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Maintaining SMB Client-Associate Relationships

February 14, 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

By Nina Meranus, SurprisesByMail.com

Whether personal or professional, maintaining relationships requires a good amount of time and effort. Just as with personal relationships, it is important to be mindful of the business relationships we foster on a daily basis. If you take your spouse for granted or fail to make them a priority, it’s not likely to pay off for your marriage. The same is true of maintaining client and associate relationships. If it is an important relationship that you want to keep for years to come, than a little appreciation and recognition goes a long way.

This was the line of thinking that motivated entrepreneur Nina Meranus to start her online company SurprisesByMail.com in 2011, under the simple belief that “the world is a better place when people do nice things for each other”. In 2012, the small business saw a lot of growth as co-founder Andy Sheeks joined the team and the company grew to service all 50 U.S. states as well as Canada. In 2013, the company projects continued growth as they build their reputation as the go-to-site for personal and professional gifting.

SurprisesByMail.com makes corporate gifting easy, inexpensive and it’s a great way to make a personal connection with clients. Thoughtfulness and small acts of kindness go a long way in building lasting relationships. Sending a thank you for years of service, congratulations at a company millstone, kind words during times of personal loss and suffering or even just to say “get job” shows your client or employee that you care not only about their business, but about them. The simple truth is that people like working with people that they like and the more you work at improving professional relationships, the better they will be.
Small businesses know just how important good employees are – they are the lifeblood of your organization. SurprisesByMail is also a great way to show your employees how much their hard work is appreciated.

SurprisesByMail.com offers gift boxes that can be filled with your choice of goodies (like chocolates, fudge, baked goods, nuts, dried fruit, pretzels and even gift cards) and customized with a personalized message, image and company logo. It’s a great way to thank clients for a new customer referral, send appointment reminders or re-engage a stagnant or dormant account. SurprisesByMail.com allows companies an outlet for sending clients a visual reminder of their brand and how much their business means.

Using Proxy to Check SMB Competition

November 29, 2012 by admin Leave a Comment

By Sharon Robinson

If you are surfing the Net and don’t realize that every keystroke you make and every search you instigate is being monitored than you have no right to be on the Net. Information is being gathered at all times to feed this beast that is the Internet; information that is available to virtually everyone for the right price.

This information is vital if you are running a business with an online presence. Never has it been easier to monitor your competition than with the Internet. The Internet has served to destroy barriers to entry in most fields and encourages small and medium sized businesses to broaden their horizons and seek growth via exports to foreign countries. It is this fostering of competition that means that you must keep a closer eye on your competitors than ever because every niche that is perceived as being profitable quickly attracts an inordinate amount of competition. In cyberspace it is the quick or the dead.

If your competition is worth keeping an eye on then rest assured they are targeting overseas markets with tailored content and advertising to suit local tastes. The foreign sites will probably require different keywords and will attract local advertising as another revenue source. So why not monitor their offshore strategies and perhaps copy what you deem to be their successful campaigns. After all, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery and all is fair in love and business.

However, when you perform searches, the search is tailored to your previous search patterns and also localized for content. Via your IP address, the servers know where you are based and respond accordingly. Using a proxy server though, you can check your competition with impunity, safe in the knowledge that you cannot be tracked and your competition will never know you have been checking them out.

Similarly, you can receive accurate search results from foreign websites of your competitors by using a proxy server in the country from which you want to receive the search results. For example, if you want to see how your competitor is tackling the Swedish market, you can connect to a Swedish proxy server and receive localized Swedish search results.

Although there are free proxy services that usually compel you to receive free advertising, it is best to pay for a premium proxy such as GeoSurf where you are assured premium service and you may even select from over 100 countries from which to “surf.” The cost is not exorbitant and it is a legitimate business write-off.

Rayanne Buchianico, SMB Nation’s SBSer of the Year, Gladly Bucks “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas”

October 18, 2012 by admin Leave a Comment

SBSer of the Year Award Winner Rayanne Buchianico

Rayanne Buchianico ABC Solutions

Las Vegas, Nevada, October 12, 2012 – For Rayanne Buchianico, what happens in Vegas won’t be staying in Vegas; it will be coming home to Tampa Bay in the form of an award. While many of Sin City’s visitors sleep off the previous night’s escapades, Rayanne will accept the SBSer of the Year award at SMB Nation’s annual conference.

