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
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---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"
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-SanDisk Ultra 200GB Micro SD (SDSDQUAN-200G-G4A) 
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-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

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