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What the F**k is Social Media?

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

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“On behalf of” is no longer

One of the biggest problems with using Gmail with a custom domain email account was that you could send mail from Gmail as you@customdomain.com without recipients seeing the nasty little “From username@gmail.com On Behalf of you@customdomain.com” message with every email.  The reason for doing this was to help your email avoid being caught in spam folders and to show the recipient’s mail server that “Hey I know i’m not using my customdomain.com SMTP server but I still want to pretend this message is coming from you@customdomain.com”

Well the Gmail team has finally opened up the option for you to use your customdomain.com SMTP server for sending mail.  If your you@customdomain.com email address doesn’t have a SMTP server for you to send through, you can still send it the way that Gmail used to handle it with the “On behalf of…” message.

Here is the announcement from the The Official Gmail Blog. 

 

Technorati Tags: IT,SMB,Google,Gmail,smtp,email,server,security

Packaging Matters!

If you are an ITSP, then listen up!  I want to challenge you to package everything you do.  Take your A la carte menu of services and think of ways to package them.  You can package them for any reason.  Maybe it’s to fit what clients are asking for, or to fit your service teams skill sets, or even a geographically based package.  What ever it is, many times you can sell more if its packaged well. Fill the package with value and leverage your current systems in place with people and platforms to deliver it well, don’t just fluff it up.

If you’re using a managed services platform, then most likely you’ve packaged a few levels for customers to choose from, but have you really built in the features that people are willing to pay for?  Take it a step farther, have you identified any vertical markets that you’re strong in and package something just for them? Maybe healthcare providers, or lawyers, CPA’s, or architects?  Each of these customers has something unique in the way they might buy your services so why not package something just for them!

Ok, so if you’ve read this far and thought, “Gosh, I already do that…” then maybe here’s something to stretch your thinking even farther.  Take a key event, like the hack on Twitter and their key executives and write it up.  Then offer your clients a Security Health Check, or a Password Policy Package. Do it for a fixed cost and end the price in a 9.  Trust me, if you package it, then promote it, you’ll sell it.  Using Kaseya you should be able to write a few scripts that check password policies, change local admin passwords, etc.  Make the price equal to at least the hourly cost to setup the package.  You’ll get better each time you deliver the package and therefore make more every time.  If you can turn a Password Audit into a quarterly service you’ve now added even more to your recurring service revenue.

• What are you doing to leverage your platforms and people to deliver services in unique ways?
• Are you measuring your current packages and tuning them to deliver the best profit?
• What sells the best?

 

This post can also be found over at the Kaseya Blog where I am a contributor.

Do you deliver DELIGHT to your Customers?

In the technology world it is often difficult to lift our heads out of the proverbial sand of server racks, laptops, or Kaseya dashboards and deliver delightful service.  That is usually the last thought on your mind at 2am when you still can’t figure out why your Exchange Store won’t mount.   Instead of worrying about what the CFO or CEO will say when he calls first thing in the morning because he has no new email on his blackberry we should remind ourselves that their frustration with technology is similar to what our frustration would be if every couple weeks our car wouldn’t  start for no apparent reason.  Hopefully your uptime is better than that, but you get the idea.  It’s our job to know what to do with the technology and it’s not your users’ fault that they don’t understand how Murphy’s Law manifests itself in IT.  That is, after all why they hired us. 

As a result of our IT myopia we lose sight of who is receiving the fruits of our labors.  People.  There is always a person at the other end.  I’ve always told my teams that no matter how amazing that login script is, or how much uptime you’ve ensured, it is wasted effort if the end user still doesn’t feel well served by the efforts of their IT department.

Our number one focus should be serving people.  We just happen to be responsible for the IT.  I can’t imagine serving thousands of end users without good tools, but even with good tools if you haven’t delighted your customers internally or externally, you haven’t delivered the very best IT service.

What to take away:

   1. Focus on people and technology, not just technology
   2. Take time to listen to your users and their needs
   3. Make the value of IT tangible to each user
   4. Make sure your servers have a greater uptime than your car