SMB Nation is a publishing and events company working with small and medium business (SMB) channel partners, resellers, consultant, and VARs, to spread knowledge of SMB technology trends. Through conferences, books, SMB PCmagazine, and seminars the group draws an international audience of over 45,000 as it expands global knowledge of business, technology, and marketing solutions for consultants and resellers.

SBSer of the Year is awarded to two people annually – one man and one woman – who have shown leadership and have given the most to the IT community in the past year. Candidates are nominated and chosen by a committee of executives from SMB Nation and SMB Technology Network (SMBTN). The honor is presented on day one of the annual conference, which this year includes a PC World columnist, a senior contributing author at Information Week, a Microsoft product marketing manager, the chairman of CompTIA, a product ambassador at Lenovo, and marketing leaders from RIM, Intel, and Dell as speakers. The event is a veritable “who’s who” of the SMB IT world – not a bad place to pick up an international recognition.

Harry Brelsford, founder of SMB Nation, is extremely pleased with this year’s female award recipient. “When I think of women in IT, top of mind is Rayanne Buchianico from Tampa,” he says. “This award goes back to the early days of SMB Nation, when we select the Microsoft Windows Small Business Server (SBS) partner of the year that we called the SBSer of the Year. Rayanne was selected by a small committee of SMB IT pros who pride themselves on a fair and balanced approach. The result is right and proper and it’s Rayanne.”

Naturally, Rayanne is also extremely pleased with this year’s recipient. “I thought of SBSers of years past, and what an honor it is to be chosen for this designation,” she enthused when discussing the award, adding, “Harry and SMBTN discussed the possible candidates, and they felt it was time to recognize two people who work ‘behind the scenes’ in the community. I was one of them. My friend, Bob Nitrio, was the other.”

Rayanne earned this recognition by working behind the scenes to make critical things happen – things that make SMB Nation more valuable to members like…

Organizing the Birds of a Feather sessions at TechEd North America 2012
Connecting member Autotask to their accounting systems
lobbying Microsoft and other vendors for books and swag for user group meetings
helping members find user groups and organizing her own user group meetings

And, as she puts it, “Connecting people who need help with people who can provide it.”

Rayanne also serves the IT community as treasurer of the Global IT Community Association, and credits the group with “working together as a team to promote IT professional groups throughout the world. We are all passionate about bringing value to our respective groups and the IT Profession as a whole.”

Buchianico will also be awarded a complimentary admission to the coveted Pocket MBA. This twelve-week, multi-disciplinary program offers several business and IT-related concentrations that focus on the real world applications of the subjects they teach. When asked what she is looking forward to in the program, Rayanne says, “It will give me the opportunity to learn from the industry’s most successful business people – to learn the secrets of MSP success, which will help me when working with clients who want to grow their Managed Services business or IT consulting firm.”

After the award ceremony Rayanne will participate in the following days of the conference, which this year is themed “Back to the Future.” Sessions include How to Differentiate Your IT Offerings, The Future of Successful Channel Partnerships, and How to Install a Social Media Policy at Work, as well as a Windows 8 expert panel discussion and an AVG product launch party. For people passionate about SMB technology it just doesn’t get any better than these four days.

And for Rayanne, it’s likely that no future SMB Nation conference will be any better than this one.

About Rayanne Buchianico

Rayanne is the owner of ABC Solutions, an accounting firm providing complete accounting services to small and mid-size IT companies and MSPs throughout the US. In business for over seven years, the firm also consults on accounting systems and integrates PSA software, such as Autotask, to streamline billing and project/job costing and budgeting

Security Cameras in Business

July 6, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Here’s another good tip about placing security cameras: Place security cameras in your document center where records are being copied or documents are being shredded. Do you think I am being over cautious? Well two points if I may: The first point is to refer to my story on March 29 2010: Why you should treat the temp well or the $14,465.63 postage stamp.

