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If you are not you should be as a managed service provider. As Obama makes clearer the system / program requirements for Doctors to move to EMR systems it open a huge opportunity for Managed Service Providers. Essentially we already know that each doctor can receive thousands of dollars from the government for moving to a conforming system now we just have to see the final requirements. Not that anything in them should be a surprise, reliability, security, accessibility, backup, DISASTER RECOVERY — any of these things sound familiar. Now all you need to do is find an EMR vendor to work with and you are off to the races.

If you don’t believe me check out Inc Magazine as they noted health care as a good industry to start a new business in this economy but the same facts that they point to for starting a business in this industry scream out to the MPS as a service offering:

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Health-Care Technology

Beer, Wine, and Liquor Wholesale

Software as a Service

Home Health Care

Yoga Products and Services

Technical and Trade Schools

Fast-Casual Dining

Green Construction

Niche Consulting

Education Technology

Temporary Staffing Firms

Government Services

Accounting Services

Repair Services

Self Improvement

Energy

How sweet it is. Even in a recession, candy has been a luxury that many people can still afford. “Chocolate is a comfort food,” says Dan Johnson, owner of Choco-Logo in Buffalo, New York, which has seen retail sales rise 30 percent since last year. The confectionery industry, as a whole, grew 3.7 percent during the 52-week period ending April 19, according to the National Confectioners Association, which is pretty good considering so many industries are flat or declining. Historically, experts say, candy is one of the most recession-resistant industries and many of today’s classic brands, including Snickers, Tootsie Pops, and 3 Musketeers, all launched during the darkest days of the Great Depression, between 1930 and 1932.

Apple launched its App Store last summer, creating a whole new burgeoning industry in the process. Sales of apps in the first month topped $30 million, leading Steve Jobs to predict that the marketplace would be worth $1 billion some day. To date, companies have produced more than 30,000 applications, ranging from games such as Tap Tap Revenge to apartment-hunting help to tools for finding out the name of a song; in all, Apple has processed more than a billion downloads. To capitalize on the trend, venture-capital firms such as Kleiner Perkins have begun investing in app producers; the venerable Sand Hill Road firm has earmarked $100 million for the market.

The challenge of streamlining patient care through digitized medical records, e-prescription programs, and online hospital communication, is just now gaining momentum, giving younger companies a chance to make inroads. The federal stimulus bill pledged $19 billion to the development of a health-information tracking system. Based on that level of funding, employment in the field is expected to grow by 18 percent between now and 2016, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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So with that said I hope you all start thinking about how to make the transition for a small doctors office to an EMR system as painless as possible so that every doctors office within 50 miles of you, and I am sure there are quite a few, calls you for service when they are ready.

Josh

Every small business eventually grows to a point where it is difficult to hire people into the roles you need to fill, they have not come through the ranks and do not know your systems inside and out, and yet it is difficult to grow your current team into the roles that need to be filled.

We spend a lot of time at Everon promoting from within and making our star performers responsible for key roles in the organization. This has worked well for us over time but it can be difficult at times as well. We all have a shortage of time in our week and it is hard to make sure you are slowing down enough to train those who will need to fill the key roles your business needs.

At Everon a majority of this development falls to Mike and me and over time, largely in part to Mike’s focus on development, we have done a good job. As we grow the personal mentoring becomes more difficult and we moved to a group roll playing model that also works well.

At this point we have outgrown this model as getting large portions of the team together for role playing can be difficult and running the same sessions multiple times can be time consuming.

We have started looking at online recorded training for our team and I am curious what other methods have worked well for you all over time. Any suggestions and ideas would be appreciated and as always feel free to email me directly if you prefer not reply on the site.

Hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend, now get back to work!

Josh

One of the bigger challenges I hear from providers around the country is that they do not have a good understanding of the state of their clients businesses. It is not easy for any business out there right and it is even harder for a client to admit that things are not working for them.

