between asking "Are you interested in buying from me?" and this last, better question:
 
10. What investments have you made in hardware/storage over the last four to five years?
If the prospect has made recent investments in hardware or physical storage, this should signal to you that they likely understand the value of data integrity/security and are willing to make investments (such as cloud storage) to ensure that their data is safe. If they have not made recent investments in this area, the SMB likely needs your BDR services. Now, while this is also a favorable outcome, understand that they may need more convincing to see the overall value of your business continuity services. As a result, your sales cycle may be extended.
 

When selling BDR, you have to get to know the prospect and their business needs first. Modern, client-centric sales involves talking with, NOT talking at, SMBs. The ten discovery questions shared in this post should help you start that dialogue, pinpoint worthwhile, high-close prospects and move them further along through the MSP sales journey. Once you know who to target your sales presentation and proposal to, you'll have all of the necessary information to personalize your offering to their individual needs.

Are you looking to boost your BDR sales efforts? Continuum's new Business Continuity Sales Success Kit provides ample resources that can be completely customized to best suit your business, as well as actionable, informative and educational content—such as scripts, talk tracks and more—to train new sales team members about the unique benefits and sales propositions inherent to backup and disaster recovery platforms. While it may be used with any BDR sales, this kit is designed to be used seamlessly with Continuity247™, Continuum’s fully-managed backup and disaster recovery platform. Download the Business Continuity Sales Success Kit here!

The preceding blog post was originally published on Continuum’s MSP Blog.

Ben Austin is the Sr. Product Marketing Manager for Continuum’s backup and disaster recovery products. He has experience in high-velocity content marketing and demand generation. He graduated with a degree in journalism from Emerson College and has spent his career researching and writing about the B2B tech industry.

By Pete Engler

There is no denying the emerging prevalence of cloud services within the technology industry. No longer are we solely relying on premises-based technologies to keep our day-to-day business activities going, but are, instead, deploying cloud technologies and accessing them from remote locations. While it seems that everyone is jumping on the new cloud services trend, it leaves many people wondering how it is affecting the traditional business channels, specifically its impact on distributors.

If we take a look at the full picture of the distribution landscape, we can see a change in the channel that began taking place even before the introduction of cloud technology. Distributors were originally simple warehouses that served as a means for getting the product from a vendor to a reseller, but, over time, this model has been changing. These so-called limited service distributors have become less prevalent and we have seen a shift towards value-added distribution as the new vogue model.

Value-added distributors are more than just large warehouses filled with products waiting to be shipped; they provide credit for resellers, carry a range of products for partners to add to their portfolios, and even offer training for those technologies. Distributors have become more of a trusted advisor for resellers than simply a quick stop in the channel, which is helping them to retain relevance in the dawning of the Cloud Age.

As a trusted advisor, distributors serve as a gateway between vendors and resellers. They are often the first to research and analyze new technologies and vendors to determine what they should offer to their reseller partners. Resellers depend on distributors’ findings to decide what solutions to add to their product portfolios. This relationship places an incredible amount of power into the hands of distributors because they have the ability to make or break a vendor and their solution. This is especially important right now because cloud technology is exploding. According to the Synergy Research Group, the worldwide cloud computing market grew 28 percent to $110 billion in 2015, and everyone is trying to get their slice of the profit pie. Cloud vendors are popping up everywhere and if resellers alone are trying to decide which vendors’ solutions are pursuable, the process may become overwhelming. Therefore, they place their trust in distributors to vet new cloud technologies and vendors to ensure they are offering clients the best solutions for their specific business needs.  

Additionally, cloud technology presents distributors with the opportunity to expand their role in the channel by offering aggregated cloud services. Oftentimes, deploying a cloud solution requires ongoing services from multiple vendors, and customers prefer to work with a reseller who can offer them a complete solution. According to research conducted by the Global Technology Distribution Council, resellers are reluctant to offer aggregated services independently due to the vast financial responsibility and the uncertainty of taking on a general contractor type role. However, distributors are in an excellent position to perform such duties with their close relationships to vendors and their financial business models, making them the ideal candidate for bundling services and selling them through the channel in one complete package.

While many people fear the emergence of cloud technologies will eventually dry up the distribution channel, research actually proves the opposite to be true. The path distributors have been following has led to their natural evolution into a more value-added role. And their ability to serve as a general contractor for cloud deployments has created for them a resiliency that will not only allow them to survive, but to flourish in the coming Cloud Age.

Pete Engler is the channel marketing manager at Digium, a business communications company based in Huntsville, Ala., that delivers enterprise-class Unified Communications.

Operating in stealth mode the past few months, we’re ready to come out of the closet. Yes – we are now offering advisory services to MSPs and resellers trying to adjust their business portfolios to start over in a highly disrupted technology market. To date we’ve had four (4) beta clients as we discovered and refined our services offering. And we’re ready to assist you too!

Our offering is very simple. This year we are dedicated to telling the start-up and start over story in the IT community because, quite frankly, cloud changed everything. Just yesterday I once again found myself repeating in a conversation that Windows Small Business Server (SBS) is gone. So whatcha’ gonna do? Call Ghost Busters? Rather call our own Tim Carlsen at 206-890-0015 or email him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. who serves as our M&A specialist. He brings a career from the financial services sector and has worked in numerous start-ups. He’s a matchmaker bringing together buy-side and sell-side parties to consummate transactions. Whether it’s a merger of equals or a true acquisition between MSPs and resellers, Tim’s your man. We have a starter package for a relatively low fee with a back-end kicker when the deal closes.

Doing nothing is no longer an option. If you start your business model pivot now in 4Q, it’s likely you’ll go into 2017 looking forward to the future

So it turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks! StorageCraft, its balance sheet in great shape after an investment round, is starting to make acquisitions. The idea is simple. Reinvent itself by buying missing portfolio elements instead of relying solely on internal innovation. It’s a way to move “fast fast” as Ross Perot liked to say.

Last week StorageCraft announced it was acquiring the analytical intellectual property (IP) of Gillware Online Backup, a Madison, WI-based vendor. I spoke with StorageCraft executives and this acquisition has the effect of leapfrogging StorageCraft into the hottest part of IT right now – analytics.

The basic story is fairly pedestrian: using Gillware IP and applying analysis, the StorageCraft product will morph into helping you determine which data to prioritize in a backup scenario. It’s changing the model of incurring costs associated with inefficient backups.

“For far too long, the storage industry has promoted a one-dimensional approach of simply adding more capacity,” said Matt Medeiros, Chairman and CEO of StorageCraft. “Organizations are finally realizing that this model is obsolete since a significant portion of their costs is wasted backing up and storing irrelevant data.”

“Gillware and StorageCraft have been strong partners for years,” said Wes Gill, Founder and President of Gillware Data Recovery. “Through this partnership, we have successfully provided a combined suite of data analytics and access products, ensuring immediate recovery. Our team of data experts is excited to join the StorageCraft family and expand StorageCraft’s platform of products.”

“I’m really excited about the Gillware talent pool - world class technologists in data access and analytics,” said StorageCraft Chief Technology Officer Scott Barnes. “Gillware’s predictive capabilities enable our solution to determine which data is mission-critical: What do I need now? Not all data is equal.”

Effective immediately, existing Gillware and StorageCraft partners will have full access to the products via the Gillware portal. All products will be available globally via StorageCraft’s partner portal in November.

“Gillware will help fuel our expansion plans,” said Marvin Blough, Vice President of Worldwide Sales. “This one move adds thousands of customers in North America alone who are already familiar with the benefits of the combined Gillware-StorageCraft solution.”

Forward looking statements
StorageCraft’s acquisition of Gillware Online Backup is the latest in a series of moves that is rapidly enhancing the company’s suite of intelligent data protection solutions, increasing its global presence and strengthening its research and development team. In my conversation, it was noted that this is only the start of some early acquisitions and delving into the Big Data analytics area. For example, StorageCraft is accumulating heaps of information with its operations. This analytics engine could easily be enhanced to incorporate predictive elements like mean failure time for storage devices, etc. That would allow the MSP to proactively purchase replacement parts and keep clients fat and happy.

I’ll be monitoring StorageCraft’s efforts over the next months.

There is no age discrimination in the entrepreneurship community. It’s a line of reasoning that cuts both ways. You can be a 50+ year old white collar tech exec who is “yes sir-ed” through the back door in the tech community because of ageism but still have credibility as a start-up entrepreneur. Likewise, you can be a millennial in the new gig economy who embraces start-ups. It’s a big tent and there is room for all.

Recently GoDaddy released an extensive study on how millennials are fueling entrepreneurial growth.

The end of the story is that young people don’t know what they don’t know and that is an asset in taking the start-up plunge. Contrast that with my friend, a sales rep at a Big Pharma company, who is 55YO and risk adverse. Combine that innocence with a “gig economy” view and you have what GoDaddy calls a new entrepreneurial era where 1-in-3 millennial professionals intend to pursue their own ventures in the next ten years. And that plays very well into GoDaddy’s SOHO and SMB focus of delivering light weight IT solutions such as web pages, domain registration and Office 365 subscriptions.

I spoke with GoDaddy’s Chief Product Office Steven Aldrich, pictured, recently about is new study and here is what I learned.

Fueled by technology that has made entrepreneurship easier than ever, a strong desire for autonomy, and start-up role models such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, the two book-end generations of global workers – Millennials and Baby Boomers – are driving a huge spike in the number of professionals looking to create their own business or be self-employed, according to a new global survey commissioned by GoDaddy.

The research found that 36 percent of people plan to either start a small business or be self-employed within the next 10 years. This is especially true of Millennials, with 50 percent saying they plan to be entrepreneurial during the same time period. In fact, 24 percent of Millennials started their current business while they were still in school. That makes them six times more likely to pursue entrepreneurship as a career than their Baby Boomer counterparts were in the 1960s and 1970s.

