Too few managed service providers see the possibilities in becoming the "go-to" expert for a specific market or vertical with their services. Literally, about one-third of MSPs target specific verticals. The rest? They take a shotgun approach to business development, likely managing to operate without any type of sales funnel. Committing a portion of your managed services [...]
The key to long-term success in the technology services industry is to continually engage and satisfy customers so that they trust and rely on you for every new technology need. A critical component of nurturing sticky customers relies on having an effective, responsive Service Desk. Do You Need a Service Desk and a Help Desk? [...]
As you probably already know, Dropbox has achieved its reputation by providing a simple solution: as long as you have an internet connection, you can get almost instant access to your files on any device, anytime, anywhere. However, even today, some people are still unaccustomed to storing their personal data in the cloud. Your precious [...]
SophosLabs has determined that new variants of Petya ransomware (also known as GoldenEye) are behind the massive online outbreak that spread across Europe, Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere today. Others in the security industry are calling it PetrWrap.
Company culture has a tendency to either make or break a business, and at the core of the issue is employee morale. You aren’t likely to put your best effort forward when you’re feeling overwhelmed, underappreciated, and invisible, are you? Didn’t think so. And once the vicious cycle of negativity starts, it’s hard to break. [...]
Like most MSPs, one of your biggest costs is people. Which means one of your biggest sources of waste is time. And as anyone in the IT world knows, there’s a lot of wasted time. IDC quantified this a couple of years ago, and found that IT workers spend around 20% of their time just [...]
Customer service can be… challenging. And sometimes, it just doesn’t make any sense. You can have the exact same situation occur two times, but for some reason, the first situation ends well and the second situation ends with a shot of Tequila and a string of sweaty nightmares. But that’s just because every customer and [...]
It feels so very right to let distractions have their way with you at work. It’s like when go grocery shopping on an empty stomach. You don’t really need that ham or that ice cream or that bag of chips or that family pack of extra-large chocolate puddings. But your growling stomach says otherwise. When [...]
When you’re just beginning this whole running-a-business-thing, it’s easy to fall into the whole go-with-the-flow mindset. You take things as they come, learn as you go, and hope for the best. And for a while, this might actually work. But eventually, it won’t. Things will become harder to manage and more difficult to keep track [...]
You know that feeling you get when you try to talk to non-technical people about technical things? It feels like you’re speaking to a brick wall, except this brick wall has the ability to make things incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. When we speak to our members about business operations, we tend to receive this same [...]
