WHAT’S INSIDE
Computers, Networking, Websites, Advertising, Marketing & Sales ISSUE 003 | MAR 2012
The Official Monthly Magazine of the Association of Computer Repair Business Owners
ACRBO Mag By Technicians, For Technicians
Interview
RAID-5 SETUP WITH CEO BRIAN GILL P12
Question Time:
Why Remote Support? P11
INTERVIEW
DEALS
MSP Advice
Felix Hernandez
Exclusive Offers
Tips on RAID5 Setup
The NY Computer Repair owner tells us how he dreamt of being a boxer
ACRBO gives you some great discounts that can’t be found anywhere else!
Brian Gill, CEO of Gillware gives us tips on setting up a RAID-5 array
IN THIS ISSUE
FEB 2012
Contents FEBRUARY 2012 | ISSUE 002 | ACRBO MONTHLY | ONLINE
P3
Editors Letter & Top Picks
P4
ACRBO Inbox Dan answers your questions
P5
Gilware - Fixing Dead Drives
P6
Featured Member Profile Felix Hearnandez
Featured Articles
P8 ScreenConnect Advert P9
Join the ACRBO! Get a premium account today!
P10
ACRBO Deals By Daniel Hand
P11
Get Started in Remote Support By Daniel Hand
P12
RAID-5 | P12
Tips on how to setup a RAID-5 Array Interview with Gillware CEO, Brian Gill
P14
Computer Repair Business Lessons Learnt By Daniel Hand
P15
Creative Marketing, More Customers By Tyler C Martin
P16
Take Up A White Label Partner By Matthew Rodela
P18
The Industry
P19
Promote Your Business Off The Top Of Your Head
P20
Practical Steps to MSP
P21
Competition to win a branded D7 version!
P22
ACRBO Marketplace The people and products that helped make this issue
P23
Down Time Transform By Stephen McLoughlin
P24
Business Apps By Dennis Drew
P25
How re-installs can help your business
P26
Market Web Using Social Media
P27
Don’t Let Fear Stop Your Business Starting Up
P28
Best Ways To Write An Article For Internet Marketing
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ACRBO Inbox | P4
Viral Marketing | P15
HELLO
Editors I words
would like to welcome all readers and especially the new ones. Feel free to check out the last few months of the magazine as well. Summer is coming and usually it’s a good time to think of new ways to market your business. Remember typically in the summer people go on vacations, visit friends and all kinds of other things and their computer is not a priority when it comes to maintenance or getting it fixed. Start thinking now of ways to advertise for those summer months.
Talk to us! Keep your valuable feedback coming. We try to reply to every email, we appreciate your input as it helps to make the ACRBO magazine possible. dan@acrbo.com www.Facebook.com/acrbo “Association of Computer Repair Business Owners”
EDITORS INTRO
As you see we have some select advertisers in the magazine and would appreciate if you check out their products and even purchase them. We don’t just put any advertiser in the mag. If we don’t believe in their product then you won’t see it. Best of luck in the upcoming months. Please pass on magazine to others in the industry or even forms that you might frequent. You can just paste this code to all past issues: http://acrbo.com/ACRBO-Mag/ View-category.html
ACRBO Magazine Fredericksburg Virginia Advertising enquires: Send an email to dan@acrbo.com Contribute articles: If you would like to be a contributing author for the magazine then send an email to dan@acrbo.com and let us know what you would like to write about. Copyright 2012 ACRBO. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated or converted into machine-readable form or language without the written consent of the publisher. Articles express the opinions of the authors and are notnecessarily those of the publisher ACRBO Magazine Director: ACRBO dan@acrbo.com Editor: Jon May jon@thelaptopmedics.co.uk Contributors Various experts in their fields The instructions and advice in the magazine is for entertainment purposes only. The creators, producers, contributors and distributors of the ACRBO Mag disclaim any liability for loss or lack of results from following the advice expressed herein.
www.acrbo.com
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ACRBO INBOX
EMAILS
ACRBO Inbox
If you’ve got a question, just fire it over to dan@acrbo.com and we’ll answer them and include the top three e-mails in each issue.
How much?!
Inventory
Minimum rates
How much stock should I carry?
QUESTION:
QUESTION:
Sometimes I feel bad when I go on a job and it only takes a few minutes to resolve the issue.
I am just starting out and others have told me I need all kinds of parts to have in stock. I am on a limited budget just starting and want to know do I really need that much hardware to start.
Should I give just charge them partial because of how quick it was?
DAN, ACRBO: Great question....If you have a “1 hr minimum” then there is no reason to feel bad. Your service you provide is as important as any other service industry. You are getting paid for your expertise. If you decide to give a discount that is entirely up to you. Make sure you let the customer know that you are going to give them a discount on the service seeing that it went so quickly. Do not give a massive discount but maybe a 10% or something just to let them know you care. Or you can fix their problem then ask them if there is anything else they would like done while you are there.
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DAN, ACRBO Not really, starting out you don’t need to go crazy buying tons of hardware. Some things that are good to have on-hand are hard drives, video cards, and memory at the very least. If you can carry a few of these items with you that should get you by to start with. Over time you can add items as you go along so sooner or later you’ll have a pretty nice inventory of supplies. Courtesy of Flickr User: Quasic
Drives Fail. REVIEWS
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BIG INTERVIEW
FEATURE
Felix Her nandez gives us the stor y of how he got into computer support from dreams of wanting to be a boxer and his ambition to get into business support
YOU’RE NEXT
I f yo u wo u l d l i ke yo u r b u si n e ss to be fe at u re d i n the ACRBO M ag azi n e th en j u st d ro p u s a l i n e at d an @ ac rbo.c o m and we’ l l g et back to yo u w i th w h at d etai l s are n eed e d .
