When a budget comes into play, it is important to remember that there are a few ways that you can adjust it beyond eliminating line items. For instance, you can instead optimize some of the most egregious financial requirements your technology has–its support costs–by translating the unpredictably variable costs you likely deal with now for your support, to the much more sustainable agreement that a managed service provider will operate through.
Let’s go over some of the ways that an MSP can help reduce your support costs, while still providing better support than the alternative.
Where Support Costs Build Up
Take a moment and consider why technology costs tend to rise so rapidly once an issue is discovered.
The technology itself could be expensive to repair or replace.
The repair fee will likely include fees and travel costs in addition to the cost of the service itself.
The repair is likely only focused on fixing the immediate problem, without considering if it will recur or if the fix itself will cause further problems down the road, leading to repeat visits.
If an issue does happen, you have to call in the technician for them to come and actually fix the problem. This all takes a lot of time, before the repair even takes place, which itself can take a large amount of billable time as well. So, in addition to paying for the travel time for the tech to get there and the time they spend solving the issue, you are also incurring costs through missed productivity.
It is next to impossible to predict these kinds of expenses when trying to budget out your year, as you can never know when you may be surprised. If you set aside too little, you could drain your budget long before you planned.
Of course, this is assuming that you would call a regular tech support company and that you didn’t have a managed service agreement with an MSP. Most of the above issues can be resolved much more efficiently (and cost-efficiently) through a managed approach, as we’ll demonstrate:
How MSPs Ease These Budgetary Challenges
Let’s go through the reasons we went through before, that would typically lead to swelling costs and exceeded budgets. This time, however, we’ll assume that you’re leaning on an MSP for your IT assistance and support.
While the technology could be expensive for others to procure, the MSP likely has developed a relationship with vendors who can provide them with more affordable solutions.
Many problems can actually be resolved remotely, as the MSP takes full advantage of. This means that travel costs are usually unnecessary, and anything that falls within the agreement with the MSP is covered by a consistent monthly fee.
In addition to fixing the problem at hand, the MSP uses their access and vantage point to identify the root cause of the issue. This means that the issue itself is resolved, preventing future intervention from becoming necessary.
Your MSP will also monitor your technology for these kinds of issues, using special tools that alert them of inconsistencies and errors. Since they use remote access to do so, they can even find potential problems and proactively fix them. Even if an on-site visit is required, it may be included in the agreement, as well. As a result, your team can return to work–and therefore productivity–that much quicker.
With a recurring and inclusive fee for these services, budgeting for a managed service provider is a relative breeze. Any changes you need to make (like if you add more employees to further boost your productivity) can easily be incorporated into your monthly fee, keeping costs in check.
Interested in finding out more? Reach out to our team and ask about what other benefits working with us can bring! Call 810.230.9455 today.
Do you know what drives me crazy? It’s the fact that, of all the lists of things you can do to improve your business and boost your productivity and optimize something or other… it seems there’s not much to be said about how your employees factor in.
Which seems a little ridiculous to me, if I’m being honest. Your staff is one of your biggest investments. On top of that, it is important to remember that, since your employees are human beings, pushing them to do more might actually result in them accomplishing less.
In my experience, the best way to help an employee accomplish their best is to track their performance and evaluate their next steps. Is this always foolproof? No – but as I said, in my experience, it is the best way.
Understanding Employees
Before we go any further, it is important that I make something clear: we are proceeding with the understanding and acceptance that your employees are like any others: flawed human beings, capable of a lot and likewise distracted by a lot. Either way, holding them to the same standards as we would some automated alternative is unfair, as I am sure you would agree.
However, and somewhat unfortunately, this often isn’t the impression that employees get from management. Some common complaints from employees are:
Their workplace lacks communication.
They have no job security.
They aren’t paid what they’re worth.
Credit isn’t given for their hard work.
Favoritism is alive and well in the workplace.
Management constantly has them under a microscope.
They have to deal with managers who are incompetent.
There’s just too much work to do.
Now, put in a list like this, these don’t look too great, and you may want to shrug them off and assume that they aren’t happening in your company… they almost certainly are.
Having said that, I want you to think back to when you once worked for someone else. How did you feel going in every day? Now look at that list again – some of those line items may have helped motivate you to go into business for yourself.
Let’s face it – entrepreneurship isn’t something that people are really “born to do”…it is a decision that people make, usually after paying their dues and working for other people and seeing ways that they would do things differently (or in their minds, better). Some staff members love working for certain people, and other staff members don’t, occasionally acting on it.
The point of all this: people are people, and as such, there is no single equation for dealing with employees well.
This means that, no matter what you do and what style of management you use, not all employees are going to be a good fit at your company. This means that, along the line, someone was going to feel displeased about their work situation.
Remember, while you should still be doing everything you can to make the work environment as amiable as possible for your employees, some just aren’t going to be a good fit, and may need to be addressed in other ways.
Is It Ethical to Monitor Your Employees? Or… Legal?
At the end of the day, it is important that you realize while payroll can be your greatest investment, it can also be your worst. This means that you need to keep track of how your employees are performing and spending their time in the office, which leads you to the prospect of actually tracking your employees in the workplace.
This opens up a few more questions, starting with the data you are actually collecting. What is it that you are trying to track? Should you keep it simple, monitoring attendance or the number of hours an employee actually spends in the office? Are there different performance indicators that you like to keep updated metrics concerning? Do you want to monitor keystrokes, making sure that they are working diligently throughout the day, or their browsing histories to make sure they aren’t putting your company in jeopardy by visiting sites they shouldn’t be?
This is where things can get a little murky as far as business ethics are concerned. How much do you really need to know, and how much will you collect as collateral data?
As it stands today, employee monitoring software is in high demand, the market growing as more businesses decide to protect themselves against theft by an employee. The consensus seems to be swaying toward the opinion that you can’t trust your employees not to take advantage of you, either by stealing data and other resources, or dishonestly reporting their time.
There is also a lot of license given to businesses in terms of what can legally be done to protect their own assets, especially where an employee’s privacy is concerned. Courts have ruled in some cases that a company can track an employee’s behavior after they have left the confines of the office. Consider the permissions that a user needs to agree to in order to access work-related files on a personal device. There is little to stop the employer from also going through private messages with that access.
So yes, it is currently legal to monitor your employees, which means the decision really falls to you and your conscience. Of course, this may change, or it could just as likely stay the same. Privacy is a contentious subject these days, with no clear indication of how things will turn out when (and if) it is ever settled.
Mindfully Monitoring Employees
One of the hallmarks of employee monitoring is the fact that the monitoring itself is kept about as hidden as the behaviors it is meant to catch. Whether you’re keeping an eye on your surveillance footage, web activity, internal correspondence, or keystrokes, the person being monitored traditionally would only find out if they were told… which isn’t something that companies have traditionally done, either.
I would urge you to actually break from tradition here.
Ethics aside for a moment, it just makes more practical sense to inform your users how their activity is to be monitored. Not only will this transparency help you build and maintain trust amongst your users, but it can also help keep issues from developing in the first place. Think about it – what happens when people realize there’s a patrol car on the highway? They immediately check the speedometer and correct their speed. Transparency has a great way of acting as a deterrent in that way.
You also want to consider the kind of metrics you’re actually collecting before you evaluate your employees based on them. Do the metrics line up with how the employee provides value to the business, and/or the actual value they deliver? Look at it this way – when you’re looking to buy an appliance, like a toaster, you won’t find out how well the toast is browned by measuring the length of the power supply cord. Metrics can be useful tools, but only where they practically apply.
Finally, don’t give up on your employees too quickly. If your monitoring picks up on one of your staff members having a tough time, try addressing the situation as your first option. Sudden downturns in employee productivity are usually caused by something, and that something might be fixable. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t terminate an employee if you need to, just to consider alternatives before diving into the hiring process again and losing what may still be a valuable resource.