“We’re entering a Golden Age for entrepreneurs across the world. The combination of accessible technology, cultural acceptance of startups, and the desire for more flexibility in our lives, is causing people to pursue their true career passions at a rate never seen before in history,” said GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving. “The sheer volume of emerging entrepreneurs speaks to a fundamental shift in our society toward ownership and controlling one’s fate.”

Conducted by Morar Consulting and Vrge Analytics, the research surveyed 7,291 professionals, including 2,707 current small business owners or self-employed individuals, in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Singapore, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Technology Eliminates Jobs, Creates Growth
Workers say technology empowers. 81 percent of those surveyed said that technology made starting a business easier, and more than half (56 percent) prefer the “do it yourself” model for handling their tech needs. 58 percent said websites and social media are the most attractive channels to customers. As more people have become comfortable with new technology (cloud, social media, mobile) this decade, they are applying it to their entrepreneur ambitions.

Respondents are also aware that technology can put pressure on their jobs, leading to a potential reduction of hours and layoffs. The loss of jobs is a contributing factor leading many workers to take the small business plunge: 18 percent of small business owners said they started their venture after losing their job. 30 percent of respondents said the introduction of new technologies over the last 3-5 years has negatively reduced their work hours.

Avoiding the Corporate 9-to-5
The survey found that autonomy is the #1 driver to become an entrepreneur. People want the ability to work when they want, where they want, and how they want. Flexibility (41 percent) trumped money (17 percent) and not worrying about corporate layoffs (17 percent) by a wide margin.

Overall, the global research painted a picture of our oldest and youngest generations of workers looking to seize the initiative and control their destiny:
· 36 percent of professionals plan to either start a small business or be self-employed over the next 10 years. Including those who plan to moonlight with full-time jobs, that number jumps to an eye-opening 45 percent.
· Millennials are taking the plunge and starting new ventures at a pace never seen before, with 50 percent indicating they intend to start a new business or become self-employed in the coming decade. In the United States alone, that means 37.7 million new entrepreneurs in the workforce.
· Baby Boomers aren’t planning to stop working in their Golden Years — 21 percent plan to start their own venture within the next 10 years. In the United States, that equates to more than 15.7 million new entrepreneurs.
· 13 percent of Millennials said they were laid off because of new technologies. 36 percent of Millennials said the introduction of new technologies reduced their work hours.
· 7 percent of Baby Boomers said they were laid off because of new technologies. 25 percent of Baby Boomers said the introduction of new technologies reduced their work hours.
· Many would-be entrepreneurs in the United States point to their parents (39 percent) and Mark Zuckerberg (27 percent). But Zuckerberg (40 percent) clearly tops parents (30%) among Millennials. Just over one percent looked up to socialite Kim Kardashian’s method of building a brand.
· Entrepreneurs demonstrate a no-fear attitude. 59 percent of entrepreneurs would try again if their current venture failed. They say grit and determination (76 percent) are more important than having a great idea (53 percent).
· Presidential candidates take note: In the U.S., 60 percent want government to do more to promote small business and entrepreneurs vs. 24 percent who say government should stay out of business all together

The global survey of 7,291 respondents was conducted from August 11-August 21, 2016 in eleven countries.

Old school SMB Nation fans remember our love and affection for BACON! Who can forget our “Save Your Bacon” campaign back in the day promoting StorageCraft? (Remember the bacon bit muffins at SMB Nation Spring?) So

when I attended Simply Measured’s LIFT – Social conference in Seattle last week, I was instantly at home when Chocolate-covered bacon was on the afternoon snack cart.

But this isn’t a foodie review, rather it’s a look at social media analytics. The context is this. If you are reading this blog and seeking to “start-up” a technology business with legs, I’d offer the world of social media and the use of analytics in this Market 2.0 era demands your consideration.

LIFT Social is an ongoing annual conference sponsored by Simply Measured, an analytics ISV in the social media space. Basically it is in the business of providing tools to measure the impact of social media campaigns businesses might execute. For example, Trek was there talking about the use of the analytical tools to measure success in building the Trek bicycle brand using numerous social media tactics such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

First a few takeaways from the conference and then a few observations.

Engagement is not revenue. Towards the end of the conference, I don’t know if I heard a dirty little secret in the social media space or if the speakers were being completely transparent. Loosely translated, the number of likes (Facebook), friends (Facebook), followers (Twitter) and connections (LinkedIn) doesn’t mean jack snitz when it comes to revenue. I’ve always suspected this. Social media is good for brand building but it’s not transactional by its nature. I’ve seen this in several ways. First is our beloved Karl Palachuk of MSP books fame in the SMB space. Karl has worked very hard to build his brand and hit the 5,000 friend limit for a Facebook personal page. And his brand building has resulted in overall success for his book sales. However, if engagement had a direct correlation to revenue, he’d be a billionaire and I’d be shining his shoes. Another example is how I’ll nudge people to attend our weekly webinar. When I post into an Office 365 LinkedIn group with over 90,000 members about a relevant webinar coming up soon, I’ll pull anywhere from zero to a couple new attendees. Several speakers at LIFT Social shared similar disappointments. Such is the state of the Social Media union.

Attribution. Having spent time in the Big Data predictive analytics space, there is always the issue of attribution when working with leads (affiliates and aggregators). Basically the issues surrounding getting credit for driving traffic. Who drove the click? What timeframe does the attribution apply (immediate or forever)? And so on. Simply Measured announced what it claims to be the first attribution measurement tool for social media campaigns. I’ll be meeting with the Simply Measured executive team in a couple weeks to dig deeper into this.
Spying. One speaker named Skylar delivered an impressive speech on competitive intelligence gathering using the Simply Measured tools. It amounted to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Best speech for me.

Sources. The C-level executive at Hubspot demonstrated sources of customer traffic and Google ad words was way low on the scale (below 10%) with sources like Instagram and YouTube fairing much higher. That was an eye opener. I confirmed this later with my 18YO son when he affirmed a media buy to target millennials would be best on Instagram, not Facebook.
Young at Heart. Finally, in the start-up mentality, I found the demographic at LIFT Social to be dramatically different than SMB Nation. Women attendees outnumbered men 2:1 whereas SMB Nation events are 95% male. The average age was significantly lower than our late 40s SMB Nation member. That’s OK as it made me feel young at heart LOL.

I end with a question? Why do these social media millennials end every sentence an octave higher (riser) with the word PERFECT? Not everything is PERFFECT in social media analytics but it’s getting closer to the precise measurements we can gather today with email and adwords campaigns.

Everyone loves a success story. So hang on fast as Atera, a seasoned start-up, is making fast moves in the SMB channel. You’ll recall we extensively covered it’s “Hello 2016” launch at the start of the year. There is ample evidence suggesting nine out of ten start-ups fail (of course) but I’m more interested in learning what makes the ten percent successful like this Forbes article did. Needless to say I count Atera in this top ten percent. So what’s it’s secret to success as an all-in-one SMB RMM/PSA/Remote Access ISV?

First – the word is out. Atera has enjoyed outsized publicity and coverage because of its market timing to provide a right-sized all-in-one RMM Software, PSA and Remote access SaaS solution for the SMB channel partner. “Our target market are the smaller VARs and MSPs.” Gil Pekelman, Atera CEO, shared during a far reaching interview. “Our pricing model of $89 per technician is both a fraction of the cost of an existing RMM player (not to mention PSA) and the fact that it is not Agent based pricing makes it totally disruptive.” As a privately-held company, Atera doesn’t release financial information but I can attest that its growth rate is significantly ahead of plan, having reviewed some internal information.

Second – Continuous Innovation. “We launched The Benchmark: This is an industry first – utilizing big data analysis we provide our users with Data (KPI’s) that can guide them if its business is on the right track. For example, we just released within our new billing module a comparison between the contracts the MSP has with his customer and the industry median hourly price.” Pekelman added. In a future contribution about Atera’s SMB channel journey, I will dig much deeper into the analytics topic.

Third – Community Feedback. A day doesn’t pass where I’m not promoting the authenticity of the SMB Nation community based on our geek roots dating back to the beginning of time (the release of the Small Business Server product in the late 1990s). Money and time haven’t changed us as we remain a bona fide grass roots community still committed to changing the world. Here’s the good news. Atera thinks like us too! Pekelman proudly “peacocked” his open feedback approach. “It’s an open/transparent/Internet model – You know what we have, what you will pay and what we are working one…. http://ideas.atera.com/?sort=popular” Loosely translated, Pekelman is saying that Atera’s innovation is based on community feedback.

This transparent community paradigm has allowed Atera to gleam insights into its VAR/MSP customers. “For the small guy what did we do? We changed his life.” Pekelman declared. “He can now afford an all-in-one MSP Software platform (or save a lot of money on the system he has). The system is so easy and automated that he can actually use it without hiring PSA/RMM implementation consultants. He has a unique Offering – Unlimited Agents vs. all those MSPs that are stilling using an agent based product. We are giving him a compass to run his business and guide him to a healthy one.”

Finally – design. I can attest to the simplicity of the Atera solution. I reviewed that aspect earlier this year .

Over the next couple of months, I’ll continue to track Atera’s success. It’s one to watch.

PS – If you downloaded and used Atera in a trial several months ago, DO IT AGAIN! It’s rate of innovation is amazing so the version you worked with a few months ago is different today!

 Since NetConnect splashed on the US MSP scene in 2Q, I’m monitoring the chatter and am finding that MSPs, while sincerely intrigued, still have more questions about this “Workspace as a Service” (WaaS) solution

designed to implement at SMB customer sites. The purpose of this blog is to dig deep and steep to offer additional WaaS insights. First things first. Take a moment to review prior NetConnect missives here and here.

