We've all seen reports of businesses losing everything due to an unexpected disaster. Whether a pipe bursts and floods an entire office or a tornado strikes and leaves a building in shambles, these stories are devastating to hear about. Still, most people seeing these stories on television, or reading about them in the newspaper or online are left with the feeling of, "that could never happen to me." Well the truth is, it can.

The recent string of tornadoes in the south caused over $1 billion in damages to businesses and homes. In fact, according to an article published on Slate, at least 68 tornadoes were reported across 15 states during the week of December 21st. Meanwhile, the East Coast just received its first snowfall of the winter after a devastatingly cold and snowy 2014.

For small and mid-sized business owners, this should be alarming. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 40% of businesses do not reopen after a disaster and another 25% fail within one year. This is largely do to the high cost of downtime. After hearing this statistic, it should be clear that having a solid and reliable business continuity plan in place is imperative for any SMB.

The 2011 Business Continuity Planning in Severe Weather: Advice to Businesses on Preparing for Severe Weather lays out an extensive guide on how businesses should go about ensuring that they will be able to continue to operate in the event of a disaster.

Risk Evaluation and Control

The first thing that a business should do when evaluating its risk is to identify which portions of the business are critical and necessary to achieve objectives. Lets say a doctor's office in Maine experiences a power outage due to a large snow storm. Will they be able to access the critical patient data that is stored on their servers? If the doctor's office determines that patient data is critical and necessary to maintain business operations, the server that houses that data NEEDS to be operational in order to avoid downtime for the business.

The doctor's office should continue to do this for every aspect of the business that is needed to stay operational. Once a full list is developed, your clients should continue to the next step in the process.

Business Impact and Analysis
Once the list of critical business operations has been built out, the SMB needs to determine the potential risks to those critical operations. These risks should include things like severe weather, power outages, floods, etc. Research can be done to determine the amount of risk that the business is subject to depending on the area that it is located in. In the earlier example, the doctor's office was located in Maine. Since parts of Maine receive high average snowfall annually, that business would be at a higher risk of having to deal with a snow-related disaster than businesses in other areas. As such, that doctor's office should have a recovery plan in place.

Development of Business Continuity Strategies

For each determined risk, there needs to be an action plan. SMBs should work with their MSPs to establish a plan to stay up and running during each of the premeditated disaster scenarios. Is data being replicated off site so that it can be easily restored if a local server is damaged? MSPs can provide their clients with a Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution that will allow their businesses to stay operational and eliminate downtime in any disaster scenario.

Follow along with the remaining items in the chart here

Hope you enjoy the following post from one of our own employees, who got her start as a technician!

I started my IT career as a technician, originally working in a high volume call center-type help desk, and then later moving to a desktop support/system admin position for a local IT company closer to home. Within a few years, I found myself at a dead end with no vertical movement within the company. I was not learning anymore, as each person had a niche and refused to train anyone else on that product, which left me and my fellow technicians feeling rather bored with large gaps in our trainings. I enjoyed my job, but my growth was stagnant, and I wasn't being challenged with any new issues. Can any of you relate?

Keep reading!

What were some of your most memorable "a-ha" moments as techs?

In a recent KPMG survey of 223 healthcare executives, a full 80 percent stated that their information technology had been compromised by cyber attacks.

Let’s think about this for two seconds… 80 percent!!! Possibly, a portion of the remaining 20 percent had not yet known that they were a part of the 80 percent. After all, how many clients have you taken on only to find that their network was being compromised or had been compromised?

In healthcare especially, the question is not if providers will experience a breach or cyber attack, but rather when. How will they respond, and what will the fallout be?

Keep reading our latest blog post!

What is Thanksgiveness? It is a word I made up. This week we start a season of Thanksgiving that ends on New Year's Day. Let me share a secret to make this Thanksgiving the start of your best leadership years and the start of more opportunities for joy in your life and at work.
Thanksgiveness = Thanksgiving + Forgiveness. The reason for this new word is the two decisions are integrated. It may surprise you, but in typical servant leadership style the last comes first. Before we can experience true thankfulness we must accept forgiveness so deeply that we can forgive. This can be difficult because in many ways forgiveness is a much more complicated experience than thankfulness. It relates to our ego, wounds in life, spiritual beliefs, attitude, and habits.

Leaders who are thankful, and can express sincere gratitude to others, leave a much more powerful legacy than other managers. Yet one major hurdle for leaders is that if you truly want to experience the fullness of Thanksgiving every day, then you must comprehend the complications of forgiveness in your own life and overcome its challenges.

Here are three steps for any business owner to begin this journey.