What are your feelings on employee monitoring, and using these kinds of solutions? Share your thoughts in the comments section, and check back in with our blog to learn more about optimizing and securing your business’ technology.
In 2018, Amazon was struck by a considerable attack, with hackers taking funds from approximately 100 seller accounts, according to a Bloomberg report. Between May and October 2018, Amazon sellers were struck approximately 100 times, draining funds from the seller control platform to augment their own funds. According to the investigation, the first fraudulent transaction took place on May 16, 2018, with an undisclosed amount being stolen. The hackers utilized phishing attacks in order to scam their targets.
“Unknown Hack”
On May 8, 2019, almost a year to the day after the first transaction was made, an Amazon spokesperson claimed that the company had completed investigating the compromised accounts, and had been the victim of an “extensive” fraud. The extent of the fraud was large enough where two banking companies, Barclays and Prepay Technologies (who is a partial subsidiary of Mastercard) are caught up in the crime.
Ultimately, Amazon neglected to disclose the true scope of the hack, but a report by Bloomberg indicated that over one billion dollars were dispersed to merchants in 2018 via Amazon Capital Services U.K. While there is currently no figure provided by the company, if large portions of that money was subverted, it could rank as one of the largest hacks in the history of online commerce, and certainly the biggest fraud that has involved Amazon.
Amazon, which has a business model built to be largely automated, has done a remarkable job of keeping personally identifiable information from being hacked over the years, but in today’s threat-persistent culture, even the most secure companies can have situations happen to them that jeopardize their ability to complete financial and information transactions, regardless of how much they invest in cybersecurity.
Phishing Attacks
Just because this article mentions a major fraud involving the world’s largest online retailer in no way means that hackers have moved on from trying to hack small businesses. Small businesses face the majority of hacking attacks, mainly because they have the least amount of security to thwart. In fact, if Amazon can fall victim to phishing attacks, it’s not a stretch to believe that your company is susceptible. With millions of phishing messages sent every day, many of which target small businesses, having a strategy to educate your staff is extremely important.
The best way to go about doing that is to be proactive. Getting your staff to understand that they are on the front lines of a never-ending cyberwar and what they need to learn in order to keep themselves, and your organization free from the serious risks that come from falling victim of phishing attacks. Some things you can prioritize:
Annual education and training – Have a comprehensive plan in place to educate new and current staff that is updated and required annually.
Having strong passwords – Since phishing is a form of social engineering, the hackers on the other end of the phishing attack are simply looking for access. Having strong passwords will keep them out much longer than weak ones.
Avoid shadow IT – Make it clear that all software has to pass through IT first, before it is downloaded onto a workstation. It may seem inefficient at first, but the company will be better off vetting a software solution before it gains access to your organization’s network.
Provide cloud storage – When people are constantly on the move and have a lot of responsibilities, they will often upload their work into their personal cloud-based file storage. This can be risky behavior, even if the employee’s motives are solid. Keep your company’s data hosted on its own infrastructure.
With these four tips you can go a long way toward protecting your business, and your staff, from the detrimental characteristics of a phishing attack.
If you need help with your organization’s cybersecurity, or if you simply want some help outlining a strategy to use, contact the IT professionals at NuTech Services today at 810.230.9455.
When considering a business’ strengths, there is a tendency to focus on its more quantifiable aspects – it generates x dollars in revenue, or leverages advanced solutions a, b, and c. While these kinds of competitive advantages are valuable to have, it is also important to recognize how critical one of your more qualifiable strengths can be: your company culture.
Your company’s culture is its identity – the impression that your company leaves when someone makes contact. As such, there are assorted reasons that it pays to create an engaging and inclusive company culture.
Draws in Talent
Let me ask you this: would you rather work someplace that had a reputation of nurturing incoming talent and ensuring that this talent had the resources and access that they needed to succeed in their position, or someplace notorious for leaving new employees to fend for themselves, providing minimal direction when direction is necessary to successfully complete a task? My money is on the first option.
One of the biggest benefits to creating a positive culture in the workplace is that more people will want to make it their place of work. This gives you a wider pool of talent from which to select the best candidates, creating a stronger business.
Of course, attracting this talent is one thing, having it stick around is quite another.
Retains Talent and Reduces Turnover
As long as your company culture matches its reputation, the individuals who accept your offer of employment are less likely to leave, barring any personal circumstances that force them to. This is important, as the sudden loss of an employee can have assorted impacts on your business. These impacts can include dropped processes, missed opportunities, and the costs associated with finding, hiring, and onboarding someone to replace the lost employee.
Of course, you don’t have to worry so much about these impacts if your employees aren’t motivated to leave. This is where having a positive company culture is so valuable – you can better avoid the significant costs of losing an employee, continuing to benefit from their skills in the workplace. Research conducted by Gallup indicated that only 37 percent of employees engaged with their work were actively seeking new employment opportunities, compared to a staggering (albeit understandable) 73 percent of those who had disengaged from their work.
Columbia University conducted research as well, and their results followed in the same vein. According to their results, organizations with strong company cultures saw turnover rates of 13.9 percent. 13.9 percent, compared to the 48.4 percent turnover rates at companies with poor company culture.
Boosts Productivity
A happy employee is a productive employee, which translates to direct benefits for your business if your employees remain satisfied. The right company culture can motivate your employees significantly. The same Gallup research referenced above demonstrated that engaged employees saw productivity boosts of 21 percent. Another study, by IBM-owned Kenexa, suggested that organizations with an engaged workforce were able to bring in twice the income as an organization without these levels of engagement.
Reduces Employee Burnout
There are many reasons that an employee can experience some level of burnout, whether their schedules are overpacked or their hours are simply too long to be sustainable. However, a negative company culture is often overlooked as the root cause of an employee becoming disengaged with their work.
While employee burnout may seem like more of the employee’s problem at first consideration, there are some very real consequences that a business will need to deal with. For instance, employee burnout has been linked to an estimated 49 percent increase in workplace accidents, and a 60 percent increase in errors.
Stressed out employees are a liability to your company, but helping them to reduce that stress with a better company culture can turn these liabilities into true assets.
Better Attendance
Speaking of assets, your employees aren’t going to be very good ones if they are never in the office. A Harvard Business Review study reported an increase in employee absenteeism of 37 percent among disengaged employees. Naturally, if your employees aren’t completing their responsibilities due to this absenteeism, it is going to have an impact on both your business’ success and internal morale.
However, a more positive company culture encourages your employees to report to work, and as discussed above, leads to improved productivity while they’re there.
Is Company Culture Really So Important?
Based on the outcomes discussed above, it is pretty clear that the better your company culture is, the more effectively your business will be able to operate. So, how can you improve yours?
One way is to give your team the tools they need to complete their tasks more easily than they could with outdated and insufficient IT solutions – and the efficiency boost that new IT solutions will bring can free up some time to develop your company culture even more. NuTech Services can help to make sure that you are using the tools that are best suited for your company’s (and by extension, your employees’) needs. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to learn more.
As nice as it would be to always please everybody with your business services, it just isn’t going to happen. Sooner or later, you’re going to encounter someone who isn’t pleased, and they’re going to have the capability to do some damage to your reputation. Fortunately, there is a way you can mitigate this damage.
The first thing you need to remember is that, while your unhappy customer or client may not be correct, they are always right. What does this mean? Simple – even if they misinterpreted what they were entitled to through your services, you have the obligation to make them happy. This is not to say that you kowtow to every demand a customer makes, regardless of how ludicrous it is… you just need to make sure they stay happy.
How can you do this? It all boils down to communication.