Here’s another true story I encountered in my business career. I did not see this one first hand, but arrived shortly after the incident and had this story related to me by people in the know. A few years ago, a local clinical lab had some disgruntled employees. It seems that a well liked employee was terminated for stealing some toilet paper (seriously she was stealing T.P.). This greatly enraged some of her friends. It also seems that this clinical lab was not playing completely by the Medicare rule book. One practice was that doctors (and only doctors) could assign a diagnoses code or ICD 9 code. In order to speed the process, this lab had employees that either rewrote or added missing codes. The disgruntled employees were made aware that the government gave out large cash rewards for cases that it could prosecute for violations. One night under the excuse of “working late to process some claims” a team of disgruntled employees who had been collecting records for a number of months used the companies own copying and mailing facilities to reproduce and send out the “doctored records.” This company lost millions of dollars in fines from the government. The team of disgruntled employees became millionaires including the woman terminated for stealing toilet paper! If you would like to learn more about security cameras for your business try this fine firm for your business security camera needs or call 877-422-1907 to learn more about it.

Looking for a GeoVison Security Camera System to help secure your small or medium business? Call www.CameraSecurityNow.com today at 877-422-1907 for a free phone consultation. Ask about the new Hybrid DVR/NVR surveillance solutions.

Camera Secuity for excellent customer service

June 30, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Here’s a follow up to John Beagle’s excellent article about closed circuit cameras providing security against theft. Closed circuit TV’s allows, you the owner, to monitor your customer service employees.

I once was privileged to hear a true American success story by a guy known as “Kenney the Printer.” Kenny Fisher was looking to own his own business and had an idea that he might like to start a chain of dry cleaning shops, but was prompted by an idea when his son came home upset about the poor service he observed at a quick print shop where he worked. This give Fisher an idea. He went around scouting quick print shops in his area and found them to be sadly wanting in terms of cleanliness and courtesy. He started his quick print shops with a fanaticism to customer satisfaction. In his first year his shop reached the annual sales average for quick shops and now his revenue is SEVEN times that of a normal quick print shop. One tool he uses is closed circuit TV to monitor customer service. He cites many statistics about how poor customer service can absolutely sink your small businesses reputation. Also Kenny states how many marketing dollars it takes to bring one customer into your shop, a very eye opening figure. If you would like to learn more about what Kenny thinks is a vital tool for your small business, take a look at the site map of this fine business: Camera Security Now Site Map or call 877-422-1907.

Security cameras can not only be a vital tool for anti theft protection but can also be a powerful tool in ensuring that your customers are given world class service each time they enter your establishment.

How sales can help finance in your small business

June 17, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Every once in a while many company finance teams evaluate the profitability of your customer base. One of the important criteria is a measure called days sales outstanding or DSO. The calculation measures how long it takes an invoice to be collected once the product is shipped or service is preformed. There are certain customers who gain some measure of infamy with the finance department credit analysts and A/R collectors. If the situation continues long enough, the finance department will ear mark this customer to be dropped. Because this can affect company market share, the marketing department and the sales team generally have adverse reactions to this measure. So how does a good owner or president/CEO resolve the issue?

A good way to assist the finance group is to get the support of the sales team. Give them laptops so that when they are on sales calls they may access the invoices for the customer. If there are any invoices over a certain delta, the sales team should be involved in helping to collect the delinquent invoices. If you business can not afford to buy laptops for the sales team you could consider renting them from a source like www.rentacomputer.com who can assist your business in their temporary needs.

If the sales team works in conjunction with the finance department, then there wont be any surprises when its time to review the customer list. Both departments will have a part of keeping the customer with in financial limits. On the other hand, by keeping the customer within proscribed limits, the sales department keeps its hard earned customer and market share. In this case both departments and the company as a whole wins, and if in the unfortunate event a customer does need to find a new source, then there is buyoff from everyone that this unfortunate measure must be taken.

Have sales and finance view each other as a team and your company’s DSO will drop, and that is a very, very good thing!

America’s Return to Financial Greatness-some straight talk

June 15, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Ford Motor company in the early 80’s came up with the slogan “Quality is job one.” This statement really evolved out of its production manual called total quality management. It was implemented to combat the foreign car invasion of America as American’s were increasingly put off by the poor quality and highly plasticized cars coming out of Detroit in that time period.

