253: Interview with Justin Maxwell of Smith.ai & Keypad

Justin Maxwell of Smith.ai and Keypad joins us for an incredibly informative and in depth interview.  Most recently the design lead for Google’s Android Auto, Justin has designed products and built teams for Google, Apple, Mint (Intuit), Sony, and plenty of startups along the way.  Here are two of Justin's offerings that we discuss on Command Control Power:

-Smith.ai is a superior call answering & intake service for small & solo businesses. Their live, U.S.-based virtual receptionists capture & qualify leads, book new clients, and build better relationships with your existing clients.

-Keypad is the most advanced & affordable cloud phone system for small businesses.  Keypad offers call routing, call analytics, and many customizations to help you track your performance, and convert more leads.

-Justin takes us through not only the story of how he brought these businesses to life but his life at Apple as an interaction designer for Apple.com

-As we talk Smith.ai, Justin describes the look and feel of the site and how it relates to their customers

-Smith.ai acts as your virtual receptionist, to provide a layer between customers and your business.  At the same time, they are able to weed out all of the spam or unnecessary calls.

-Justin was mint.com's first UX hire and gave him good perspective on small businesses and their needs

-Their team essentially followed around small businesses over the course of a Summer to figure out what their needs were and what they found was that phone calls were the biggest pain point

-Instead of being a brick & mortar company, they utilized VoIP technology and highly skilled employees working from their locations

-"It all starts with a phone call"

-Jerry can't imagine running his business without Smith.ai at this point.  Even just not having to answer calls at client sites to try and make a sale

-Smith.ai's system uses machine learning to help the receptionists make the right decisions over the course of a call and provide the correct answers, versus reading from a script

-Joe & Justin discuss their easy to understand pricing as opposed to minute based pricing

-Keypad is an excellent complement to the Smith.ai service.  Instead of using services like Ring Central, Google Voice or Grasshopper, which can add latency to a call, they developed Keypad.

-You can sign up for the beta of Keypad here

-Simplicity is a focus of Keypad because of feedback the team has received about similar service offerings

-Justin discusses analytics to understand when volume is high or knowing when you need additional support

-Jerry mentions a possible higher tier offering for VIP support and how to tie it in to our monthly services plans

-Joe signs up right here on the show!

-Look out for service offerings in the chat space from Justin's team

248: Interview with Jeramy LeCompte and Daniel Allen of FLEXdesk by Rooted Consulting

Topics:

We have the great pleasure of having not one, but two guests on this week.  Jeramy LeCompte and Daniel Allen of Rooted Consulting join us to talk about their outsourced help desk service, FLEXdesk.

Jeramy lecompte

daniel allen

FLEXdesk is a flexible, outsourced HelpDesk service that allows you to quickly and easily scale your business with a highly qualified and experienced team without adding the expenses associated with traditional employees. This allows you to focus on customer support and gives you peace of mind to provide a great customer experience.

-Daniel answers some questions regarding minimum requirements and overall logistics of onboarding new clients

-Jeramy also talks about providing tier 1 and tier 2 support for their customers as well as offering tier 3 when necessary.

-Everyone on the FLEXdesk team has obtained at least Apple Certified Support Professional status

-They discuss the challenges that all teams face when dealing with a new end user that may be unfamiliar with the personnel

-Documentation is key and makes the handoff seamless to the FLEXdesk team

-Some benefits of FLEXdesk:
    -Allows you to free up time to focus on building your business
    -Takes out the need to hire a full time employee
    -Reduces costs in training and on-boarding 

-Scheduling and prioritizing is a critical aspect of how they operate

-Looking to get started?  Email support@rootedconsulting.org to reach out to a member of the team.  Or visit www.rootedconsulting.org/flexdesk

213: "Building your Brand" with Erin Bury - Managing Director of Eighty-Eight Agency

Erin Bury is senior agency leader and marketer & former startup journalist. She currently is Managing Director at Eighty-Eight, a Toronto-based creative communications agency that works with technology and consumer clients. Eighty-Eight Agency has appeared in AdWeek, AdAge, and dozens of other publications around the world, and they've worked with clients including Yellow Pages, Torstar, and multiple fast-growing startups.