How to Communicate With an Unhappy Client
Chances are, you’re going to find out that a client was unhappy by reading a review that they leave somewhere online – perhaps on Facebook, or on Google, or on a third-party review website. What they will have to say may upset you. That’s fine. Nobody likes to hear that there is something wrong with one of their endeavors. You have every right to be a little upset – just don’t let that upset seep into your conversation with your unhappy client.
After all, in their eyes, they have every right to be upset as well.
Therefore, once you’ve regained a cooler composure, you need to respond directly and politely to the negative review. While this initial interaction should be public, offer to continue your conversation in a less public way, in an offline forum. If the reviewer accepts, try to come to a mutually beneficial compromise with them. This will help to insulate you from a rash decision.
This brings up another important point – while you may really want to, you should never just remove a negative review. Not only will that make it look like you are hiding something (not good), it also squanders the opportunity to make lemonade out of your reviewer’s lemons. Again, try to make whatever issue your reviewer had right, and ask them to revise their review once things have been settled. If you play your cards right, the result could be a much better review, describing the care you put into fixing their issue.
Reviews Can Be Good, Too!
Whenever they are, you have another opportunity to embrace by responding to them.
I can almost hear you now: “Wait, if a reviewer is happy, doesn’t that mean I’ve done what I had to do?”
In a way, yes. If someone is willing to leave a positive review of your services, you clearly were able to strike a chord with them. However, while responding to a negative review could be somewhat accurately seen as damage control, responding to a positive review has a very different motivation to it.
Look at it this way: anyone who is willing to take the time out of their day to speak highly of you online is an invaluable ally to have. Positive reviews and negative reviews are very different things, especially in that people are generally more inclined to leave negative feedback if they have the opportunity.
Reflecting on this, it only makes sense to take the time and respond to positive reviews as well. A positive review is more or less a confirmation of a successful onboarding process – to keep these contacts engaged, you need to continue communicating with them beyond the point that their invoice is settled.
Are you happy with our services or our content? If so, we’d love to hear about it. Leave us a review or drop us a line in the comments!
While running a business can be quite rewarding on a professional level, it can be extremely challenging, with countless obstacles to overcome–particularly in regard to technology and its management. Thankfully, there are ways your business can minimize the pain of managing technology. Here are just a few of them.
Be Prepared to Lose Power Electricity is perhaps the most important part of using technology in the workplace, as without it, the devices that empower your business’ operations just won’t function. In some cases, you might suddenly lose power, leading to data loss and other disaster scenarios that could strike your business down if you’re not prepared for them. With progress grinding to a halt, downtime will ensue, creating a considerable loss for your business.
Even if you’re not losing power, an excessive amount of it can create a surge, damaging the infrastructure itself and harming the individual components that make it up. It’s ultimately in your best interest to take measures against these events, as you made an investment that needs a substantial return. Surge protectors can be helpful to prevent excessive power from crippling these important machines, but in some cases, you’ll want a more powerful solution. An uninterruptible power supply, or UPS device, can help your servers, workstations, and other important technology shut down properly in the event of a power outage or surge, giving you the ability to minimize damage done.
Maintain a Steady Internet Connection The Internet is an invaluable tool that can help your business succeed, and the Internet plays a larger role in its functionality than it ever has before. A lack of Internet ultimately becomes downtime for many organizations, as they depend on the Internet for various services and communications. More often than not, there’s nothing you can do about a lack of Internet if it comes from your service provider. To keep this kind of downtime from sinking operations, many businesses have implemented backup Internet connections, just in case they ever have to use it. This comes with a downside–you’ll have to maintain that connection–but it will likely be worth the investment if you ever need it.
Place Boundaries on Your Staff Even the best employees are known to make mistakes from time-to-time. While you can trust them for the most part, nobody is perfect, nor should you expect them to be. Some might even try to implement their own solutions with the intention of making their jobs easier and more efficient. This is called shadow IT, and it can be dangerous. You have no way of knowing whether it’s putting your business at risk. You can implement measures to ensure that your employees aren’t downloading unauthorized applications through the use of administrator and user privileges. If you limit what your users can do with their machines, then you have less to worry about.
NuTech Services can help your business ensure managing IT doesn’t become a hassle. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.
Technology is an easy thing to take for granted, especially in an office that has countless solutions that are utilized on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small retail establishment, a large organization with multiple offices, or a factory to produce consumer items. Today, we’ll look at the various ways your business is changed for the better thanks to the use of technology.
Customer Service Your customers are one of your most valuable assets, so it’s natural that you want to build a powerful bond with them. If you can’t support the products you sell to them, you’ll have a difficult time keeping your business in good standing with both current and prospective clients. Technology can help you maintain this positive relationship through the use of a ticketing system to handle customer complaints and concerns, and it also makes it easy to handle support for various services you might offer.
Social media and social networking in general provides businesses with more direct ways of interacting with consumers. Sites like Facebook and Twitter essentially offer a platform to promote a brand and knowledge base. Of course, this advantage can quickly become a detriment if it’s not managed properly, as you’re (again) dealing directly with customers–if they aren’t satisfied by your interaction, they’re more likely to share it and complicate public relations.
Productivity To be successful as a business, you have to accrue money somehow. This is where productivity comes in–technology helps by enabling workers to get more done throughout the workday, building more value for your organization in the long run. For example, time-tracking software can help with task scheduling, giving employees the opportunity to accomplish more during the time they spend in the office. Moreover, you’ll be able to assign a monetary value to the time your employees spend on various tasks and streamline their work processes.
Many of today’s most helpful technology solutions come with built-in productivity solutions that allow for collaboration through the cloud. These cloud-hosted applications provide flexibility to workers so they can communicate in the way most efficient for them. Since these solutions are flexible and scalable, your business can adjust them as needed.
Finance Money is a big part of why you’re in business, but you can’t do anything without funding of your own. You have a bottom line to keep in mind, after all. Technology can help businesses better manage their finances through online invoicing services to collect payments and reduce paper expenses. If you use software to manage payroll and other accounts, you’ll be able to handle them easily and more efficiently. If you can streamline these processes at all, your business can run much better and you’ll be better off in the long run.
Security Security plays a critical role in the sustainability of your business, both on your network and in your physical office. You can’t let workers or other entities waltz around your network and your office uninhibited, as the opportunity to cause major damage is practically omnipresent in today’s business world. You need to implement not only network security solutions such as antivirus, firewall, content filtering, and spam blocking technology, but physical security solutions like security cameras, biometric security locks, and other measures as well. Doing so ensures the protection of all your business’ assets, whether it’s from a hacker or a careless employee.
A lot goes into making a business successful, and technology plays a large role in doing so. How does your business use technology? NuTech Services can help you get started thinking about the future for your organization. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.
As the technology that businesses have available to them develops, so does the propensity for this technology to be used unethically. This has become especially apparent where data collection is concerned, and what that data is used for after it has been collected. How can you keep operations moving both productively, and ethically?
Collection Concerns Data collection is one of the current big concerns in technology. With another newsworthy data breach practically every other day, companies that accumulate data for seemingly little reason effectively put their clients and customers at a greater risk of having this data stolen. Reflecting upon this, it is no wonder that 75 percent of consumers are concerned about brands keeping track of their browsing habits.
Facebook has been the focus of some negative attention in past months thanks to these concerns. In addition to the Cambridge Analytica situation, Facebook has adopted artificial intelligence technologies to analyze their users. This analysis is used to predict future behaviors, these insights being sold to advertisers. While this brings up many legitimate concerns about data privacy, it also introduces a different topic: the need for a code of ethics surrounding the use of collected data, as well as how much data is collected.
Why This Is a Real Issue It should come as no surprise that businesses and individuals have different priorities, and that these different priorities shape their ethics in different ways. Likewise, the primary purpose of any business is to generate revenue through profit. Therefore, it only makes sense that a business as a unit would have the motivation to collect as much data as they can – after all, the more data available, the more insights that could be presumably be gleaned, and the more successful the business would be… in theory.
