Friday, December 27, 2013

SOP Friday: Basic Customer Service Training

Note: This post is not really about customer service training. We'll cover that in a few weeks. It IS about "Don't be a scumbag" training. This is really a little taste of customer relationship management for the whole team.

Your team puts on a face for your clients. It should be a unified front that shows you in the best light. There are two kinds of things technicians do to cause problems with customer relationships. One kind is unintentional. The other kind is intentional.


First, let's look at the unintentional customer relationship issues.

As you are aware, technical employees have a reputation for being a bit shy on interpersonal skills. For many of them, this is justified. As with all human behavior and personality traits, there's a spectrum and "nerds" tend to fall in a certain range on the interpersonal relations spectrum.

I like to give the example of the technician and the receptionist. The tech has a tendency to appear abrupt and maybe even rude to the receptionist. Especially in large organizations, technical people are often characterized as really smart and arrogant. That perception of arrogance is usually inaccurate, in my experience. But this perception is so wide spread that it has to come from somewhere.

I believe that "somewhere" is the personality differences between technicians and end users. The tech comes in head down, focused on the job at hand. "I'll be at the server. I need to install the new SSL Cert you bought and verify that the VPN works."

The receptionist hears "Blah blah blah blah, Ginger. Blah blah blah."

The receptionist - and most end users - need technicians to talk about people things, not computer things. Technicians tend to be more left brained. One piece of that is a desire to be clear and accurate. The client would be very happy if you just say, "I have to install something so that you computers are secure." Okay.

But technicians want to be a lot more accurate than that. The tech might be thinking that the person will ask "Install what?" or "Do you mean we haven't been secure?" So he preempts those questions with information. But even if the client did ask those questions, they wouldn't understand the answer given above.

In order to not appear arrogant and dismissive, technicians need to learn to talk in kinder, gentler terms that clients understand. You cannot say this is the boss's job of the Customer Service Manager's job. Putting forward a positive, pleasant face to your clients is very important.

It can be very helpful for you (your management team) to come up with preferred phrases and analogies that work. Once you figure out how to talk about security or VOIP or cloud services, train your techs to talk about it the same way.


Next, intentional customer relationship issues.

So team messaging is very important. You need to be consistent. You need to be polite. But you also need to make sure that the client understands that your company respects their company, your people respect their people, and your people respect each other.

"Intentional" customer relationship issues occur when your employees bad-mouth clients or each other within earshot of your clients. If Client A hears a story about how stupid Client B is, they will wonder what you say about them to the other clients. And even if your technicians are talking to each other, a client who hears such talk will have the same negative reaction.

The same thing goes for your team as a whole. It is very bad for one technician to blame another tech for problems, or to make other team members look stupid. Even if people on your team have these opinions, they must never let the clients hear them.

Even more damaging is the employee who makes snide comments about your company, your employees, or your policies in front of the client. Some people are just opinionated and need to keep it to themselves. But most of the time, this behavior is a result of a disgruntled employee.

If you have an employee with a bad attitude, you need to make it very clear to everyone on your staff that internal discussions and issues are just that - internal. It is hard to estimate how much damage an unhappy employee can create when they start spreading their bad attitude to other technicians and to clients.

In my opinion, this kind of behavior must be dealt with as soon as possible. And if it does not stop immediately, it is a cause for termination.

If you have internal issues or personality clashes on your team, you need to address them. But all employees must understand that these are internal matters and not to be discussed with client or in front of clients.

I've had discussions in which my employees told me that my ideas were wrong or even stupid. I need that. Sometimes my ideas really are stupid, so I can't squash that discussion internally. But once the company policy is established, everyone needs to get on board.

Your employees should not even make statements such as "It's not the way I would do it, but it's what we do." No matter how benign they intend such a statement to be, it confuses the client. One of the great benefits of Standard Operating Procedures is that you create your company's "way" of doing things. Solidarity in your way is very important. Don't let anyone on your team undermine that.

The easiest way to prevent problems is through regular trainings.


Comments welcome.

- - - - -


About this Series

SOP Friday - or Standard Operating System Friday - is a series dedicated to helping small computer consulting firms develop the right processes and procedures to create a successful and profitable consulting business.

Find out more about the series, and view the complete "table of contents" for SOP Friday at SmallBizThoughts.com.

