If  you’ve spent even one hour with me you know how maniacal I get about the necessity for sales people in your organization.  Aside from my direct clients I usually only have limited time to talk to people about their business so I try to leave them with something to go home and think about.  Invariably that topic will be the importance of getting a sales person on your team.

Now, I’ll admit I’m not the most calm and relaxed guy about your business.  You don’t want me to be.  I am going to passionately deliver my message to you about how I think you can increase your top and bottom line.  You don’t have to like it and you don’t have to do it.  However, if you choose to add a sales person let’s keep a few things straight:

1. Save 3 months of base salary for your sales person before you even place your ad.  You will make better decisions if you are about to draw from your cash that you’ve saved for this purpose.

2. Don’t even think about hiring a sales person until you’ve committed at least 10 hours a week of YOUR time to manage, coach, and train this individual.  YOU must be the one to get them excited about your company and work closely with them on setting the proper activity levels and expected outcomes.  Don’t cop out and say “i shouldn’t have to micro manage.”  That’s BS and you’re talking non sense.  Sales people need boundaries and guidance.  Give it to them!

3.  For the love of all things holy, please don’t give me an aneurysm by making the following mistakes; hiring at the first interview, not having a compensation plan IN WRITING TO PRESENT AT THE TIME OF OFFER,  not verifying references, not having a 90 day plan.

Sales people are tough to find, train, and hire.  We know this.  Don’t keep hiring your first sales person over and over again making the same mistakes.  Have a plan, stick to the plan, the plan works.

In Part II I’m going to give you some real world and current examples of my friends and clients going through this process right now.  I’ll protect their identity  to spare their ego, though I should make them public to shame them into doing the right thing next time!

Tags: hiring, sales, sales management

When I start working with a new client it doesn’t take long to start hearing about the “bad” employees. The ones that just won’t enter their time, complain about their pay or simply don’t perform well.

It’s now cliche and expected to have owners fall on their swords and “accept” responsibility for the poor performance of their employee. There are enough management books and gurus out there that most owners know that bad employees usually mean bad managers. The trick is what they are willing to do about this situation.

Let’s go over the basics of a job description:
1. Minimum qualifications (objective measures of suitability for the role)
2. Essential duties of the role (what percentage of your time will be spent in different aspects of the position)
3. Measurements of accountability (what specific achievements need to be met in order for your staff to know they are successful)

Very simple document to put together. Have one for every role in your company. Don’t put out another employment ad without one. Don’t hire another employee without presenting the job description.

Your employees want these documents! Your candidates crave the definition of the position they are applying for. Your managers want to create the guidelines for the positions.

It’s amazing right now how much interest there is in the managed services and VAR world in business improvement groups.  The sheer number of participants in our groups right now is pretty amazing to me.  The concepts of peer groups is not new but it certainly has been revitalized in our industry over the last few years.

A lot of times I get asked about the benefits of a peer group or business improvement group.  I generally give the same thoughts to anyone who asks. Here’s a snapshot:

1. Opportunity to share your experiences with other IT companies just like yours

2.  Opportunity to have your financials benchmarked and compared to others in your industry

3.  Opportunity to have your peers offer unbiased advise on important issues that are impacting your business right now

4.  Expand your base of advisors and sounding boards

5. Work with a group of individuals who will help hold you accountable for what you know you need to be doing.

Some important factors to consider:

1.  MUST be leader let, not peer led

2.  MUST be vendor neutral

3.  Leadership should MUST NOT have an agenda for financial gain by offering your information to so called sponsors

There are many other factors to choosing a peer group.  Basic advice is to do your homework and get references from current participants

Tags: BIG, peer group, TBG

Rubik\’s Cube videoTotally off subject but thought I’d throw this in there.  I’m completely obsessed with becoming a speed cuber.  I bought a Rubiks Cube about a month ago and have finally solved it four times. It’s coming along slowly but I gotta tell you, it’s a blast.  I learned everything i know from this guy called Thrawst on youtube.com.  You’d think that with videos and direction it would be a breeze, but believe me it has still been a monster undertaking and it’s finally coming together.

Today I bought some silicone lube and dialed in my cube, it’s amazing the difference.  If you’re a closet cuber, hit me up and let me know!

I’ve been attending the ConnectWise Partner Summit for about four years and find that it is a phenomenal event both in quality of content and in the level of attention to creating a memorable event.  Monday I’ll head to Miami for my first Autotask event and will be holding two sessions about the power of peer groups (Business Improvement Groups in Taylor Business Group language!)

