Tell us a little about your MSP…
Southern Data Solutions, located in Atlanta, Georgia, was founded in 2005 with the purpose of providing excellent customer service. With a stellar team dedicated to the success of that vision, we have grown our business and looking to expand. Our services and products are now solidified and moving forward is much easier with special thanks to The 20. I have a saying that, “No one drives a Ferrari, until we can all drive a Ferrari,” meaning that the company’s success will be shared among all of the people that contribute to the success of Southern Data Solutions.
How long have you been a member of The 20?
Southern Data Solutions became a partner to The 20 in February of 2017.
Why did your MSP originally look to partner with The 20?
Southern Data Solutions was coming out of a failed relationship with Continuum and was seeking out a new partnership for help desk and NOC services. We continue to be pleasantly surprised by the entire offering from The 20 and signing up was a no brainer.
Tell us about the biggest change in your business since joining The 20.
The 20 partnership has helped Southern Data Solutions align our business so that we can focus on bigger-picture growth. Simplified, it means that The 20 staff take care of our existing client’s support needs while we can focus on the relationships of existing and new.
What do you like most about being a member of The 20?
Being around Tim Conkle… LOL! Seriously, it is a breath of fresh air knowing that new products and partnerships are being brought to the group — and the information sharing is the best!
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
I have always been a driven person and the key to success is finding ways to gain back as much of our most precious and valuable asset — TIME! Being proactive with our clients — and having good clients — allows the men and women I work alongside of to be able to spend more quality time with their family and friends.
What are your biggest business challenges?
Our challenges have consisted of bringing in new business on a consistent basis, as well as keeping the clients utilizing our established processes instead of latching on to one person in our organization. Engaging Google AdWords has significantly increased our inbound leads. As for keeping the client on track with our processes (calling the help desk and not the last engineer who helped them), we continually stand united in delivering the message of calling the help desk is faster than putting you, the client, in the queue of one person who has other tasks and tickets ahead of you.
What are your areas of focus for 2019?
Southern Data Solutions is focused on growth through new business, which will either be through new sales hires and/or acquisition.
What advice would you share with an MSP looking to scale their business?
Select a focus or goal and stick with it. Manage your time wisely and make sure your team is doing the same! Communication is key with both your employees and clients. Show appreciation to both your employees and clients. In this day and age you can find new clients, but a good employee is hard to find or replace, so always have their back!
What book are you currently reading?
I read the Bible daily and that is all I need.
Favorite blogs / podcasts
The YouVersion Bible app has great reading!
QuickBooks Printing Issue
Recently, one of our Live Call Technicians, Trent Shaw, had encountered a problem where an MSP client called in and said she couldn’t print correctly out of QuickBooks. She said all of the logos that were supposed to appear on the page weren’t printing as they were supposed to.
So, Trent went in and first confirmed that she could print normally from the printer in question, over and over again — to make sure that was working correctly — and it was. Then, he went in and confirmed that the print settings in QuickBooks were also set up correctly — that, too, was in working order!
To find the problem, Trent decided that he needed to open the template that they were using to print from, and check out if there were any issues there. It was here that he found the culprit: the JPEG that she was using for the logo turned out to be corrupt!
Trent found another photo of the logo, created a new file for it, and replaced the corrupted one inside the template. As soon as that was done, she was told to print out the document again, and sure enough: it printed out correctly.
And that was that! The resolution had been found, and from that point on, that customer ceased to have any problems printing through QuickBooks!
Thanks, Trent!
You don’t think it can happen to you until it does.
The 20’s clients can be up and running the day after a disaster.
One of our MSP partners, We Are Service, saved the day for Ryan O’Neal Autos, under incredibly unfortunate circumstances. After suffering a devastating fire, they had the client back in business with phones and computers hooked up; with all of their critical data restored, the following morning. They lost hours of business, not days, weeks, or months!
Here’s the full story, from the dealership:
On Thursday night, March 23, 2017, our dealership had a devastating fire that began around 9:30 pm. The prompt response of our brave firefighters was crucial, but equally important were the critical actions taken by our IT service provider, We Are Service.