It’s free advertising! Get in touch today!
“Do your research. Never start a business without knowing what you are getting into” 6
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FEATURE
BIG INTERVIEW
Featured Member This month, Felix Hernandez talks to us and gives us a look into his life ...
Q Q Q
Business Name? Reliable Computer Techs Where are you located? Westchester County, NY
Education? BS in Information Systems Management from New York Institute of Technology.
Q
What did you want to be when you grew up? A professional boxer.
Q
What was your worst job? Cleaning locker rooms at boxing gym.
Q
What was your first job? Bi-Lingual Customer Service Rep.
Q
Who was your hero as a child? My dad
Q
How did you end up owning your business? Was always into computers, assisting family and friends with their issues. Never had formal training but was taking technical courses in college. There was a need to supplement my income so while in college taking a business law course I started scribbling names on a pad and came up with my company name. From there started operating my business as a sole proprietor, then transitioned to an LLC.
Q
What is next for your business? Managed Services. We specialize in cloud-based/hosted services such as storage, virtualization, email, backups, VOIP, etc. We feel the future will be in providing on demand access to key business resources. Our business model will be to ensure that small businesses can compete in the global market without the hindrance of cost or infrastructure.
Q
What business book do you recommend most and why? Tax Savvy for Small Business: Year-Round Tax Strategies to Save You Money. I bought this book a few weeks ago. I recommend it because as small
business owners we need to know the strategies available to take advantage of exiting tax laws and exemptions.
Q
What advice would you give someone thinking about starting a business right now? Don’t quit your day job until you are 100% sure you are earning enough money to cover your monthly living expenses.
Q
Where do you want to be five years from now? I would like to be looking at our customer list saying five years ago we had 3 business support contracts now we have 20.
WEBSITE
MARKETING
DISCOUNTS
DEALS
BARGAIN
MARCH 2012
ACRBO DEALS Remote Support
Tutorials
ACRBO Preferred Vendor
ACRBO Preferred Vendor
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Downloadable or available on DVD, this package will help you on the way to repairing laptops in no time at all. Available in the US and around the world.
Stay Tuned ACRBO Preferred Vendor
COMPUTER REPAIR TECH WEBSITE BUILDER Some of you may of already heard but Steve Cherubino has disclosed that he is going to be coming out with the NEW Computer Repair Tech Website Builder. Years ago Steve developed an easy to build/edit website for computer businesses and was greeted with great success and praise from business owners. Realizing the market has changed Steve has done a total revamp to the Tech Website Builder and it should be released very soon‌ Top right is a picture of the old format that was used with great success. Really looking forward to this new release.
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Your Advert Here dan@acrbo.com
REMOTE
STARTUPS
Getting Started Remotely Daniel Hand explains how to get started in the world of Remote Support So now that you have decided to do remote support you need to find a product to use in order to provide these services. A simple search in Google for “remote computer repair software” will show you an abundance of choices. Now you are going to have to narrow it down to what one you want to implement into your business mode. But, before you do that you might also want to determine a few things such as: 1. What OS’s do I need to support? 2. How many computers do I need to be able to connect to at the same time? 3. How many licenses will I need (some programs require a license for each technician)? 4. Do I want to pay monthly, yearly or a one-time fee? 5. Do I want to host this solution locally, online or use hardware? 6. Do I need to be able to have unattended access? 7. Can I transfer files or do I have to use another source? 8. Can I reboot into safe-mode and will it connect me back to it? Once you go through the above list and determine what your needs are then you can start looking at different products and find out what one is right for you. Below are just a few of the more popular ones. You need to check on the pricing because most of them come with different versions and prices, along with some having monthly options for payments. Instant Housecall, Screen Connect and TeamViewer are all ACRBO Preferred Vendors
There are also DualDesk Bomgar B200, Logmein.
Pro,
Now my personal opinion is not to get one that requires monthly payments. It just seems with so many available options out there to pick from that don’t have monthly payments that to me it makes sense. Now if you are thinking well I’ll do monthly payments and see how it goes and if it’s worthwhile and then move onto something else then you might as well wait until you are really ready to roll with it. We started out with DualDesk and that was working mine but we wanted more (not really sure why now it’s been so long) and we then bought a Bomgar device. Now at the time it probably ran us a few thousand for this device but with all the capabilities it did that justified the cost to us. We provide managed services so we need a device that is very robust in order to serve our purpose. But, for the normal break/fix where you are not relying on needing to do abnormal amounts of remote work then it is not really required. So now that you have “tested” some of the above products out or even some other product it’s time to make a decision.
“Always remember and admit “nobody knows everything including myself” Once you have done that and you have made your purchase you are ready to start proving remote support....NO YOU ARE NOT! First, you need to have some of the computers in your presence be
your guinea pigs and test things out on them such as removing malware, virus’s, common errors etc. Test out all the functions that your product is suppose to provide and make sure you fully understand them. The reason I say this is one of the worst things that can happen is you connect to a customer and then have no idea how to use your product. And example would be “reboot into safe mode, and then be able to connect automatically”. If you don’t know how to do it you are going to have to call the person back and walk them thru the connection process again. That is not something you want to keep doing over and over. It does not exude confidence in your abilities. Bottom line is test it out, try everything and get all your “tools” in order i.e. virus software, malware software, drivers etc..Pretty much anything that you might need to utilize to accomplish a job as if you were sitting in front of the computer. Lastly you have to have your disclaimers and anything else in place that is going to be for each job. Typically you would want to do the disclaimer up front prior to doing any work on the customers computers. You’d have something such as: “Computer Repair Terms and Conditions Agreement. By accepting service from Your Business Name you are acknowledging that you have read and understand these terms and conditions and agree to all these terms below.....and the rest of your terms go after it. You can have that right on the page that they have to click on “Connect” so there is no doubt they see it and even reference it prior to connecting. Now you are pretty much ready to get down to work. Next month “Your First Job” www.acrbo.com
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RAID-5 TIPS
CENTER
RAID 5 Tips F Brian Gill from Gilware Data Recovery gives us some tips for a RAID-5 setup
Q
Q
You run a data recovery will be non-accessible and likely gone Are there other ways forever without serious expertise. lab that frequently to optimize a RAID-5 So, it’s critical to properly setup the server to make it more resrecovers data from RAID RAID controller notifications. When istant to failure? devices. Can you explain to a drive is taken offline by the RAID IT professionals how RAID controller you absolutely must have Some ways to make a RAID-5 more devices end it email or text durable are to not use more than 6 up in a data or a team drives, diversify the drives by mixing RAID = Redundant you so someone can manufacturers and manufacturing recovery lab?