- - - - -

Next week's topic: Time Entry and Note Entry in Service Tickets

:-)

Friday, December 20, 2013

SOP Friday: Next Year's Holiday and Pay Schedule

One more quick job before the end of the year: Put out a calendar for your employees that lists the Pay Days and the Holidays for next year. This is a handy little guide that will make everyone's life easier. Once it's done and distributed, then it's done for the year and you don't have to worry about it.

Sample Pay Days and Holidays
Click to Enlarge
Notes on Pay Dates

I've talked elsewhere about Choosing Paydays. But even after you've selected the pay schedule, banks and governments get in the way. So whether you pay on the 5th and the 20th or on the 10th and 25th, you'll have to move an occasional payday because it's on a Sunday or a holiday.

Employees, especially new employees, should have a clear sense of when they will be paid and for which days. As you can see from the example, our pay day is roughly ten days after the period for which employees are being paid. So work performed January 1-15 will be paid on the 25th.

Notes on Holidays

Holidays are an important consideration. They determine which days your office will be officially closed. This discussion is separate from whether employees will be paid for these days or whether work on these days is paid extra (e.g., time and a half for holidays).

One place to find a list of holidays is www.timeanddate.com. If you need to list holidays for a different country, you can do that as well.

As you can see at that site, there are dozens and dozens of official holidays or bank holidays. A lot of them are so arcane you can't believe they're a real holiday. For example, we do not take off September 6th for Carl Garner Federal Lands Cleanup Day Observance. Maybe we should. But we just don't. If we took off all the holidays listed at that site, we'd take off 110 days (not counting four more days if we take off all of Kwanzaa).

That's 110 days off out of 365. If we assume that 14% of those days fall on the weekend, that leaves 95 days off during the work week. We can't take all those days off. That's 36% of the work days during a given year.

So you have to pick your holidays. As you can see from our list, we have chosen eleven "holiday" days for the next year. Some of these are pretty standard and pretty much mandatory, like New Years. Others are up for debate. For example, the government and banks take off Columbus Day in the United States, but most of our clients are open that day. So it's not on our list.

We also throw in a few extra days off just because of where they are on the calendar. In the U.S. we celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November. Almost none of our clients are around on the Friday after that, so we're closed. In 2014 Christmas is also on a Thursday. We don't always give off the day after Christmas, but I guarantee very few of our clients will be around, so we're taking that Friday off as well.

Most people who don't work for a government, there are about 8-10 holiday days per year. Government employees tend to get about 10-13.

Note: Taking these days off is a totally different discussion from paid holidays or paid days off. We give salaried employees (managers) the days off with no reduction in their monthly salary. So that means, technically, these are paid holidays.

We are closed on our listed holidays, so hourly employees are not paid for these days. If you choose to pay hourly employees for these days, you need to figure out a fair compensation based on their regular work schedule.

When you're closed for a holiday (or any reason), you need to have someone on call in case clients really are at work and have a need for service. See the discussion of On Call and Night Staff.

- - - - -

Isn't interesting how the smallest thing has layers of ramifications when you start to examine it? Your basic action steps here are:

1) Decide on the pay dates for the year

2) Decide which holidays you will take off

3) Put these on a schedule that will become your "official" list of pay dates and holidays

4) Distribute this to all staff and all new employees



Comments welcome.

- - - - -



About this Series

SOP Friday - or Standard Operating System Friday - is a series dedicated to helping small computer consulting firms develop the right processes and procedures to create a successful and profitable consulting business.

Find out more about the series, and view the complete "table of contents" for SOP Friday at SmallBizThoughts.com.

- - - - -

Next week's topic: Basic Customer Service Training

:-)

Still the best Quick-Start Guide to Managed Services: 

by Karl W. Palachuk 

Now only $39.95 at SMB Books!

Friday, December 13, 2013

SOP Friday: End of Year SOPs

The calendar is always a good tool for helping you to manage your business. Some things are thrust upon us - like end of month, end of quarter, and end of year. The biggest of these is end of year for lots of reasons. It's the big financial cutoff for governments, taxes, and even laws that affect your company. It's also a convenient time to do lots of planning and "moving on" from the old to the new.

Here are a few items you should consider putting into your end-of-year checklist.

First: File Management


I talked last time about shredding. This is related to moving files from active to storage, and then from storage to long-term storage, and eventually to shredded.

But there are other things you need to do with files/paper printouts.