While the building was still burning, I called We Are Service and James Taylor came to the scene at once. James entered the building once it was safe, and with the fire department’s permission. James ‘rescued’ our server first, and then several other computers. Moving quickly, we were fortunate to be able to secure a temporary location to set up business next door in the unused space of an auto detail business.
James and the We Are Service team worked through the night restoring our data to a temporary server, setting up telephone service, and reconfiguring some loaner computers to operate at the new location before our business even opened that Friday, March 24th. With some equipment and furniture loaned to us by Amarillo National Bank, and with We Are Service’s continuing efforts, our business never was closed. In spite of the fire and total loss that was reported widely in our local media, we experienced zero down time. It’s nothing short of a miracle that with the We Are Service team’s monumental efforts and exceptional customer service, our business was up and running the following morning and we were selling cars uninterrupted!
Of course, when we constructed our new building last year, James and his team came out and got everything wired and set back up for business. With 24/7/365 help through The 20, We Are Service is our managed IT department. Taking their advice on the new location, we continue to save money to this day with our new VoIP phone system they recommended and installed.
James and We Are Service were strongly recommended by one of our clients several years ago and holy smokes we are so fortunate that we took that advice!
Enjoy the video testimonial from Ryan O’Neal Autos’ Sales Manager, Michael Conrad, below:
Tell us a little about your MSP…
Cirrus Technologies is located just north of Dayton, OH, and service the greater Dayton region, Cincinnati, and Columbus. We support clients and technology in 16 states and 2 countries. We were founded in 2015.
How long have you been a member of The 20?
We’ve been a member of The 20 from day 1 of our business.
Why did your MSP originally look to partner with The 20?
I wanted the ability to scale and grow quickly, and this meant having the team and resources of The 20 behind me vs. going alone as a “one-man-band.”
Tell us about the biggest change in your business since joining The 20…
We’ve had triple digit growth, and achieved an annual revenue that puts us at the top 4% of the industry!
What do you like most about being a member of The 20?
The community, collaboration and sharing of best practices and collective knowledge.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Tenacity. The going will get tough, but it’s those who persevere and don’t give up who succeed.
What are your biggest business challenges?
Continuing to build reliable lead generation oil wells to grow at the same pace we have been.
What are your areas of focus for 2019?
Sales operations and marketing.
What advice would you share with an MSP looking to scale their business?
2 things:
1. Find someone else successful and model their success; it’s foolish to try and re-invent the wheel.
2. This is a very unforgiving business to those who try to go it alone. Join a community and peer groups; join The 20 – you cannot be successful living on your own island!
What book are you currently reading?
Traction by Gino Wickman, Blue Ocean Strategy by Chan Kim, High Probability Selling by Jacques Werth, and Clockwork: Design Your Business to Run Itself by Mike Michalowicz are all on my short term reading list.
Favorite blogs / podcasts?
EntreLeadership, Lead to Win by Michael Hyatt, and The Brendan Show by Brendan Burchard.
What do you do here at The 20?
I am a Tier 1 Support Desk Technician on the Email Team.
Describe The 20 in three words…
Intelligent, diligent, and familial.
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Professional snowmobile driver and pyrotechnician.
What’s the most challenging thing about your job?
Both the multi-tasking aspect, and knowing when to let something go. I tend to get focused on an issue and I want to resolve it, but sometimes it is better to let another pair of eyes take a look at it.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Being able to turn my passion into a career. Also, I used to own my own company: Harker IT, LLC.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Drive! You have to be the person who works harder than most and stay focused on the end goal.
What do you like most about The 20?
1. The work environment for sure. The 20 feels more like a niche family than it does a job or company.
2. The number of different systems and environments we get to work on/in every day. Every day is a new challenge.
What do you like to do in your spare time? / What are your hobbies?
I like to spend time with my fiancée, my friends and my family who live near. I really like doing projects with my Dad.
My hobbies include cliff-jumping, floating rivers, pool basketball, etc. Anything outdoors.
Where are you going on your next vacation?