Array of Independant Disks
BRIAN GILL: A properly configured and continuously monitored RAID-5 array will prevent a single drive failure from costing you all your data. But if your RAID-5 is not set up right or monitored well, RAID-5 can give you a false sense of security, and because of that, you may end up seeking data recovery for enormously important information held on the device. All that has to happen is for two drives in the array to fail, and there are many factors that can make that scenario more or less likely.
Q
What are the most common mistakes IT professionals make when configuring RAID-5s? BG: Notification is critical when one drive in a RAID-5 is taken offline – that is a big factor in whether the RAID5 will eventually end up in a data recovery lab. Remember, any single drive can fail and the array will still be able to read and write data in a “degraded” state. At that point you’re supposed to notice a drive is dead and replace the drive with a new one and then allow the array to “rebuild” and restore redundancy. If two drives in the array die, the data
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promptly replace the failed drive and perform the necessary rebuild to restore redundancy. In my experience, the majority of small businesses and consumers running NAS RAID-5 units that haven’t setup any notification. When a drive fails and goes offline, the storage array will continue to function and will “emulate” data read from and written to the dead drive using parity calculations on all the other drives. You might get lucky and notice a 2030% slow-down in data access times, but it typically goes undiscovered unless notification is set up.
If you or your clients are running one of those NAS units, go grab the manual or find it online and configure the notifications. If you’re running a small traditional server in your office or home, check the RAID BIOS settings next time you boot and peek at the configurations tab. Test the notifications (it should have a simple button to test it) to make sure you get that page or email. I’d recommend emailing a group and not a single person. Make sure the message isn’t eaten by the junk mail filtering. That single step could save you a catastrophic failure and an enormous amount of stress as an IT professional.
dates, and use enterprise class drives. Drives in a RAID live almost identical lives. If the drives themselves are nearly identical – same manufacturer, made on the same day – it makes it more likely that they will fail at or near the same time, which is precisely what we’re trying to avoid. It is logical, too, that the more drives you have as part of the array, the more likely that 2 or more will fail at or near the same time. For this reason, I do not recommend building a RAID-5 with more than 6 drives. Lastly, enterprise drives are worth your investment. Every manufacturer has distinctly different firmware on their enterprise series drives when compared to consumer class drives. Enterprise class drives are going to alter their behavior to meet the performance or latency requirements of the average RAID controller. Enterprise class drives also go through a much more comprehensive quality assurance process and use higher quality components during manufacturing. As such, enterprise drives are typically rated for much longer lives in general. Enterprise series drives of course will cost more and can be harder to source (you aren’t going to find them at most local consumer electronics stores) but the extra money to source the appropriate equipment is well spent.
CENTER
RAID-5 TIPS
From Gilware A RAID-5 is not a Backup
failed drive and perform the necessary rebuild to restore redundancy. I’d say I commonly hear IT people tell me that it’s probably more like 90% of small they don’t need another backup; they businesses and consumers running NAS are running RAID-5. These misinformed (Network Attached Storage) RAID-5 units people make excellent that haven’t setup any Backup customers for our data notification. When recovery lab. a drive fails and goes Backup offline, the storage Keep doing what you’re array will continue to BACKUP doing and please function (the whole bookmark our website point of RAID-5) and BACKUP! when you get a chance. will “emulate” data A RAID-5, or any RAID for that read from and written to the dead drive matter, is still subject to numerous using parity calculations on all the other failures that will lead to data loss. drives. You might get lucky and notice a A RAID-5 will not protect your data from 20-30% slow-down in data access times, fires, floods, thefts, virus attacks, human and think “Gee, my NAS is running a error, malicious employee behavior or little slow, I wonder if I lost a drive?”, but multiple drive failure. It only protects honestly most users would never notice you from data loss from a single-hard this. Someone might wander by the drive failure when a technician is paying unit and notice a little crimson LED on a attention and can replace it promptly. drive instead of a green one but chances Running a RAID-5, coupled with a are they won’t know what it means or cloud-backup for critical data, is a say anything. very solid and cost-effective solution for most small businesses. Shameless plug: Gillware remote backup is our solution and you can quickly and easily configure it to automatically encrypt and transmit your critical data up to your slice of our cloud. For a small fee we’ll actually continuously monitor the account to make sure all critical data is being transmitted on a routine basis and that all critical data has been properly configured to get moved up to the cloud.
Setup Notifications
Ensure You Have a Complete Backup Before Adding Storage or Flashing Firmware A lot of data loss can happen when doing “routine” maintenance on an array. If the meta-information about the array (drive order and rotation, stripesize, offline drives, hot-spares, physical volume grouping) is lost during a flash, you’ll be dead in the water. Perhaps the array is full and you want to add more drives and a new volume group. Perhaps there’s new firmware for your device that you think will add features or increase performance. It’s always a good idea to ensure your backups are current and 100% complete before doing this type of maintenance. Many an IT professional has been fired for doing routine maintenance without verification of the backup first.