The end result of this not knowing is a good client calling you one day and saying “I have to end my contract because…” The because could be anything from I have to cut costs, I have cash flow issues, to I am closing down and laying everyone off, I have just sold my business.

All of these scenarios are hard to prevent, although you can offer advice on how they should run their business there is often nothing they can do to keep things on track.

So how then do you protect your business from clients that are slowing spending or stopping it all together?

Well the first thing to do is to bring in more healthy business, there is plenty of it out there if you look for it. But how do you get a better read on your current client base.

We are currently in the process or reaching out to all clients and asking four simple questions. These questions are designed to gain an understanding of throw their business is doing in the current economic environment as well as to help them understand that we are here to help them in any way possible.

The questions asked by the Account Manger over the phone:

• How is your business going?
• What is going on in your industry?
• Are we still providing value to your organization?
• What are you hearing about our competitors?
• What are the three things that if we get right will ensure a long term relationship with your organization?
• What are the three things that if we do not get them right will cause you to re-think your relationship with us?

These questions are simple and strait forward but we often don’t take the time to ask them. When we do ask them the client often has to take a minute to get out of the weeds to answer them but every time you ask them you will create a shared understanding with your customer that you are there as more than just an IT provider.

This simple set of questions will give them the impression that you understand, are looking out for, and care about their business.

You will also be able to identify clients that are struggling and stay ahead of the “I need to change my contract with you” phone call.

Josh

Symantec announced new managed backup services today in an attempt to capture their share of the managed services market. I can only assume they are modeling the business on volume because if not one of us should give them a call to tell them it is not feasible to manage a backup exec install for under $40 / month.

It will also be interesting as they bring this service to market to see how the channel play evolves and if there is a way for us to leverage their service in our business. I know I sure would pay the $37 / month / server to Symantec to manage all of my client’s backups with financial guarantees….

Josh

By Kevin Komiega

April 30, 2009 — Symantec today announced a Managed Backup Service for managing day-to-day backup operations in existing NetBackup environments at a lower cost than in-house management, according to the company.

The Managed Backup Services combine local management (on-site or off-site) with remote monitoring, incident management, restore requests, planning and optimization assistance, and reporting capabilities. The services are based on ITIL processes and run by a local Service Delivery Manager, who supervises daily operations and supplies customers with monthly account reviews.

IT organizations have always looked for cost-effective ways to outsource certain tasks, but, according to Symantec’s vice president of managed services, Grant Geyer, there is a new trend toward outsourcing critical IT functions.

“Lately we have been seeing a lot of selective out-tasking. Customers are trying to get the cost benefits of outsourcing in areas where high service levels are important,” says Geyer.

He claims offerings like the Managed Backup Service can offload critical IT applications – namely, data protection and recovery – with guaranteed service levels at a lower cost than in-house implementations.

“A lot of organizations are having a tough time with staffing. We can manage their data protection infrastructure on their behalf in a cost-effective way because instead of having a full set of resident [administrators], they benefit from our experts remotely and through a limited on-site component,” says Geyer.

Symantec’s latest “State of the Data Center” user survey reveals 60% of those polled are having difficulty meeting IT service levels demanded by their organization. Additionally, 43% of the respondents say finding qualified employees is a “big or huge problem.”

So how does having Symantec manage your NetBackup implementation translate to dollars saved? Geyer says Symantec has demonstrated cost savings over in-house data protection management of up to 20% – roughly $200,000 per year – in certain beta implementations.

Symantec prices its Managed Backup Services on a monthly fee per NetBackup client. The company factors in the tier of service, number of servers managed, and the complexity of the customer environment to arrive at an approximate starting price of $37/month per server.

Symantec is also building in a service-level insurance policy of sorts. The company offers a 97% backup SLA guarantee. If they do not meet that target, Symantec will pay customers a financial penalty, according to Geyer.

No surprise to anyone there. After their pilot program it was only a matter of time before they launched their services nationally.

Program Info

There are also some interesting resources to look at here along with an understanding of their hourly services.