Autotask has been a pleasure to work with.  I enjoy the opportunity to get in front of VAR’s and MSP’s and feel like our message is pretty well developed.  After about 3o minutes on the phone with Len DiCostanzo it was clear that he is truly passionate about this community and what his company can do for the industry.

From all the social media updates that I’ve seen so far it looks like a great start.  Karl Palachuk put on a great session by all accounts and had the ever entertaining Travis Austin in attendance as well.  I’m sorry to have missed it but can’t wait to get down there and check in with old friends and meet some new folks.  If you’re there, come by and say hi!

Tags: AutoTask, ConnectWise, Karl Palachuk, Travis Austin

Now this is interesting…curios to learn more.  Any Autotask users care to chime in?  How important is this to you?  Is an E-Commerce platform the way you want to sell product to your clients?  Curious about your experiences!

Autotask Redefines Conventional Professional Services Automation (PSA) Software through Acquisition of Cloud-Based E-Commerce Platform

VARStreet Acquisition adds Online Stores, Advanced Product Quoting, Real-Time Distributor Pricing & Availability, Product Sourcing, Procurement and more to Autotask

EMBARGOED NEWS – EAST GREENBUSH, NY – March 17, 2010 – Autotask Corporation, the world leader in hosted IT Business Management software, today announced that it has acquired the cloud-based VARStreet e-commerce platform, redefining all IT Professional Services Automation (PSA) solutions by adding powerful tools to automate and streamline the entire IT product sales and procurement process.

VARStreet is the IT industry’s most powerful hosted e-commerce automation platform for technology resellers, currently supporting almost $1 billion in IT product sales annually.  With the acquisition, Autotask Corporation announced the immediate availability of several new products for Value Added Resellers (VARs), Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and all types of solution providers who need a more affordable way to manage, buy and resell technology products.

There are three VARStreet products which are available immediately:

• VARStreet Back-Office is a completely integrated IT Product Sales and Procurement platform that includes real-time pricing and availability from distributors, advanced product quoting, sourcing and fulfillment.
• VARStreet e-Commerce includes VARStreet Back-Office plus a complete VAR-branded and controlled e-storefront.
• The existing high-end VARStreet XC platform, with more power features and controls, rounds out the product line

An embedded e-commerce module for Autotask is scheduled for release in late April 2010.

“IT engagements and Managed Services naturally carry a product component when VARs consult on the full solution,” said Bob Godgart, CEO of Autotask Corporation.  “However, without the right automation tools in place, they find that the sales and procurement process is too time-consuming to cover the small margins associated with commoditized products. And worse, when their customers choose to buy technology products through other channels, solution providers lose control over the relationship and can miss out on installation, training, maintenance and managed services revenue.”

Godgart added, “We’re going to make the VARStreet advanced e-commerce technology available and affordable to help more solution providers gain a greater share of their customers’ technology purchases, and give them the ability to make decent money in the process.”

The existing VARStreet XC product line is widely regarded as the most powerful and comprehensive suite of hosted e-commerce automation tools on the market, and is currently used by hundreds of the largest VARs in North America, such as Emtec, Inc., Pomeroy IT, and Zebra Technologies. Additionally, Autotask Corporation has expanded the product line to include VARStreet Back-Office and VARStreet e-Commerce, putting the technology within reach of any solution provider.

VARStreet Back-Office: Automating All Aspects of the Product Sale and Procurement Process
The VARStreet Back-Office product includes a full set of integrated e-commerce automation tools, including:

• e-Price Book / Catalog – Dynamically updated feeds from 18 major distributors, including BlueStar, Ingram Micro Inc., Synnex, Tech Data, and more than a dozen others, allow Solution Providers to create their own custom product catalogs for each of their customers from among hundreds of thousands of IT SKUs.  The catalogs can be customized with unlimited products and services from the VAR. List prices are based on rules established by the VAR, and multiple price levels can be configured to vary by customer or source.
• Advanced Product Quoting – VARs can quickly and easily browse and search through their aggregated custom catalogs to build professional looking quotes or start from a Quote Template.  The software pulls in rich specifications and images for each quoted product, along with automatic pricing. VARs can electronically review the quotes with their customers, and VARStreet keeps track of the entire sales pipeline and other key metrics.

• e-Sourcing – Once an order is received from the customer, VARs can use the software to “buy-it-right,” where they determine the best source and the best price based on real-time comparative pricing and availability.

