đ Patreon Special
IT Pros: exclusive shows await you on Patreon, focusing on the more challenging aspects of running your practice and working with clients and employees.
432: Skin In The Game - Part 1 with Tim Nyberg of The MacGuys+
/Topics:
-Tim Nyberg joins us as a guest co-host
-Half of Timâs small business clients have either gone away or gone out of business.
-Tim had to adjust his business to being a âone man showâ again.
-The stress of letting people go is tough for any business owner.
-Joeâs latest newsletter impresses Jerry.
-The frequency of newsletters and their purpose is debated and discussed.
-Infusionsoft is Timâs CRM. He uses RepairShopr as well.
-Another consideration is the ratio of educational vs marketing newsletters.
-Naturally, the conversation begins to shift to sole proprietors vs a small business with employees.
-What questions are you trying to answer in your business model?
-Joe talks about how he used to carry RAM in his bag when he visited clients.
-The Personal Support Plan by Watchman Monitoring was the spark for some consultancies using the MSP model.
-As we discuss the age old question of charging for Watchman Monitoring, Jerry has gone the route of moving clients to a larger package to include Addigy MDM as well.
333: Justin Esgar of ACEs Conference 2020 & Virtua Computers
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This week we welcome Justin Esgar of Virtua Consulting Group & Virtua Computers
-ACEs Conference just completed its 5th year!
-2019 introduced a new format of less speakers and more round table discussions
-ACEs 2020 has been announced! May 19-20 in Atlanta, GA
-Code CCP at www.acesconf.com will get you 10% off ticket prices
-Justin talks about his support team including his wife, employees, and board of directors.
-Coopetition, a term that Kim Mannit coined, is a big part of the discussion in how the Apple consultants community operates
-Justin recently rebranded his business, Virtua Computers, to Virtua Consulting Group. This change incorporates his different businesses into one umbrella.
-A new product from Virtua is Your Computer Inventory, where you can share specific computer inventory information with your clients: www.yourcomputerinventory.com
-Justin talks about learning from his app, SignMyPad, where he sold it at a price in the App Store but didnât have a subscription model that became popular years later.
Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!
297: Interview with Justin Esgar of ACEs Conference 2019 & Virtua Computers
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Topics:
-It's almost the time of year again for the ACEs Conference. This week Justin Esgar joins Joe, Jerry, & Sam to talk about ACEs 2019 - to be held June 4-6 in Kansas City, MO (NOT to be confused with Kansas City, KS)
-Work/life balance was a theme of ACEs 2018 that Joe really loved. Both Joe & Sam attended the morning yoga session on day 1.
-Justin's wife as well as his Board of Directors have been key to making ACEs successful: Alan Hancock, Adam Engst, Andy Espo, Will O'Neal
-After feedback from previous years, Justin and his team have implemented a new theme where participants will be able to meet in small groups and get feedback and help from their peers.
-The Keynote this year is Sgt Major Fenton Reese
-Brian Best is back for year 5. Will he be presenting in a tuxedo?
-Justin's own company, Virtua Computers, was changed dramatically from the conference and his yearly revenue reflected this.
-One piece of advice is to research and go all in on the tools you will need for your clients. Whether it's Addigy for RMM (Remote Monitoring & Management), Zendesk for ticketing, JumpCloud for SSO (Single Sign On) or Apple Business Manager.
-Automating and perfecting your processes is not only going to make your clients successful, but it will set your staff up for success as well.
-Justin shares some of how he bills his monthly services
-Virtua also does Dark Web scanning for his clients. He uses ID Agent for that service
-Keeping an ongoing relationship with the client is an important factor that makes those money conversations that much easier
-Justin quizzes the group with a typical interview question
283: The Mile High jamf Club - Interview With Weldon Dodd Of Rewind Tech
/Topics:
-We welcome back Weldon Dodd of Rewind Tech to the show. Weldon was kind enough to put Sam up and host him in his training space in Centennial, CO
-Joe has a correction from listener Justen Wattenberger in the way he pronounces and writes Mojave
-In Joeâs latest feature request corner, he wants to see shared favorites. Sam would like shared contacts.
-Joe quizzes us on the domain 1e100.net (hint: it is owned by Google)
-Sam addresses the rumors about how he spends his CCP per diem and where he sleeps at night
-Weldon gives us the scoop about his business and how it involves MSP clients as well as an Apple Authorized Training Partner
-Weldon begins a conversation about how to onboard new employees and the team shares their thoughts
-One of the methods that Sam used was to have the new hire document your steps so he/she learns how to create documentation and you get to critique the way they create notes
-Joe has a client that he respects that gave him good unsolicited feedback on his new hire. She became a barometer and may be a future method for vetting potential new employees
-Weldon compares that to a situation where he was brought on board to help vet a new educator being brought into his sonâs school
-Sam has a bone to pick with Joe about a new client referral that he cannot shake
-On the topic of referrals, Weldon talks about his good business relationship with Amy McKnight and the team at The Mac Spa
-Joe asks Weldon about his decision to go all in on MSP and how difficult it was at times to say no to potential business
-After heavy experience with companies like Microsoft and Cisco, Weldon realized he was the only one on his team that could handle certain tasks. So it made him sharpen his focus on things that he and his entire team could be awesome at.
-A big congratulations to Weldon for his successful presentation with Randy Saeks at JNUC 2018!
-ACEs Conference is back for 2019! It will be held in Kansas City, MO June 4-6. Visit http://acesconf.com/ccp/ for special pricing for CCP listeners.
255: Live April Show - Deep Down In A Bunker In Switzerland
/We welcome our new VIP Patreon sponsors:
Zvon Petric - At Your Server
Topics:
-Jerry has an amusing client story about a lost password and how he put Addigy to good use
-Speaking of passwords, Sam describes an uncanny story about how an Apple employee guessed a user's password out of thin air
-Sam describes a story of how a client was scammed via email for over $200,000. It calls to mind that Ubiquiti was similarly the victim of an email scam to the tune of $47 million dollars!
http://fortune.com/2015/08/10/ubiquiti-networks-email-scam-40-million/
-Two possible options for secure mail:
Proton Mail: proton.me, formerly protonmail.com
Mimecast: https://www.mimecast.com
-Joe encounters an interesting startup message in verbose mode: "Too many corpses being created"
-One of Jerry's clients has some issues with spam filtering with Only My Email and directing messages to Fast Mail
-Is long propagation time still a thing?
-GFI sucks! - According to Joe's experiences. Media Temple isn't much better.
Go to status.gfi.com and view the history to have a laugh
-Jerry has an interesting experience with Sherweb where a certificate trust dialogue box appears for a client's email...
-Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer: https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com
-Sam runs across a situation where copying files using the Synology GUI was unbearably slow. He ended up enabling SSH on the Synology and used a host Mac to initiate an SSH connection and utilitized the cp command:
cp -pr /source/directory/ /destination/directory/
-ACEs is just around the corner and the group shares some great quotes from previous attendees. If you haven't already, sign up for ACEs today!
-Sam & Joe have a secret meeting at PsiMac World Headquarters
-Joe spins a yarn about calendar invites and an Apple ID, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Exchange, oh my!