I am interested to know if anyone out there is working as a Dell managed services reseller at this point and what the experience has been like. Feel free to shoot me an email if you would prefer not to respond on the site: jclifford@everonit.com

In the end the money that Dell puts into marketing will serve to educate the market and benefit us all especially if you are able to clearly articulate the benefits you bring to a client in your local market.

Josh

This is a good article from the folks at emyth on hiring mistakes to avoid. There is an abundance of talent out there looking for jobs currently and if you have the good fortune of needing to hire to support growth you want to consider your hiring process more closely than ever.

 

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Keep the following list of common hiring mistakes in mind as you build your hiring process. Remember, it’s never too late to build systems into your business. Even if you’re not hiring right now, by creating a hiring system, you’ll be prepared when the time comes.

1. Assuming a new hire is the answer – If you’re considering hiring a new employee the first thing to ask yourself is: “Can we achieve our desired results without hiring anyone?” In other words, force yourself to consider all of the options you have at your disposal (besides adding people) to produce the result you want. Only move forward with your recruiting and hiring systems when you’ve determined that a new employee is absolutely necessary.
2. Confusing recruiting and hiring – In an E-Myth’d business, hiring and recruiting are separate things. Recruiting involves defining the position and the ideal candidate and then communicating that recruiting message so that you attract the right candidate. The hiring process is about choosing the right candidate. By keeping these two processes clearly defined, you’ll maximize the impact of both and end up with the best qualified candidate for the job.
3. Hiring on the spot – There’s an old saying that hiring decisions are made in the first seven seconds of an interview. Seven seconds? This means that most hiring decisions are made from an emotional perspective. The candidate just “feels right,” and while trusting your instinct is good; it must be tempered with objectivity. We sometimes tell clients, “When you feel the urge to hire, don’t.” Your hiring decisions are some of the most consequential decisions you can make in your business — it’s essential to have a hiring system in place that allows you to consider all the pertinent data.
4. “Selling” the company – If you’ve done your recruiting process right, there’s no need for you to sell the company to your candidate because they already know exactly what you are about. By the time the candidate has gotten to the interview stage with you, you should be in hiring mode, focused on choosing the right candidate instead of them choosing you. If you feel like you need to convince a candidate that your company is “so great that you really should come work for us” then you’ve got a problem and it’s time to re-evaluate your recruiting process.
5. Hiring based purely on skill — Don’t hire based only on the candidate’s skill set. You should be looking for skill and attitude. Look for the right attitude because you can always train the right candidate in the skills of the job, but you can’t change anybody.

I’m going to be presenting at the HTG Summit in Dallas on April 22nd - are any of our managed services readers going to be there?  If so, let’s meet up for a chat.

I’m fired up about presenting at this conference.  There’s almost nothing better to me than to get a bunch of entrepreneurs together in one room so they can spend quality time away from their business - focusing on new ideas and finding ways to improve!

If you aren’t already a part of a group like HTG, MSPCoach, True Profits, or something similar - I suggest you get involved right away.

I hope to see some of you there!

MRC

The fact of the matter is that we all have too much to do and we will never accomplish it all.

But have you ever met someone who seems to get a ton done every day? Weather they are a business owner, a consultant, or a tech it always seems that they are delivering?

This is in contrast to the person that is always busy but never gets anything done. We all know this person too well. We ask them what the heck they do all day, perhaps we even sit and observe them, but we just can’t seem to figure out where their time goes.

In growing a business the reality is that we cannot do everything even if we are the best time managers in the world. 

This is where the concept of top five comes in: Each day you should write the top five things you need to get done down on a note card, prioritize them in order from one to five, and then work on them one by one during the day until they are complete. Spend the last five minutes of every day creating your must do list for the next day.

Seems so very simple when I write it out like that but it is a powerful concept that when implemented will change your world. 