So, if you’re running one of those NAS units in your small business, go grab the manual, connect to it via the little “website” it hosts, and configure the notifications. If you’re running a small traditional server in your office or home, check the RAID BIOS settings next time you boot and peek at the configurations tab. Test the notifications (it should have a simple button to test it) to make sure you get that page or email. I’d recommend emailing a group and not a single person. Make sure the message isn’t eaten by the junk mail filtering.
While I’ve never seen an official study, I’d say that probably more than half of the small businesses out there running RAID-5 have not properly setup the RAID controller notifications. When a drive is taken offline by the RAID controller you absolutely must have it email you or text you so you can promptly replace the www.acrbo.com
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STARTER KIT
ADVERT
WEBSITE
MARKETING
Creative/Viral Marketing Tyler C Martin shows us how to promote yourself online and how to make the most of your website so get online and brand your company! money to good use. This generated Zero customers. So hey, marketing takes time right? So the second $1000 went to an advertising piece that went out to 10,000 subscribers. It too produced Zero customers. Funds were now getting very low. We did have customers from word of mouth but not enough to sustain the business. At this point I did the only thing I thought I could, I spend an hour designing a flyer and got 200 of them printed off. The days of big television ads and full page newspaper ads that drive thousands of customers to your booming business are over (Unless you have an unlimited amount of funding). The Internet and our socially connected world have changed business and marketing forever and it makes me so happy! It has never been easier to get the word out about your business and show people why they should become your customers. And for little to no money if you get creative enough. I got my first life lesson about marketing the day I opened my first business. Finding funds, setting up the business structure, filing legal documents, getting adequate insurance and all the other logistical things involved in starting this business were easy. But when I found myself with open doors but sitting on only $400 in my bank and business bills coming due, “nervous” doesn’t come close to what I was feeling. I knew that marketing was important so I took the first $1000 that I made and paid an “advertising expert” to put our
I spent the next few hours woefully passing them out in a small college town. Numbers skyrocketed a few days later and I was completely amazed. A cheap flyer got us customers?! $2000 dollars.... Zero Customers.
to our business and check it out. That is Creative Marketing. We do many types of advertising in our companies now and the best way that we have found to market that first business is still passing out flyers. Getting creative in your advertising will go a long way. You can find low cost, fun and easy to do methods to bring tens of thousands of dollars to your bottom line. This is where you have to understand your business and experiment. Some marketing books and gurus
But, $10 worth of a creative marketing piece, that some “experts” would laugh at, produced dozens of customers. I estimate that we earned around $1000 from those first flyers. The flyers themselves were not what produced the customers. It was the way that they were passed out. I knocked on each door, talked with each person that answered the door and invited them to come
will tell you specific things to do in order to get customers. I am a little different. I have had and have run multiple companies and each one has to be treated differently. Each one has a different type of customer and it is different to get the word out to different people. This is where the fun comes in! How can you market to the most people for the least amount of money? Figure it out!
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WHITE LABEL
FEATURE
White Label Partners Matthew Rodela explains what a white label parter is and how to make it work for your business structure typical services that offer white label builds are Website Hosting, Off-site Backup, Cloud Storage, Remote Support Software and Data Recovery. Because there is little initial risk to your business to start up a white label partnership, you may choose to offer one or all of the above.
In last month’s edition of ACRBO Magazine, I made the case for why white label services should be made a part of your business offerings. They enable you to provide additional value to your customers by allowing you to offer extra services without incurring the cost of providing those services yourself. White label also allows you to retain customers and extend your brand awareness by integrating tightly with your business and making it look like the service is being offered directly by your company. This month we will look at some different types of white label services that are available and how you can choose the best for your business.
Once you’ve decided what white label services you want to offer, you then must choose the best one. The following are some criteria to take into consideration when choosing a white label partner:
Integration - How well will the service integrate with your own? Is the entire customer experience white labeled, or only the front end? Will you be the middle-man for any support issues or will the service provider have their own white label support? Pricing - How does pricing work and how much of a cut do you get? Some white label services let you decide what to charge the customer while others treat you as more of an affiliate salesman and give you a percentage of the final sale. Make sure the final price you pass along to your customers is competitive. If not, make it clear that in exchange for a premium price they will be receiving superior personal service from you.
Listen to your customers and find out what services they need. Some
Fine Print - Make sure you read and
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Make sure to ask all of these questions before signing up for the service. It’s important for your sake, and the sake of your customers, to know the ins and outs of the service you’ll be providing.
Reputation - Have you heard of the company? If not, search online and look for customer reviews. Are they reliable? Is there customer service attentive and helpful? Choose a company that has a good reputation over one that has no reputation at all.
First of all, what type of White Label services should you offer? This is a question only you can answer. In general, though, you’ll need to choose white label services that fill a need for your customers, but that you can’t provide at a high standard on your own. We all have strengths and weaknesses. Those aspects of your service offerings that are weakest may be good candidates for white labeling.
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understand the terms of the white label agreement. What will happen if the customer sues you due to n issue with the white label product? How do they handle refunds or non-payment?
White label services are a great way to offer more options to your customers and therefore bring more value to your business without the risk or cost of providing the service directly. I recommend starting off with one white label service in order to get a feel for how the process works. If you like it, then you can explore more options and soon your small tech shop can offer the same service packages as a large consulting firm. Download Matthew Rodela’s new eBook, “20 Things You Can Do Right Now To Improve Your Computer Business” for free at his website, http://www.yfncg.com.