Puerto Rico
What’s your top life hack?
Using a lighter to open a bottle.
We kicked off the new year with 2019’s Winter Quarterly on January 17, and it was a wonderful experience! Held at our offices at Legacy Central in Plano, our new space really allowed the event to shine. And as always, getting so many of our partners from around the country conversing in the same room is a real pleasure.
We pride ourselves on creating a family-like atmosphere, so to see the close friendships that have formed between the MSPs is truly amazing.
But to Quarterly itself, it was an incredible 2 days of insight and fellowship.
Tim Conkle of course kicked things off with a lot of energy and some famous “Tim-isms” – always a surefire way to get everyone feeling good and motivated to grow their companies!
It was then time for all of our great vendors to walk us through their amazing products and how MSPs can utilize them to run their IT companies more successfully.
Vendors like:
Deep Instinct, which serves as proactive cybersecurity that applies deep learning techniques to protect against cyberattacks.
Cytracom, which provides VoIP made simple, specifically created for small to medium MSPs.
Itopia: offering solutions that empower enterprises and service providers to deliver and consume cloud in an easy, secure, scalable and cost-efficient manner.
RapidFire Tools, whose offerings include Network Detective for IT assessments, documentation and reporting; Audit Guru for Compliance Process Automation; Cyber Hawk for internal cyber security threat detection and alerting.
Veriato, which specializes in providing insight and actionable intelligence into the activities and behaviors of the user: employees, contractors, and those who seek to steal their credentials.
Compliancy Group: providing everything you need for compliance. They cover every aspect of regulation and document every step of the process. Includes HIPAA, PCI and more.
Then, sprinkled throughout, were appearances by our very own Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Crystal McFerran, our CIO, Jonathan Blakey, our Support Desk and NOC Manager, Zach Eshelman, and attorney Dan Astin, of Ciardi Ciardi & Astin. Crystal broke down the approach of our marketing program, Jonathan spoke on best practices for working with the 20, Zach discussed the onboarding process — as well as IT Glue and their powerful documentation management, and Dan Astin discussed limiting risk and maximizing customer relationships.
So much was learned, and so much fun was had – especially at our in-house Happy Hour Thursday night!
If you have any questions about future Quarterly events, please utilize our Chat feature on the site, or give us a call! We’d love for you to be a part of our Spring Quarterly in April!
Tim’s opening remarks.
Dan Astin presents.
I’ve always heard that ultra-successful people share a common habit: reading. They read a lot.
In fact, I believe Warren Buffett was once asked about the key to success, and without missing a beat, he pointed to a stack of books and said, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”
And he’s not alone, Bill Gates, Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Oprah Winfrey are all on record as citing their reading habits as being a major player in the success they’ve had.
So, with all of this mind, we wanted to ask our partners from all over the country what their favorite business books were and how they made an impact on them as business owners.
We got a great response, so please enjoy!
All three of the following books are awesome.
First up is 3 Laws of Performanceby Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan. It relates to personal responsibility and organizational management in a way that will transform your experience of life.
Second is Turn the Ship Aroundby L. David Marquet. Written by the commander of a nuclear submarine, this book is all about empowering teams and lifting people up.
The third book is Never Split the Differenceby Chris Vosswhich is mandatory reading for anyone in customer service, sales, or any occupation requiring resolving upsets or problems, or negotiating contracts. Priceless.
I also recently finished Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. I appreciate the blending of his entertaining — and sometimes shocking — FBI stories, and how the lessons learned apply to business.
The book reinforced being present, intently listening, and the importance of rapport/relationships. The book gives you exact phrases to use, avoid, and why. It helps demonstrate the massive impact of what we say and how we say it.
Eat Their Lunch by Anthony Iannarino.
This book teaches you how to bring a higher value to a potential client, who is using your competitor. And of course, if applied to your current clients, it keeps your competition from displacing you.
Michael Wayland, Managing Director of Byte-Werx
The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.
It really helped contextualize and change my mindset on automation and SOPs. And I think it was a great stepping stone for organization in my business and my personal life.