In my last article, I reviewed Stanley C. Allyns extraordinary booklet about his life in Dayton and work career at NCR, rising to be president and CEO. In his booklet, Allyn gave his 4 big jobs for management teams. I would like to look at point number three: Earn the enthusiastic support of all employees. Sounds good right, but the problem is that many companies today have fallen victim to employing Temporaries, Contractors, Casual Hires, and Short term hires, and then expecting that they are gong to get the same attention to quality as the company would receive from an employee. This is pure fantasy!

Let me define each of the categories: Temporary (or temp) a person who comes in to substitute for a permanent employee. These people usually work 8-12 weeks, but some times as much as 6 months. Usually they do grunt work (although many these days are highly skilled and impressively experienced). A casual hire is much like a temp except he or she works directly for the company. A casual hire is not offered benefits or company perks and usually does routine work. Sometimes retirees fill out their income as casual hires. A short term employee does not usually know that they are what they are. These people are fully benefited and work for the company, but the company management knows that they are hired to work a certain project and then layed off or terminated. Sometimes working conditions become so bad that they leave of their own accord (and this is fine with the company). Contractor’s either can work for themselves or a contracting company (you will find Contractors in engineering and accounting very often).

The problem with this group is that they probably are being under paid and looking for the minimum they can do and then go home. The second is that these people are looking for another, better full time gig. If they figure out that this greener pasture is not with your firm, then you only have this employee’s partial attention, and they might leave at ANY time, some times not giving any or little notice. Some temporary agencies, try to tell temps that this job is “temp to perm” but experienced temps know that this is generally “the agency sales pitch to do a good jab and maybe you will get hired (but is rarely true).” Finally some companies still in down sizing mode (or their ridiculous term “right sizing”) even encourage employees to search on monster job or some related site! You will never have what Mr. Allyn states as point three: earn the enthusiastic support of all employees!

If in your small business, quality is job one, then you can not populate your work force with Temps, Casual Hires, Contractors, and short term hires. What you need from your employees is that they do everything that is both explicit and intrinsic to “doing a good job!” Your small business needs people who want to work for your success (and their own).

Timeless Advice-Book Review My 50 years in Dayton

June 9, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Book Review: My 50 years in Dayton by Stanley C. Allyn

You probably won’t find this in Google search, I didn’t. It is in booklet form, not perfect bound, and is only 31 pages long, but the business advice from it is timeless. I think the Carillon Park book store still has copies. It is My First 50 years in Dayton by Stanley C. Allyn (former CEO of NCR corporation).

In chapter 4 Mr. Allyn gives his 4 big jobs for management teams (These ideas were written in 1963! They are timeless and far seeing):

1) See to it that the company makes a satisfactory profit.
2) Keep the company’s products up to date, whether they are material goods or services.
3) Earn the enthusiastic support of all employees.
4) Make certain that the company is good citizen of the community in which it operates.

Point one is very obvious, a company that can not make a satisfactory profit will not last, and Mr. Allyn states that managers do not have to be defensive about this goal. Frankly, at the end of things, if the company can not make a profit then all members of the company are looking for new work!

Point two is also almost taken for granted and it is given lip service in about every company that is in existence, but far seeing companies never taken this for granted they change and evolve over time, no matter what their form of business endeavor.

Point three is rarely found is today’s business, frankly I have had more than one manager tell me “who cares what the front line employee thinks. If I can get buy off from other managers, so be it, they have to keep their employees in line not me.” Companies that regard their employees this way are doomed to fail. Here is a bit of my own advice, call if prophecy if you wish: “America will not return to economic greatness without 2 important components of American business: One, America will not return to economic prominence as long as its businesses employ in its labor force: temporaries, short term hires, casual hires (throw away employees) and contractors. I will address this more in my next article.

The second is that America needs another technological innovation like the internet or personnel computer.

Point four, doesn’t BP wish they had followed this advice? How many American companies wish they had followed this advice (they are legion!)?

In all, if you are a small to medium business owner spend the $4.00 and 30 minutes of your valuable time and buy the book. It is an interesting read and the business advice is wonderful from a guy that definitely succeeded!