Easy and affordable solutions for IT support companies and Managed Service Providers Maximize revenues Minimize costs Deliver exceptional customer service
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10% discount for standard users 20% discount for premium users 50% off system branding
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tel: +1 (888) 243-4329 | email: ussales@gfi.com | www.gfi.com/max All products and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
ADVERTISING
WEBSITES
If you are in the Information Technology industry then below is a list of must visit locations
Site: www.TechNibble.com
Who Is Technibble For? Technibble is a free resource for Computer Technicians ComputerTechnicians Business owners. Technibble is and for Computer (or soon to be techs) who are looking to get into the IT industry, start their own computer business Technicians or improve their Technibble helps Computer withexisting one. We frequently write about ways for you ato get informational and how-to articles published clients, deal with problem clients and introduce you to few some great computer repair community tools and of software. times a week and has a strong
Site: www.TheForceField.net
What is The Force Field?
The Force Field is the name of a podcast for IT Service Professionals, IT consultants, VARs, computer shops and anyone else in the technology field, particularly those who offer products and services to end users.
Computer Technicians to help one another. About Technibble
Technibble started in 2006. During this time the Technibbleitself helps you by covering topics such as: founder (Bryce Whitty) was doing a lot of web development work for clients. There were a handful of sites available that talked about the business side of web - How to start a Computer Business development such as how to get clients or how to deal - Advertising, how to This get clients andakeep with troublesome ones. helped him greatthem deal in the web development but eventually gave away - Business and legalworld issues doing web development for clients andwork focused solely on - Steamline your computer repair the computer repairs. - Technician related product reviews and However, he noticed there wasn’t anything out there to discounts help Computer Technicians with their business in the - Newway opportunities look out for From this, same there was fortoweb developers. - Stories from Technibble was "the born.trenches" from your fellow Computer Techs Over the years, Technibble has grown into a vibrant community of Computer Technicians sharing their knowledge with each other. Technibble also has a large database of Computer Repair tools and adds a new one to its Be sure toevery checkweek. out the Archives, Computer Repair database Tools section and the Computer Technician forum. .
The half hour show is produced by Savoia Media and hosted by Rick Savoia, an IT Service Professional who is also a veteran in the broadcast industry.
Your Ad Here Last issue had over Your Ad here 2,500 views!
Contact
dan@acrbo.com
Let Us Know > Want to see your ad here? Drop us an email.
Be sure to check out the Archives, Computer Repair Tools section and the Computer Technician forum. www.TechNibble.com
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PROMO
MARKETING
Promote Your Business Business promotional items like headwear hit customer’s right in the noggin. Whether they are wearing bandanas, caps, or toques, these folks are walking advertisements for a company. Many of them forget about the corporate logo emblazoned on their headwear, but those viewing it do not. They notice the name of the company, even if just as an afterthought. This subliminal message may not seem like much, but it can make all the difference in the world. Some people wear caps, hats, or bandanas throughout the year, while others reserve this headwear for very hot or cold days. A bandana can be worn alone or under a baseball cap or wide-brimmed hat. There is an art to tying a bandana in ways suitable for men, women, and children. Some women prefer to use these as scarves, tying them around their
neck or around the strap of their handbag. Bandanas can even be seen displayed without a frame on the wall, especially when they feature a unique design. An interesting aspect of using bandanas for promotion is the ability to incorporate many colors. There is often no charge for the first color and then a separate charge for each additional color. Direct screenprinting ensures that the design is there to stay. Customers can often request a paper proof at no charge to view the artwork before production. A rally flag is a smaller version of a bandana used at sporting events and corporate kick-offs to generate excitement amongst fans and employees Baseball caps are popular with men, women, and children. Many styles and colors are available and brushed
cotton is a featured material. Some caps feature a different color or piped brim. A two-toned brim is even available, similar to popular NFL caps. An embroidered corporate logo adorns the front of the cap. This embroidery is now combined with fiber optic technology that lights up the logo. Up to 60 flashing, bright points of light can be included and various light colors are available. PGA Tour caps are available for corporate co-branding purposes. Companies that sponsor or support the PGA Tour often select these caps due to their high quality. In addition to a standard baseball cap, corporate clients can also find a magnet head cover designed for protection from the elements. Both can be embroidered with a logo placed prominently on the front of the headwear.
