techSOAP

Social Media Knows Me Best…

We’re all in the midst of a communication revolution.  The way we share information about ourselves; the way that we learn about people we connect with in person and online; the way that companies and brands learn about us, is all changing! 

This shift is unprecedented and totally exciting to me and to share in that excitement I ask you to watch this video below.  It may scare you, but it excites me.  Tell me what you think when you’re done.

This came from my friend’s blog, Finding Rest.

 

Technorati Tags: social media,networking,business,twitter,facebook,communications,marketing

What’s in your Dashboard?

Do you have a dashboard for your managed services practice?  If not, you are missing out on an amazing opportunity to connect with your prospects and customers in a very real, very significant way.  For many people not doing IT we are just geeks who operate in a black box of sorts.  Dashboards give outsiders a glimpse of all that you do for them.

Here is an excerpt from Seth Godin’s Blog that I think has incredible relevance for ITSP and IT Departments alike.

Building good dashboards isn’t difficult, but it’s an excellent marketing strategy. A few brainstorms:

1.  If you can add a digital dashboard to your service, do it.

2.  If you can make the dashboard public, it gets more powerful.

3.  Highlight data that changes behavior.

4.  Allow the user to highlight the information that matters to them.

If you have an office, then a publicly viewable dashboard can be a great sales tool and should be an integral part of any customer visit.  Some of Seth’s points are most relevant for web dashboards, but the most important is that it is public.  Or even just semi-public (customers only).   Putting the data out there holds the service provider accountable, and provides a transparency that builds trust.

If you have a dashboard let’s see it.  Post a link to the dashboard or a screenshot in the comments.

 

Technorati Tags: SMB,ITSP,msp,business,sales

Your Attention Is What “THEY” Want!

In the world of television everything started with the users having to be in front of the TV at the time a show or an event was being broadcast to partcipate.  The broadcasters could be certain to have your attention at that time.  Then came the  VCR which allowed you to be somewhere else while a show ran, with this the broadcasters weren’t certain they’d have your attention.  The latest in this time shifting of attention is with the DVR, no it is easy to NEVER have to be in front of the tv when the broadcast happens.  They have lost the guarantee of your attention and with the stored versions, they’ve lost the guarantee that you’ll see or pay attention to the commercials. 

The opposite is happening with social media.  It started with blogs, which were updated every so often ranging from weeks/months to days/hours.  Nevertheless, you consumed on your terms.  Then came twitter/facebook/linkedin status updates.  Now you had a way to both convey and to follow others in a near or at real-time manner.

I am firmly in the camp that believes Google’s biggest asset is knowing what you’ll click on and for how long, when, etc.  They have attention data.  For the internet to be valuable to advertisers they need to know where, when, and how you will give them your attention online. 

Twitter, Facebook (even more now with the FriendFeed acquisition) have created environments that are hard to be away from for many users.  I know I can’t keep up with my Facebook News Feed anymore, the first page only has stories from the last hour or so. 

They have succeeding is making users WANT to be online so they don’t miss something.  This is what television had in the early days, but it’s what just coming to the interweb.  This feeling of urgency, of needing to be online to know what’s happening. 

I know I feel the tug, do you?

 

Technorati Tags: social media,social networking,twitter,facebook,marketing,web

A key path to profitability for MSPs - Know your ratios!

I originally posted this one in June on Kaseya’s Blog, but I just had a conversation with a client about staffing ratios and in this world of challenging economics maximizing your staffing ratios can be the difference between red and black! 

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I want to talk about ratios.  Ratios in the ITSP market are a good indicator of profit margins.  In the internal IT arena ratios represent maximizing ROI.    The ratio I am thinking most specifically about is that of staff to end-users.  How many endpoints can one staffer support?  This is where no matter what type of organization you are, you can begin to measure and/or quantify the cost or burden for support on a per unit basis.   Ratios will mean different things based on your situation but for most they are useful for one or more of the following:

• Understanding headcount
• Growth planning (strategic non technical, offices, cap ex, etc.)
• System Capacity planning
• Identifying overages (support costs, headcount, cap ex, etc)
• Setting SLA’s (less staff means SLAs may need to slide)
• Understanding your profit/loss origins (are you profitable at your current ratio?  What ratio do you need have?)
• Budgeting (are you always over/under on certain line items in your budget?)

I challenge you to discover the ratios in your business that can lead to meaningful decision making.  The ratios may be staff to customers, staff to end users, staff to servers, staff to workstations, servers to workstation, infrastructure spend to users, training to profit, profit to hours, hours to profit, hours to cost.  You get the idea.  Get to know the ratios that matter most to you then be strategic about setting goals around those ratios.

I want to hear who has the best staff to user ratio.  I’ll start with Kaseya’s  1:150.
Sound off in the comments.

Technorati Tags: smb,itsp,managed services,profit,business,technology