For example, we separate out packing slips and distributor invoices. We three-hole punch them and put them in binders for quick access. Our SOP is to do this as each order goes through the system. But at the end of the year we sometimes have to do a little catch-up.

These binders are invaluable three or four years down the road when our memories have faded and we need to know information about specific purchases. QuickBooks will have some detail, but the distributor invoice/packing slips sometimes have lots of details. Depending on the distributor, this might include serial numbers for server parts or even warranty information.

We also separate out all the files that are moving forward from this year to next year. Basically, this includes all contracts and on-going services. Everything that's "current" stays in the big file cabinet. Everything that's year-specific moves to a paper box. We might keep that box out for a couple of months. But eventually we stop accessing those files and the box moves to storage.


Second: Internal "Review" Tasks


There are several things here. You won't get them all done in the last two weeks of the year. But you should create tasks or service tickets for yourself. These things do need to be done once a year and this is a good time to do them.

Review Vendors - Have each person who deals with a vendor rate them on a few variables. For example, are they profitable, easy to work with, etc. I recommend a five point scale because it allows for a true "in the middle" vote and then a couple of options on both the high and low end.

Review Your Business Processes - How are you doing creating and following SOPs? What is awesome about your business? What sucks? What do you most want to change in the next year?

Review Your Marketing - What worked? What didn't? Review the budget you spent this year and set a budget for next year. In general, if your marketing is ineffective, you need to make a change. Begin figuring out what that might be.

Review Insurance Policies - Do you have all the insurance policies you need (fire, flood, errors and omissions, liability, etc.)? Do you have the right coverage for each of these? When was the last time you verified the beneficiaries for each of these policies.

And of course: Are you paying too much? Whether it's workers comp or liability, you should shop prices from time to time. Make sure the quality of coverage is the same, but lower prices if you can.

Update Your Corporate (or Partnership) Minutes - Are you required to keep certain legal documents? I know we sure are. Corporate minutes need to be up to date even if you're the only owner. Partnerships and LLCs have similar requirements.

Define and Execute Your End of Year Backup - Many cloud backup solutions actually keep a limited number of versions for each file and have a limited age for each file. Having only the "live" version is great, but you may also want to keep snapshots in time. The end of year is a great time to do this. If your backup is local, take a disc off site for permanent storage. If you backup is in the cloud, copy down a snapshot to hard drive for off site permanent storage.

Review Finances - You'll want to talk to your accountant about this. Make sure you run all the reports you need for cross-year comparisons. Make sure everything is up to spec for tax season. Do a best-guess estimate of where you stand with regard to income, profit, and taxes. Would it be useful to put some expenses into this year versus next year?


Third: Employee-Related Tasks


Update Non Disclosure Agreements - Each of your employees should have a signed non-disclosure agreement. Make sure those are all up to date. I like to keep them on in one nice file. Move old ones to the paper box for storage. Make sure all current employees have one.

Annual Performance Reviews - If you haven't done quarterly or six-month reviews, at least do an annual review. Give employees some feedback on how they're doing, and set some goals for the year ahead. If you're handing out bonuses or first of the year raises, this is a convenient way to do that.

Update Employee Information - You'll need it for W2s a few weeks anyway. And updated information is always good for the payroll folks anyway. Make sure you have correct address information, W4 forms, and some kind of memo that documents each employee's rate of pay. If you don't have an emergency contact form, that's probably a good idea as well.


Fourth: Client-Related Tasks


Review Client Contracts - This is also a great time to make sure you have a good copy of all current client contracts. Whether you put them all in one big folder or keep each in a per-client folder, make sure they're up to date. There's nothing worse than when a client asks a question about your contract and you can't find a copy.

Evaluate Your Clients - On several occasions I've recommended that you "Weed Your Client Garden" from time to time. That begins with evaluating your clients. You have to decide which criteria work best for you, but consider some of these:
- How profitable are they?
- How nice are they to work with?
- How interesting are their projects?
- Do they take your advice?
- Do they invest in good equipment?

Whatever criteria you choose, discuss them with a few key employees. If there's anyone you really should drop, you probably all know it already. In general, the discussion about what makes a good client is a great team building exercise for your company.

Christmas Gifts? - I recommend that you at least send out Christmas cards. This is a great time of year to touch base with your clients - especially your best clients. If you're small, touch base with everyone.

For many years we made baskets or ordered baskets for all of our clients. At some point we were too big for that to be practical. But I'm a real believer in doing something special for your favorite clients at least once a year. Anniversaries are a good time, and so is end-of-year.