And I said to myself-what a wonderful world

May 27, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

This morning I was sitting in Winton Woods Park watching the silver sneakers crowd walk around the pond known as Lake Winton, watching the professional dog walkers (I wonder if there is a minor league dog walker) walking a string of 4 or 5 dogs through the woods as bicyclists, roller bladers, skateboarders, runners, joggers, and who knows what else zip by them. The park is so very green right now, and I am very thankful. Thankful that I am alive (I almost died around Christmas time). Thankful even though I am starting a bout with Strep or some other “wonderful” malady, even though my computer has contracted some phishing software (just great for a blog writer), in spite of it all, I am very thankful for the little world in which I live. I thought about the upcoming weekend full of celebrations and activities and then I thought about the reason that we are celebrating: Memorial Day.

I don’t know about you but one of my all time favorite movies is Saving Private Ryan. One of the most powerful scenes in all the movies I have ever seen is the Omaha Beach scene. On that day, June 6th 1945 2200 American Soldiers died taking the heavily fortified section of beach in Normandy. I thought about other war movies I have seen like Platoon, or the excellent made for TV movie about Valley Forge-The Crossing. I thought about how I enjoy my little world because of the sacrifices of every American soldier that has ever put on a uniform and honorably worn it-my God, there must be millions all down through our countries short history of men and women who fought and died to make America what it is today. Still today many “kids” that we just watched playing baseball or soccer or maybe marching in the band are being shipped off to places with names like Iraq and Afghanistan. Joining these “kids” are many of Moms & Dads-Husbands and Wives, who are past their prime; they feel the effects of age just like I do, and yet still they serve. While we complain about the market, politicians, the business climate, whatever, they squat in fox holes somewhere to make it possible for us to conduct our business endeavors. Some of them may pray- very soon- that helicopters come over the mountain for a dust off (or provide close air support), or hope some politician somewhere has not cancelled the artillery barrage that may save their lives. They live in very primitive conditions, risking their lives (and their family’s happiness) to provide the freedoms that at least this writer so often takes for granted.

I was going to write about how to handle politics and religious discussion in the office today, but in light of what I thought about this morning, it just pales in comparison. Instead, I am going to seek out a veteran in my little corner of the world, shake his hand, and buy his next round. It’s one little way I can say thank you. I hope you will too!

Have a great Holiday Weekend!

How to make your business more appealing to new and existing workers

May 25, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Right now the economy sucks; there is no other way to say it. Yes, the political spin mongers are out there telling us about how rosy it is supposedly getting, but I like that old Mark Twain quote “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics,” (thanks to : Mark Twain. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved May 25, 2010, from Brainy Quote: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marktwain128372.html)

The thing is that this recession shall pass, and American business will go on-changed but persevering. At that time, American employers will need to concentrate on keeping and attracting new workers. One thing the American employee has learned from this recession is that they work far too much and enjoy far too little off time compared with the rest of the world (who view Americans as people who work themselves to death).
Here is a wonderful article on the issue: http://users.ipfw.edu/ruflethe/american.html

A company that I worked for seven years had a great incentive and they really didn’t realize it: Every year the business shut down for Christmas week (the week between Christmas and New Years). In a company that demanded a lot from its workers it was one thing that kept the standard front line employee from wandering off to other endeavors even though the company was very stingy with raises and was not the gold standard as far as benefits. The entire week was paid for by the employer.

Other ideas are comp time, 37.5 hour work week, summer business hours, and flex time. One thing I did when I lead a sales team was stagger the work week. On Monday morning we were in at 7am and generally worked until 6, but on Friday we came in at 8:30 and left at 3; in fact, if I saw Jr. sales reps or sales assistants in their cubical after 3:30, I officially kicked them out of the bull pen turned out the lights and locked the door. As a manager, HR wondered why “my people” were so loyal-gee it wasn’t that hard. Needless to say if I ever needed to ask for overtime from someone, it was cheerfully accepted, and I avoided asking very often and my sales people knew it.

Other things I have seen effective were buying the first round after work on Friday night at the local watering hole, giving a hard working but seldom recognized employee the company business card and saying, “take your wife-sweetheart out to dinner and a movie-companies buying (every thing but alcohol).”

Implement these ideas now, and when the big loosening of the economy comes you won’t find your business trying to lock the door’s to keep everyone from leaving. I have seen it from the other side as well, a company who sort of enjoyed being demanding, when the economy loosened they could not effectively conduct business, they did not have enough front line people. Also the growth of job sites like www.glassdoor.com are becoming a very usual part of a person’s job search, and you don’t want your company to be poorly rated here if you want to attract new employees.