However, as mentioned above, many businesses seem to collect as much data as they can just so they can have it. This is not a great approach for them to take for a few reasons. Most obviously, because it just enables more data to be compromised if a breach was to occur.
Without the guidance of a code of ethics leading your business decisions, the likelihood of risking your clients’ data for the sake of advancement – be it more insight, improved automation and artificial intelligence, or another business goal – becomes much higher.
Enforcing Ethics In order to create a workplace that is in alignment with your determined ethics, you need to make sure of two things. One, that you clearly establish and share them within your business so that your employees are on the same page as you are, and two, that you stand by these ethics.
To accomplish this, learning your company’s ethics should be a part of an employee’s onboarding process, with a written document leaving no questions as to what will and won’t be tolerated. Then, you need to make sure that you not only listen when ethical violations are reported, but also allow those reporting them to remain anonymous.
What would be the most important aspect of your policy for employees to follow? Share it in the comments!
Almost everyone has, at one time, worked with someone with whom their personality clashed, whether they did not get along or just didn’t work effectively together. While this is a perfectly natural phenomenon of both nature and nurturing, it is best to put personal differences aside when forming a professional relationship with a coworker.
This was the focus of Networking Like a Pro, a publication by Dr. Ivan Misner and Brian Hilliard. In it, they explore how personalities come into play in the workplace, and how each person’s behaviors influence their interpersonal relationships. While most people display the traits of many personality types, the book makes the assertion that all people fall into four predominant personality types, especially where business is involved. Business networking is strongly influenced by how well your behavioral type meshes with another’s.
So, does this mean that you just won’t be able to network with some people, and with others it will be effortless? Not so.
Misner and Hilliard offer advice on how to best interact with these behavioral types by understanding what really makes them tick. These types are as follows: Go-Getters, Nurturers, Examiners, and Promoters.
Go-Getters When dealing with a Go-Getter, you have to think–and move–fast. The Go-Getter is determined to get the results they are looking for ASAP, and if the rules need to be bent in order to get them, so be it.
To communicate with a Go-Getter, you need to make the value that you offer them clearly relevant and essential to their goals. More specifically, you need to make them see how you can help speed up their operations without sacrificing the results they strive for. The Go-Getter will also want to hear that they have options to choose from, but would rather hear a pitch than they would a heavily-planned-out script. With a Go-Getter, stick to the highlights, and deliver on your promises.
Nurturers Where a Go-Getter has more of a “now, if not sooner” attitude, a Nurturer sees the value in taking their time where business matters are concerned, operating with patience. Nurturers are also natural team players, surrounding themselves with supportive allies and willing to offer assistance wherever it is needed. They can be overly tolerant, however, willing to endure a less-than-ideal situation than ready to take a risk to change it.
Honesty is the best policy when working with a Nurturer. To work with them, you will first need to build their trust. You can help this process along by gently guiding them toward a mutually beneficial solution. To accomplish this, you also need to maintain contact with the Nurturer, regularly providing evidence as to how a business relationship with you can provide simplicity and support.
Examiners A born skeptic, an Examiner will thoroughly examine and evaluate everything that they may work with–including the people. They will unsurprisingly be predisposed to perfectionism, and at the very least, are very thorough. The Examiner is a strong conversationalist, as they use their stores of knowledge and information to their advantage. Efficiency is also a virtue to the Examiner, and so they will move on once their objective has been met, whether that is to the next assignment or to the next event.
As you build a connection with an Examiner, you need to be concise and clear about your position and why it is worth their time to be involved. Lean on facts and evidence to make your point, and only use small talk and stories if they add to the evidence that you are a dependable provider. You need to be sure that you put your best foot forward when interacting with an Examiner, as they will be forming a very strong opinion of you from the get-go.
Promoters A Promoter is a salesman, usually an extrovert, and a thought leader. They have the drive to spread any good idea they find, more often identifying them instinctively than through research-based evidence. Promoters often attend industry events to network and socialize. They are usually juggling many different projects, and are rarely confrontational.
Communicating with a Promoter requires you to match their speed and align your needs with their priorities. One such priority is their professional image, so you need to make sure that your offer increases their visibility in the industry. As you deal with a Promoter, make sure that you document the finer details of your agreements in writing, and you fulfil your end of the bargain promptly and professionally. Furthermore, you should always give a Promoter plenty of help whenever it is required to prove that you are the best choice for their needs.
These strategies should enable you to network more directly, with the end result being more business relationships that provide mutual benefit. Which of these personality types do you think you most embody? Tell us in the comments!
There has been a lot of buzz about the term net neutrality in the news, on social media, and around the water cooler lately. The FCC is preparing to end net neutrality on December 14th, 2017, and it’s causing a major stir. From activist groups encouraging people to call congress with their concerns, to headlines exclaiming that the Internet as we know it is dying, there is a lot to sift through to really understand what the stakes are. Our goal is to make sense of net neutrality without the sensationalism, and explain how it can affect small business owners.
Plain and simple, net neutrality is the idea that internet service providers (ISPs) need to treat all data on the Internet the same. Regardless of how you connect to the internet, your provider isn’t allowed to prioritize certain types of content, websites, or online services for you. This also means they can’t decide to limit or restrict certain types of content.
For example, let’s say your internet provider also has their own on-demand video streaming service. They would much rather you use theirs instead of Hulu or Netflix, so they could put limitations on how much Netflix you could watch (or block it entirely) to try to encourage you to use their service. Since most Americans have very limited options when it comes to choosing an internet service provider, this really leaves us helpless when it comes to what content we can consume.
A lot of people are using similar examples like this to explain net neutrality, but as much as it would be undesirable for your favorite video streaming service to become harder to access, life goes on, right? There is a whole other side to consider…
The Internet Isn’t Just About Consuming Content for Entertainment
This Netflix example is just scratching the surface. The same problem could happen more frequently at smaller scales. It’s not just entertainment and media that could get prioritized, but any and all web content. Social media, search engines, ecommerce and banking, and small businesses who rely on their online presence could eventually see an effect from this.
If your business relies on online traffic to generate leads, abandoning net neutrality means that your internet service provider could make it harder or impossible for some customers to get to your website. Your ISP could prioritize and otherwise interfere with traffic simply because they have partnerships or get paid by businesses who compete with you. This may sound a little extreme, but it has already happened:
Real World Examples of What Net Neutrality Protects Us From
In 2010, DSL provider Windstream Communications admitted to hijacking search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users thought they were searching on Google, but instead were delivered results through Windstream’s own search portal.
We’ve also seen cases where service providers were blocking other services on their network to attempt to get users to use their own:
Between 2011 and 2014, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile payment system, which competed with Isis, a competing mobile payment system that the three carriers each had a stake in developing.
Over the last decade or so, other cases have come up where ISPs had blocked various VoIP services, including Skype, Google Voice, and Vonage. The most notorious case was in 2012, where AT&T announced that it would disable FaceTime, a video messaging app on iPhones, unless subscribers paid additional fees.
While many of these earlier cases happened before net neutrality rules were officially in place, net neutrality enforces ISPs to keep the Internet open and transparent. The net neutrality rules were a result of these cases.
The Argument Against Net Neutrality
Myth: Net Neutrality Hurts Small Businesses Although the argument for net neutrality is pretty simple–keep the Internet open, the argument against it is a little more complex. FCC chairman Ajit Pai (who formerly worked for Verizon) claims the rules are “heavy handed” and “all about politics.” His argument states that small internet providers were hurt by regulations. Net neutrality does prevent Internet service providers from charging more or less for different tiers of internet, capitalizing on advertising revenue and partnerships by redirecting traffic, and throttling competing services, but it also prevents smaller businesses from being excluded from a fair, open online ecosystem.