Prior to Eighty-Eight, Erin was Managing Editor at BetaKit, a publication that reports on startups and innovation. She ran the editorial side, and put together research reports for the BetaKit Insights trend research product. Within months of launching, BetaKit was #32 on Techmeme’s top 100 tech publications in the world. 

Erin Bury is a journalism graduate who writes a column for the Financial Post, and has written for publications including The Globe and Mail, Business Insider, and Marketing Magazine. She comments frequently in the press about marketing and entrepreneurship, and has appeared in publications including The New York Times, Forbes, CNN, Profit, Inc., and Canadian Business. She also is a weekly tech commentator on CTV News.

Erin is a frequent speaker at events across North America, and is represented by the National Speakers Bureau. She has led workshops and hosted events for companies including Price Waterhouse Coopers, Square Canada, Microsoft Canada, and Jenny Craig. 

She was also named one of Marketing Magazine's top 30 Under 30 marketers, journalists & PR pros in August 2012. Find her on Twitter at @erinbury or email erin@eightyeightagency.com.

Here is Erin's Workbook - "10 keys to building a great personal brand" that she presented at the recent ACES Conference in Phoenix, AZ

This Episode Sponsored by:
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202: Live With Justin Esgar of ACES Conference & KGinger Consulting

Topics:

Command Control Power is sponsored this week by ProSoft Engineering, makers of Drive Genius & Data Rescue. Visit www.prosofteng.com/ccp to save $100 on your professional upgrade license or $50 off a personal license.  If you are new to Drive Genius, use coupon code DGDR132 to purchase a new license.

-Sam has been replaced!  Kevin Ginger joins the show in an official co-host capacity

-We also welcome Justin Esgar to the show to talk about the upcoming Aces Conference. Justin talks about the lineup and the impressive list of speakers.  

---Sign up for a half hour session to talk 1-on-1 about business consulting with Jennifer or Mike.  
The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field
-By Mike Michalowicz
http://amzn.to/2nlXQPO
---Proactive certification with Allen Hancock of Watchman Monitoring

-Jerry grills Kevin on how often he is on Slack.  He is always there to support his fellow consultants.

-Kevin discusses issues with OWC Aura drives and a viable replacement in a flush mounted SD card carrier.  It’s especially useful for additional storage for iTunes or Photos libraries.

-BASEQI aluminum microSD Adapter for MacBook Air 13" and MacBook Pro 13"/15"
http://amzn.to/2oh1YQw

-SanDisk Ultra 200GB Micro SD (SDSDQUAN-200G-G4A) 
http://amzn.to/2nT5eyu

-Kevin also discusses his client base, which is mostly full MSP businesses clients. 

-Being a one man shop, he is considering hiring and an admin looks to be on the radar for the next hire.

-You can find Kevin and his business at www.kginger.com or on Twitter @kginger_cons

-A big thank you to all of our Patreon sponsors!  Listen for an update to how Patreon sponsorship works and how it affects access to the back catalog of show.

159: "Live" With Andy Espo of Call Andy! Macintosh Consulting

Recorded  on June 7, 2016

This weeks show is sponsored by Drobo, a family of safe, expandable , yet simple to use smart array. Drobo's are designed to protect your important data forever. Visit www.drobo.com to learn more.

In 1988 Andy Espo was running an special event production company in Boston, MA when the need for computers pushed him into a decision; “At that point, the choice was between DOS and Mac… and it was a pretty easy decision!” His interests in technology to that point had included professional audio, video, theatrical lighting and scenery and he dove into Macintosh, first succeeding in automating his business, then starting to help other businesses with their Macs as his reputation grew. In January of 1998 Andy made the transition to full-time “Mac guy” with his company, Call Andy! Macintosh Consulting. Now in its 16th year, Call Andy! Macintosh Consulting retains an array of clients in the business, public relations, marketing, architecture, advertising and design sectors. Andy is an Apple Consultants Network member, and is an ACN Advisory Council Member Emeritus.