Client EOY Checklist - All of your clients could use a few quick tune-ups. The goal here is just to make sure that these items are addressed no matter what. For example, even if you have password policies, I'll bet you have clients that haven't changed their password for a year.

Just create one or more service tickets to make sure you execute each of these at each client:

- Change Passwords. This includes your company password on their system as well as their administrator, and every user password.

- EOY Backup. At least once a year you should take a snapshot backup that goes off site forever.

- Technology Roadmap. Even if you can't execute it right away, schedule a client roadmap meeting. Even clients who resist this on a quarterly basis should be able to find a time in the next 365 days!

- Clean up disc space. This is a great time to do PC tune-ups on all machines. At a minimum, distribute information to your clients and ask them go clean up temporary files, prefetch files, and all that crap they know they stored "temporarily" on their computers over the last year.

- Clean up Outlook / Exchange. Again, either you can do this or you can give your clients a procedure for cleaning up old emails. This might include archiving off to PSTs. At a minimum it should include emptying their deleted items folder!

- - - - -

You might have lots of other things you do at the end of the year. And, again, you don't have to freak out that can't get all this done by December 31st. The point of these lists to take care of some important tasks at least once a year.

Maintenance consists of taking care of things so that you diminish the number of problems you have over time. A lot of "little things" tend to go un-done throughout the year. The end of year process is simply intended to make sure that the little things get done.


Comments welcome.

- - - - -


About this Series

SOP Friday - or Standard Operating System Friday - is a series dedicated to helping small computer consulting firms develop the right processes and procedures to create a successful and profitable consulting business.

Find out more about the series, and view the complete "table of contents" for SOP Friday at SmallBizThoughts.com.

- - - - -

Next week's topic: Next Year's Holiday and Pay Schedule

:-)

Check Out the All New Book:

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by Karl W. Palachuk

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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Four More Books!!! 4-Volume Book Set on Standard Operating Procedures

Please Support My Indiegogo Campaign . . .

And Receive a 4-volume Set of Books on Standard Operating Procedures for I.T. Consultants!


First, THANK YOU to everyone who had contributed to our Indiegogo campaign. Let me verify right now that we WILL get these books out in 2014 thanks to you.
Second, we really need your help if you have not contributed yet. We will be able to get this full 4-book set out by Summer if we have full funding. Full funding really just means you're getting books, conference passes, and other goodies at a huge discount.
Please check out our site and contribute if you can.
- - - - -
Who needs Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)? Everyone!

My Indiegogo campaign is here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sops-for-the-successful-consultant.
Every computer consultant, every managed service provider, every technical consulting company - every successful business - needs SOPs! One of the greatest books an entrepreneur can read is The Emyth Revisited by Michael Gerber. The conclusion of that book is very powerful: Document your processes.

When you document your processes and procedures, you design a way for your company to have repeatable success. And as you fine-tune those processes and procedures, you become more successful, more efficient, and more profitable.
Please support my project to write a four-volume set of books on Standard Operating Procedures for Technology Consultants. Topics in the 4-book set include:

  • Getting Started
  • Finances
  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Client Management
  • Employees and H.R.
  • Company-wide Policies
  • Technical Support Policies and Procedures
  • Practical Examples
    (Monthly Maintenance, Backup and Disaster Recovery, and more)

Almost every consultant I talk to or coach has the same issues: They need better procedures. They need better processes. They are too busy to create this stuff from scratch. Key pieces of knowledge are in one person's head (often the owner). That ties the owner to the company and limits growth. It also makes the owner the choke-point for everything in the organization.

This four-book set will be over 600 pages and cover everything you need to set up, run, and fine-tune a great consulting business. 

Don't Start From Scratch! You may not implement everything exactly as I lay it out, but I discuss the issues and why you might create one policy or another. Then I propose some policies you can take and mold to fit your company.

Can you do all this yourself? Absolutely!

How's that working so far? 

These books will save you hundreds - and more likely thousands - of dollars in just a few weeks. Time and time again I've helped businesses create small changes that resulted in huge instant increases in profit.

At full price this set will sell for $99.95. But you don't have to pay that. Contribute now to this campaign and you'll receive a full set of books for any donation of $60 or more.

If fully funded, I expect to publish this set by the end of Summer 2014. Maybe much sooner if we raise more money.
Get these books out of my head and into your hands as quickly as possible!