We've all read some truly sucky sales emails in our day - one of our own rips apart a message he received the other day here - but what makes you click away? How do you use these examples of lackluster, unconvincing content to inform your own sales efforts? What are the pitfalls you try to avoid when crafting emails to prospects or attempting to upsell clients?

Good morning, all! I thought I'd share our latest blog post, straight from one of our clients...

Reactively fending off attacks is only part of the fight. Detection and prevention of attacks before they become a problem is just as (if not more so) important and vitally critical to protecting your clients’ workstations, servers and networks.

Here are some ideas to help you establish a proactive and aggressive battle plan that you can implement to better protect client security.

Keep reading!

How often are you monitoring your firewall? What trends have you noticed in your threat intelligence solution? Do you have anything to add that will help other MSPs? Sound off!

In case you didn't know, we've been creating white label quick tips you can download and share with your clients and prospects.

This month we're bringing you the 4 Ways to Increase Your Laptop Battery Life and Charge! You may know not to keep your laptop plugged in when it's fully charged, but do your clients? It's simple, but these little pointers can go along way in demonstrating your tech authority.

What questions do you constantly receive that you'd like to see in next month's installment of our series?

Do you know what annoys your prospects most about IT services providers? It’s your use of technical jargon instead of plain English. If you’ve been following our blog series about jargon, you know it can be detrimental to your marketing and client relations. In this article, we’ll give you some easy-to-implement tips on how to kick the jargon habit.

Keep reading!

What are some examples of IT jargon you've heard peers use? Have you found yourself using any?

We're making a list - hope you're checking it twice!

Before you take a break and relax for the holidays, don't leave your clients hanging like stockings on the hearth. As the New Year approaches, be proactive and use this time to reconnect with clients about their backup and disaster recovery (BDR) needs. The last thing you want while you're away is to field a frantic call from an important customer complaining that a server went down, preventing them from accessing key data. While you're at it, get a jumpstart on 2016 BDR sales by analyzing your current portfolio of clients and identifying new opportunities.

In order to help you close out Q4 and prepare for the coming year, we've compiled a checklist of BDR action items that are sure to land you on your clients' "nice" list, but we want to know what you're doing to prepare for the New Year!

Have you scheduled backup tests and revisited your DR plans with clients? Have you set goals for BDR adoption in 2016? Sound off!

Last week, I participated in CompTIA's IT Channel Management Executive Workshop, and while the two-day training was jam-packed with actionable lessons, one of the biggest eye-openers for me was that MSPs often don't understand their own finances. Here on the blog, we're always offering advice on services to add or relationships to leverage to grow your bottom line, but what does that actually mean? What goes into that metric? Revenue and profitability are two different key performance indicators (KPIs), and it's vital to know what impacts both in order to grow and scale your MSP business.

Understanding Your Income Statement
In order to understand your business's various line items, we'll look at a sample income statement:

image source: http://financetrain.com/income-statement/

Let's examine each of these in greater detail:

Sales (Revenue)
This is a figure you already understand because it represents what you make in sales. It's the amount you invoice for each of your customers.

Cost of Goods Sold - though often defined as Cost of Goods and Services for MSPs - (COGS)
COGS measures the direct expense associated with the products and services you sell. As you can see in the sample above, this number breaks down into the cost of materials, labor and overhead.

Gross Profit
Note: Gross profit and gross income are synonymous with one another. Here is the first key formula you need to know in order to think like a CFO:

Revenue - COGS = Gross Profit

That's right, gross profit represents the difference between the first two metrics above because it gauges how efficient a company is at using labor and materials. According to Investopedia's definition, gross profit "considers variable costs, that is, costs that fluctuate with the level of output."

Gross Profit Margin
While not included on the example income statement, this is another term to be knowledgeable of. To calculate your gross profit margin, simply follow this formula:

Gross Profit/Revenue = Gross Profit Margin

You always want to monitor this metric because over time, gross profit margins can decline while gross profits increase. What's the takeaway then? If for instance your gross profit were higher in 2015 compared to 2014, but your gross profit margin was lower in 2015, you know your use of raw material and labor during the production process in 2015 was not as efficient as it was in 2014.

Operating Expenses
Operating expenses cover the cost of maintaining business operations daily. These are typically fixed costs that you must pay even when no sales occur. What we often really care about when looking at operating expenses, however, is selling, general and administrative costs (SG&A). These are costs such as advertising, rent, utilities, insurance, benefits, etc.

Operating Income or Profit
Note: Operating income and operating profit are used interchangeably. To calculate this metric, we use two of the others we've already found:

Gross Profit - Operating Expenses = Operating Income

Note: You technically also deduct depreciation and amortization, but we'll keep it simple for the purpose of our example.

