Friday, January 25, 2008

Use Your Tools

Do you collect tools?

Not hammers and wrenches.

Do you collect books, Audio CDs, Microsoft Downloads, marketing toolkits, managed service tools, and how-to videos?

And if you do . . .

Do you actively USE these tools?

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Awhile back, Robin Robins made a comment that she really wants people to use her marketing toolkit. She wants every subscriber to sell millions of dollars worth of services.

On a similar vein, Raymond over at Zenith told one of our techs that my company really uses Zenith: We push them hard and make them earn their money. He was very pleased.

The same is true with books. In chatting with various authors, we always agree that we need people to read our books.

You can spell out the obvious: We all want to play some role in making people successful so they'll buy more and buy the next product. Okay. True enough.

But the things we sell also exist for a reason. Whether it's a marketing toolkit, a managed service product, or a book.

. . .

You could buy Autotask, for example, and just barely use it. You could create a service board, enter tickets, and keep track of time.

Or you could dedicate yourself to really USE the tool and see how much of your business could be handled inside your PSA system. There's a difference between barely using the tool and really using the tool.

The more you use your tools, the more value you squeeze out of them.

We all fall into the same trap. You buy for a new shiny thing. You open it up and start to use it. But once you figure out the basic functions, the pressure's off. So you do simple, basic Kaseya monitoring and never learn scripting. Or you have Zenith generate tickets, but don't have them work the tickets. Etc.

A new year is a great time to take inventory.

Which tools do you own?

Which functions should you be using that you're not?

What else does it do that you haven't even looked into?

In the case of newsletters and books, have you even read them?

Use Your Tools!

Your competition is.

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