• E-Marketing – For VARs who want a simple way to quickly generate demand for their products, an integrated marketing engine can send out bulk customized HTML e-mails to existing customers and prospects.  The software includes built-in templates for sending out marketing messages, quotes, order acknowledgements and more… all personalized using data pulled from the contact history. The e-marketing tool also includes real-time reporting on email responses, as well as the ability to create pre- or post-sale surveys and questionnaires.

• e-Procurement — VARStreet Back Office dramatically streamlines the VAR-to-distributor procurement process by automatically converting sales orders into electronic Purchase Orders to most major distributors –all with no re-entry of data.  VARStreet manages and tracks the full transaction lifecycle, including order status and shipping from multiple distributors.   Orders can also be drop-shipped – lowering inventory overhead and shipping costs even further.

VARStreet e-Commerce: Helping Solution Providers Sell Products On-line
VARStreet e-Commerce includes VARStreet Back-Office plus a world-class hosted e-Storefront to help solution providers take online orders with a minimum of manual work. Each e-Storefront is customized and branded by the solution provider and has a number of automated features, including:

• Dynamically-Updated Content — e-Store catalogs are automatically created and updated from products or categories that the VARs choose to display from their distributors. Rich product descriptions and images are automatically pulled in, along with sale pricing based on VAR-defined parameters.
• Automated Selling Tools — Side-by-side product comparisons, automated up-sell, cross-sell, and special offers, stored favorites, most-popular-listings-first are among the many features that drive increased sales.
• Automated Shopping Cart — The software includes simple check-out, supports multiple payment methods, order confirmations, and shipment tracking for the customer.

VARStreet XC: Still the industry standard for high volume resellers.
The high-end VARStreet XC e-Commerce Platform will continue to be offered as the premier solution for larger VARs and solution providers. VARStreet XC includes VARStreet e-Commerce, and VARStreet Back Office, plus higher levels of customization, customer-side procurement workflow rules, enhanced punch-outs and integrations, and more, to meet the requirements of resellers with the largest and most demanding corporate and government clients.

Making VARStreet Technology Available and Affordable for Any Solution Provider
“This technology is now available for any VAR, MSP or solution provider that wants to make more money selling products – not just the VAR 500,” said Godgart. “That’s why we’ve introduced the VARStreet Back-Office product at just $99 per month and the VARStreet e-Commerce product, which also includes e-Storefront, starting at $299 per month.”

“Every day, the solution provider’s customers are going online to buy IT products, accessories, consumables and supplies, such as printer cartridges, cables, paper and other commoditized items,” added Godgart.  “This is the perfect opportunity for VARs to create new revenue streams for themselves with very little work.   The orders come in through the stores, are drop-shipped directly from the distributor, and the VAR gets paid.  No touch.  All margin.”

Customers Sell More With Autotask
Autotask customer Andrew Harper, Chief Information Officer for Gaeltek of Virginia is looking forward to gaining more efficiency throughout his sales process, “Autotask’s addition of the VARStreet e-Commerce and VARStreet Back-Office products will allow me to sell more for less.  I am going to save a lot of time and money in managing my product procurement, as well as gain more control over my product sales process.  We enjoy the visibility and ease that Autotask brings to our services business, and now this will give us the same ease of doing business on the product side.”

This mirrors the sentiments of existing VARStreet XC customers, who have seen a 50 percent improvement in both purchasing and quoting productivity, a 20 percent increase in revenue and an additional five percent dropping straight to their bottom lines.
“We have partnered with VARStreet for five years to provide us with customizable ecommerce solutions that have allowed us to win many contracts. Over that time, VARStreet has provided flexible solutions to meet our customer specifications,” says Michael Hubbs, director of MIS, Emtec, Inc.

“At last solution providers will be able to tie together the entire product and services lifecycle, whether the order is taken electronically or through a salesperson,” concluded Godgart. “They can track everything from the initial marketing push through the final delivery of the order, and the history and product information flows into one IT business management system – Autotask.”

The VARStreet by Autotask Corporation e-commerce platform is currently available only in North America, but the company has a global roll-out of the technology on the product roadmap.

About VARStreet
VARStreet, Inc. was founded in 1999 with headquarters in Santa Clara, CA and a subsidiary in Pune, India.  Fueled by more than $20 million of capital investments, VARStreet was the first fully-hosted e-commerce solution for VARs.  Today the VARStreet platform is widely regarded as the most powerful and comprehensive suite of hosted e-commerce tools on the market, and is currently used by hundreds of the largest VARs in North America. Terms of the VARStreet acquisition by Autotask Corporation remain private; however Autotask has formed a subsidiary in Pune, India and retained all staff.

Visit www.varstreet.com for more information on VARStreet Back Office, VARStreet e-Commerce and VARStreet XC.