Kasia Subieta, Vice President of Spot Migration
Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson,Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzlerreally showed me how to have difficult, uncomfortable and emotional conversations with all my key relationships rather than just fighting or fleeing.
I used the skills it taught me the other day in a conversation with an employee that I upset, that moved the situation from hurt feelings to understanding, and strengthened our relationship.
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.
This book helped me lead by example and taught me that employee failures are actually failures on the leader. By being a better leader, employees follow suit.
The other book is Traction by Gino Wickman. This helped razor focus our company on growth and singing the same song; rowing the company in the same direction. It helped influence our decisions on the employees we hire and how we talk about Spot Migration — whether it’s in a sales meeting, in marketing, prospecting or client meetings. It helped us figure out how to verbalize the drive of Spot Migration.
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.
This book is a godsend! It really changed my worldview and has given me a new way to think and solve every day challenges both big and small. I now know that I have the power within me to affect change, even when I think things are out of my control. I highly recommend this book to everybody.
Ryan Rosencranz, President and CEO of FullScope IT
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. This book explains why 80% of small businesses fail and provides some traps to avoid. Gerber explains the importance of defining the different roles and responsibilities of an entrepreneur and why one person can’t do them all. This advice helped me grow my business by starting with a rock-solid foundation.
Chris Plouffe, President and CEO of CSP Technologies
Same Side Selling by Ian Altman and Jack Quarles. This book is about stopping the games that some play in sales. There is no winning or losing and we are all on the same team. It helps us become problem solvers vs sellers and use FIT (finding impact together) to solve the puzzle that is our prospect’s needs.
Jason Penka, Founder and CEO of Tech Junkies
Scaling Up by Vern Harnish. We have been going through this book as a company for the past few years. To me, this is the definitive guide to build a growth-based business. As my company has grown the book has become more and more valuable.
The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz. I read or refer to this book at least once a year. It reminds me to focus on building my business around the clients I WANT to do business with. The book has helped me find multiple niches to hyper focus our services toward growing our business. I highly recommend the audible version — you get extra tidbits from Michalowicz as he reads through the book.
Profit First by Michael Michalowicz. This book helped me to implement an amazingly simple concept with the multiple benefits of not only making payroll (I.e. paying myself first), but also helping to make sure to put aside profit versus waiting and wondering where it went after-the-fact. It’s an easy read; well worth it. And a word of advice, don’t get discouraged when your accountant tells you it’s not a good idea — I’ve been down that road already. It’s been great for my business and my family. I highly recommend it.
Leadership Step by Step: Become the Person Others Follow by Joshua Spodek
This book was the first book I’ve seen that actually gives exercises to build leadership skills. I have purchased the physical book to actually “do” this book, as opposed to just reading it. It’s well worth your time if you want to improve your leadership skills.
Alex Bleam, President of Frogworks
The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni.
As business owners, one of our most difficult jobs is to surround ourselves with staff who will work well with others, see the corporate vision, go the extra mile and want to come to work every day because they love what they do. It seems like finding people who will do their job is hard enough — but getting them to be part of a cohesive team is even harder. The author, through the telling of a story of a fictional company, walks you through the process for finding people who want to be part of your team. The book was compelling and encouraging for all business owners who are wondering if true team players can be found. The author’s answer is, ‘yes, it can be done, and let me show you how.’
So, there it is!
We hope these books serve as welcomed suggestions on how to best learn from other MSP owners on your path to successfully growing your MSP business!
What do you do here at The 20?
My business card says “Channel Manager” but what that really refers to is everything that doesn’t fit into another group. I really try to be a resource for all of our members with any question that they might have. While I might not always have the answer, I can typically find the person that does. From initial on-boarding to Elite status and beyond, I’m here to help.
Describe The 20 in three words…
Driven, ambitious, and fun.
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A race car driver or the drummer for the Rolling Stones. While my race car driver skills are behind me, I continue to stay ready to jump into the Stones job if Charlie were to retire. Keith, Mick… I’m here when you need me.
What’s the most challenging thing about your job?
