🔒 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.

Join us on Patreon

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."

032: Happy New Year – Business Resolutions and New Things

/

Recorded live on January 7, 2014

Topics:

- Mac Pro migration project

- AirMail – Sam's pick

- MailPilot – another Mail alternative

- Send Later plugin: delay your response to client questions to avoid sending the message that you are available instantly or at off hours

- Daylite, Daylite plugin for Mail.app – Jerry's pick

- iSkelter

- Screen Sharing menu let vs. dragging .vncloc files to a folder in the Dock

- aliases to mount volumes on login or click

- Surveillance Station on DS212j – Joe's pick

031: Help Desk Ticketing Systems and Year-End Purchases

/
What do I do?

What do I do?

Recorded live on December 17, 2013

Topics:

- Zendesk: Starter Plan @ $1 per Agent per month

- forward emails to help desk, ticket shows original email sender as Requester

- using help desk for calls, scheduling requests, and tasks

- continue using email for quick questions

- formal "discovery" process for new clients, or doing smaller/easier tasks before larger projects

- great to see outcome of others' tickets

- configure triggers to CC lead or admin on High Priority tickets

- End of Year purchases

- selling old equipment for clients for commission vs. fixing and selling old machines inherited from clients

Picks of the Week:

- Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal – Jerry's pick

- Promise Pegasus2 R4 Diskless 4Bay Thunderbolt 2 RAID System – Joe's pick

Plus:

- Mavericks classes coming in January! Visit InstructUs Training or your local AATC for class schedules. First possible 101 class is 1/6/14.  First possible 201 class is 1/22/14.

- Mavericks training books out December 30, 2013

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