About Autotask Corporation
Autotask Corporation is the leading provider of innovative, web-based Business Management Software and Services designed exclusively for IT Service Providers, MSPs, IT Consultants, Systems Integrators and other technology solution providers. Accessible via any PC, at any time without any downloads, Autotask helps IT professionals intuitively manage and automate the key operations for their service business and integrates seamlessly with most Managed Services software applications. For more information on Autotask please visit http://www.autotask.com or call 518-720-3500. Autotask®, Autotask Go!®, Autotask Pro® are registered trademarks Autotask Corporation. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

One of my most enjoyable visits is to my client in New Hampshire. They are tough and very committed to being a truly great company

The challenge however has been in getting to and from Manchester on United. Without fail there is a delay or cancellation. I have done every permutation of United’s schedule. Nothing mattered.

This morning I decided to take a connecting flight to Manchester through Dulles. Around 7 am the delayed flight texts began resulting in a departure time 1.5 hours late.

Knowing that I was likely going to miss my connection I expected a rebooking text message or email. Instead, nothing. I went to the Red Carpet ticket counter expecting empathy, hustle, and creativity in getting me to my destination. Instead, nothing. I did get the classic, ” sir there’s nothing I can do” however which is always refreshing.

After over 400,000 miles, 1k status, and over $100,000 spent on tickets I think I’m going to give Southwest Airlines a try.

Customer loyalty appears to count for very little when it really matters. When I’m stranded or need to rebook last minute, there is nothing they can do. That’s when I want my loyalty to pay off Just never has happened.

So United I bid you farewell after I burn through my remaining tickets. Southwest, here I come.

Tags: 1k, travel, united

I’ve struggled with this question for the last couple years and it is one that gets thrown at me any time I speak at a workshop or conference.  For me, the answer is still a resounding YES!

Even with the advent of automatic updates and backups and remote monitoring, solutions still need to be implemented.  Of course putting time against a contract reduces its profitability, but what are you going to do? Ignore the issue in order to avoid putting time onto the agreement?  Of course not.

The whole point of measuring utilization has always been to track how many client facing hours engineers put towards clients for billing.  The only difference with managed services is that we’ve been prepaid for those potential hours.  Time will still need to put towards clients networks and we as managers, owners, and sales people must keep the client base large enough for their to be enough networks to work on.  Hopefully each individual network needs less touch but does that mean we want techs sitting around?  Definitely not, it means go out and find MORE networks for them to maintain.  Low utilization STILL means that we are losing production out of our staff.

We also can not forget about projects!  Sales should be out filling the pipeline and queue with new projects that are what? BILLED BY THE HOUR OR FLAT FEE!  That means billable hours that need to be tracked and measured to determine production levels of our engineers.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water folks.  Keep measuring utilization.  Add to that some strong analysis of time on task and efficiencies of implementing solutions.  Now more than ever you need your engineers working smartly and efficiently on solving client issues.  If you’re not hitting 75% utilization look at your sales pipeline, bring in more clients until you can fully utilize your engineering team.

More on this topic later…it’s a big one and there are many more factors such as fudging time sheets, loading time against agreements, etc…all real issues and all incredibly simple to combat!  Let me know what you think?

Tags: managed services, time sheets, utilization

Bill Stucklen is a founder of Marathon Consulting in Brooklyn, NY. He was a reluctant sales manager but has turned out to be quite amazing at it and is delivering some very strong results. Bill forwarded this Sales Constitution to me this morning and I really like it, all but the part about giving products away for free!

Sales Constitution

• I refuse to sell my services to people who don’t want them or need them.
• I find out how others failed because I won’t make the same mistake they did.
• I never stand in the way of the best solutions or the worst solutions.
• I don’t sell products; I sell service. All products are free with my service.
• I never expect buyers to pay more for the same solution at a higher price.
• I always present solutions that are different and better than competitors.
• I present my solutions only once – to the right people at the right time.
• I will not allow third parties to present my solutions. Only I will do this.
• I provide choices to my buyer, not ultimatums.
• I will never fax or email my proprietary solutions to a customer.
• I am committed to only four possible outcomes of my presentation.
o Yes
o No
o Disqualify Myself – If my solutions are the same as others.
o Set a future date to get my final answer with a return visit.
• I always find out what I did to get or lose the sale.
• I return in person to get the final answer, not make follow up phone calls.
• I always let customers know that I need their help getting more customers.

Tags: marathon consulting, sales management, selling

Tags: AutoTask, Business improvement group, peer group, SMB nation event, video autotask