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BECOME A MSP
BUSINESS
Managed Derek Iannelli-Smith gives us some practical steps for moving away from the break-fix cycle of problems to become a managed services provider I just came back from the Level Platforms Roadshow and it was great! In taking some feedback from last month’s article, I wanted to give you some practical steps on moving away from Breakfix and toward managed services. As a disclaimer, I would recommend that you do these items at a minimum and all of them, not piecemeal. 1. Use managed services yourself. Start with a hosted service – many companies offer trials for 30 days, and this would be your best way to test them, especially their support. Support is going to be the key especially as you are learning and later as you support your clients. There are many good companies out there, I highly recommend Virtual Administrator. They are a hosted Kaseya service (one of the biggies), however Level Platforms, Labtech, Zenith (now Continum), and GFI all have hosted services too. Using a hosted service also allows you to learn from the hosted companies as they want you to succeed, and later you can grow into being a service center yourself. It takes time and you can make money in the process. 2. Use a PSA (Professional Service Automation) platform. Many small business owners complain about the costs for the biggie software companies (Autotask or Connectwise), however, it is really costing you
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if you are not using them. I have used both, and prefer Autotask for the functionality and Connectwise for the training/implementation support (CW – Modern Office is AWESOME). Talk with the vendors and they will get you started. Think this through; because once you select one, migration to another platform is NOT SMOOTH despite what the sales guys say. The benefit of a PSA over your current solution is that both the packages I mention above are based upon ITIL Standards, a must in the IT service industry. 3. Tap into an MSP Education System. I cannot stress the value of reading of pioneers and learning from them. My first hope in the industry was Daniel Hand and his Computer Repair Business Lessons Learned book. Later I was exposed to Robin Robbins with Virtual Administrator (she is still my hero and I continue to learn much from her), and later to Len DiCostanzo with my Kaseya/Autotask training and I also subscribe to Karl Palachuck’s stuff, as well as MSP Mentor, and MSP University. If you have been reading my industry articles for a while you will note that I stress continuing education as a not-optional part of becoming successful in the IT service industry. Further, in small business, failures COST much whereas you can piggyback on the master mind principle by learning from others mistakes without having to make
them yourself. Take the training with packages mentioned above (#1 & #2), learn the software, take the marketing classes not just the admin classes and be teachable. I get so discouraged with the arrogance in our industry. There is more than enough business to go around, and when I succeed, you succeed. Givers gain. 4. Get an account with a big wholesale IT vendor. I cannot stress this enough. TechData and Ingram Micro are the biggies and I highly recommend them. There are others (D&H for instance) who are trying to act like the big boys, but suffer from poor pricing, and support. Or you could try setting up accounts with all the vendors you want to represent and you are going to discover that they are limited in offerings, have strict requirements (many out of reach for the small business person), and their sales guys are going to be calling you all the time to sell more. If you have not figured it out yet, there is no money in hardware, and your clients are going to shop on Amazon, Newegg, and Pricegrabber. Do you really want to risk losing a client because you shop at the same place and mark it up? Other benefits of the big vendors is that they already have worked out the partnerships with the biggies (Cisco, HP, Symantec, etc) and will offer certifications, training, and price breaks, not to mention RMA, easy ordering,
BUSINESS
BECOME A MSP
d Services quoting, and support. If you truly want to be successful, then work with successful systems already in place. I like what Robin Robbins says and I quote her here, “Why climb a mountain when there is an elevator next door.”
5. Train your techs. I realize it is all about billable hours, but an informed tech is a great salesman and in most cases the best person to influence an upsell, upgrade, or migration. Train them with your products (MSP, PSA, Vendor certifications, Cloud, Office365, Google Apps, etc). Send them to road shows; let them take classes, get them the tools they need to do their job (ACRBO has a great list of preferred vendor tools that can take your business to the next level), offer incentives for successful
completion, and certifications. My boss is a proponent of this and it has been quite refreshing to have an employer who loves the industry and his assets. I would recommend starting with the basic CompTia certs (A+, Network+, Security+), and then move onto other industry promoting certs. Set yourself out from the crowd by investing in your people and the industry. So there you have it, some basics for moving from breakfix to becoming a managed services provider. If you are not doing these basics, then you are probably not serious about growing your business. There are more than enough resources in these five items to keep you busy at least six months as you transition. Take the time to do it slowly, right, and be
informed. Take advantage of the great advocates of the industry like Daniel Hand, who want to see you succeed. Tap into resources, give back, and share with those that are teachable. Finally, don’t do for others what they can do for themselves. I can’t tell you how many times I read IT forums of folks who are supposedly members or participants in a master mind group or membership, asking questions about stuff when they have not read or explored for themselves that the organization they are a member of already, answered that question or provides training on that very topic. Good luck to you and let me know if there is anything I can do to serve you.
Competition Win a Branded Copy of D7 technician program! We will randomly choose a winner and e-mail the winner. Just send an email to: dan@acrbo.com and in the Subject line put: Win D7 February’s Winner: James from P&P Computer Repair www.acrbo.com
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MARKETPLACE
ACRBO
PC Dice
Contact:
Veteran Web Hosting Contact dan@cmonova.com
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A great gift for that tech you know. Or even better take them on site with you and amaze your customers. Visit www.PcDice.com
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Linux For The Rest Of Us - Do you want to stay ahead of the computer curve so that you don't feel left in the dust? - Do you want to expand your knowledge so that YOU are that technician who people go to for advice? - Do you want to learn an operating system so powerful and fun you'll wonder how you lived without it?
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Visit www.LinuxForTheRestOfUs.com
Quotable: I have an almost religious zeal - not for technology per se, but for
the Internet which is for me, the nervous system of mother Earth, which I see as a living creature, linking up. ~Dan Millman
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TRAINING
EFFICIENCY
Down Time Transform Stephen McLaughlin (AKA Door to Door Geek) explains how you can make the most of your spare time, being more efficient and get trained know and people you trust and not just a random blog/blogger. When I say that please do not think well I trust {insert name here} from {insert popular internet site/brand} that you really don’t know and you really don’t know their motives. We all have downtime and most of the time it is not by choice, this time is often seen as a bad thing. I understand peoples instincts to say that but we must remember this is our time to invest in ourselves and the best thing is unlike pre-intertubes most of it is free and we can access it anywhere at any time. Now I know I just said most of it is free and I know everybody focused hard on that word “free” but we must make a judgment call, do we have the time to invest in finding trustworthy information? Most of us really want to just “cut to the chase” and I will admit I have found some of the best information on social networking, promotion and tech research on sites and servers with no restrictions but I will also admit I probably spent 1+ hour in searching and scanning to find 10+ minutes worth of quality content. This is a horrible throughput, only 1/6 of that time is spent learning and 5/6 is spend digging through useless data. Now, here is the hard question, how can you cut thru the useless data and get right to the golden nuggets as quick as possible? Well to me the bottom line there is no absolute 100% correct answer, each need can change what path/ protocol is the right answer. One constant remains in the answer in my opinion and that is real people’s recommendations, people you
This is where the power of the “real time” inter-tubes that we all love, enjoy and take for granted can be used and abused to reach our goals now, right now, right right now …. Ok, when this article is done… I say pick a topic, any topic and find an active community and here is the tip I have, focus in hard to what you want to learn then take one step back, what I mean by that is let’s say you want to learn “how to remove virus yada yada”, take a step back from that and look for a community that focuses on computer repair, maintenance or security. Ahh now you see you have choice, choice is good. Maybe two out of the three stepped back topics might not be as active as you want but that third one fits your needs, my two “golden communities” for these needs is Podnutz and TechNibble (and you better already know about both of them), but they are not the only ones, the choices will indeed be near endless.