Once NetConnect is installed and configured, customers are able to access your environment from any device you like; in practical terms, this means you can access that old, legacy application from the latest iPad!

In fact, customers who use behind-the-times business critical programs get a new lease of life by mobilizing with NetConnect – if the application vendor can’t provide a solution to fit with the modern way of working, NetConnect can step up to the plate. For staff, who need to work offsite and are struggling with the headache of setting up VPN connections or fixing an RDP shortcut that’s inexplicitly stopped working, can now access straigt from their browser-even better, you can do this on a Mac or PC.

This is important. As an added bonus, the unique approach to printing allows user to print to any locally accessible printer with no configuration, driver installs or setup. The company doesn’t have to worry about threats to their network, as no device ever connects to the environment; NetConnect acts like a clear pane of glass.

I can offer that best of all it integrates with Active Directory, meaning there’s not additional accounts to be setup, no additional point of management to be considered for day-to-day tasks and users get single sign on to their applications or desktop - simple. I can’t emphasize that enough.

Next steps
Northbridge Secure runs an active partner program to support NetConnect partners at every possible turn.

• There’s a certification process for both sales and technical staff as well as access to NFR licence for internal use and demonstration.
• Northbridge support partners with setting up in-house demo environments, proof of concepts or adding applications to their own public demo to support your sales cycle.
• Partners are given access to everything they require to independently identify, scope, quote & install.

Finally
One of the great advantages NetConnect has over a product like Citrix is the unparalleled access partners have to the sales and technical teams; Northbridge are in that sweet spot of being big enough to produce consistent, stable innovation and yet small and agile enough

By Pete Engler

With today’s emphasis on “modern” marketing, we’re told we need to understand who and where our prospective clients are so that we can help guide the decision-making process. Is it really possible to influence your customer’s buying decision? Who are your customers, and where do you find them? As a technology reseller, you’ve likely tried to answer all of these questions in an effort to increase sales. Here are some basic considerations for reaching and influencing your buyers.

When researching this topic, it quickly becomes clear that the vast majority of information about “who” the technology buyers are require that you classify buyers by their age, or generation: Baby Boomer, Gen X or Millennial. This is probably not surprising given that we tend to believe buying habits vary greatly between the youngest (Millennials) to the oldest (Baby Boomers). If segmenting your customers solely by the generation into which they were born, then the next set of information you want to understand is which group makes the majority of purchasing decisions; are the decision-makers spread evenly throughout those groups; and how can these buyers be influenced? The next dilemma is how to reach the decision makers. Where and how to find buyers has changed, in large part due to the digital age. Buyers are now reached through social media, internet ads, product review sites, product reviews on vendor sites and others. These avenues have also contributed to making purchasing decisions easier and sometimes much quicker, because information is now at the buyer’s fingertips. But are these sources of information influencing like we believe? The only real way to answer that question is to talk to your customers; but research tends to confirm that technology buyers are heavily influenced by the online content they consume from third parties, peers and vendors (or brands).

Knowing how your customer base gets their information is vital in marketing to them. Using recent studies and blogs posted by the Arketi Group, MarketingSherpa and Techaisle, the findings show all tech buyers, regardless of age, use essentially the same methods for obtaining information to make purchasing decisions. The methods most likely used are traditional, such as product demos, vendor meetings, white papers, colleagues and referrals from industry peers. While the methods may be traditional, the delivery of all this content is vastly different thanks to the internet and social media. These are most likely the avenues where the information is found so vendors and VARs need to maintain strong online marketing efforts.

Another twist with marketing comes through word of mouth. While online peer review is an influential source of persuasive information, you cannot discount offline word of mouth referrals. As a reseller, your reputation in the local market is key as decision makers network and compare notes on VARs, vendors and solutions. In speaking directly with resellers, many still maintain a steady and growing business via word of mouth alone. Others say they rely on the founder, or sales and marketing teams, to figure out who the decision makers are in each target account and use traditional sales techniques to persuade them to purchase. When it comes to word-of-mouth influencing tech buyers, this is one area where you may see a generational difference. Unlike Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers, Millennials have not been in the workforce as long and may not have the same network of peers and offline research avenues established as an older generation worker may have. So they may rely more on their colleagues for information.

When it comes time to locating and making contact with the business that is ready to buy, it may be tricky to identify the person who has ultimate decision-making authority. This is sometimes closely held information. Within any organization, especially across the SMB space, the individual who has the authority to buy and how they are influenced can vary quite a bit. The purchasing power may depend on the structure of the organization. For example, when it comes to IT-related technology, the IT manager may have the authority. Given the size of the SMB, the final decision could be left to the CEO, based on the input from the various department managers. Or if large enough a CIO spends as they see fit to support an organization within their budget. In some instances the decision maker may not know technically or functionally which is the best product or service the organization needs. Instead, a subject matter expert will outline the pros and cons with a few solutions making the final cut. Then pricing undoubtedly becomes the defining piece to win the sale.

The safe bet is if you are selling a specific product or service and don’t know who has the final say, find the owner of the corresponding department and they will either make or heavily influence the decision. There are many ways to find this stakeholder, from traditional, “old school” methods of calling the business, to more modern approaches such as using social media. LinkedIn, for example, can provide a complete employee directory, so to speak, and contact is made relatively easily through that social media site. In the end, even in the digital age the methods for reaching and passing information to prospects is a blend of the traditional and ‘modern’ marketing and sales approach.

Pete Engler is the channel marketing manager at Digium, a business communications company based in Huntsville, Ala., that delivers enterprise-class Unified Communications.

Conference calls make doing business easier. Unfortunately, traditional conference call services can be cost-prohibitive and difficult to use for many SMBs. That’s why AppRiver recently rolled out dial-in conferencing as a part of its Office 365 service.

Customers using the service can host conference calls for audiences small or large on their computers, cell phones or landlines – often for about half the cost of other premium services, and managed right from familiar tools like the Outlook desktop and Web clients. For AppRiver’s resellers, it’s a convenient way to incorporate another critical business function into their practices, saving their customers money and growing their topline revenue at the same time.

AppRiver offers several Office 365 and hosted Exchange plans designed to match the needs of businesses of all sizes. Now, customers can add unlimited dial-in conferencing to Skype for Business at a budget price, just for the users who need it. For most organizations, this price point could mean a dramatic cost savings compared to standalone services currently on the market.

Dial-in Conferencing adds valuable new capabilities to Skype for Business service plans, which already include secure instant messaging, screen, file, and application sharing capabilities for meeting organizers and attendees. For attendees who need or prefer a benchmark dial-in audio connection, the new PSTN conferencing option is the ideal solution.

AppRiver is a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), and helped Microsoft develop the Indirect model that powers the growth of the CSP program today. As a result, AppRiver’s channel sales advisors, support team and billing staff have years of experience helping partners price, sell, bill and support Office 365 for their customers. This experience can be invaluable for resellers who are new to Office 365 or who can’t or choose not to participate in the CSP program on their own.

Many SMB Nation members have seen the recent G.E. television advertisement where a younger geek tells parents and friends he is joining old school G.E. as a developer. Needless to say, the geek’s career aspirations are met with disdain in this deadpan spot. But there is truth to humor. Recently the New York Times article “G.E., the 124-Year-Old Software Start-up” states the obvious that G.E. has to reinvent itself to survive and thrive.

The net-net of the article, which you should read, is about G.E. capitalizing on the Internet of Things (IoT) with software controls.

I applaud G.E. for hitting it head-on. For the past year, I’ve preached that the old school server-side SMB Nation ‘puter guys have got to reinvent or retire. And I’m starting to run out of words LOL. I’ve sliced and diced this conversation and enjoyed the interchanges with SMB Nation readers and event attendees along the way. In fact, join our dialog on our Facebook page here.

Tips for pulling a “G.E.” reskilling maneuver?
Consider teaming with our training partner, SQLSoft3, to re-up your hard core skill sets. Right now it’s offering exam vouchers below cost and it has an upcoming Azure course you can attend online.

Finally, to bring this conversation full circle, be sure to check-out the G.E. job board for giggles.  Here you can see what skills are in demand. And point your kids to the same site for a stir to see their reaction.

    With all due respect and honor, it’s time to remember September 11, 2001 which was 15-years ago today. Everyone has a memory and we welcome your stories on our Facebook page.

    Briefly, today is my birthday and it is the same day my father was born. In part, that’s why we shared the

same name (my father passed away about 13-years ago). So this date will forever be ingrained in our collective psyche because of the “9-11” tragedy. On that day, my own story is this. I was up early and making final preparations to fly from Seattle to Boston. 

SMB Nation was representing Gateway Computers at an ITEC tradeshow the following day. I was “in the booth” lecturing on Small Business Server in mini-sessions on a three-month tour. For whatever reason, I had turned on the morning news and saw the early coverage moments after the first jetliner had hit the World Trade Center. I witnessed the second jet on live TV hitting the second tower.

After those moments, my memory is somewhat of a blur. Of course I did not fly to Boston that day on the Gateway Computers tour. I remember the TV channels only having news or going dark for several days. Like everyone, I had a range of feelings and emotions in the months that followed and I had heightened awareness of my surroundings as I was traveling by air frequently that Fall.

What’s your story? I’d love for you to share your memory as a sign of respect for the fallen. Thank you.

Microsoft is adding a Fast Ring option to its Office Insider test program for Windows desktops, Windows 10 Mobile, iOS and Android.

By Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft has an Office Insider testing program that shares a number of similarities with its Windows Insider program, but one difference between the two has been scope.

The Office Insider program, which Microsoft launched in November 2015, didn't initially support different test rings. The one rather odd exception was the Office Insider for Mac program, which did include both Fast and Slow ring options, since June 2016. (Microsoft added Office for Mac users to its Insider test program in January 2016.)