Investopedia defines operating income as "the amount of profit realized from a business's operations after taking out operating expenses."

Operating Margin
Similar to calculating your gross profit margin, to find operating margin, use this equation:

Operating Income/Revenue = Operating Margin*

Operating Margin measures your MSP business's operating efficiency. Following the same logic as earlier, it's not enough to only look at your operating income over time. You have to know how your margins behave in order to make adjustments.

Other Income & Expenses & Income Before Tax
Then, you'll notice in the example that we add other income and expenses (like interest) to operating income to find income before tax. From there, we apply the tax rate and deduct it from our income before tax to find net income.

Net Income
At last, we've reached the bottom line item on your income statement! Net income is an important metric because it tracks how profitable a company is over time, hence why it's also referred to as net profit.

Revenue - COGs - Operating Expenses - Interest and Taxes = Net Profit

or

Gross Profit - Operating Expenses - Interest and Taxes = Net Profit

or

Operating Income - Interest and Taxes = Net Profit

Net Margin
This is the number you want to pay close attention to, as it tells you "how much of each dollar earned by the company is translated into profits" according to Investopedia.

Note: For longer descriptions and examples of each of these line items, check out Investopedia's full dictionary of terms.

So How Can You Increase Your Net Margin? Keep reading!

Was this helpful? Would you like more financial advice content? What else do you look at when growing your margins?

So in theory when you download a piece of content, you should be getting more than what you're giving (your contact information). It sounds like that hasn't been the case. In having a good content strategy, the follow-up email communication should not read as SPAM. It should offer a deeper understanding of the associated topic focus, answering more of your questions and those questions that you have at that point in your buyer's stage.

So when you fill out a form and give contact information, it helps marketers determine what content they should send you more of. Is this not valuable to you?

You can read the rest of my response at this dedicated landing page.

Well, you need to not enable video thumbnails because that just took out all the fun.

Happy World Backup Day! Today celebrates a global, independent initiative that stresses the importance of regularly backing up both personal and professional data. Since its debut in 2011, World Backup Day has become a movement in its own right with one unifying mission. People are simply asked to take the pledge and back up their important documents and precious memories on March 31st.

As an MSP charged with the health of clients' IT environments, preserving company data is a top concern. And not just today, but all year round. To help you make your BDR case more effectively, we've created a short quiz measuring IT disaster preparedness. Send to clients and prospects in the hopes that they'll see the value of your business continuity services and take your backup pledge!

Get quiz here!

What other questions would you ask to judge whether they need BDR or not?

Our awesome partner, ImageQuest, was recently recognized for excellence in managed IT services. To learn more about how they've been so successful, I conducted a Q&A with CEO Milton Bartley, the responses of which are captured in this blog post.

One thing that came up was the idea of charging for network assessments. When I asked why they don't offer them for free, Milton had this to say:

"A free assessment is worthless. If you don't place a value on it, how can you expect the prospect to do so? We have turned the assessment into a competitive advantage in our markets. We conduct a professional business and IT security assessment for every client - and we charge for it. We explain to the prospect that most [read all] of our competitors will offer them a free assessment. In order to do it for free, they will likely send their least talented IT person to do the work. In contrast, our assessments are conducted jointly by a business analyst and a technical analyst. Working together, they utilize a battery of technical tools, business processes, and discovery Q&A with key members of the prospect's executive leadership teams. That level of expertise and professional services has a real value, and prospects are willing to pay for it."

What do you think? Do you agree? Do you charge your network assessments or offer them for free and to what end?

Read the rest of Milton's interview here!

To gate or not to gate – that is the question. Gated content is an important element of inbound and digital marketing strategy, but knowing what and when to gate isn’t always obvious. In this edition of The Weekly Byte, we try and define gated content and answer these questions in fewer than 90 seconds!

The Weekly Byte is a video series that provides quick, digestible tips and best practices you can use to help your business succeed. Get in touch with us via the comments section below if you have any questions about today’s episode or have ideas for topics you’d like to see covered in the future!

In this episode, we cover:

• What is gated content?

• Why do you gate content?

• What should you ask for?

• What should you be gating

Watch now, and share your feedback below!

I remember the ice skating level of Chip's Challenge!!!

Also, Oregon Trail anyone?

