Cyclical Storage Logic (Personal Data)
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@BRRABill said:
Or, when trying to sell managed services to friends of mine who have a business, almost at cost, and they give them old "it's working, why do I need that" type thing. Yes, we've seen it happen, but it sounds like an insurance salesman to them.
Ask them if they feel that way about seatbelts and oil changes. Driving with no seatbelt works for everyone.... up to a point.
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@BRRABill said:
I mentioned once before a lot of the people I know in the MSP business hate it for these very reasons. Pulling teeth to get people to understand, then having to justify for the rest of the contract.
That's why people hate the MSP racket in general - customers just don't care as much as you do about themselves.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Ask them if they feel that way about seatbelts and oil changes. Driving with no seatbelt works for everyone.... up to a point.
My quote for managing patches always was
"I'm not saying something is GONG to happen, it just makes it easier because unpatched systems are at greater risk" -
@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Not every small business, but definitely more do than don't.
What makes you feel that way?
Because I see it all over the place.
I have a doctor client, who their main business software (which is used by thousands of offices I am sure) requires you to turn of UAC and the firewall.
It's ridiculous.
A lot of the MSP contracts I see won't even touch the proprietary software stuff.
Of course you do.... you are on the IT side. You get called BECAUSE of bad decision making. If they weren't making bad decisions, why would you have gotten called in?
You are seeing the results of bad decisions, rather than a survey of healthy businesses. Look at ML or SW to see what "normal" looks like you will only see, or primarily see, the bad because the bad are the ones that need to be fixed and discussed over and over again.
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
I too have a client who gets business advice from someone who is adamantly opposed to 'cloud' services for the same reason. Don't know how long they will be around. Additionally they believe they are more prone to be hacked. There has been no reasoning with them. They simply won't hear it.
Exactly.
Or, when trying to sell managed services to friends of mine who have a business, almost at cost, and they give them old "it's working, why do I need that" type thing. Yes, we've seen it happen, but it sounds like an insurance salesman to them.
See, your problem here is doing something bad for your business.. Giving a discount to a friend. Random discounts are 100% a bad idea.
I mentioned once before a lot of the people I know in the MSP business hate it for these very reasons. Pulling teeth to get people to understand, then having to justify for the rest of the contract.
I don't accept a client that tries to make me justify something. A client like this is not a client that understands that their IT is critical to their business succeeding. A client that does not understand that IT is critical to their business is not a client that I want. I fire those clients if they get past initial screening of "is this company a good client"
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
I still help them. I'm not going to criticize and move on.
No, but explaining to them that they are creating their own risk and bypassing the natural protections that normal people have is important. Do this still do it because people enable them or because they truly don't understand the risks that they choose to take?
how many people that you have told this to have actually changed their behavior to follow your suggestions? Non techie people?
Actually, a lot. I don't deal with many non-business people, but those that I do pretty universally have moved to zero data storage models and are SO thankful.
You're a better sales person than me then for sure!
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@scottalanmiller said:
That's why people hate the MSP racket in general - customers just don't care as much as you do about themselves.
All we heard was how much MSPs hated the MSP business, LOL.
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@JaredBusch said:
I don't accept a client that tries to make me justify something. A client like this is not a client that understands that their IT is critical to their business succeeding. A client that does not understand that IT is critical to their business is not a client that I want. I fire those clients if they get past initial screening of "is this company a good client"
That is our motto 100%
The "bad cases" are mostly people I know personally. Close friends who own businesses or relatives. Never random companies.
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Here is the thing...
A company that hires an MSP to "do the work but not to think about it" is going to have a bad time. If you need an MSP to press the buttons for you but you think that you know better which buttons need to be pressed... you have fundamental cognitive failing on behalf of management. Imagine if I went to my mechanic and said "I have zero clue how to change my oil, but I know that you need to use this tool and that part to do it." That would be crazy. If I don't know how to change my oil, I simply don't know enough to make those decisions.
As IT consultants we have to decide - do we consult and help or are THEY the IT people and we just press the buttons that they tell us to press. If we do the latter, we really don't have any value.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
I still help them. I'm not going to criticize and move on.
No, but explaining to them that they are creating their own risk and bypassing the natural protections that normal people have is important. Do this still do it because people enable them or because they truly don't understand the risks that they choose to take?
how many people that you have told this to have actually changed their behavior to follow your suggestions? Non techie people?