Today, August 30, Microsoft disclosed it would be adding a Fast Ring option to its Office Insider program for users on other platforms, beyond Mac OS.

With the arrival of cloud computing and a reduction in the use of paper documents worldwide, the act of printing is becoming increasingly rare in the modern office. Selling a used printer, buying a new one or recycling a used printer for cash are all possible options thanks to PowerSource Online.

Our B2B online platform allows members to buy, sell or recycle their used IT and Telecom equipment, including printers, laptops, servers, phones and other products they no longer need. PowerSource Online brings together thousands of buyers who are seeking new, used and refurbished IT and telecom parts and equipment on a regular basis. By becoming a member, you will be able to advertise your excess equipment, parts or unique services to qualified dealers, resellers and service providers, growing your customer base and increasing your sales prospects. The items you want to sell will be automatically advertised via email to hundreds of members that are constantly seeking to buy used IT equipment and spare parts.

 PowerSource allows users to search for a specific part number, model number, product manufacturer or keyword by typing it in the PowerSource database search bar. In the search results, buyers can immediately see if a product is available from our suppliers. By clicking on the part number or description, a buyer can see the complete product details and supplier information, providing the opportunity for a quick sale.

 PowerSource Online also offers its members the ability to trade used electronics equipment, including printers, laptops and more, for cash by selecting the product they would like to trade. Our database instantly shows the trade-in value, and generates a shipping label that can be used to ship the item directly to the buyer.

 Take advantage of our web-based selling platform to efficiently source or dispose of your hard-to-find, excess, discontinued, obsolete and end-of-life computer parts, printers, systems and more. 

 Take the time to enjoy a Free Tour, and see how PowerSource Online can increase your profits.

If you are starting up a new technology-based entrepreneurial endeavor, you need to heed the wisdom of many before you. It’s about who you know. I can attest to that my relationships have yield more return on investment that my intellectual capabilities. Ultimately I made more money as a “rainmaker” than a hard core geek (although you need both as a technical professional – don’t get me wrong).

One of the secrets to my success is applying analytics to my data. In this case, the secret I want to share concerns mining your

LinkedIn connections. Before I share the special link that will give you a bona fide business boost, please indulge in some context.

Be aggressive in making connections. Early in the life of LinkedIn, there was a strong cultural norm that you should not over connect with people you don’t really know. And to some extent, the LinkedIn connection procedure still forces you to demonstrate some type of alleged relationship with the recipient. But there are now one-day workshops and countless YouTube videos advising you on how to build your list of LinkedIn connections as fast and large as possible to engage in business development.

When you connect with someone, you can message them, endorse and recommend them. But did you know if you click on the little Contact Info icon below the individual’s picture, you can often see a telephone number and an email address. The email address is very interesting because it is usually a “back email” address such as Gmail or Hotmail. It’s often not their corporate email address. When people set-up their LinkedIn account, they frequently use a personal email address so that the authentication and identity credentials travel with the individual (e.g. if they change jobs) and not with the “company.” The little secret here is that you can email these people at a little-used back email address and get their undivided attention. Make sense?

If gets better. When you follow the connection download procedure below, you can easily aggregate all of your connections with email addresses on a single spreadsheet (CSV) format. In my case, that’s 3,297 connections I’ve legitimately built up over several years. When I have access to all of that connection information in one Microsoft Excel 2016 worksheet, the world if my oyster. I can slice, dice, sort and pivot this important data to make it rain dollars!

So you’ve waited long enough – here is the link.

With Fall arriving quickly, it’s time to sharpen the saw as a life learner. In the spirit of “back to school,” Karl Palachuk has just released a four (4) volume “Managed Services Operations Manual” audio book set.

This is important to know for several reasons, the least of which is many of you are trying to “start over” in the new-new world of cloud.

Firstly, many SMB Nation fans have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) whether you want to admit it or not. How do I know this?

Because you are a high tech entrepreneur running your own MSP consulting reseller practice. And having ADHD is actually a success factor (even your secret weapon) despite what the Catholic nuns told you in grammar school. What I’ve personally found and studies now confirm is audio books are a way for ADHD afflicted people to “read books” and absorb the content. (Success secret: You can also have other documents read aloud in Windows 10 with the [Windows] [Enter] keystroke sequence to launch Narrator).

Buy Karl's Books! Keep your eyes open for a future webcast featuring Karl (Superman) and me (Batman) as we debate learning methods between ADHD and non-ADHD entrepreneurs. For example, I’m huge on using Slack and OneNote as a way to put everything back together again in my mind. Karl promotes the single screen experience and avoiding email pop-ups. We intend to host debate this before the end of 2016.

Second, I can honestly say, if I were starting-over, I’d start with Karl’s operations books. Why? Because for many years I resisted bing operationally oriented and then I finally hired Jenny Hallmark to run things. The point is that I learned to honor the importance of operations the hard way. And while I’m streetwise today about this matter, I’d be a better entrepreneur if I had the likes of Karl’s knowledge nuggets earlier in my career. This is something you can attend to right here, right now.

Third, Karl is a long-time friend of the SMB Nation family and has offered a 10 percent savings coupon for you. Here is how you enjoy the savings. Read the blog about what the Managed Services Operations Manual offering is and decide if this is right for you. Then when you purchase, enter the code smbnation2016 for the additional 15 percent savings.

Think of it this way. The entire Karl bundle is cheaper than one (1) undergraduate textbook in Aerospace Engineering. Trust me.

Ben Austin, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Continuum Managed Services

Managed services providers (MSPs) are trusted advisors to their clients. By acting as virtual CIO (VCIO), safeguarding the health of IT environments and maximizing the ROI of their clients’ IT budgets, MSPs are responsible for increasing the business efficiency and profitability of the organizations they serve. This relationship is often started with the implied trust of a customer that their MSP will deliver as promised in the sales cycle. Then, as time rolls by, that trust becomes more tangible based on the actual experience with their MSP.

As this trust grows so does the responsibility of the MSP. One area that MSPs ultimately have significant influence over is the handling and protection of one of their client’s greatest business assets: their data. This trust is at its apex in the delivery of completely reliable and modern backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solutions.

For your end-clients, BDR solutions are similar to umpires in a baseball game. If you never find yourself talking about them then everything is probably going smoothly. It’s when data loss or excessive downtime occurs that clients lose faith in the credibility of your business continuity offering.

With so much at stake, it’s vital that MSPs minimize any concerns with their business continuity offering by investing in the right BDR platform. So how do you know which solution is right for you? One easily identifiable and often overlooked approach is to work with an IT management platform provider that owns its BDR technology and handles service delivery of the product from top to bottom. Let’s examine a few of the reasons why this particular service is one that MSPs want to be as close to the source as possible.

1. The MSP can influence product changes – When a managed services provider works with a business partner that has complete ownership over its BDR technology, the MSP can request additional features and functionality that will make them more productive and strengthen their overall offering. If the BDR solution used by an MSP is several touches away from them, they likely won’t have much influence in changes that improve the BDR software’s performance. The MSP could even miss out on the chance to test new product developments before they are implemented. While some might think it risky to be the first to try something new in a product offering, it can actually serve as a competitive advantage. Working directly with the owner of the BDR technology is a great opportunity to bring something to end users before anyone else, thus possibly providing a first-mover advantage.
2.  MSPs can have an elevated level of trust in their BDR partner – Having that level of involvement in influencing product roadmap and other important aspects of a BDR offering can create a real trust between the MSP and their provider. MSPs strive to earn the trust of their clients. Part of that comes from having trust in the technology partners and vendors that sit behind them as they go to market. Having some skin in the game with regard to impacting product development is a great opportunity for an MSP to deliver BDR solutions to their clients with the utmost confidence.Having some input in the product roadmap and maintaining business interests that align with those of your BDR partner certainly signal a relationship that’s built to last, but what directly impacts your business’ bottom line? How can working with a BDR provider that owns all of its backup technology help grow margins?
3. Independent platform pricing protects the MSP’s margins– With no middle man markup, the MSP avoids price ceilings that can result when subject to third-party technology. In purchasing a BDR platform subscription from an independent provider, they can protect their margins by increasing gross profitability. Profit is inversely related to cost. The higher the expenditure, the lower your bottom line. Instead of having to pay extra for support once removed, work with a BDR partner that owns its solution, thereby allowing you to cut costs. By the same token, to further increase profitability, look for BDR software and service delivery that helps you maintain financial stability by maximizing revenue.
4.  Having support closer to the end client raises customer satisfaction – Typically, the closer support is to the end-client, the more efficient the response and issue resolution. In the instance where a BDR platform provider owns and develops its entire BDR solution, any support calls that are taken are handled right then and there. Additionally, expect support staff to manage issues and answer questions in a timelier manner. These technicians will likely be more knowledgeable of the BDR product (and therefore understand its intricacies) if the solution is owned in-house. Increased familiarity with the backup technology and all its ins and outs ensures a higher degree of service delivery because the MSP (and end client, by extension) doesn’t have to wait for a third-party vendor to deduce why the BDR software may be acting in a certain way. The less turnaround time to fulfill a client request, the better the client experience overall.

These latter two points help MSPs create loyal fans, increase client retention and capture more upsell and cross-sell revenue, without incurring the costs of losing business. As a result, independent BDR platforms enable MSPs that are offering business continuity services to be more profitable.

Become a Major BDR Player with Continuity247™

Fully-managed BDR platform, Continuity247, is owned and operated entirely by Continuum, allowing the company to deliver the peace of mind provided by each of the four points outlined above. Continuum is committed to ensuring its partners receive unparalleled support and regularly make refinements and improvements based on partner feedback. With this shared ownership, trust is at the core of its business model. You can always count on Continuum to have your back. Nowhere is this more evident than with the level of BDR service that partners receive from its world-class Network Operations Center (NOC).