TOPICS:

- Early Days of the Apple Consultant Program and OnForce

- Rooted Consulting - Providing phone Help Desk services https://www.rootedconsulting.orgResidential

- Residential Work & Handling Customer Responses

- "Office space or not office space. That is the question."

MacVoices #16135: Mark Fuccio Demos The Ease of Drobo Access Set-Up

Mark Fuccio is actively involved in high tech startup companies, both as a principle at piqsure.com, or as an marketing advisor through his consulting practice Tactics Sells High Tech, Inc. Mark was a proud investor in Microsoft from the mid-1990’s selling in mid 2000, and hopes one day that MSFT will be again an attractive investment. You can contact Mark through his web site or through Twitter.

In response to viewer and listener comments, Mark Fuccio is back to set up Drobo Access on a new Drobo 5N. Mark walks us through the process, from registration of the new device to making all of the Drobo's storage available on the Internet, including automatic domain registration and SSL certificate acquisition.

158: Balanced Billing & The "Partner Plan" With Richard Wingfield Of Envision Design

Recorded on may 31, 2016

TOPICS:

Richard B. Wingfield - Head Geek, Envision Design, LLC of Houston Texas:"I have been using Mac's in business since original Macintosh in '84 and Envision, as a consulting firm, has been around since 1993. Started part time as sole proprietor and 20+ years later we are now a firm of 5 full time consultants here in Houston.  

I tell people I am a "recovering architect" as I got my start in technology practicing architecture and being the "tech guy" in every firm I ever worked for. I even helped manage a DEC vax/vms system for a firm in Austin soon after graduating from The University of Texas with a degree in Architecture. 

This episode examines Richards own "recipe' for Managed Services. Here is a brief description as discussed:

… Simple Hybrid Partner Plan is setup so almost all the clients “get it” and are not confused about how it works

- 3 part invoice is made up of

- small monthly fee per device (each mac, each windows, each iOS or android, each server… fees like $25/mac or $49/windows or $250/server etc) client must enroll ALL computers in the office (cant get cheap and have some on the system and some not)

- our “consluting fee” - which is time for humans to do the work to manage, monitor, secure and maintain systems and ALWAYS includes a minimum of one 2hr visit per month

(more if needed or requested)

- fees for services or hosting (if we host kerio email or rackspace or web or crashplan backups or re-sell backblaze) 

-----------------------------------

You can find more about Richard and  Envision design here: Web: http://www.envisiondesign.net

Twitter: @GEEKSapplied

-------------------------------------------

- Enjoy Command Control Power and want more commercial free programs? Please visit our Patreon Page where you can support Command Control Power and help us bring you more commercial free programming.

Thanks to all our Contributors: JD Strong - Strong Solutions
Daniel Escobar - Proactechs, Luis Giraldo- MonkeyBox

084: New Year's Resolutions 2015, Part 2

Recorded live on January 6, 2015

Many thanks to our sponsor this week, Watchman Monitoring. We use and highly recommend Watchman Monitoring. Sign up for your free trial at watchmanmonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr.  New Year promotion for people who subscribe: and add the agent to any 20 computers in 30 days and get Custom Branding for 1/2 off.

Topic:

- Business Resolutions for the New Year

083: New Year's Resolutions 2015, Part 1

Recorded live on January 6, 2015

This week's show has been brought to you by the good folks at Blue Mango Learning Systems, makers of Clarify. Visit Clarify-It.com to download a free trial of Clarify, and start creating how-to's and instructional documents today – and help others be great. Use coupon code CCPSENTME for 15% off.

Topics:

- helping family members around the holidays (Jerry sent a newsletter!)

- Comcast shipping new modem/router combos which include an open wifi network; Sam had issues with port forwarding and Comcast doesn't support it

- warning clients and family to be careful trying to follow instructions they find online: "stop if you see the word Terminal"

- we appeared on MacVoices again!