Not Completely a "Donation"

If you just want to donate money, I would be very grateful for that. But this campaign is designed to give you something for your money. These books will sell for $29.95 each or $99.95 for the complete set. That's a good deal. But you get an even better deal if you contribute to the creation of the book!
In addition to books, I have lots of other services and goodies we offer. So I've put together some offerings that include all kinds of options. If you think of something obvious that I missed, please let me know!
My other services include:
Everyone who contributes will be acknowledged in the books. (If you do not want to be listed in the book, please let us know.)


Please Read the Details on This Campaign 

Thank You for your support.

Please check out my Indiegogo Campaign for SOPs.

:-)

Friday, December 06, 2013

SOP Friday: Shredding

You deal with all kinds of sensitive data - mostly client data. As a result, you need to have two policies related to shredding paperwork. One applies to the daily operation of you company. The other is a once per year process for cleaning out old records.


A Note About the Paperless Office


The paperless office will arrive shortly after the paperless bathroom.

Having said that, we are all working to print out fewer and fewer pages as we do our work. First, we realize that we can access the electronic version any time - if we've filed it away properly. Second, we tend to print things and then only use them for a short period of time.

When we're done with the printed paperwork, we either store it some place or dispose of it. It is critical that you do one of these two things. Do not set the paper down when you are finished with it. Either file it or dispose of it. Setting down papers you're done with creates piles that have to be sorted at some later date. Don't do that. The only way to avoid that is to not set down the paper in the first place!


Why We Shred Almost Everything


As you do your work, you will have all kinds of papers. These might be contracts, case notes, quotes for clients, checklists, proposals, warranties, etc. You should have a standard process for putting things where they belong. That means that client warranties go in one place, payroll paperwork goes in one place, client contracts go in one place, and so forth.

But MOST of the paper you touch does not need to be kept. If you print out service ticket notes, you only need them for a very short period of time. Unless you hand-write some critical information on them, you can print out a new copy any time. So you should dispose of these. The same is true with quotes for service and almost any document that your company generated. If you can go click-click-click and print another copy, then there's no reason to keep the paper version.

Still, you'll end up keeping a lot of paper. It is what it is.

So now we get to the disposal part. If you're going to file it away, file it. If you're going to dispose of it, there are two options. One is the recycling (or garbage if you don't recycle). The other is shredding.

In an age when grandma shreds her credit card offers when she sorts the mail, you know you need to take this seriously.

Like it or not, there are people who go through the garbage and recycling bins at your office. They're mostly looking for bottles and cans. But a nice juicy list of clients might just be useful. Some people are actively looking for secrets. Others are just smart enough to realize when they've stumbled onto sensitive information.

Really, honestly, no one may ever care about what you throw away. But we live in a weird world. And it would be horrible if your largest client came to you with a paper you threw away that had their name on it. So it's the same as network security: Just have a good policy. Then you'll never have to explain why you don't.


Day to Day Shredding Policy


As you and your employees go through your day, you need a very simple policy to determine what goes in the shredding pile vs. recycling or garbage. Some things are really harmless, like pdf's you've downloaded. But here's a short list of the kinds of things you should shred just so they're not out in the bin and they're not your file cabinet:

- Anything with a client name on it
- Ticket/case notes
- Quotes for service
- Contracts
- Anything with a signature
- Anything with financial data
- Anything with usernames, password, or configuration information

You may have very good reasons for keeping these things in files. Great. Do it. Don't leave them lying around the office. Either file it or shred it.


The Annual Shredding Policy


Tis the season to be shredding.

Every year, we have an end-of-year process with our paper files. Basically, we take all of the "this year" files out of our file cabinet and put them into paper file boxes. These boxes sit on shelves for several years. Then one day, most of their contents are shredded.

The basic flow of paper documents over their lifetime is:
- Into file cabinet
- From file cabinet into paper box
- From paper box to either
 - - Permanent storage
 - - Shredding

Almost everything is shredded at some point.

How long do you keep things? Well . . . there are approximately 7,942,856 articles about this on the Internet. Here's what we do.

In the "live" file cabinet we keep things like current client contracts, current employee records, and this year's bank statements, this year's bills, this year's purchases from vendors. You get the picture. It's basically the stuff for 2013, 2014, 2015, etc. As the new year ticks over, all the year-specific information goes to the paper file. But ongoing contracts of any kind stay in the file cabinet.