For example, with Continuity247™, Continuum’s team of 700 NOC technicians provides partners 24x7x365 backup support. In addition to absorbing time-consuming, labor-intensive responsibilities like testing and monitoring backups so MSPs don’t have to, support staff is intimately familiar with the BDR technology, understands its DNA and is able to more quickly troubleshoot its behavior. To strengthen technical support for Continuity247, Continuum also combines deep product education with regular internal training to reinforce the BDR service delivery on partners’ behalves. Continuum is the final line of support, which means the company can answer any product-related inquiries internally, rather than having to rely on a third-party to respond. Finally, Continuity247 was built with partners’ profit margins in mind. Since they’re not constrained to the pricing of a third-party vendor, partners can yield a higher profit by selling their business continuity services at a much higher rate than what they purchased them for.

Whether you’re thinking about switching providers or just getting into the BDR market for the first time, you have to vet what you are actually getting in a BDR solution vs. just simply the shopping price.

Do you know if your current BDR provider owns all of their backup technology? If not, you may want to start asking questions regarding their BDR offering to ensure you are getting the most value for your spend. Only after examining solutions under this lens can you accurately compare BDR platforms and make an informed purchasing decision.

Ben Austin is the Sr. Product Marketing Manager for Continuum’s backup and disaster recovery products. He has experience in high-velocity content marketing and demand generation. He graduated with a degree in journalism from Emerson College and has spent his career researching and writing about the B2B tech industry.

New technology allows rapid boot of backup images directly on VMware ESXi hosts

            DRAPER, Utah, -- Aug. 30, 2016 -- Global backup and disaster recovery leader, StorageCraft® Technology Corp., announced the release of StorageCraft VirtualBoot™ for vSphere, a new technology that makes the recovery of data and systems exponentially faster and more efficient. This unique technology gives StorageCraft ShadowProtect SPX users the ability to rapidly virtualize backup images as guest virtual machines (VMs) directly on VMware ESXi hosts without the use of an intermediary appliance or secondary conversion process.

VirtualBoot for vSphere is used in conjunction with StorageCraft ShadowProtect SPX backup and disaster recovery software and is included with every SPX license. VirtualBoot for vSphere was developed in joint collaboration and participation with VMware through their vSphere APIs for I/O Filtering (VAIO) Program and is now certified as VMware Ready.

VirtualBoot for vSphere uniquely enables users to:

• Instantly virtualize SPX or ShadowProtect backup images as guest VMs directly on the ESXi hypervisor
• Permanently migrate physical systems or VMs from a different hypervisor platform to ESXi with minimal downtime
• Easily test changes to production systems offline
• Leverage existing VMware investments to maximize ROI

            “If a business is experiencing IT downtime, it is imperative that it get access to its valuable data and mission-critical systems as quickly as possible. StorageCraft VirtualBoot for vSphere is a great business continuity tool because it removes time-consuming steps and frees up resources during the all-important recovery process,” said Scott Barnes, StorageCraft’s Chief Technology Officer. “StorageCraft VirtualBoot for vSphere is another example of how StorageCraft is enabling its partners to reliably protect their clients’ data and systems while being as efficient as possible.”
           

More information about StorageCraft VirtualBoot for vSphere is available at www.storagecraft.com/products/virtualboot. Managed service providers (MSPs) and value-added resellers (VARs) can learn how to become members of the award-winning StorageCraft Partner Network at www.storagecraft.com/partnerships.

Throughout the years, StorageCraft Recovery Solution components have been recognized by analysts, leading IT publications, and most importantly, IT professionals for their speed and reliability. Among recent accolades, StorageCraft won the ASCII Cup Vendor of the Year award, the Redmond Channel Partner Editor’s Choice Award for Best Storage Software and a fourth-consecutive PC Magazine’s Editors’ Choice award.

I was speaking to my friends at SQLSoft3 and they have 30 extra Microsoft Exam Vouchers that they are selling at $20 under their cost. When the 30 are gone, that's it.... so if you are a Microsoft Partner or an IT Pro or Developer who is interested in certification, you won't find Microsoft official certification exams any cheaper. Microsoft has a certification exam quota and SQLSoft3 needs to sell 30 more of them this year; so their loss is your gain!

Here is how it works:

Purchase one or more standard Microsoft Certification Exam Vouchers - Use the coupon code of "QUOTA" at checkout and you can purchase your exam voucher for $20 below cost of the usual $165 price (after "QUOTA" discount - $145) or the Plus version with a Practice Test for $190 after the "QUOTA" discount. Buy now and you still have 12 months to register for the exam.               

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There is also a Microsoft Exam Voucher Promo that gets you more, but is only good until August 31. Purchase one or more Microsoft's Booster Pack Promo 1-2-3 options and use the promo code "QUOTA" to get $20 off. Microsoft's Booster Pack promotion includes an exam voucher and practice test and/or 4 exam retakes. Note: The Microsoft Booster Pack promotion ends in five days on August 31, so this promo will be gone after that.

If you don’t already know, SQLSoft3 is the home of reality-priced IT Professional, Developer, and Security training for Azure, SQL Server, Identity Management, Windows 10, Windows Server, Sharepoint, System Center, Visual Studio, Exchange, Skype and more. SQLSoft3 offers the lowest prices for Microsoft MOC On-Demand training in the known Universe and continues to deliver live IT Instructor-led training to individuals as well as custom training events for national and global companies. Over the past 20+ years, they have trained over 50,000+ IT Professionals and Developers.

Earlier this month, the Seattle Times ran a thoughtful article about a long journey for Microsoft contractors to unionize. The short story is these “perma-temps” where seeking benefits and stability afforded permanent Microsoft employees. Please read here before proceeding further so you have the proper context about what I plan to say.

Many words have been written over the past two years about the changing nature of the relationship between partners and vendors. My own take is that partners pride themselves as technology and business advisors providing value as consultants to clients. That’s what gets us up in the morning. No doubt about it.

But in a quantitative-based “Marketing 2.0” world of measurable metrics, the SMB vendors have become not nice people, viewing us as “resellers” who have no other passion than to sell licenses. Their Jim Crow language about “partnering” and their degrading actions are repulsive and highly offensive to our culture. And they don’t care. It’s all about the monthly pipeline report. Unknowingly they are increasingly biting the hand that feeds them.
This sets up the dynamic for considering some type of organization. When relationships are out of balance, there will be a reaction. Just ask the US Republican party in this Fall’s elections. Given over 80% of the SMB Nation tribe self-identifies themselves as MSPs, I’d offer this is a segment you shouldn’t ignore.

Years ago, under the late Jim Locke, the fledging SMB Technology Network (SMBTN) messaged aspects of organizing as a collective to bargain both against and fairly with the vendors. It was one of its pillars if not mission statement. While its intentions were noble, it didn’t execute broadly to truly organize MSPs to cut better deals with vendors and receive better treatment.

So in the spirit of late August crowd sourcing, use the comment section to tell me what you think. Should MSPs lead a revolution?

PS - this topic is just in time for Labor day next week LOL!

Long-time SMB Nation member Daniel Williams (Xpedeus) from Tampa, FL asked a very relevant question this past week. I wanted to crowd source the answer.

Dan asked: What MS “certs” or MS programs can our Xpedeus consultants gain for becoming “MS Cloud” consultants and transitioning Xpedeus to become an MS Cloud consultancy? In the old SBS days it was easy, just become Small Business Specialist. What is the equivalent in the cloud? It seems MS has so many programs for becoming a “cloud guy” I am not sure which applies best to Xpedeus customer base of 5-250 knowledge-worker companies.

Harry here. I’d offer the short answer is that Dan jump into the Microsoft Cloud Services Provider (CSP) program with both feet. There are a few resources for Dan to learn more. One is Microsoft itself. https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-solution-provider The other concerns third-party Office 365 ecosystem partners such as AppRiver, long-time supporter of SMB Nation. https://www.appriver.com/partners/resell-office-365

But most importantly, I want to hear from YOU the reader in answering Dan’s important question. Please leave a comment on this blog which I’ll approve and also use in a follow-up contribution next week. Thanks in advance.

You knew it was coming. It arrived in my Inbox as a forwarded email from SMB Nation community member David Gerhart from Bend, OR. David is an IT consultant and he received a “lead” from LinkedIn’s new ProFinder service (which I consdier a start-up).

LinkedIn has always had the underutilized asset of millions of details on millions of people. It’s discovering ways that it can now offer a plethora of new professional services including training (see my blog how LinkedIn’s Lynda competes with Microsoft Learning Partners here) And rest assured I’ve kept an eagle-eye on LinkedIn for years including having attended its world launch Cocktail Mixer Party in Seattle in November 2014.

LinkedIn ProFinder challenges MSPs in a couple of fronts. First – there are spot buyers of IT services in the SMB space who don’t want or understand the value of a long-term contract. Second - there are existing MSPs customers who will re-evaluate their needs as they understand what LinkedIn ProFinder is. They might possibly bump into it in a different realm, perhaps trying to out Angie on Angie’s List for some minor repairs.

And this is a threat to labor markets like OnForce as LinkedIn, using Big Data, just has deeper analytics and richer resources to draw on. It’s also neutralized an overthought idea that “I should monetize my huge LinkedIn group into a labor market and connect group members with customers needing services.” I’ve heard that idea several times from entrepreneurs who believed that they had invented this idea of labor markets (remember the “Windows 7 was my idea” TV commercials?). As a side note, we performed a few “stress tests” against several LinkedIn groups over the last year to test the “strength” of the list membership and we were roundly disappointed. First - LinkedIn changed the look/feel and even modified the algorithms of the groups, causing interest levels to fade quickly. Second – LinkedIn groups like “Microsoft Office 365” (with 85,623 members) don’t convert to actions such as signing up for a webinar. It all looks good on paper but the data doesn’t lie. Enter LinkedIn ProFinder with its natural competitive advantage.