Myth: Net Neutrality is the Government Regulating the Internet Another argument against net neutrality is that regulation always gets in the way of progress. However, the net neutrality rules aren’t crafted to regulate the Internet and how consumers use it, instead it regulates how it is delivered and how the businesses that deliver it can manipulate it. Imagine UPS prioritizing your deliveries based on the brands you buy or the stores you buy from. You’ll make decisions on what to buy and where to buy from if you knew you could get it faster. Next, imagine ordering a Samsung phone, but UPS has a partnership with Apple and swaps out your new device with an iPhone before it gets to your house. It sounds silly when put that way, but this is exactly what we’re fighting to prevent.
Myth: Tiered, Lower Cost Internet Will Benefit Low-Income Households One of the strongest arguments against net neutrality is that enabling ISPs to create tiered Internet packages will allow more users to get access to the Internet. This sounds like a very strong point–we want to give poorer families the same opportunities and resources. The idea of an ISP coming out with a cheap, barebones broadband service designed for households who simply can’t afford or struggle to afford current plans tugs at the emotions. However, limiting the open Internet can lead to limitations of the value of the Internet itself. If lower-income households were given access to an Internet without the same perks and resources, they still miss out. These families will inevitably choose Internet packages that limit the experience, and thus limit the amount of opportunity both economically and educationally they could have otherwise. Children growing up with a limited, restricted Internet might not be able to watch tutorials on YouTube, take free online courses for programming, or gain the skills to use the Internet to reach a wider audience through marketing and social media. They won’t even know the opportunities are there because the only Internet they know is the restricted, limited tier.
There are long-term ratifications to this that we simply can’t predict, but it’s clear that there is more to gain from an open Internet.
Abandoning Net Neutrality Stonewalls Content Creators and Small Business
Let’s go back to how abandoning net neutrality affects business owners. In the example above, where Internet Service Providers could start offering a cheaper, limited Internet tier, this potentially limits small business. If a percentage of your audience dials back their Internet tier to a plan that prioritizes the ISP’s partners and agenda, this could make it harder or impossible for those users to find and engage with you. The money that you put into online marketing won’t go as far, or even have an effect on these users. Smaller businesses and content creators might not have the resources to get past all of the barriers when reaching deals with carriers to have a fair shot at getting in front of customers.
As business owners, we already pay for full access to the Internet. We likely pay other companies for services beyond just Internet access – mobile data usage, email hosting, web hosting, online marketing, VoIP, cloud storage, and the list goes on. If telecoms and ISPs prioritize the delivery of the Internet to us and our audience, we all lose.
On December 14th, the FCC will vote to abandon Net Neutrality and Title II rules. Our only hope is if congress puts a stop to it. Many members of congress have come out against the plan to end net neutrality, but many are for ending it. We need to band together and speak out.
The best way to do this is by reaching out directly to members of Congress and telling them about your concerns. By writing and calling those who can save net neutrality, we’ll help them understand that we depend on an open, transparent Internet.
Fortunately, the people behind https://www.battleforthenet.com/ make this easy. You can compose an email to Congress from the homepage, and even dial Congress members to tell them that you are concerned with the impact that killing net neutrality will have on your business.
If we all work together on this, we can help preserve the open Internet. Please, we urge you to take a few minutes out of your day to go to https://www.battleforthenet.com/ and make your voice be heard.
If there is one thing that supports everything a successful business does, it has to be communication. Any company relies on its communications to ensure that its clients are satisfied with their services, and as communications have improved, it has only become easier for a unified communication and collaboration, or UCC, strategy to take form.
With these strategies, businesses have been able to expand upon their capabilities to enter and embrace the digital age. What follows are ten elements that a UCC would commonly feature in a business setting.
Collaborative Software It is essentially guaranteed that you have some experience with collaborative software in this day and age, even if you haven’t personally used it to its full potential. With Microsoft Office and the G Suite available almost anywhere, the idea of collaborative software is not a new one. However, there are many more solutions out there that allow for many people to pool their skills and talents into a particular project in real time, regardless of how far away they are from each other. Many of these solutions also enable video conferencing and instant messaging, which will be discussed in greater depth later.
Podcasts Imagine giving a presentation where the audience could pause you and wait until a more opportune time to listen to the rest of what you had to say. This is exactly what a podcast delivers–an on-demand lecture on a topic that an audience can listen to at their own convenience. Podcasts are also a more personal method of communication, as many listen through the intimate channel that is the headphone. If you are considering delivering your own podcast, you should be sure that you have these five needs planned out beforehand:
Topic
Length
Frequency
Format
Distribution
Instant Messaging When it comes to rapid communication, you don’t get much faster than ‘instant.’ Businesses have picked up on this and now leverage instant messaging as a communications method. With utility as a communication device between individuals as well as among groups of people, instant messaging lives up to its name with the capability for near-instantaneous response times as individuals communicate with each other. In addition, companies that have used instant messaging in the workplace have seen increased efficiency and collaboration, as well as a reduction in email.
Video Conferencing While it is certainly not a new technology, the practicality of video conferencing has increased significantly over the past few years. Better technology and improved Internet speeds mean that communications can happen in real time from almost anywhere in the world. Not to mention that, according to the IDG Enterprise Video Conferencing Trends in 2016, 96 percent of those surveyed agreed that video conferencing improves productivity and can reduce travel costs by 30 percent.
Discussion Forums Sometimes a user would rather crowdsource their answers from their fellow users than bother the original source. Providing these users with an outlet to share their issues with each other allows them to identify their most pressing concerns, and also tells you what needs to be resolved or addressed first. You and your team can also step in and provide a solution to these issues, establishing yourselves as thought leaders.
Another benefit of discussion forums is that you are able to collect demographic information from your visitors here as well, enabling you to create a more complete idea of who your visitors are, and which groups seek information on which topics.
Email While email may have once been seen solely as a means of sending and receiving messages with an individual or group, it is now relied upon as the primary record for over three-quarters of business correspondence. Archived emails help businesses keep track of their transactions, and incomplete email records have been the downfall of some companies in legal matters.
Clearly, email needs to be a component of your UCC. However, you will want to ensure that your selected email solution is properly secured, has searchable archives, is mobile-friendly, and integrates with your other solutions as much as is possible.
Enterprise Social Networking While social media may have a less-than-shining reputation as a distraction in a workplace setting, Enterprise Social Networking works to the opposite effect. A company can leverage social media to help develop external business opportunities and to promote internal collaboration and communication. Furthermore, employees can be encouraged to act as brand ambassadors, using social media to share company culture posts and boost audience engagement–a strategy that more and more businesses are adopting.
With a UCC, a business has a variety of collaborative and communicative solutions to choose from, and many line-of-business applications incorporate enterprise social media platforms.
ChatBots ChatBots can serve as a very helpful communication tool for the modern business and its website. Often structured in a way that is similar to an instant message, a ChatBot combines AI and human intelligence to improve the customer’s experience through a few common features.
Engagement – One of a business website’s key roles is to engage with its visitors so they will interact with the website. A ChatBot is an always-present opportunity to engage, with the benefit of providing your site visitor with information and assistance.
Personalization – As one of your visitors uses your ChatBot, they will likely give you a pretty good idea of why they are visiting. This allows you to customize your sales approach for their company, as well as to track and evaluate user behavior to deem which types of content are the most impactful to your strategy.
User Experience – Most businesses have an unofficial list of the questions that everyone asks. ChatBots can make that list official, with set responses that are activated by certain keywords in your visitor’s inquiry.
Project Management Software In order for a business to be successful, it needs to be successfully managed. This is why 77 percent of businesses leverage project management software, as it encourages collaboration among team members, improved organization, and an overall boost to performance. This variety of software is also used by 66 percent of organizations to communicate with their clients.