- the need to exercise the tech muscle when you go from being a one man show to hiring someone, to avoid getting rusty

063: Entrepreneurial Spirit

Recorded live on August 12, 2014

Topics:

- origin stories: how we (Jerry, Sam, and Joe) got into this racket

- how to make the transition: going from working for a company to working for yourself

- moonlighting vs. jumping in with both feet

- is entrepreneurship "in the blood"?

Also:

- Aces Conf in New Orleans, LA, May 2015; acesconf.com; great opportunity to see Luis Giraldo of Ook and Justin Esgar of Virtua Computers talk shop and focus on business processes

054: Interview with Brian Best from BestMacs and Mac-MSP Gruntwork

Recorded live June 10, 2014

- Brian got started on the Mac in the days of nine-inch monochrome screens and System 6; began working on Macs professionally in 1996; started BestMacs in 1999

- when transforming his consultancy to Managed Services, Brian developed a suite of tools in-house to be released under the Mac-MSP brand; the first to be released is Gruntwork for automating maintenance; a remote screen sharing and remote login (SSH) tool called Blue Sky is coming soon

- Gruntwork can be compared to CasperSuite; uses Munki for software updates

- the importance of working more on the business instead of in the business as the business grows

- Mac-MSP offers discounts to Apple Consultants Network members and subscribers of Watchman Monitoring

- going "all in" when transitioning to Managed Services from hourly billing: having a referral to another consultant ready for clients who don't want Managed Services helps avoid leaving clients in the lurch

- Allen's "Personal Support" plan; Easing Into Managed Services

- Gruntwork proudly displays the service provider's branding; demonstrates value by reminding users that maintenance is being run

- @Siracusa: Gruntwork will run a live disk verification, and if it fails, will automatically restart in Single User mode, run the disk repair, log the result, restart normally, and report the result #HFS+

- Apple should buy Alsoft and build DiskWarrior into the Recovery Partition and diskutil

- how to price managed services; don't undercharge, match the old pricing at a minimum

- demo videos at mac-msp.com/demo

Special note from Smile this week: We're offering a 20% discount on licenses to PDFpen and PDFpenPro, and we'll donate a matching license of PDFpen or PDFpenPro to the nonprofit of a user's choice. We're calling it "Get a Little, Give a Lot."  To participate, purchase a single user, family pack, or office pack license of PDFpen or PDFpenPro from the Smile web store using the coupon code “nonprofit” during the week of June 9th through 15th. Once the order is complete, forward your confirmation email to nonprofit@smilesoftware.com and include the following information about the nonprofit: Name of nonprofit, Contact at nonprofit, Email of contact.

044: Tales from Decrypt

Recorded live April 1, 2014

Topics:

- Sam is growing the practice

- freeing up time to do business development, plan projects, talk to clients

- travel charge?

- how to reimburse employee for mileage

- use PDFPen to strike through or highlight line items on invoice

- to send or not to send the zero balance invoice

- advising clients about billing for two techs on certain projects

- Jerry’s MacBook Air lockout; manual decrypt using command line

- issues with users connecting via SMB to Mavericks Server

042: Managed Services Roundtable with Allen Hancock, Luis Giraldo, and Kevin Ginger, Part 2

Recorded March 2, 2014

Sponsored by MoonClerk

This is part two of a special two-part Managed Services roundtable feature six members of the Apple Consultants Network, discussing the benefits of a Managed Services pricing model and how to transition a traditional hourly-billing consultancy into offering Managed Services.

Thanks to our brand new sponsor, MoonClerk – an easy and inexpensive way to collect recurring payments for your subscription services.

Thanks also to our special guests for this roundtable:

Allen Hancock, The Orchard Solutions and Watchman Monitoring
Luis Giraldo, Ook Enterprises and MonkeyBox
Kevin Ginger, kGinger Consulting

Topics:

- offering clients "self service" options through CasperSuite or RobotCloud

- building a "book of service" to work toward an exit plan for your consultancy; building something of value; getting acquired

- the benefits of talking about your service offerings to get comfortable pitching them to clients

- the fact is, servers should be managed proactively to ensure reliability, and Managed Services is a natural way to provide proactive services, billed automatically on a monthly basis consistent with the way services are rendered