Here is how LinkedIn ProFinder works for the customer:
1. Tell us what you need.
2. Get free proposals from up to five professionals eager to help.
3. Hire with confidence. You select the right pro but if you need help, there is a ProFinder concierge team that helps the customer with every step. This is perhaps the most disturbing feature. LinkedIn is devoting real-time resources in the bid-sell process. That’s something of an antithesis maneuver that online labor markets can’t match and ultimately affect MSPs.

There are over 13 service categories ranging from Accounting to IT Services to Real Estate.
Turning the argument around, there is an opportunity to sign-up as a service provider for LinkedIn ProFinder. I liken it to gap filler work akin to being a part-time Uber driver. The sign-up process results in the following motions:
1. Get leads in your Inbox.
2. Respond on your terms.
3. Get hired.

When I signed up, the services radio button only allowed me to select one service category, so I selected IT Services. Then a selection box menu allowed me to make several selections including IT Consulting and Computer Networking. Next I had to put in my phone number. At this point, a must read is the LinkedIn ProFinder – Terms and Conditions, which amongst other things limits its liability (not surprisingly).

Back to David Gerhart. The lead information I received is the basis for my blog today but the shoe didn’t fit for me. It was for an engagement in Portland, OR.
In a forthcoming blog, I’ll detail how Amazon will ultimately be a competitor to MSPs using its Big Data analytics. Standby.

We are delighted by the strong reception we’ve enjoyed introducing the merger and acquisition conversation into the SMB Nation audience this past couple of months. Seems like the stars are aligned with key demographics represented in our recent 2016 Salary Survey. You are a mature audience and very quickly life is happening before your very eyes. So your needs are changing from Geek to Grandparent (okay – that’s a bit of a stretch but there is truth to humor). You proudly are approaching 20-years in the IT profession.

And you are consciously re-evaluating your life and business strategy. 

At our 16th annual SMB Nation picnic this past week, M&A was a conversation amongst the MSPs!

This past week, our MSP M&A "Sell-side" (Part 2) webinar offered the following nuggets:

• Discover how to value your business
• Preparing for due diligence
• Creating the big notebook
• Approaching potential buyers
• Retaining experts (and avoiding business brokers)
• Managing expectation about the negotiating phase
• Separating heart from mind
• And much more…

Note you can watch the webinar replay here and scroll down to the Replay Webinar link for MSP M&A "Sell-side" (Part 2). More importantly, you can sign-up for this week’s “Free Consulting Hour: MSP M&A” where we will answer your specific questions here. No slide deck. No presentation. You’ll love it.

So exactly who are “we” and what are we doing? Tim Carlsen has hopped on board at SMB Nation to assist with us helping you in the M&A area. Tim’s investment and VC background is detailed here.

Between our respective skills, we now offer an M&A advisory service to MSPs in the SMB community. We’re already assisting four clients and can only accommodate five more in 2016. Reach out to Tim at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more details.

Email archiving has been a best practice for many years across all industries, but particularly in heavily regulated industries like financial services, healthcare, energy,
life sciences, government and several others. Organizations have invested significantly in legacy archiving platforms, many of which no longer adequately serve their needs in terms of performance, scale, compliance or feature sets.

Consequently, organizations must find a way to migrate their archived content to new platforms, either on-premises or in the cloud. The latter has become particularly important as a
driver for migration of archived content, since a growing proportion of organizations are moving to cloud-based email platforms, most notably Microsoft Office 365.

However, archive migration is not a simple task: in fact, it’s rather complex and requires considerable forethought and planning in order to migrate data reliably while also maintaining the integrity and preserving the full chain-of-custody for migrated data. Further complicating any migration effort is the need to maintain access to archived content for end users and other stakeholders, all while migrating data within a reasonable timeframe and with as little impact as possible on normal business operations.

Migrating from Exchange journal archives or other single instance archive formats to Office 365 – one of the most common types of archive migrations occurring today –
necessitates a paradigm shift because Office 365 does not use the single instance format used for the journal archive in Exchange. While a migration to Office 365 can be performed reliably and in a way that maintains chain-of-custody, it requires a unique approach that will minimize the impact on network bandwidth and that will permit an organization to retain its existing investments in eDiscovery and other
tools. (It is important to note that journal archive migration is different than migration of user archives, a distinction we discuss in this paper)

Download this white paper to learn; key reasons to consider a migration, critical issues to think about during planning & implementation, and the importance of maintaining compliance..

Back in the early Windows Small Business Server (SBS) days, Trend Micro made a significant commitment to developing solutions and branding around SBS. In no small part it contributed to the multi-fold growth Trend Micro has experienced over the past 15-years. I certainly appreciate its community commitment because year-in and year-out, community members could depend on Trend Micro to suit up and show up.

Now it feels like déjà vu. Trend Micro is going big in the Office 365 community this year. It starts with strategic direction at the top management level. Seeing the momentum of Office 365 growth at 70% year-over-year in Microsoft FY2016  it’s easy to see why Trend Micro is placing bets on this community.

Here is what you can expect from Trend Micro’s Office 365 push moving forward.  

Community involvement. Trend Micro is again appearing more and more at numerous community events. These include our own Tour de Cloud events starting in mid-September.

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). A couple of years ago as Office 365 was building momentum, Trend Micro was the only major security ISV at the 2014 WPC and I wrote about it here. The context was reintroducing Trend Micro to the community because with the demise of SBS and the early stages of Office 365 growth, there was a perception we’d lost touch with Trend Micro, even if briefly.

Long-term Commitment. When Intel acquired McAfee it essentially rebuffed community outreach efforts to engage in sincere and mindful ways with the working men and women of SMB Nation, focusing on the Big Boys and Distis. Fast forward the movie and McAfee is gone, a victim of Intel arrogance. That misstep underscores that Trend Micro is doing right by the SMB Nation tribe right here right now.

Bottom line: Learn more about Advanced Threat Protection for Office 365 and File Sharing here.

Many readers know that we’ve helped tell the attachedapps story at SMB Nation for the past 2+ years. It’s a start-up that has “layered” on top of Office 365 with a -baby CRM- solution similar to Business Contact Manager (BCM) in the early 2000s. This past week, BoomTime announced the acquisition of attachedapps to integrate it into its Marketing-as-a-Service (MaaS) play. I consider this a case of attachedapps starting over with a new life.

I have used attachedapps in a Big Data venture I’m involved in and I can honestly say I know the product intimately. Its paradigm was -shared contacts- for the GoDaddy-sized S of SMB. I’ve used it for its simplicity in a start-up where Salesforce or Dynamics would be overkill. Somethings I like (the reporting) and some things I don’t (hard to customize). Overall I think it’s a good move that attachedapps was acquired by BoomTime. To me, strategically, it’s a case of a solution that has now found a home.

However, in the spirt of being independent and transparency, the attachedapps acquisition does raise concerns. It is not taking on new customers for now. The roadmap with respect to BoomTime integration is not published. Do existing attachedapps customers need the increased functionality of BoomTime? All valid questions.

With respect to my continued use of attachedapps, I can tell you this. I’m in discovery mode with respect to what alternatives exist to migrate to. So far my research has led to Slingr from Idea2 and the amazing Grace Schroeder whom many SMB Nation community members know well. It’s a fully customized CRM-like solution that is layered on top of Slack. I’ll do a deep dive in a future blog on Slingr as it deserves standalone treatment. But I can tell you this. As I look at the possibilities, Slingr feels like I’d be leap frogging over traditional CRM solutions that have a legacy feel. It’s just frickin cool. Think of it this way. In the early days of Small Business Server (SBS), one of my worldwide tours took me to El Salvador. There were few landlines, and primarily mobile phones. Why? Because after the 12-year Salvadoran Civil War the country rebuilt and leaped frogged right up to mobility. Great in earthquakes and the rebels can’t cut the landlines is how it was explained to me.

BONUS: Attend our MSP M&A (Part 2: Sell-Side) webinar this Thursday at Noon Pacific (GMT-8), August 18, 2016. Sign-up HERE.

Analyst Discolure: I hold stock options and am in investor in attachedapps.

It’s become fashionable for authors to crowdsource their books and I’m proud to have contributed to the newly released “Tips to Protect Your Business from Cybercrime” effort by Anita Campbell, the CEO of Small Business Trends.

First – you can download the eBook complimentary from this site andyou’ll find my dark-side contribution on page 31 where I speak about the lurking dangers of social engineering, which is both a security and technical topic. Catch my references to the central figure, Frank Abagnale, Jr. best known for his life story in the movie “Catch Me If You Can!” I saw Frank speak in the early 1990s in Seattle before he became famous and he’s not without controversy. Here is a former con artist profiting off his prior misdeeds. But it is a very important topic nonetheless.

Second – I consider this book a -Start Over- topic at SMB Nation. As we continue our 2016 editorial themes of either start-up or starting over, I see this book as your -cookbook- to reinvent yourself as a technology security sleuth. Its ben said a good consultant doesn’t know everything about an area, she just knows where to get the information. This book fills that void many of us have in security as we pivot to profitability as partners.

Third – crowdsourced books such as this are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is a cheap trick for authors to outsource the heavy lifting and for contributors to get a low friction love tap. I have even seen such books where they print a unique cover for each contributor implying that each contributor wrote the entire book. This is really peeved Vlad Masek at Own Web Now in his Vladville blog where he really goes after self-published MSPs. However, crowdsourced books have an upside. In the case of Campbell’s effort herein, it provides diversity and richer content. More importantly, she has engaged many people I’ve never heard of so I feel like she has broken way beyond the “same old, same old” SMB partner crowd.

Download here.