UCC has grown significantly in popularity as the technology that supports it has developed. For more information on Unified Communication and Collaboration solutions and their place in your business, call us at 810.230.9455.
In a business, some jobs belong to certain people: managers make sure that work is done when it needs to be, human resources make sure the workforce is accounted for, and so on. However, some jobs belong to everyone in the modern workplace who works with technology, For our tip of the week, we’ll go over some of these shared responsibilities.
Use the Network As an insurance policy for your data, make sure that everything is saved to the network, and not on your local PC. This is simply a function of risk management–the network is backed up, while it’s much less likely that your individual PC is. Therefore, by storing data on the network, it won’t be lost if your workstation breaks down–and if your network is properly backed up, your data will still be safe.
Check Email Cognizantly It is only too easy to click through email messages without really getting the message, which only helps those who use email as a cyber weapon. The easiest way to avoid falling victim to such attacks is to avoid opening attachments from unfamiliar senders. This is a favorite method of cyber criminals to introduce malware into their victims’ networks, so your best bet is to avoid any unexpected attachments.
Let Data Be Keep your data safe by keeping it in-house where it is secured and backed up, and not uploading it onto your portable device or media storage. Without the protections put in place by the network, your data is much more vulnerable to peeking eyes or meddlesome actions.
Leverage Cloud Technology If you must access data from outside the network, use a secure cloud solution to do so. The cloud has much more to protect it than a pocket-sized media device does. Ideally, you would also be accessing the cloud via a company virtual private network, as well.
Use Secure Passwords As much as you love your dog or can remember your make and model of car, these don’t make secure passwords. It wouldn’t take long for someone who knew a little about you to try those exact variables. Instead, use a unique sequence of letters, numbers, and symbols for each account. If you can’t remember more than one password, try using a password manager. At the very least, use passphrases instead of passwords–instead of using a password like ‘FidoMazzerati,’ make a passphrase like ‘FidoLovesToRideInTheM@zzer@ti.’
Keep Passwords To Yourself After going through the trouble to create a password that is complex enough to satisfy the previous rule, why share it with someone who could easily take advantage of it, or pass it to someone who will? As an example, take your Social Security Number, or other unique form of identification. You wouldn’t pass that around to people, but it essentially serves the same purpose as a password.
Lock Your Workstation It doesn’t matter whether the risk is of someone stealing data or of someone messing around with your workstation as a prank–either way, productivity and focus in the office will suffer. One of the easiest means of avoiding this is to develop the habit of locking your workstation whenever you step away.
Take Note Of All Issues Computer problems are bound to happen at some point. It helps to be prepared to fix them when they do. Whenever you encounter an issue, take notes that describe exactly what you were doing so the IT professional can figure out if there’s an underlying issue, and when possible, include a screenshot of the error.
Let IT Handle It Your computer and the software it relies on will need to be upgraded and, eventually, replaced. When that time comes, don’t take it upon yourself to make any changes in the attempt to save someone else the trouble. Call IT in to help — it is one of the reasons they’re there.
However, many businesses don’t have the resources to hire the IT staff they need. That’s why managed services are part of our offering here at NuTech Services. We can help you monitor and maintain your IT–we’re just a call to 810.230.9455 away.
Smartwatch enthusiasts now have one less brand from which to select, as rival Fitbit has successfully taken over the former Kickstarter project Pebble’s business. For companies that rely on software for their mission-critical tasks, lessons learned from the end of Pebble reminds business owners that, when it comes to innovative technology purchases, there is always a bit of risk.
First, some background: Pebble made the announcement on its Kickstarter page that “due to various factors,” the company “could no longer operate as an independent entity” and had “made the tough decision to shut down the company” after Fitbit completed the purchase of some of Pebble’s assets. The company went on to disclose that they would no longer be continuing any hardware operations, ceasing the production of their wearable products.
As for the devices that had already been sold, Pebble advised their customers that their devices “will work normally for now.” However, since what remains of the company will no longer release software updates, the devices will quickly become vulnerable to malicious threats until they gradually become totally obsolete. These devices are also no longer eligible to be returned or exchanged, leaving their users stuck with a device with a considerably-shortened shelf life, and with no financial recompense.
In short, it’s clear that out of all parties affected by this buyout, it’s the users who are left with the short end of the stick; stuck with insecure electronic devices that they may have contributed a significant financial investment towards, and without warranty.
While this transaction will likely have little effect on a business, it’s worth considering the ramifications of tech companies engaging in similar deals.
For example, let’s say your workplace is exclusively equipped with desktop solutions from Company A. One day, it’s suddenly announced that Company B has come in and bought Company A, and is ending support for Company A’s products. As a result, your office is now filled with unsupported devices that will become obsolete much quicker than anticipated, with an increased susceptibility to security threats after support has ended. Sure, you could update your workstations, but it would be costly to receive customized support.
If you want to be protected against the whims of the tech industry, give NuTech Services a call at 810.230.9455. We can keep your systems maintained with a managed services solution, and an eye on the industry to help you roll a bit better with the punches.
Has your business moved to the cloud yet? If not, you’ve got some work to do–it’s only a matter of time before the need for the cloud completely overshadows your organization. Thankfully, it’s only challenging to move to the cloud if you don’t have a group of professional IT technicians helping you.
Here are three ways that the cloud allows your business to do more with less.
Anywhere Access to Applications and Data If your business is new to the process of cloud computing, one of the best ways you can realize its value is by virtualizing applications and providing access to them over an online environment. You may already be using cloud-based applications in the form of Microsoft Office 365 or Google Apps. These types of data storage and cloud solutions can help your employees stay productive from anywhere they have an Internet connection, which allows them to get more work done and improve efficiency.
You can also host other applications and solutions in the cloud, like a Voice over Internet Protocol system. It’s basically an online phone system, and some of the more dynamic VoIP systems have phone apps that allow your employees to use their company phone number on their smartphone.
Improved Budget The cloud takes advantage of virtualized machines like servers and desktop infrastructures, which allow you to cut down on the amount of hardware stored on-site. The idea is to reduce workloads in-house and place these mission-critical services in the cloud, located in a virtual environment that can be scaled and managed online. This type of virtualization is important for limiting the amount of on-site technology that needs maintenance, which affords your business more opportunities for cost savings. Additionally, the fewer resource-intensive solutions you have in your office, the more you’ll save on energy bills like electricity and air conditioning.
Simplified Network with Room for Flexibility A simplified network means that you’re hosting the bare minimum amount of hardware on-site, and that you’ve managed to virtualize the majority of solutions that your business relies on. For example, many businesses don’t take advantage of full-fledged workstations, and instead choose to use thin clients. Thin clients work by calling a desktop infrastructure from the virtualized server, as well as all of the necessary resources to function properly. Thin clients are less expensive and consume less energy, so they’re a viable alternative to the traditional workstation–when backed up by virtualization, of course. Furthermore, cloud-hosted solutions have the flexibility to change and adapt to your business’s specific needs. This helps by allowing you to allocate resources as they’re needed.
To implement a cloud solution that’s right for your business, reach out to NuTech Services at 810.230.9455.
Stress is a natural part of the workplace. It’s almost impossible to make it through the workday without getting stressed out about at least one thing or another, especially when you’re a business owner. In these stress-filled circumstances, it’s important to remember that stress isn’t always a bad thing; it has some redeeming factors that are often lost amongst the cacophony of shuffling papers and constant phone calls.
However, this needs to be mentioned before anything else; stress created for the sole purpose of being stressed cannot possibly become a good motivator. Inc states that “stress that comes from not having enough information or that’s based on an irrational fear is a poor motivator.” Therefore, it makes the most sense to keep stress to a minimum whenever possible, as there’s no good reason to be stressed out all of the time. Remember, stress without control can be dangerous, and you can’t let it take over your life.