I probably spend an hour searching to find ten minutes of quality content While you’re a part of any community granted it will take some of your time but you will learn who is active, who knows “topic yada” and what other sites/
services to know and trust. Shameless plug time, I have a video series on learning Linux called www.LinuxForTheRestOfUs. com/acrbo it doesn’t teach you everything but it can get you over a very important hump that stops many users from learning and being a much much safer internet user, now granted (man I am saying that a lot here) virtually everything I teach in the videos are on some website and on youtube but it is very hard to find in one central spot, thus it is convenient, is this product making me rich … lol hell no but I can tell you every community I am a member of have given me nothing but positive feedback saying it was exactly as advertised, a bunch of useful data all in one spot. Virtually every community I have joined has paid me back 100 fold in time savings, like mentioned in the “The Best Speech Ever” by Charlie Chaplin I found on youtube “We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each other’s misery.” And let me tell you something, that speech is over 60 years old but I find it timeless, humans are humans. Now, with that said, don’t be like me, don’t let internet trolls bring you down or drive you off, they might be loud from time to time but they are few and far between in most communities. Let me know what your favorite community is, what community has helped you the most, what community member needs to be given thanks publicly?
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BUSINESS APPS
PHONES
Business Apps Put simply, an app makes things easier; they make accessing information quicker and more convenient for the user
Now available for Android and iPhones The app market caters for everyone, apps can help customers find you, find out more about your business and interact with you. Businesses are now putting faith
in apps to generate revenue, raise brand awareness and increase user engagement. I compare it to the internet came about and people were wondering “Do I really
need a website?” The same can be asked of apps, and to me the answer is yes. If it’s affordable and doable why not implement it into your business.
$50 for the Android app, $125 for the iPhone version, or $150 for both (Prices reflect ACRBO membership discount)
Contact Dennis Drew dennisdrew@gmail.com for more information 24
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BRANDING
BUSINESS
Reinstalls Can Help Paul Lommi shows us how reinstall jobs can actually be beneficial to your business and how branding and consistancy is the key to success Many technicians pride themselves on their ability to cure an infected computer, especially some of the tougher infections. There is no argument that a technician that can remove infections without having to reinstall the operating system is more skilled. As a business, there are many other things to consider when considering how to go about this.
beyond the scope of the article, but with a good imaging program, and tools such as WSUS Offline Updater, and Ninite, the reinstallation process can be very quick and automated. As your business grows, time management will be one of the biggest issues you face. When removing infections, some machines can take a relatively
to its optimized state. Without all the bloatware, sometimes it even runs faster then when the customer bought it. This can make a customer surprised, and I have even had customers bring in a brand new computer to get a reinstall. A reinstall can provide a consistency of machines that leave your shop. When a customer has questions down the line, it will be much easier for to troubleshoot because you know the environment your working with. Including troubleshooting tools in your reinstall can also speed up customer service time. Another reason for consistency is to set a level of expectation for your service. If Bob and Mary both get their computer infected and fixed, it is ideal that they both have the same experience.
Before getting into the case for a reinstall, we must define what a reinstall is. When the typical “pizza tech” works on an infected computer, he generally formats the drive, reinstalls Windows, and then returns it to the customer. This is not an acceptable practice if you want returning customers. Prior to any reinstallation you must take an inventory of the system. What programs do they have installed? Are there any programs that cannot be restored? What drivers may give you problems later? The next step is the most important - backup the user’s data. There are a couple tools that can do this - the one I recommend is Fab’s Autobackup 4 Tech. The actual installation is
small amount of time, but others can take much longer. On the other hand, a reinstall will take approximately the same about of time. It will be easier to give your customers a better estimate of when their machine will be done. As computers become so essential in daily life - one of the customer’s biggest fears is that you will have their machine too long. Often times, even after removing infections, there are side effects, and the system never really runs how it once was. Over time, most Windows machines become much a slower. The customer also benefits when a reinstall is done, because the system is much closer
Branding is especially important if you are looking to grow your business. On a reinstall, you can do many things to brand your service. You can have a wallpaper, or gadget with the company name and logo. There are many options to choose from, but having some kind of branding is important. It is important to recognize that not every machine is a candidate for a reinstall. Most machines (excluding business clients) will be good candidate for reinstalls. Over the long run, this can save your business many hours, keep your customers happy, and have a consistent product that will be recognized in your community. Many will still argue that this method is the easy way out, but sometimes easier can be better. www.acrbo.com
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MARKETING
SOCIAL
Social Media Marketing Ador Talukdar explains how to get the most affordable SEO package, how to get one to suit your budget and how Search Engine Optimisation works Social marketing is a low cost or free approach to marketing online. It is the most popular method of creating hype for businesses across the web. If you are ready to begin a social marketing campaign there are many steps you must take in order to be successful. These steps include defining your audience, goals, and implementing the methods of marketing. The first step you will have when you start a social marketing campaign is to define the audience. It needs to be clear who you are targeting for sales, revenues, and more. Having a clear definition of your audience will help you better understand which methods of social marketing will work best. While younger crowds respond to these techniques through sites like MySpace and Facebook, older crowds may desire be more responsive through email campaigns and newsletters.