SMB NATION ADMIN

This past week on Tuesday, it was International Coworking Day. This was a worldwide celebration for the coworking movement where entrepreneurs, artists and others “rent” a desk or office inside a cooperative workspace. I attended the BBQ at OfficeXpats, 
a coworking space on Bainbridge Island. It ended up being a diet cheat day as I ate two cheeseburgers, had chips, deserts and a beverage (sorry!). Hat’s off to OfficeXpats owners Leslie Schneider and Jason Omens (pictured) for engaging the community with a party.

I have tracked this “culture” for several years and have observations. And while this blog is about start-ups, I have an Office 365 hook below.

Culture. In general, there are three types of coworkers/members based on my research.

Start-ups. First and foremost are the start-ups seeking a physical beachhead in the world of business. These are typically capital-starved entrepreneurs who benefit from the flexible leases ranging from a desk to cubicle to small office. Their tenancy is typically short-term as they either make it or not. If not, they move along down the road. If they make it, the entrepreneurs will often move into permanent larger space. When I’ve walked into different coworking spaces, I’m always surprised at the tenant turnover. For example, at The Hub in downtown Seattle, I spoke with some young entrepreneurs who were trying to create “Uber Movers” where you’d hire a mover for just a few hours, not the full daylong commitment. Fast forward and the “Uber Movers” were gone next visit.

Not for profit. My sister Ginna Brelsford runs a not-for-profit called Sahar and is a tenant in The Hub. She fits the profile of many coworkers seeking a place to work, have interns sit at those long millennial tables, etc. Sahar currently serves 15,000 girls annually in 12 schools in Balkh Province, Northern Afghanistan. They provide access to education for girls through computer centers, innovative and sustainable building designs, training female teachers and piloting a program to prevent early marriage. It dedicated a new school for 3,500 girls in 2011 and are managing the collaborative partnership between philanthropy, architecture and international development. The reason I share this is that donors often require the not-for-profit entity be run from a real office, not a dining room table.

Social Cliques. Defined as “a small group of people, with shared interests or other features in common, who spend time together and do not readily allow others to join them….” I’d say this element is present and accounted for in the coworker movement. There are storytellers, writers, artists, poets, retired execs and even PR people who are really into this movement stuff. I get that but I’m personally not that into it. It’s akin to the hard core “channel clique” in the SMB channel amongst a handful of vendors and compliant partners in our world. Think of it this way. By analogy, there are coworking tenants who are really seeking the B&B experience about getting to really know you versus the anonymity of a hotel room while traveling. Does that make sense?

Conservative/Secular

In 2009, I wrote an article in our SMB PC magazine on Regus, the worldwide executive suite provider, shaking up the need for new office buildings and being an almost counter-cyclical play in the Great Recession. It has a day lounge that I compared to an airline lounge (in fact Regus briefly got into the airline lounge business at one point). To this day, I’m a gold member. That means I can use the business lounge at any of 3,000 locations worldwide (I’ve done so in Istanbul Turkey, Sydney Australia, London GB and countless US locations including the handful of Seattle-sites). I’ve viewed the business lounges as getting me away from the sticky customer tables at Starbucks to get some real work done. Wouldn’t leave home without my Regus gold card.

My friend and colleague Dave Waldrop rented a couple offices inside the Redmond Regus when he directed the start-up attachedapps (see my blog on attachedapps being acquired). Dave needed a more traditional arrangement (read more conservative) as he was raising capital from investors for this venture. I get that. My experience has been that Regus is not an “untraditional” coworking movement space (several coworking organizations advertise against Regus offering a hipper and cooler alternative; Level office ad: “Hipper Office, Lower Cost - Better-Looking Designs & Amenities‎”).

Office 365

Now the geek stuff. Back in the Small Business Server (SBS) days, I implemented more than one solution for offices that had sub-tenants and the use of the SBS resources was a benefit that could be shared. I remember touring some early executive suites (including one launched by former Microsoft exec Tony Audino) where IT local area network resources where shared (and billed for). Today that’s all changed. With my Office 365 account and laptop in hand, I work wherever I am. So when I visit a Regus Business lounge, I take advantage of the high-speed WiFi connection and rock on. Worked in Istanbul Turkey (the Regus was in a “Trump Tower”) because my fleabag hotel had no internet connectivity. I literally camped out at Regus for a week!

Next year, mark your calendar for August 9th to participate in International Coworking Day and learn more about this community. The shoe might just fit.

SMB Nation Webinar Thursday, August 18th, 2016 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM PST

Presented by: Harry Brelsford CEO at SMB Nation, and Tim Carlsen

In late May, we delivered Part I of our MSP webinar series that you can watch here.   Register below to join us for Part II tense focus on the sell-side of MSP mergers and acquisitions. It’s all about positioning the exit to insure you maximize your potential and profit. You have worked very hard to build a real business and it’s essential you attend this community webinar to:

• Discover how to value your business
• Preparing for due diligence
• Creating the big notebook
• Approaching potential buyers
• Retaining experts (and avoiding business brokers)
• Managing expectation about the negotiating phase
• Separating heart from mind
• And much more…

Bottom line: this isn’t a webinar where we’ll tell you something you already know…you will learn new strategies and tactics.

Greg Plum 8/8/2016

"How is Office 365 like Pokémon GO?" I ask my tween daughter as we are discussing the nearest Poke-stop.  Of course she looked at me with the same expression that I often get when I interrupt her world with a "dad question".  The look that says "Why are you talking to me?  I'm busy."  You know the look.  Or, you will one day.  

Finally, she graces me with a half-hearted response, "What do you mean? They are nothing alike!"  At this, I am actually encouraged because this response indicates that she does know what Office 365 is.

So, now I ask you, "how IS Office 365 like Pokémon GO?"  In a word:  relevance.

Let’s Take a Look Back

Pokémon was wildly popular in the mid-90s, making Nintendo an even more familiar name in households worldwide. That movement was fueled by a series of video games and the ever presence of Pokémon cards. I am sure millennials remember this quite well. Then, with the advent of more realistic graphics in video games with names like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto (or "GTA" to those who were among the legions of fans), Pokémon seemed to have passed it's peak, although always maintaining a healthy fan base.  

Pikachu Today…

Enter Pokémon GO on July 6, 2016.  According to SurveyMonkey, "Within three days of its release, Pokémon GO attracted more users than [decade-old] Twitter and rose to the top of the App Store revenue charts, earning millions of dollars a day for its publisher, Niantic." For now, anyway, Pokémon is an integral part of our everyday vernacular.  It has been given new life… all courtesy of Pokémon GO.  Not only is it the most played mobile game in US history, crushing "Candy Crush", it's use is closing in on Google Maps and SnapChat! Pokémon is, once again, relevant. To say the least…

Your Father’s Microsoft

But, what does all of this Pokémon talk have to do with Office 365?  Plenty.

Think back just a few years…  When someone asked which technology companies were hot, you would have likely said Facebook, Google, Apple and maybe even AirBnB and Uber. But, Microsoft?  Hardly.  Most of these companies that we all admired were "born in the cloud", that is, according to Techopedia, companies that offer "a specific type of cloud service that does not involve legacy systems, but was designed only for cloud delivery."  Microsoft was legacy, old, stodgy, not worthy of admiration, and maybe even thought of as a necessary evil.

Read More

Join Harry Brelsford and Patrick Thomas for this content-rich 60-minute webinar focused on the RANSOMWARE!

The ransomware body count is rising. In the first 3 months of 2016 over 209 million dollars was paid out by SMB companies. That’s a 30% increase Year over Year. And e-mail continues to be the main culprit. We want to make sure you are equipped with the latest information, technology, and resources to prevent cyber-criminals from kidnapping your customer’s most important asset, their data. We’ll review our best-in-class SMB solutions and the top 3 conversations you must have with your customers.

 Thu, Aug 11, 2016 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM PDT

READ MORE HERE!

(From our friends at SQLSoft3 - Editor)

Several folks who are interested in Azure training have asked us when we will have our next Azure class scheduled.

 We have a live instructor-led Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions (20533) class which will run on August 22.

This course teaches information technology (IT) Professionals how to provision and manage services in Microsoft Azure (Azure). Students will learn how to implement infrastructure components such as virtual networks, virtual machines, web and mobile apps, and storage in Azure. Students also will learn how to plan for and manage Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), and configure Azure AD integration with the on-premises Active Directory domains.
 

Learn more and sign-up for the online Azure training here.

Folks are getting excited about the Workstation as a Service pradigm in the Summer of 2016. So to capitalize on that BIG MO, I've gotten out the selfie stick to make the following vid:

Watch the vid here!

Last week we enjoyed our largest audience of the year on the weekly webinar for good reason: it was the 3Q2016 MSP Report with industry updates and forward looking statements. I was joined by respected blogger and analyst Karl Palachuk as we talked about yesterday, today and tomorrow. Here are some select findings (to capture the entire conversation – please replay the webinar here).

Big Data
Even in the SMB sector, you can have the larger conversation about Big Data. My own thoughts including using this as a “gateway drug” to get embedded into other departments at your clients. For example, technology decisions are increasingly being made in the Marketing department (where the money is as Willie Sutton said about bank robbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Sutton). Many of us have a SQL Server background and know Excel well. Those two cool tools translate very well to Big Data analytics and visualization so you are well on your way to going from “Computer Guy” to “Data Nerd” and making a few bucks along the way.

Karl’s take on Big Data was different. He contends that the RMM tools are collecting snitz loads of operational data the is predictive for MSPs. You can forecast maintenance based on mean failure rates and the like to proactively serve your clients. Huge value adds.

Finally, our friend Anurag at TechAisle, our research partner, is blogging up a storm on the Big Data opportunity for MSPs from a business model vantage point. You need all three opinions (myself, Karl, Anurag) as you explore this potential new line of work.