- with Mission Critical services, the consultant takes on a psychological burden to ensure that the services keep working; Managed Services makes it equitable for the consultant

Resources:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/acn-alumni

http://watchmanmonitoring.com/acn-benefit

https://www.watchmanmonitoring.com/sample-agreement/

http://mhelpdesk.com/better-way-to-inform-customers-about-how-they-are-being-billed/

http://community.watchmanmonitoring.com

http://mac-msp.com

Value-Based Fees by Alan Weiss

Small Biz Thoughts by Karl W. Palachuk

Tools:

- Watchman Monitoring

- MonkeyBox

- MoonClerk

- ZenDesk

- mHelpDesk

- TeamViewer

- Support menu by Forget Computers

- RobotCloud

- Casper Suite

- Backup Minder

041: Managed Services Roundtable with Allen Hancock, Luis Giraldo, and Kevin Ginger, Part 1

Recorded March 2, 2014

Sponsored by MoonClerk

This is part one of a special two-part Managed Services roundtable feature six members of the Apple Consultants Network, discussing the benefits of a Managed Services pricing model and how to transition a traditional hourly-billing consultancy into offering Managed Services.

Thanks to our brand new sponsor, MoonClerk – an easy and inexpensive way to collect recurring payments for your subscription services.

Thanks also to our special guests for this roundtable:
Allen Hancock, The Orchard Solutions and Watchman Monitoring
Luis Giraldo, Ook Enterprises and MonkeyBox
Kevin Ginger, kGinger Consulting

Topics:

- using half-day and full-day rates to discourage "tire-kickers" and very infrequent break-fix clients, helping to position Managed Services as a better alternative

- should a Managed Services Provider include Help Desk services? end-user training? value-adds vs. just keeping the systems running

- transitioning from "one-man-show" to managed services consultancy; see also: CCP 013: Easing into Managed Services with Allen Hancock and 010: Managed Services discussion with Luis Giraldo

- developing systems for consistency, standardization to improve efficiency

- Quantifying the Value of Managed Services blog post by Luis

- "first 15 minutes free for $_/mo" is a good first step; relieves burden bulk hours

- business clients are more efficient billing-wise, and from the perspective of delivering value

- residential clients are higher-maintenance, higher-touch, more-demanding, and less efficient

- yet, Allen points out that residential clients can be more satisfying to work with, and when charging hourly it doesn't matter because they all pay the same rate

- enforcing the use of a help desk ticketing system

- user training: why should users use your ticketing system?

- reminding clients to restart

Memorable lines:

- "Hourly billing breeds inefficiency." – Luis (see also: "how hourly billing is the scum of the Earth" in 010: Managed Services discussion with Luis Giraldo)

"All inclusive billing breeds efficiency." – Luis

"We hate spending time tracking time." – Luis

"Allen, is there any way to wire that support menu to a restart command?" – Joe
"And we don't need to save, right?" – Allen
"If they call, their call can be directed to voicemail if they haven't restarted." – Joe
"Spoken like a true 'break/fix man'." – Luis

040: Remote Support Workflows and Coverage when Traveling

Recorded live March 4, 2014

Topics:

- Rumpus FTP server

- Device Enrollment Program; there goes 15 minutes billable/device… leaving more time for client face-time?

- remote support and workflows for being away from the office, either at a conference or on holiday

- Wi-Fi quality in hotels when traveling

- timing vacations as extended weekends instead of full weeks to minimize downtime

- teaming up with local consultants for backup coverage; filtering incoming requests in your absence

- away messages and advance notice for clients; why shake the hornet's nest?

- SendLater plugin

- going off the grid for a day... or nine… I took nine.