Understanding your audience will help you begin planning the social marketing campaign. The next step to social marketing is setting goals for your campaign. Are you primarily concerned with driving traffic to your site? Do you want to create returning customers? Goals differ based on the type of site people own. For example, plenty of affiliate sites have one goal in mind and that is to drive as much traffic to their sites as possible to get as many clicks from web surfers they can. They make money through clicks. Their goal will be to get people to go to the site. If you have a retail site you will want to market your products and create hype about the products offered on your online business. Write down a list of all of your goals. This will help you choose the best methods for your campaign. Social marketing works by driving
traffic to sites, improving site rank which improves credibility and it can also have the potential to increase sales. Choosing the best methods for your endeavors is very important. An email campaign can be used to send out massive amounts of emails to visitors and leads to your site. Blogs can add inbound links and bring in relevant traffic to a site. Social networks are a great way to create hype and loyal customers also. Article writing and press releases get the word out about who you are. Determine the methods you would like to use for your social marketing campaign. Some people like to use a mix of all of each of these. The final step to your plan is to put the methods to work. Whether you are writing press releases, blogging, or designing emails for a campaign, each of these will help you drive traffic to your site. Social marketing is the most effective way to bring in more customers to an online business and improve online credibility. These methods are free but if you do not know how to do them yourself you can hire writers to accomplish the tasks for you.
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FEAR
STRATEGY
Don’t Let Fear Take Hold Why you shouldn’t let fear stop you starting up a business and how determination and passion will get you further than a blank cheque could You took action, you learned a lot. It is a fact the almost no-one hits the jackpot with their first business, but you learn a huge amount and this builds your skill base and confidence. Just don’t listen to these “armchair experts”. What about being constrained over a fear of success? People worry that as customer’s flood in they won’t have the knowledge or the supplies to do the repairs. The actual reality for your business is that you will try and achieve a steady stream of customers on a daily or weekly basis. When you have understood how to undertake what is required, then you have the opportunity to expand into other parts of the chosen niche or perhaps other niches entirely. When you are contemplating opening a business it is often what may seem to be an insurmountable hurdle right in front of you. It can stop you in your tracks before you actually take any action. Is fear preventing your business from happening? If you have not yet taken action to start the process then I really urge you to ask yourself this question. If you can determine what is stopping you, then you have a great chance to alter such negative behavior. There are three distinct types of fear of failure with regard to starting a business. You may perhaps identify with only one or you could associate yourself with all three. Whatever you find, there are ways to overcome these and get you on the road to creating and building a successful business. The first is the common fear of the unknown and it can paralyze
you to the point of inaction. If it is a monetary fear such as spending a lot of money developing your business. If it is just about being unsure of what to do and how to undertake the tasks from researching for potential market to creating a website advertising material and the marketing, then there is not a lot to worry about. Just take each step one at a time and find the information that will help you to progress. Thousands of others in the same position as you have done it so there is no reason you can’t either. The next factor is a fear of failure such as what will people think and say if your business bombs? You should understand that if proper research has been undertaken then there is a high chance that your business will not be a failure.
You deserve the money you will make for putting in the effort and now you will be rewarded for it. If you provide valuable information and great service then you will have happy customers.
It is not difficult to take an idea and create your business. Anything that is unfamiliar always creates anxieties, yet through finding the information to help and listen to those that have succeeded before you, there is no reason why you should not join the ranks of those that have a successful business.
Secondly, not all ideas are as good as envisioned. It does not matter. www.acrbo.com
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STRATEGY
WRITING
Writing Marketing Articles James P D Stevens takes a look at the best ways to write an article for internet marketing and give your website that little kick it might need Article marketing is a concept that can greatly boost the capabilities of a website, but unfortunately getting started with it tends to feel tedious or overwhelming. Article marketing is not a difficult task, however, so if you are serious about utilizing this form of internet marketing, the following the steps outlined below will give you a good boost in the right direction. Here is the basic information that you need to know when you want to learn how to write an article for internet marketing: 1 - The first thing to know is that article marketing has numerous objectives. The first is to generate keyword driven content that relates to your niche. The second is to create a link back to your website that search engines and potential visitors can follow. The third objective is simply to get your name out there as an authority on whatever subject you are trying to sell. All three of these objectives are important and should be considered when writing an internet marketing article. 2 - Internet marketing articles can range significantly in word count, but readers tend to prefer articles between 450 and 750 words. Your article should use friendly and easy to read language, small paragraphs and headers to break up the text whenever possible. 3 - Your article should focus on a topic relating to your website, and it should primary intend to inform potential readers. If the people who read your article feel like you know what you are talking about, they will travel through your link to your website to learn more information
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on the topic. 4 - If you really do understand your niche or product, writing about it should not be difficult. If you are not sure where to begin, visit online article syndication websites to get a feel for what is already available online and proceed from there. If you still need assistance, consider contacting a professional copy writer to help you put your article marketing content together. Article marketing is such a vital part of attracting visitors to your websites that you really need to get it right. 5 - Once your article is written, make sure it includes a call to action that invites readers to visit your website for more information. This will be at the bottom of your article, and should include a link to your website. When your article is submitted to article directories, it will allow people searching for information
on the topic to find the information you are providing. If they are impressed with your level of expertise, they will follow your link back to your website for more information. Article marketing is an excellent way to build traffic to your website while providing valuable links to build page rank in search engines like Google, while simultaneously building your reputation as an authority on the subject at hand. If you are not already participating in this vital form of marketing for your website, you could be missing out on traffic that simply does not know how or where to find you.