Ageism
Part of the report was to share our more of our annual survey results. I covered off on education, income, economic attitude and our demographic. Karl really keyed in on how our majority of our community is skewed to the “mature” side to put it mildly. We’re landing in the 45+ age range folks. And as Karl articulated, we’re not getting younger nor is the partner community. We’re not attracting youngins’ to an IT Pro/MSP lifestyle. Karl has literally started a populist uprising proclaiming that ageism has to end and we need new blood and new communities. You can listen to Karl on this topic by replaying the webinar here).

Other topics in the webinar report include

• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Gossip
• Industry Earnings
• 2nd Half Trends
• And a Veeam moment

 It’s that time of year again – the annual picnic for SMB Nation peeps.

This year is our 16th annual summer picnic (and if only the walls could talk – the stories we’ve accumulated over the years). It’s all about enjoying a lazy afternoon on the south-end of Bainbridge Island. We’ll yak about tech and business – just as usual. And because we’re not getting any younger, it’s an picnic 2013 groupexcuse to see each other again. And with our editorial themes this year of start-up and/or start over, this is your chance to network with like-minded professionals.

The facts are simple. Each year SMB Nation teams with the West Sound Technology Association (WSTA) and the Puget Sound Small Business Server (PSSBS) user group for a picnic. Each year about 50-people attend, many making the trek from Seattle via ferry (Hint: Leave office after lunch and in ferry line for 3pm ferry advised).

• Date: August 18, 2016
• Time: 4PM – 8PM
• Location: Harry’s House on Bainbridge Island!

You can learn more and sign-up here: http://www.westsoundtechnology.org/events/aug-18-summer-event . The WSTA will provide the food and we’ll provide light drinks such as beer and wine (but bring your favorite beverage nonetheless LOL).

What: A Microsoft Office 365 Migration Best Practice Breakfast Seminar
When: Weds 31st August, 08:30 to 11:00
Where: Microsoft Office, Johannesburg

If you’re thinking about a move to Microsoft Office 365, and want to ensure the fastest and most efficient migration – then this best practice seminar is for you. 

Hear from Microsoft about the key benefits of moving to the Cloud, as they are joined by TransVault, the leader in archive migration solutions and Soarsoft, a migration services expert, for a morning event at Microsoft South Africa.

Enjoy a complimentary breakfast while the gurus take you through the ways you can prepare for the challenges of moving enterprise email and data into Microsoft’s Cloud.

Aimed at messaging professionals, by attending this event you will learn:
• How to securely and accurately move legacy email records into Office 365 for a one-stop-shop regulatory experience
• Get an introduction: To the Cloud. From the Cloud. Leverage Microsoft Azure for a completely 'in Cloud' migration
• See how others have made their move and embraced the Microsoft Cloud

REGISTER TODAY – LIMITED SEATING >

Are you looking to buy or sell new, used or refurbished IT and telecom parts and equipment including computers, laptops, printers, VoIP phones, central office systems, PBX/Key systems or network infrastructure? Whether you are a supplier, reseller, service provider, corporate buyer or self-maintainer, you can benefit from the PowerSource professional community. PowerSource Online helps our members increase sales, build industry relationships and save time and resources with our best-in-class selling and sourcing tools.

Computer parts suppliers and resellers gain a competitive advantage by easily posting their in-stock inventory of new, used and refurbished IT and telecoms parts to reach thousands of buyers. PowerSource members can view and respond directly to buying requests for computers, telecom equipment, IT infrastructure and more.

Corporate buyers have the ability to search over 3,000,000 lines of inventory in real-time from hundreds of the most reputable suppliers in the secondary market industry. Our members are able to get the best possible prices on inventory items by sending multiple Requests for Quotes, and receiving answers quickly. In addition to being able to search for up to 100 parts at one time, buyers can also customize their search criteria to include only preferred vendors and trading regions for more efficient sourcing.

By using PowerSource Online, IT, computer and telecom buyers and sellers have access to unparalleled opportunities to expand their customer base and increase their average margins. Since 1997, PowerSource has helped thousands of computer parts and telecom equipment buyers and sellers efficiently source or dispose of all types of computer parts and equipment, generating substantial cost savings for buyers and improving sales for sellers and service providers.

Take the time to experience PowerSource Online by enjoying a free triall. This way, you can experience for yourself how our B2B exchange helps businesses connect with thousands of buyers and sellers of computer, printer, networking and telecom equipment.

By Pete Engler

Participating in a partner program with a technology vendor opens the door to an important relationship that can be mutually beneficial, particularly when the program is geared for maximum loyalty and sales potential. Most channel programs offer different partner levels to best match a reseller’s interest and capability. Going for the gold, or that highest partner level offered, may seem like the best answer, but it’s important to fully understand both the expectations and the benefits of the higher partner level before making a commitment.

When considering a vendor’s strength as a strategic partner for your business, you want to evaluate several factors, such as their product and technical support reputation; whether the company provides sales and marketing support; financial incentives for selling products and services; and having a thorough and supported distribution channel. Once you have decided to partner with a vendor the relationship is dependent on your commitment level within their partner program. Lower levels typically provide fewer incentives and discounts than higher levels. Deciding to move up to a higher partner level may mean access to more benefits and vendor support, but it also requires that you make a significantly higher monthly or yearly sales commitment.

What can you expect from a higher partner program level? The answer isn’t always the same with every vendor but there are some benefits that are common with most channel programs. The first and possibly the most coveted is more margin. Vendors typically give their higher program level partners more discount due to the higher volume of products sold. Accessing more discount certainly has a positive effect on your profit and competitiveness against other vendors. In turn, that extra margin may also help you continue performing at an increased level of sales which is required to remain at the higher partner level.

Top-tier partners are usually further assisted in the sales process via access to dedicated sales support from the vendor. Top partners routinely will be assisted by an account manager or sales team with sales calls, demos or other sales related support. Leads can also be provided and are typically funneled to top producing partners. Vendor leads are often qualified prior to being distributed, which may translate into a shorter sales cycle for the partner to win the deal.

A vendor’s marketing support is another critical component of partner support. Top-tier programs typically offer dedicated marketing or co-marketing activities in their higher partner levels. Marketing development funds (MDF) may also be available for partners to offset customer acquisition costs. MDF funds may be used toward participation in activities such as trade shows, communications campaigns (email or snail mail), in-person events (lunch and learns, road shows), and many other end-user marketing activities.

Premier technical support is another vendor asset that is often reserved for the highest tier partners. While support exists for all paying customers, if a top producing partner needs an issue worked immediately, vendors can provide these top partners with immediate help. It likely goes without saying that escalated support access is a distinct advantage for the partner if they can resolve their customers’ issues quickly.

For any vendor, feedback from the customer base is essential to maintaining a quality product and service. Partner advisory boards are filled with the top producing partners who provide market and customer insight that is extremely valuable. These partners are often the first to hear about products being developed and the first to be able to test before the products go to market. Advisory council participation allows a partner to shape the product direction in the best way to maximize sales and market leadership.

When reselling products and services, it is always important to choose your vendor carefully. The perks that companies provide top producing partners are invaluable to giving an edge in the marketplace. Using one vendor for each technology solution offered to customers may help in bringing the sales up to a level that will earn a place in the top tiers of vendor partner programs. This loyalty and increased sales volumes will help against competitors in the marketplace and help make closing sales easier.

Pete Engler is the channel marketing manager at Digium, a business communications company based in Huntsville, Ala., that delivers enterprise-class Unified Communications.

Thu, Aug 4, 2016 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM PDT

Join Harry Brelsford and Karl Palachuk for this content-rich 60-minute analyst webinar focused on the mid-year “State of the Union” for MSPs, partners, consultants and resellers. Discover what business approaches were trending in the first six months. What numerous surveys are tracking and how you can leverage the finding to make more money. A focus on what industry vendors are doing and how partner programs are changing dramatically in 2016. And of course the normal gossip of who’s in and who’s out. Looking forward, Harry and Karl issue predictions for the second six months of 2016 and offer up a set of best practices. Ample time for audience Q&A.

SMB Nation Webinar Thursday, August 11th, 2016 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM PST

Presented by: Harry Brelsford CEO at SMB Nation, and Patrick Thompson

The ransomware body count is rising. In the first 3 months of 2016 over 209 million dollars was paid out by SMB companies. That’s a 30% increase Year over Year. And e-mail continues to be the main culprit. We want to make sure you are equipped with the latest information, technology, and resources to prevent cyber-criminals from kidnapping your customer’s most important asset, their data. We’ll review our best-in-class SMB solutions and the top 3 conversations you must have with your customers.

Many consider this one of the best weekends of the year. A Monday holiday makes for extended merriment. I noticed commerce transactions and business activity starting to slow this past Thursday, as if one foot out the door.

Original Brexit

When we hosted our weekly webinar this past Thursday with TransVault, the speaker was Steve Dagless from London so there was the inevitable Brexit references. As part our Mastering the Migration series (you can watch the reply here), we talked about the UK in the first few moments and realized that America had undertaken the original Brexit exactly 240-years ago on July 4, 1776. Sometimes, like with many holidays, it’s easy to forget what it’s all about. In this case, it’s impendence from the England.

USA Start-up

Another twist to reflecting on the July 4^th is this. America was a start-up! True that as we started with virtually nothing and have gone on to be one of the great powers in world history. A unicorn before it’s time! The result? An imperfect system of government that has created a wildly successful start-up environment for businesses with notable shout outs to Apple, Microsoft, Uber, Tesla and the list goes on and on.

Canada Day

Realizing not all our readers hale from the “states,” I wanted to also recognize our friends to the north in Canada. It celebrated it’s Canada Day a couple of days ago, July 1^st. That holiday is a reverse Brexit. It’s that day an enactment combined Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a single empire indeed called Canada.

There you have it! Have a GREAT JULY 4^th and we’ll see you back here next week for your SMB Sunday Paper.