It's been over two decades since Microsoft released its groundbreaking Windows 95 OS on August 24, 1995. Since then, we've written love letters to Windows XP and popped Listerine tabs to get that awful taste of Windows Vista out of our mouths. We then resumed with Windows 7 and 8, skipped over 9 (why? what's the story here??) and are now adjusting to Windows 10. So since most of us have seen more operating systems than presidents in our lifetime, it's worth taking a look back at the release that put Microsoft on the map.

What do you remember about Windows 95? I asked various people here at Continuum, and here's what people of all ages and tech experience had to say!

Windows 95 as Told by Kids Who Grew Up in the 90s

While most of us instantly picture this classic maze screen saver...

or hear a dial-up sound followed by "YOU'VE GOT MAIL!"...

...let's be real. It was all about the Windows 95 games for us kids who grew up in the 90s. Forget Angry Birds or Candy Crush! We couldn't get enough of:

Pinball

Yes, we were all pinball wizards when this game was released, and our thumbs paid the ultimate price. Who else remembers hitting the space bar with the determination of a teen attempting to get into an online chat room on AOL?

Minesweeper

Yeah...like anybody ever won this game. You. were. always. so. close. You had almost all of the mines mapped out, and then the slightest distraction would rattle your focus. For me, it was usually my mom calling up, "MAAAAARYYYYY, you need to let the dog out now!" Sure, it wasn't the most exciting game. There were no special effects or post-apocalyptic world visuals, but how good did you feel each time you sidestepped catastrophe and discovered the little emoticon at the top remained smiling?

That Cat and Mouse Game!!

Rodent's Revenge was my undoing. Out of all Windows 95 games, this is the one I was the most addicted to. As that little gray mouse I scurried to dodge the hungry felines - up arrow, down arrow ahhhhh left arrow! - and watched with relief as they'd be forced to curl up when blocked in. I'll leave you with that comforting thought rather than remind you of the sheer terror of two cats coming at you at once. Yes, you actually screamed. Don't deny it.

SkiFree

Chocolate milk, AIM and SkiFree. That's how I rewarded myself for enduring hours of geometry (I was always more of an algebra fan), P.E. and petty locker gossip - after I completed my homework, of course! The animation was crude, but we all felt like Olympic skiers gliding through the stark white Swiss Alps, narrowly avoiding tree concussions.

And then of course we can't talk about SkiFree without calling to attention this possessed Snowman and demonic Yetti hybrid...

Warning: the following Game Over image may be unsuitable for small children...

EXCEPT SMALL CHILDREN WERE FORCED TO WATCH THEIR PIXELLATED SELVES GET GOBBLED UP BY THE SCARIEST CREATURE TO COME OUT OF THE 90S, AND WE'RE STILL NOT OK.

What were your favorite Windows 95 games? Chip's Challenge? I can still hear the theme music in my head. JezzBall? Pipe Dream?

Keep reading to see what features and functionalities our IT professionals remember, and even watch a video of teens reacting to Windows 95! It's aggravating.

The gloves have been tapped, and two major forces are about to square off. In one corner is Apple, and in the other is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It all comes down to an iPhone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino shooters, but may turn out to have far-reaching implications for the entire tech industry. Indeed, it was a topic of discussion during last night's Republican debate!

The Situation

A court has ordered that Apple assist the FBI in opening up the iPhone, specifically through the use of a password crack. According to Wired, this would involve Apple writing code for a new tool that would be able to subvert or eliminate security controls put in place on the iOS operating system. You may think that while this is technically complicated, it shouldn’t be a problem for a non-Apple group to overcome, given appropriate time and resources—things that the FBI certainly has access to. However, iPhones only accept updates to their firmware if they are digitally signed by Apple, so in order for the FBI to have access, they need Apple to provide their digital key to sign that software. This would essentially communicate that this is an Apple-approved piece of software, an endorsement that Apple does not agree with.

Furthermore, if the FBI tries to tamper with the encrypted phone too many times, a built-in security feature will wipe all the data from the device.

The FBI Perspective

The FBI believes the encrypted data on this phone is critical in the fight against terrorism, and is a matter of national security. It has asked for narrow assistance in the matter, which it states pertains only to this iPhone. It highlights the growing propensity for technology to collect more and personal data and the growing urge for collaboration between the government and companies that collect that data. Government organizations intend to use it for the purposes of keeping the country safe.

In its case, the government is invoking the “All Writs Act,” an 18th century statute that compels private companies to assist law enforcement investigations. According to NPR, Apple has received orders to help unlock 12 other devices as well.

The Apple Perspective

Apple has refused to comply with these orders, stating a number of reasons. At the core of these arguments is the idea of the “slippery slope” in terms of cracking encrypted devices. Currently, as long as Apple refuses to compromise their encryptions, they state that personal information is essentially safe. However, if a backdoor were to be created, that compromise is out there, and Apple is wary to release that out into the world.

