Eliminating IT services competition through differentiation
How many times have you lost an opportunity to a competitor? It’s happened to me countless times over the years, and it never feels good. It’s even worse when I’ve invested hours—sometimes way too many—into crafting the perfect proposal, sometimes...
Ask an MSP Expert: How can we better protect SMBs who use IoT devices?
Q: IoT devices have added more attack surfaces to protect and hardware to maintain, which is why we’re trying to adjust our business plans and pricing models accordingly. What are some businesses that will be transformed by IoT and what...
For goodness’ sake, get a web filter
This week, news emerged about a government agency being infected with malware because one of its employees apparently liked to watch porn on his work computer. This is a classic case of an organization not putting safeguards in place that...
Clive Longbottom: Helping customers avoid their biggest threat
In talking to customers, you probably find that their biggest concern is how they can protect themselves from external malicious activity. However, many times the biggest threat to their business is the behaviour of their own employees. The troubling behaviour...
Sales & Marketing
The hidden sales bias that hurts your business
Technology professionals, perhaps more than any other group, tend to have open minds. Our industry is driven by innovation, and we are perpetually wrangling updates and seizing the opportunities that a new development enables for us and for our clients....
Never offer a free technology audit when pitching your MSP services
As a managed services provider, your “process” is more than just how you provide services to your clients every single day. It’s your key value differentiator — the rock-solid foundation upon which your competitive advantage is formed. Nobody does what...
Robin Robins: A big, misunderstood secret to premium pricing in your IT business
When you want to show how filthy rich and successful you are, details matter. That’s why you need to have gold-plated staples, sold in packs of 24 for $175. Or how about a Tiffany tennis-ball-canister … for $1,500? And if...
Security
Gone phishing
When you have ransomware, cryptocurrency miners, and polymorphic malware to battle, it’s easy to put phishing education on the back burner. In fact, a new study shows that 95 percent of IT professionals underestimate its impact and fail to adjust...
Yahoo’s $50M damages bill demonstrates the high cost of poor security
Years ago there was a commercial for oil filters in which the spokesperson warned that you could pay him a few dollars for a filter or pay a mechanic later for an expensive repair. “Pay me now, or pay him...
The era of the cloud mafia?
As a third-generation Italian-American growing up in the Midwest, I was used to hearing about the feared Mafia, either in the stories of older relatives or in the misguided attempts at humor by school kids.
Better Business
Ask an MSP Expert: How can we effectively manage project workflow?
Q: We’re experiencing some challenges in managing project workload, which has become more challenging as we’ve added more customers and vendors over time. How can we effectively manage and organize projects when we are working with more than one vendor?...
Ask an MSP Expert: Over the years, how has marketing changed through the internet?
Q: Things are always changing, especially in technology. Looking back, the internet has changed almost everything we do. What are the most significant roles the internet has played in marketing goods and services today? For managed service providers, protecting and...
Public speaking and selling basics for MSPs
Selling from the stage is one of the most potent revenue generation strategies that your MSP can embrace. Because many MSPs are engineering-types, there can be a great deal of reluctance in our industry to public speaking. Even for those...
Tech Insight
Three ways MSPs can use AI to increase their profits
When we talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI), we often consider it to be science-fiction — the stuff of the future. We rarely consider it be applicable to today’s business market.
Deployments of 5G networks start to accelerate
While the definition of what precisely constitutes a 5G networking service has become a little fluid, it’s clear that both enterprise IT organizations and service providers are starting to deploy the technologies required to enable these next generation networking services.
Tech Time Warp: Fred Cohen’s work leads to the term “virus”
It’s usually difficult to pinpoint the origins of a physical virus, but when it comes to the term “computer virus,” we can trace that back to the graduate school work of computer scientist, Fred Cohen. On Nov. 10, 1983, he...