All paper files are kept for at least three years. Lots of people might audit us in that time period (the feds, the state, vendors who rely on our reporting of licenses used, and so forth). After that, we only really care about three types paperwork: Taxes, vendor purchases, and contracts that have some element that lasts a long time, such as the right audit.

For us, the taxes we worry about are federal income tax, state income tax, state sales tax, and anything related to employees. Depending on who you talk to, we should these things for three years, five years, seven years, or forever. We make it easy on ourselves and keep it all for seven years. After that, we shred everything we can reconstruct from electronic files or online services.

The big thing we used to keep after seven years was employee-related information. Because we have a tax pro prepare our taxes, we can get the tax stuff whenever we need it. The state sales tax is done online now, so we can get that. Payroll is now totally online, so we don't need to keep that either.

So really, after seven years we keep almost nothing for permanent storage.


Note on Vendor Purchases

One thing we store separately is vendor purchases for hardware, software, and services. I'll have another blog post about the details here, but basically we keep these in binders. You'd be amazing how many times someone has had a question about a four year old server and we got useful information from these binders.  But even these have a lifespan.


How Do You Shred?

I used to pay my daughter to shred boxes of documents. Some years she had three boxes of paper to shred. I bought a shredder at Staples and paid for the extended warranty because I knew she'd burn it out - no matter how much I paid. Then I'd replace the shredder and it would be good until the next year. If you go this route, be sure to get a cross-cut shredder. I'm not sure why the old type shredder still exists.

Turns out, that was a really expensive way to do it.

Now we take boxes of shredding to the UPS store and then charge us by the pound. It costs about $20 to shred a full paper filing box. But that's cheaper than paying my daughter $10/hr plus buying a new shredder.

Live and learn.

Comments welcome.

- - - - -



About this Series

SOP Friday - or Standard Operating System Friday - is a series dedicated to helping small computer consulting firms develop the right processes and procedures to create a successful and profitable consulting business.

Find out more about the series, and view the complete "table of contents" for SOP Friday at SmallBizThoughts.com.

- - - - -

Next week's topic: End of Year SOPs

:-)

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

SMB Nation Emerging Technology Tour 2014

If you get my weekly newsletter, you may have noticed that we added a number of new calendar events for 2014 - primarily the long list of cities that will host the SMB Nation Emerging Technology Tour through December of 2014.

Just got the official missive from HarryB about this:




SMB Nation is pleased to announce the 2014 Emerging Technology Tour, taking place in ten cities across the US and Canada. We understand that it can be hard to secure travel, so we are bringing a content-packed event right to a big city near you.

The Emerging Technology Tour is this year’s premier event for small and medium IT consultants, VARs, and partners. This one day event is committed to educating you on ways to continue to grow your business, manage clients, and expand your knowledge in the IT Industry by bringing together IT Influencers from across the country to share their insight. Over the past 25 years, we have seen drastic changes in technology from the boom of the internet and “dot coms” to currently being able to work from anywhere. With the changing world today, our ability to innovate and stay educated has become increasingly harder as things are changing every day. Join SMB Nation to educate yourself on emerging technology.

You spoke, we listened! We got great response from our Night School classes this past year, so Attendees to our ten events will enjoy the same kind of classes that we had at the 2013 SMB Nation Fall Conference Night School, including:

- Automation and Scalable Management with PowerShell (Part 1 and 2) – Jason Helmick

- Migrating your SBS Exchange to Exchange 2013 – Dave Shackleford

- Standards and Procedures That Will Instantly Increase Your Profits – Karl Palachuk

Each event will run from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm and will include a keynote, lunch and dedicated Exhibit Hall networking time.

“No travel, no hotel and no excessive time away from the office. We bring the experts to you in a comfortable yet effective learning format,” shared Harry Brelsford, CEO of SMB Nation. “Look closely at our commitment to technical training as we leave the sales and marketing fluff to the ‘other guys’ in the SMB space.”

Here is a breakdown of the SMB Nation 2014 Emerging Technology Tour below:

10 Cities.
Between 100-150 attendees per event.
One day only per event!
$199.00 full conference passes per attendee.

Check out our event site at http://tour.smbnation.com for an event near you!



Check out the details.

This is a GREAT deal for only $199. Includes 12 hours of program - and you get fed!

And I'll see you at one of these events!

-karlp

:-)