Actually, a lot. I don't deal with many non-business people, but those that I do pretty universally have moved to zero data storage models and are SO thankful.
You're a better sales person than me then for sure!
A key difference between me and most people is... I never allow it to be social acceptable. I never act like making reckless decisions is somehow "okay". I do say that there are many ways to skin a cat, there isn't just one "right way"... but there are bad ways and bad ideas and I never let people feel like they got away with it.
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@BRRABill said:
The "bad cases" are mostly people I know personally. Close friends who own businesses or relatives. Never random companies.
Typically not people who would see themselves as a real business, most likely.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Here is the thing...
A company that hires an MSP to "do the work but not to think about it" is going to have a bad time. If you need an MSP to press the buttons for you but you think that you know better which buttons need to be pressed... you have fundamental cognitive failing on behalf of management. Imagine if I went to my mechanic and said "I have zero clue how to change my oil, but I know that you need to use this tool and that part to do it." That would be crazy. If I don't know how to change my oil, I simply don't know enough to make those decisions.
As IT consultants we have to decide - do we consult and help or are THEY the IT people and we just press the buttons that they tell us to press. If we do the latter, we really don't have any value.
The sad thing is there are enough fake IT people out there that are willing to do exactly that. And those people muddle through enough to stay open for a while driving prices down.
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@Dashrender said:
The sad thing is there are enough fake IT people out there that are willing to do exactly that. And those people muddle through enough to stay open for a while driving prices down.
Of course. As many as "fake business people" are willing to hire. There is a huge business is being "yes men" rather than "IT pros."
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I too have a client who gets business advice from someone who is adamantly opposed to 'cloud' services for the same reason. Don't know how long they will be around. Additionally they believe they are more prone to be hacked. There has been no reasoning with them. They simply won't hear it.
That's the thing. Irrational, non-business oriented little businesses rarely stay around. The average small business is going to fail. Like 80% or more fail in the first few years. So encouraging them, coddling them, making them feel like it is okay to "be average" is really just a way of helping them close up shop. You aren't doing them any favours by making them feel like it is okay to fail. It IS okay to fail, most people do. But if the goal is to assist them, this doesn't do it.
I'm not coddling them. I inform them of why these are bad decisions every time a discussion comes up. The only thing left for me is to drop them.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Typically not people who would see themselves as a real business, most likely.
These are people all of whom have been in business for 20+ years.
They stay in business by being shrewd.
Everyone cuts corners somewhere and makes it work.
Not saying it's right. Just surprised you haven't seen it more. It's almost all I see in the SOHO market.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm not coddling them. I inform them of why these are bad decisions every time a discussion comes up. The only thing left for me is to drop them.
Do you make it clear that they are not following the most basic of business practices - like listening to the hired experts? Do you make it clear that you see them as "playing" at business and not taking it seriously and operating like a hobby? Because that's what I mean - letting them go home and night and not feel embarrassed.
It's tough love, but if I let clients go home feeling like their ridiculous decisions aren't being laughed at and that we don't see them as "children playing at business" I'm just making it seem socially acceptable to keep doing that. I make it clear that I don't take them seriously any more as they clearly don't take themselves seriously.
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@BRRABill said:
Everyone cuts corners somewhere and makes it work.
It's not cutting corners, that's a horrible mentality because it enables it.
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@BRRABill said:
They stay in business by being shrewd.
Good IT is always shrewd. What we are talking about is being reckless or not being smart. Very different things.
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@BRRABill said:
These are people all of whom have been in business for 20+ years.
Tons and tons of businesses do poorly for forever. Doctors offices are a great example. It's easy for a doctor to earn enough to have a "failing" business that they prop up for forever. They'll never earn anywhere nearly what they could have - they pay for the business out of their own income. I see this with nearly every doctor that owns a business. They could be rich, but prefer to "play" at business and be only middle class.
They stay in business indefinitely, but the business itself is always losing.
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@BRRABill said:
Everyone cuts corners somewhere and makes it work.
You need to define "it worked." The biggest aspect of IT is managing costs. When I see these companies, they are always bleeding money on IT. Saying "it works" when IT costs way too much is misleading. That's like saying that towing wagons with Ferraris works. Sure they burn out and you have to replace them constantly. Sure you spent 1,000x what you should spend. Sure they don't do a good job pulling. But far too often in IT we'd excuse that waste of money as "well it worked."
We need to change our definition of what "it worked" means. It's too often the opposite of doing well and is often used to mean "got lucky."