That being said, there are some benefits to be gained from the occasional bout of stress. Here are four of them.
Stress Provides a Much-Needed Energy Boost We often think of stress as a draining factor that can sap energy right out of you, but it’s hard to argue that a sense of urgency comes from being in conflict with something or another. You’ll notice that you’re more aware of your surroundings, and you actually have the energy required to complete your work.
Stress Proves that You Do, In Fact, Care About the Project If you’re stressed out about a certain project, at first you might hate yourself for it. You might fool yourself into thinking that you don’t care how it turns out, and that you just want to get it done. This is actually the opposite of what’s really happening. If you’re stressing about the project, you care about its outcome. Otherwise, why would you be stressed? Make this connection yourself and you can harness the frustration and channel it into energy.
Stress Teaches You to Enjoy the Times You’re Not Stressed Imagine working outside in absurdly hot weather, under incredible physical duress and on an empty stomach. You then walk into an air-conditioned home with a delicious meal waiting for you on the dinner table. Working with stress can be absolutely awful, but it will teach you to enjoy the little things in life that much more.
Stress Inspires Quick Action Stress is something that literally nobody wants to deal with, so naturally, people will move toward a solution in order to absolve themselves of the pain it brings. This doesn’t mean that you should make stress to create that sense of urgency; rather, you should think of the stress as an unfortunate advantage, like falling out of an airplane and into a giant pit of pillows.
Despite its advantages, stress is still something that must be properly managed if you want your team to succeed in their endeavors. One of the main reasons why employees might be stressed in the workplace is thanks to using outdated or dysfunctional hardware and software solutions. Think about it; if you weren’t able to work in multiple browser tabs at once, or open your mission-critical apps, you would probably be in a tight spot, and may actually begin to feel stress.
NuTech Services’s managed IT services can make it so that you never have to feel stressed about your technology or IT budget ever again. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.
Tracking your net worth might not be the same as tracking how many much money you have in your account, but it’s a good start. By tracking your net worth, you’ll have a good idea of how your finances fare in the big picture of things. Doing this may even help you worry less so that you can focus more on improving your situation.
Finding Your Net Worth To many people’s relief, their net worth takes into account much more than just their paycheck. You can basically think of your net worth as the grand total of all of your assets, minus your liabilities; or, rather, what you have minus what you owe. It’s actually quite easy for your net worth to increase over time, since you’ll owe less and obtain more.
Therefore, the first step toward determining your net worth is putting together a list of what you currently own, versus what you currently owe.
What You Own
Home (its current value)
Other real estate
Automobiles and other vehicles like RVs and ATVs (leased vehicles don’t count)
Jewelry and collectibles
Household items, like furniture, appliances, etc.
Retirement accounts, bonds, stocks, mutual funds
Cash value of life insurance
The balance of checking and savings accounts
Cash
What You Owe
Home mortgage principal
Other mortgage principal
Auto loans
Student loans
Credit card debt
Other loans
Once all of these items are in order, you need to plug this information into an online net worth calculator:
Tracking Your Net Worth Now that you’ve attained your net worth, you can use a spreadsheet to track the growth–or (gasp) decline–of your net worth. Here are four ways that focusing on your net worth can be beneficial.
Financial progress: It’s in our human nature to evolve and make progress, and keeping track of your net worth gives you some solid statistics that you can focus on. It’s always great to look back on the previous month and see how much your financial situation has improved.
Confidence building: Keeping track of your net worth can be empowering. For example, saving an extra $1,000 in your emergency fund, or increasing your 401K with a bigger contribution can make you feel proud of yourself, and can help you stay focused on accomplishments rather than your debts.
Keeps you from focusing on assets: On the other hand, you need to keep yourself aware of more than just how much you currently have. Having $200k in assets is great, but you should also keep your $100k of debt at the top of your mind.
Acquiring loans: Your net worth could become a major factor when you apply for a loan in the near future. You want to ensure that you keep track of your net worth so that you aren’t unpleasantly surprised in the event that you need a cosigner for a loan.
Can tracking your net worth be help achieve your financial goals? Try it out and let us know in the comments how it goes.
It makes no difference how your business’s administrative chain of command is set up. Everyone should have a basic understanding of how your IT works, as well as its related responsibilities and functions. Here are four easy ways that you can educate yourself (and your staff) on how your IT department works, be it internal or outsourced.
Know Who to Contact for Support You should be aware of who your point of contact is for your IT department. If you don’t, your employees probably don’t, either. Therefore, you need to lead by example and share this information with them in the event of technical difficulties. Doing so allows your team to cooperate with IT and improve operations, so that minor technology issues don’t evolve into major problems that could have a drastic effect on your working operations.
Working with Vendors Businesses often have several vendors for each of their various hardware and software solutions, which can make dealing with them unnecessarily complicated and frustrating. You should have an understanding of who to contact within these vendors if you’re experiencing an issue with their products. Basically, by being aware of information pertaining to your organization’s relationship with its vendors, you can’t go wrong.
Basic Security Best Practices Every single one of your employees should understand how to keep your organization’s infrastructure secure. There’s no getting around the importance of data security. Your information is sacred, to the point where your organization can hardly function without the data you collect on a daily basis. Here are three best practices that should be followed to a T:
Employees should use long, complex passwords.
Employees should use two-factor authentication.
Employees should be able to identify potential online scams.
Managing Laptops and Mobile Devices If you have employees who bring their own devices to the workplace, a trend known as BYOD, then you should be taking responsibility to manage these devices. Mobile devices that haven’t been equipped with a mobile device management solution in accordance with your BYOD policy, could potentially become a liability. There needs to be oversight into how mobile devices access and use your corporate data, and to restrict the flow of data for security reasons.
This may seem like quite a lot to remember, but don’t worry; NuTech Services has your back. Most of the above problems can be solved simply by having an IT technician whom you can rely on. We provide outsourced IT services, including consultation, vendor management, and mobile device management policies, all so your business can function properly without a hitch. For more information, give us a call at 810.230.9455.
Everyone loves a good vacation, especially if you have the good fortune of having a reliable staff on-hand that can handle the administration of your office while you’re away. Although, it might be tempting to just cut yourself off from technology and enjoy your time off, doing so might cause problems down the line that could easily be prevented by simply checking your email or calling home-base once in a while.
The reasoning for this is simple: you want to make sure that operations are proceeding as intended, even if you’re not there. If you completely check out from the workplace every time you leave, you could return from your vacation to a complete and total disaster that may have been prevented with your intervention or insight. In order to keep this from happening, here are three tips that will help you enjoy your vacation, without completely forgetting about the life’s blood of your existence: your business.
Check your email once a day. While you’re in the office, how many times do you check your email every day? While it’s recommended that you check your email once every couple of hours while you’re at the office, you shouldn’t be doing it this often while on vacation. The problem with this practice is that your inbox will quickly fill up and be overwhelming upon your return. Instead, you should check your email as often as you might check your personal email inbox– maybe once a day. Address major questions or problems, and leave the less important inquiries for later. Doing so can make your return to the office easier and less stressful.
Set boundaries for your availability. You can’t have your employees calling you left and right with supposed emergencies. Instead of having uncontrolled chaos, you should implement a time where you will be available to discuss issues. It shouldn’t be very long; maybe an hour in the morning or afternoon, depending on how large your role is within your organization. Use this time to check in with the office and see how operations are running. If everything is fine, you can go back to your vacation without a care in the world.