- subcontractor rates; professional courtesies

- SIMporium.com

- representing the contracting company, or generically Apple, or explaining the coverage arrangement between the consultants to the client

- sharing secure notes with trusted partner consultants; e.g. MonkeyBox.com

- monitoring client machines with Watchman Monitoring

- the importance of comprehensive documentation

Followup:

- re: episode 039: when enabling (Legacy) FileVault on 10.6 and prior, there's an option to "use secure erase" when deleting the old home folder after it's been migrated to the encrypted disk image

033: Marketing and Followup

Recorded on January 14, 2014

Topics:

- Promise Pegasus R6, 4 TB RAID 6 failed 1 TB drive replacement – live rebuild during a workday, approximately 3 hours; Promise Utility had reported a PFA condition on Drive #5; sent log to Promise support who authorized an advance shipment RMA; drive reported several bad blocks the next day and went offline; drive replaced and RAID rebuilt successfully in 3.5 hours

- Google's algorithms rank local sites higher for local service providers

- Google text ads are often clicked indiscriminately by "normal" people even though we technical people often avoid them

- "white hat" vs. "black hat" SEO techniques

- put your phone number at the top of every page

- put your email address on the page; spam is a solved problem

- good to have separate pages for each type of service you offer, e.g. Remote vs. Onsite

- being a salesperson without sounding like a salesperson

- giving away your time on "good faith" and asking the client to write a good referral; prospects look for recent referrals

- alternatives to the ACN Consultants Locator for reviews, e.g. Yelp

- however, be wary: Yelp often removes positive reviews written by legitimate users, if those users have only posted one review; also, it has been reported that "Yelp will help you remove bad reviews…for a price."

030: Interview with Ryan Powell of iLifestyle Consulting, plus Bonus Rants

Recorded live on December 10, 2013

Topics:

- special guest Ryan Powell of iLifestyle Consulting discusses some cloud-hosted apps he uses to help run his consulting practice

- looking at the per seat recurring/subscription pricing models of cloud software as a predictable cost of doing business

- Work(etc)

- Wufoo for forms

- LiveChat for website live chat

- RingCentral for phone system

- Highrise for CRM

- Basecamp for Project Management

- Echosign for agreement signatures

- Timely for scheduling and automatic appointment reminders

- Xero for accounting

- Zendesk for support

- Mailchimp for email marketing

- HootSuite for social media

- Google Apps for email hosting

- Robot Cloud for client monitoring and policy management

Plus:

- Joe's rant about Yahoo Small Business

- Joe's rant about Apple Store

028: Client Gifting and Consultant Go Bags

Recorded live on November 26, 2013

Follow Up:

Joe installed Knock app last week and noticed that it moved itself from the ~/Downloads folder to the /Applications folder without needing to authenticate despite being logged into a standard user account. Joe checked permissions on /Applications and found that the folder permissions were configured to give Everyone Read/Write access. Repaired permissions for the first time in forever and it corrected this and a few other things.

Topics:

New Mac Pro on December 3rd?  Expect Promise to release new Pegasus 2 alongside Apple's Mac Pro release.  Look for discounts on original Promise Pegasus models.

Jony Ive biography by Leander Kahney, recommended by Jerry

Fast Company Weekend Reading: An Oral History of Apple

Guest Pass app to generate iOS profile granting temporary access to a wifi network

KeyCard app to lock and unlock your Mac based on iOS device proximity

Indigo for home automation

Nest Thermostat and Smoke Alarm

Client gifts: how to select clients? Contract clients? Nurturing existing client relationships and rekindling old client relationships.

Client gift ideas: chocolate macaroons, iKlear kits, scotch

Tip from Ryan Powell: I gift throughout the year by giving new clients a "new client care package" with little Klear singles, microfiber cloth, referral cards  drive savers pamphlet and an explanation of my monthly support plan. The referral card is a little elevator pitch about the company, short link to the contact form with the promise of a free phone consultation, then when a client books an appointment I'm sure to give the referring client a small account credit as a thank you.