One trick to keep in mind is to make sure you don’t put things on your top five list that can not be accomplished. Instead put the next logical small step that needs to be taken to keep top priorities on track. For example my top goal for the quarter may be to create a vertical specific offering for health care. If I put this on my top five list: create vertical program, I am certain to fail. On the other hand if I put down: set meeting with key advisors from current clients to gain insight into what we need to develop, I have a much better chance of moving it forward with success.

I am not saying you should create easy “to do” type goals for the day but rather you need to break larger goals down into the next logical step / chunk and start working on it until you accomplish it.

I highly recommend using the top five concept because when implemented right it can have dramatic effects.

Josh

Every Monday night Mike and I play indoor soccer at the local indoor soccer place in Boulder.

Tonight our goalie mixed up the time of the game and was not there when the game started. About five minutes into the game we were already five goals down, not completely the fault of the field guy trying to tend the goal but certainly a different start than we would have had with our regular net minder.

As the first half went on it seemed to only get worse. We were unable to mount much offense and by the end of the half we were behind 3-9. This is such a large deficit in indoor soccer that the rules actually make the winning team play down one player if they are ahead by more than five goals, a bit like the slaughter rule back on the playground when you were a kid.

Going into the second half it was clear that some people on the team had given up and others on the team were rising to the challenge to try and turn the ship around. Instead of breaking the game down into smaller chunks that we could set our sights on winning the leaders on the team spoke of how to score in general on the opponent.

We started the second half with some hustle that quickly gave way to despair as some of our key players stopped running as hard and playing defense with as much heart as they normally would, and we had a lull across the team.

I have always had the competitive drive that does not allow me to quit. We could be down by 10 goals with a minute left and I would still be running my hardest, and giving my all to try to close the gap. I suppose it has something to do with the way that i was raised. Tonight I found myself throwing myself into the boards and clashing heads with the opponent in an attempt to pull within reach of victory. The problem I had to grapple with for one moment during the game was this tough:

Why should I bust my ass, risk being really sore tomorrow, and play my heart out when that guy, one of our better guys, is not running, changing up shifts, or even doing the basics that are required to participate in the game?

Thankfully I only thought this for a moment and the majority of the team had the fire in the belly to fight on to the final buzzer. While we did not win we did bring the game back within striking distance a few times and ultimately turned what could have been an embarrassing loss into a close game.

So what the heck does this have to do with my managed services company you must be asking.

Well the fact of the matter is that if you are like every other business in the world right now you are asking or even demanding that your people do more with less each day. Each and every day you need to have someone that drives the team forward. Someone that can light a light and get the team to follow them rather than cursing the darkness with the rest of the troops. This motivation to drive forward needs to come from the people on your leadership team and it needs to be so strong it is infectious.

The other important lesson from tonight’s game is that you need to be constantly communicating, focusing the team, and setting goals. It seems like an impossible goal to go out and win the game going into the second half, but it sure was possible to win the first five minutes. After the first five minutes we could have set the goal of winning the second five minutes with the ultimate goal of winning the half. By breaking it down like this it would have given us all the motivation to dig deep and keep playing hard rather than going through the motions which is what can happen when goals are not clear or appear unreachable.

You need to do the same thing in your company. It is great, no it is needed to have gig annual targets but it is important to reset the teams targets quarterly or even monthly when necessary to keep everyone laser focused and moving forward.

From a tough soccer game to running a business in tough times we all have to realize it is about returning to the basics, communicating, setting goals to keep the team aligned, and publically recognizing those that are playing their hearts out for the victory.

Josh

 

This is a question you should get in the habit of asking your key employees every week during you management huddle.

The power of asking this question is that it promotes an open and respectful work place where people are willing to bring frustrations to your attention. As Michael Gerber has taught us in emyth it is systems that fail not people. We need to make sure our people know that this is our philosophy in running the company so that they are comfortable bringing problems to your attention.

After asking the question do not dig into the solutions with the group but rather gather the issues, prioritize them, and then assign single point accountability to someone in the organization for resolving the issue.

We have recently started asking this question again in our weekly operations huddle and the results have already been impactful.

Josh