Establish a clear chain of command in your absence. People need leadership, and as the business owner, it’s your responsibility to ensure that they have someone they can turn to while you’re out of the office. In general, it’s a good idea to have a clear chain of command even when you are in the office. This helps your team understand who is in charge, and where they need to bring issues to. Doing so can alleviate some of the pressure that you might feel when out of the office; plus, you’ll have more time to relax if you’re certain that your office is in good hands during your absence.
By taking advantage of these three tips, you can make it easier than ever to come back from an extended vacation, without leaving your office grasping for straws. For more great tips, tricks, and technology management best practices, give us a call at 810.230.9455.
Two things are true today: 1) having a good reputation is critical to the success of any organization, and 2) the Internet is a vast network where seemingly anything goes. How then can you make sure that what’s said online about your organization isn’t hurting your reputation? By taking some basic online reputation management actions, you can stay one step ahead of the virtual haters and keep your reputation intact.
Before we walk you through how to do this, let’s start by establishing the fact that every modern business owner needs to know what Internet users are saying about their company to some degree. For example, what if an unhappy customer or former employee was so upset that they took the time to spread rumors about your business? Neglecting this virtual world is like shooting yourself in the foot, especially if something ugly said about you goes unchecked. Or, you could be missing out on a golden marketing opportunity if people online are singing your praises and you fail to capitalize on their goodwill.
Start With Google Taking advantage of Google Search is a great place to start. If you’ve never searched for your business on Google Search before, then you may be surprised at what you find. For the most part, a general Google Search will yield basic information about your business, like your website, your location on Google Maps, your Google Plus account, along with your company’s information listed on various business listing services (like Yellow Pages). Depending on how active your company is on social media, you may also see your various social media accounts appear on the first or second page of your Google search.
While knowing these basic Google search results is a great place to start, and it may even yield some reputation management issues, you’ll most likely have to dig deeper in order to find out, specifically, what people are saying about your business. You can do this by refining your search. Instead of searching Google just for the name of your business, get more specific by including the name of your city. You can also try searching for your company’s name plus whatever product or service you specialize in. This might land you on some review websites that you previously did not know about.
It can also be helpful to get even more specific with the timeframe of your search. For example, in Google Search, go to Search Tools > Any time. From here, you can narrow down your search to include results from the past hour, or all the way up to the past year. You can even go to Custom range… to narrow down your search to specific dates. By being more specific with your search, you’ll be shown results that would have otherwise been buried dozens and dozens of pages in with a generalized search.
Additionally, you can take advantage of Google’s email option where Google notifies you every time they index a new search result for whatever it is you’re searching for, like your company’s name or what your business specializes in. You can do this by going to https://www.google.com/alerts, entering what you want to be alerted about in the form, and then confirming your email address. Taking advantage of Google Alerts is a great way to manage your company’s reputation by catching and responding to issues early on.
Pro tip: one way to narrow down your search is to focus on past times that your company gave reason for people on the Internet to talk about you. Relevant time periods to search for include; after a major sale, during your company’s “busy season” (if you have one), while you had a major promotion take place, after your business got covered by the local news, after you parted ways with a problem employee, etc.
Be Sure to Monitor Your Social Media Accounts Social media is designed to get people to interact with your brand. If you’re not paying close attention to social media activity regarding your company, then your reputation might be taking a hit without you even realizing it. In addition to monitoring the activity of your social media accounts (like people commenting on your posts), you can search social media platforms for content related to your business, much the same way you would perform a Google search.
Remember, in the social media realm, it’s natural to come across users who don’t much care for your company. However, one benefit about social media is that it gives you a public stage to reply to these comments. If the complaints against you are fair and you respond reasonably, then the public will see this, appreciate your quick action and genuine concern, and your reputation will remain intact. Although, be careful to not engage with “trolls.” These are Internet users who love creating rumors and chaos just for kicks. In some cases, you’re able to report trolls, which could lead to them getting their accounts blocked.
Additional Online Reputation Management Tips Utilizing Google and social media can go a long way in protecting your company’s online reputation, but the suggestions we shared are just the tip of the iceberg. Online reputation management is actually a big business in an of itself, which means that there are many more tools, tips, and best practices that you can take advantage of. If you want to know more about online reputation management, here are 7 tips from Sprout Social to point you in the right direction.
1. Get customers to share positive reviews & experiences. 2. Connect with consumers and solve problems. 3. Find creative ways to tell your company’s story. 4. Monitor your presence and direct the conversation. 5. Give your employees an avenue to share content. 6. Rethink how you use social media. 7. Remember the power of social media.
One last tool that you can take advantage of to boost your company’s online reputation is positive comments left on your website. Speaking of that, we encourage you to share your thoughts about this article, or your experiences with NuTech Services in the comments below. And remember, the best way to improve your company’s online reputation is to get the word out on the Internet about how great you are. If you believe in what you’re doing, then this simple task should come naturally!
Any user of technology knows the frustration of periodically replacing it with better and more recent technology. In fact, the latest gadgets seem to be outdated just months after they’re released. Many people believe that this unprecedented growth in the technology industry could lead to a decrease in PC sales, but it also means that devices are growing more reliable.
According to a study from Intel, there are over a billion PCs in the world that are three years old or older, with around half of those being up to four or five years old. Those who enjoy the latest and greatest technology understand this dilemma. In just a year or two, these PCs could be rendered obsolete by breakthroughs in computing technology. However, thanks to the increased longevity of technology, this is no longer a problem. Many PCs from the last five years are capable of handling a lot more than those from ten years ago, but most importantly, recent PCs are displaying significantly more reliability, which leads users to forsake purchasing new technology in favor of keeping their older devices. You know what they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Another problem facing the commercial PC industry is that technological growth has slowed significantly in recent years. Though there’s still progress being made, it’s not coming as rapidly as it was in previous years. However, as previously mentioned, the need for new technology is dwindling, as technology grows more reliable and doesn’t need to be replaced as often. As reported by ZDNet:
Sure, on paper it’s going to be advertised as being faster, and benchmark tests will support this, but in the real world – assuming that the old one isn’t all kludged up and ailing – you’re just not going to see much difference. Sure, there might be a slightly faster boot up time, or it might be a little snappier, but most of the gains that new PC owners see are nothing more than confirmation bias. Sure, if you go to the performance end of the scale then things are different, but you average home or office PC spends most of their time running a web browser or a word processor application. A three-year-old PC can do that without breaking a sweat.
Basically, users will generally replace their PC with a new one that can perform, more or less, the exact same function, only better. When people have to do this, they think that it’s not worth the investment, since they get the same function without the up-front expenses. This makes sense from an owner’s point of view, since there’s no reason to replace a perfectly fine piece of technology. Doing so can easily break a budget if it’s not planned out properly beforehand. Furthermore, legacy applications are an issue, especially if you haven’t upgraded your technology since you first opened your doors for business. Upgrading without the necessary precautions could prevent your staff from accessing critical hardware and software systems required for operations.
Often times, issues with a slow computer or sluggish performance don’t necessarily facilitate the purchasing of new technology. The root of the problem could be just a single component of your workstation, like a failing hard drive or a bad stick of RAM. Addressing these issues is often much more budget-friendly than completely replacing an entire workstation, so make sure to check for these possibilities before going all-in. If there’s nothing wrong with your hardware, the problem could even extend to a software issue, like a need for routine maintenance or driver updates. It’s best to have a trained technician on-hand who can diagnose these problems for you.
Even if your organization’s current technology is fine, we’ll always advocate for organizations like yours to take full advantage of the latest technology solutions. Doing so can provide a competitive advantage for your business. In today’s business world, you need all of the help you can get, and NuTech Services is more than willing to help you surpass other Michigan businesses.
If anything, the fact that PCs aren’t getting replaced as often means that your workstations will need more attention in order to continue functioning properly. Outsourcing this responsibility to NuTech Services is your best shot at doing so. To get started, all you have to do is call us at 810.230.9455.