Sending a Thank You cards to new clients

Referral credit vs. something tangible like an iTunes gift card

What's in your Consultant Go Bag? Examples:

• MagSafe to MagSafe 2
• Thunderbolt to FireWire
• Thunderbolt to Ethernet
• USB to Ethernet
• Ethernet cables
• USB flash drive with partitions for Mac OS installations, diagnostics
• FireWire 400 to 800
• FireWire 800 to 800
• USB, mini USB, micro USB
• USB to Lightning
• USB to 30-pin
• iPhone Headphones
• Tools including screwdrivers, spudger, putty knife
• Memory assortment for all Intel Macs from lifetimememory.com

Joe's current bag: iBackFlip Somersault

020: Client Anecdotes & Rates

Recorded Live October 8, 2013

Topics:

- Quicken 2007 for Lion; migrating from Quicken 2003

- Sam's story about his client's self-help attempt: the client diagnosed a server's startup disk failing, erased the Time Machine backup, cloned a copy of the data to it, and then when the clone wouldn't boot, they called their trusted advisor (Sam) to swoop in and heroically save the day.

- liquid spills, and the accompanying story

- what to do when a client declines a backup recommendation

- Jerry's story of the need for a consultant to support legacy equipment

- Joe raised his rates recently; here's how

- new services; group class offering; break-even analysis

Memorable Lines:

"Step 1: Diagnose drive failure; step 2: erase the backup." - Joe

Picks of the Week:

- PowerBookMedic.com 

- SignMyPad.com  

013: Easing into Managed Services with Allen Hancock

Joe, Jerry, and Sam are joined by Allen Hancock of The Orchard Solutions and Watchman Monitoring to discuss Allen's "hybrid" Managed Services model.  Allen offers a "Personal Support" option including unlimited quick phone calls and emails for $25/month per person.

Topics:

- Sam discusses some of the stresses associated with Apple Professional Services (APS) projects; normally as consultants we have flexibility and can work directly with clients to address unforeseen issues; but in the case of APS, due to travel and other agreements, APS gigs must be completed in the allotted timeframe which adds pressure

- Sam updates us on his hiring process; interested consultants in the CT-NY-NJ area should contact @IAMSamValencia

- Jerry reports difficulty with Find My Mac on machines with a static IP address; to be continued

- Jerry brings up the pitfalls of full disk encryption using FileVault 2 on an unattended server; in case of an unexpected or soft restart, the system will boot to the FileVault 2 unlock screen, prompting for the encryption password before the system starts up or any services start; this prevents any kind of remote access via screen sharing or remote login; Apple provides a command line tool (fdesetup authrestart) to perform a one-time restart that bypasses the initial unlock; however, this doesn't help if the machine has lost power or become unresponsive; a KVM-over-IP device can solve that, but typically requires a Java app on the client machine to access the remote machine

- Allen identifies a common problem for consultants: how to track and bill for all those random emails and quick phone calls

- Allen's solution: "Personal Support" @ $25 per month, per person; includes unlimited quick emails or phone calls. He estimates this part of his Support Agreement earns him about $2500/month after 1.5 years, based 100 people who subscribed.

- Clients paying monthly for unlimited quick questions encourages them to call on a whim; this leads to billable work too, since anything over 15 minutes would be a billable consultation

- He also offers a Proactive Monitoring service: collecting $10/month per computer; ($15/month for all the computers in a house) results in more billable work as machines report issues to consultant and consultant notifies client with recommended resolution

- His monitoring service received much more uptake; 350 monitored computers bringing in an additional $3000 a month.

- Had two techs on staff at the time.

Mentions:

- ProSoft Data Rescue

Memorable Lines:

- "Death by a thousand 5-minute emails" – Joe

009: Backups

Followup:

- Sam's Office365 email migration

Topics:

- enlisting help from outside consultants; no one does things the way you do; importance of communicating with clients

- social media for professionals; how to gain followers; who do you want to follow you? great way to get support from vendors; advice from Allen Hancock: want great followers, post nice things about vendors

- ACN Locator Ratings and Reviews; Google Places, Google Plus

- best mobile workstations: MacBook Air 11-inch vs. 13-inch; remote support from iPad

- Tile: product for locating objects

- Leap Motion: looks cool!

- Backup: mirror vs. clone; examples of backup strategies: Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, Archiware P5 (formerly PresSTORE), CrashPlan; the 3-2-1 rule of backup; is needing two forms of media an outmoded idea? reference: the DAM book by Peter Krough