Apple is expected to defend its position by invoking the First Amendment of the Constitution, where it was established years ago that code is protected as free speech. This may be important in respect to the digital signature that Apple has been asked for, because this would essentially be an endorsement on behalf of Apple, and it may be construed as compelled speech.

Keep reading!

I still remember the little purple nightmare named Bonzi Buddy that single-handedly brought down our family computer. Hey, I was young. I liked monkeys that sang to me.

It's time to get nostalgic. What are some of the most notorious examples of malware that have fooled clients throughout your IT careers? What malware have you forgotten about until now? Any viruses that have been haunting you for years?

Working in IT, you have a love/hate relationship (i'll let you determine the ratio) with end users.

What are some things they do that really irk you? Let's make these as specific as possible. Instead of saying "when they're dumb and don't understand security," you could put "when they click on suspicious links from unknown email sources"

Have at it!!

Before you can sell, you first have to understand your customer. If you don’t know what their wants, needs or desires are, then you have no way to know if you are effectively communicating with them. In my last sales related blog post, I explored a few paths to understanding your customers and touched on the importance of being able to convey value quickly and plainly when in a sales situation. In this second post, I'll continue to build upon that notion by providing three distinct sales strategies for convincing prospects to buy your products and services.

1. Stop Using Generic Statements and Lead with Specific Business Value

We've all been subject to that showy sales person who hops on the phone and starts spouting off anecdotes about how their award-winning product is changing businesses and improving people's lives...you know, before you've even been able to splutter out a "Hi, how are you?" After their multi-minute tirade, you're left wondering how they got your number and wishing you had never picked up the phone in the first place.

To NOT be that annoying sales person, lead with concrete and compelling facts that will interest each individual person that you talk to. Remember that what's interesting to you may not align with what they want to hear about your solution. It’s also a good practice to weave relevant statistics into your story to illustrate a need that your product can fill.

Let’s examine the following statement to show how MSPs can position and sell their backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution to a prospect by strategically supporting business value with industry data:

“IDC reports that in 2015, 62% of small to medium sized business reported a disruption to their companies due to downtime and a third of those said their profits took a hit as a result. Our BDR solution will ensure 99% uptime in the event of a disaster, saving our customers an average of $12,700 per year from unplanned downtime."

Now, that's a powerful value proposition! Sending this message in a sales email or rephrasing it on a sales phone call is effective because it uses a timely stat from a reputable industry authority to express a business problem that could easily affect the decision maker you speak to. It takes it one step further by then demonstrating how your solution addresses that problem, citing specific business results like costs saved. I emphasize specificity because anybody can say their solution cuts costs. It's too general. Stating how much you've saved other customers like them is compelling proof of your value. That being said, make sure all figures you use are accurate and truthful.

Pro tip: First hook your prospect with the benefits of your solution. Once you’ve captured their attention, then you can move onto features, pricing, etc.

Main takeaway: Actual data and facts are far more convincing than anecdotes and abstracts. Context matters!

2. Use Anchoring to Your Advantage

There is a common human tendency in all of us to rely heavily on the first piece of information - known as the anchor - offered when making decisions. We use anchors to help us interpret other information and to make subsequent judgments and decisions. Anchoring is a useful tool to use during the MSP sales process. To illustrate, we'll walk through two examples that do this well:

“The cost of purchasing this software for one year is roughly equivalent to buying one large cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee each day.”

Here we have used one large cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee as the anchor for the conversation. When the prospect thinks about the cost of the solution relative to a cup of coffee, they may be more willing to sign a 12-month commitment.

Another similar example could be:

“Our software pays for itself by identifying and troubleshooting computer problems before they affect your productivity, and costs as much as taking your family to the movies once a year.”

Equating the cost of the services to something nominal, while highlighting the increased benefits is generally a good way to convey the value of your products or services.

What could you use as an anchor in selling your managed IT services? Write your response down, and use it in your next email send!

3. Strengthen Your Pitch with Norms as Anchors

A social norm is a value, custom, or tradition that represents individuals’ basic knowledge of what others do and think. Sociologists describe norms as informal understandings that govern individuals’ behavior in society and claim they have a way of maintaining order and organizing groups. The advanced MSP sales pro will begin to use norms as anchors to win over prospects. There are two very effective types of techniques to employ when doing this: the foot-in-the-door technique and the door-in-the-face technique.

Keep reading to learn how to apply each technique!

Do you use any of these sales strategies? What have you found is a good anchor in positioning your services?