Not knowing what the day will bring is challenging, but also exciting. Problem solving, training, counseling, listening, learning, etc. No two days are alike.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Chloe (14) and Devon (10) — my two beautiful daughters.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
It might sound boring, but just don’t quit.
What do you like most about The 20?
There is so much to like about The 20. The environment is great. Things move quickly up here. For those of you that have worked at Fortune 500-type of companies that move like the Titantic — this ain’t it. If something’s working, we’ll double down. If it’s not, we’ll pivot until it does. This keeps everyone on their toes.
What do you like to do in your spare time? / What are your hobbies?
I love spending time with my girls. We camp, travel and I drive them all over the Dallas area most weekends. I love being outdoors doing things like mountain biking, fishing and kayaking. My number-one hobby that’s been a constant all my life is music. I’ve played drums in bands since the age of 13 when my parents would drive me to gigs around East Texas.
Where are you going on your next vacation?
I’m planning a quick NOLA weekend trip right now since parade season just kicked off. But the next big trip with the Wood girls is probably going to be California. I’m not sure where, but the girls are pushing for LA or San Francisco. I’m pushing for Santa Barbara, but we’ll see who wins.
What’s your top life hack?
Always carry a pocket knife.
I think we’ve all seen those virus alerts to some degree or another that pop-up on our desktops telling us that we’ve been infected. They’ll typically pretend to be from legitimate companies like Symantec or Microsoft (in some cases, even using a fake Microsoft logo to establish credibility), and they always want you to call a fake number — which leads to paying money for a fake service.
I’d like to believe that anyone reading this blog is someone who can detect this kind of scam, but regardless, whether you’ve fallen for this in the past or not, new information on the source of this costly annoyance appears to have come to light.
And it takes us all the way to India, thanks to The New York Times.
The article begins by telling us that 1 out of 5 people who receive such alerts tend to contact the fake tech support centers, while 6% of users in general actually pay for the fake services – which is crazy in and of itself.
Nothing about those alerts look legitimate, but hey, there are A LOT of people on this planet…
The meat of the piece points to Microsoft and how they helped police trace who was behind these large-scale operations. Apparently, these scammers have their roots in New Delhi, the capital of India, which is also the epicenter of call centers in general.
According to the software giant, more than 11,000 calls per month about fake security warnings were being received. And many people as a result, lost significant sums of money to the fraud.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, police from two New Delhi suburbs raided 16 fake call centers and arrested more than 50 in connection with the scam.
The Scam
Fixing the non-existent virus could involve calling a tech support center, where an operator would talk a victim through a fake fix and then charge them for the work. In other cases, the bogus tech support team would call their targets themselves and pretend to be a Microsoft employee, bringing to their attention a virus or false claim that his or her system could have been hacked. Eventually, they ask for anywhere from $99 to $1,000 to fix the problem that doesn’t exist in reality.
Courtney Gregoire, an assistant general counsel in Microsoft’s digital crimes unit, perhaps said it best when she was quoted as saying, “This is an organized crime.”
No doubt.
The scam is incredibly lucrative according to researchers at Stony Brook University. They published a detailed study of fake tech support services last year that estimated just a single pop-up campaign, spread over 142 web domains, could bring in nearly $10 million in just 2 months.
Microsoft said it was working with other tech industry leaders such as Apple and Google, as well as law enforcement, to fight the digital epidemic, which is migrating beyond the English-speaking world to target other users in their local languages.
Microsoft has also published advice about ways to spot the fake calls and avoid becoming a victim.
Small business owners face an important question when it comes to IT support: should I hire an in-house IT employee or work with a vendor?
We recently looked at reasons why companies should outsource their IT. Check out this infographic to break it down further.
IT Support questions to ask when deciding between Full-Time Employee and Managed IT Department (MID)
• What is the cost for one full-time employee vs. going with a Managed IT Department?
• What do you get for what you’re paying? What is additional?
• What are the advantages and challenges of both sides?
• What’s the best choice for your business?
Want to learn more about the advantages of a Managed IT Department? Contact us today!
