oct 2007

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

SMB Partner Community - October/November 2007

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

Professional Development and Personal GrowthI know you are reading SMBPC Magazine because you are

one of those people who strive to improve their lives by professional development andpersonal growth. You may be a consultant living on an island of your own or be part of agreater sum – it doesn’t matter; there is something to be said about holding a magazine inyour hands that is written and read by your peers.

The word “community” is derived from the Latin communitas (which means same),derived from communis, meaning “common, public, shared by all or many,” and I ampreaching to the choir here because I think you all know about your community out there.In a time where we choose to use email, blogs and other electronic forms of communication,reaching across the globe, it is nice to see real people come together, shake hands andexchange smiles, as happened at SMB Nation 2007. We will make every effort to convey theconference spirit to this magazine edition and add a little “Windows Home Server” (Page 9)spice here and a dash of “keeping your employees happy” (Page 22) there.

This month we also cover the Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices Analyzer (Page 33) and information on a powerful peer group (Page 30) that takes professionaldevelopment and personal growth very seriously. Learn about one company’s voyage(literally) from being a training provider to becoming a managed services provider (Page 39) and upgrade your communication skills (Page 22).

We certainly hope that you enjoy this magazine. Our focus in the future will continueto be bringing forward-thinking IT consultants, technologies and vendors together,sparking new opportunities in the SMB space. Being the information source for SMBtechnologists and Small Business Specialists worldwide, we will continue to deliver theinformation Partners need, reflecting our unshakeable belief in the power of information tospur a profitable global community. You may already receive a copy of SMBPC magazinethrough your local user group or by other means. If you have not done so yet, we wouldlike to ask you to opt-in at our site http://www.smbnation.com/smbpc.htm to ensure youreceive future issues.

SMB Nation has started to undergo a transformation. There will be a new websitesoon, and new books will be announced. Often we are asked how one can join SMB Nation.There is no such thing, we are part of the community as much as you are. You can showyour support by opting in on the magazine, by writing to us and by attending ourworkshops and conferences.

Remember this year’s conference motto: Learn to Earn! And happy reading.

OCT/NOV 2007 | Vol. 2 � Issue 3

PUBLISHED BYSMB Nation, Inc.

Bainbridge Island, Washington

Harry Brelsford, PublisherEditorial Staff

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Beatrice MulzerEDITOR Barbara Wallace

CONTRIBUTING EDITORSRobin Robins, USAJeff Wuorio, USA

LAYOUT Al AlarakhiaCOVER ART DIRECTOR Michael Young

CONTRIBUTING WRITERSMark Mulvany, Ireland

Diego Salato, ItalyNick Pieters, Belgium

Leen Kleijwegt, NetherlandsAndy Wendel, GermanyDean Calvert, Australia

Steven Teiger, IsraelSuresh Ramani, IndiaStuart Raj, Indonesia

Mikael Nystroem, SwedenShelagh Harrop, South Africa

Dana Epp, CanadaKen Thoreson, USAAnne Stanton, USA

BUSINESS STAFFHarry Brelsford, CEO

Beatrice Mulzer, Vice PresidentCyndi Moody, Director,

WW OperationsJennifer Hall, Event Coordinator

SMB Nation, Inc.PO Box 10179

Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 USA

Telephone: 360-779-1140Fax: 360-779-1140

E-mail: [email protected]

© Copyright 2007 SMB Nation Inc.All Rights Reserved

Please contact us for reprints andreproduction of content.

ISSN 1933-8899

SMBPartnerCommunity

Page 2 www.smbnation.com

Community Spirit!Microsoft Response Point sponsored the popular “Magic Night” and made donation to

the SMB Nation Charity Of The Year: NPower! Shown from the left are NPower volunteerand longtime SMB Nation attendee Phil Briscoe, John Joynt (NPower manager), HarryBrelsford and Dr. Xuedong Huang (General Manager, Microsoft Response Point)

EDITORIALBy Beatrice Mulzer, Executive Editor

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

Your SpaceThis month we thought we would print replies to Harry’s e-newsletter sent out a couple of weeks ago with a section titled:

HELP ME, HELP ME: Harry is mobility challenged!(HB) I don't quite know where to begin with this one. I use the HP

6945 IPAQ device as a mobile telephone, remote e-mail checker and Websurfer and as a GPS and camera. I have ardently used the "BlackberryKiller" feature in Windows Mobile 5.0 to remotely synchronize e-mailand other Exchange store items (for example, calendar) over GPRS so I'mconnected while traveling.

About two months ago, the Exchange synchronization started to mis-behave. I have the setting configured to synchronize whenever mail arrivesusing the setup in Active Synch 4.5. However - such automaticsynchronization is now failing. My synchronization settings remain correct (Iverified this) but the device will only synchronize one per day (at very strangehours like 2:00AM PST (GMT-8). And when I click on Send\Receive Nowwithin Mobile 5 on my IPAQ, it completes the synchronization process butdoes not update my e-mail or calendar (for example, the e-mail count remainsat 103 e-mails with 14 unread). It's all very strange!

But the story gets stranger! When I manually force asynchronization by clicking Send/Receive and the "allegedsynchronization occurs (but really doesn't), strange packet transmissionsoccurs on my network. I ran the Man in the middle" Network Monitorapplication on my SBS 2003 box and noticed that a manual Send/Receivefrom Windows Mobile 5 creates a HTTP 801 authentication error. Whatbothers me is that the denial condition is inconsistent. If I could not everauthenticate, how do I enjoy Exchange synchronization once per day inthe middle of the night? But now the strange get weird, as the deceasedHunter S. Thompson liked to say.

If I got out for a bike ride and leave my laptop logged onwith Outlook 2007 open and receiving e-mails in real-time,somehow my HP IPAQ performs remote Exchangesynchronization just as advertised and expected.

Turns out we received loads of feedback and wanted to share themost common issues and solutions partners sent to us.

ActiveSyncEan H. Jackson, President Analytics Marketing Inc. using a UTStarcom ppc 6700 with WM5.1: ActiveSync 5.0 doesn’t turn out asadvertized. I went back a version (4.2) and the problem went away

Joe Mcelveen, Insync Network Systems using several Treos 700W:I moved to ActiveSync 4.5 and had so many problems, I returned back toActiveSync 4.2 and all the troubles went away.

Kevin Horncastle, GreenSea IT, Inc: I have experienced similar issueswith a client and resolved the problem by re-downloading ActiveSync andreinstalling it to the client and it resolved the issue.

Account Resets, PartnershipsMike Gibbs, Technos Solutions Limited: I had a similar issue anddeleted the partnership and re-created it with a new name

Rick D. Faria, RDF Technical Services, LLC: Just clear out theActiveSync account on your phone

Grey Lancaster, SBS MVP: Have you reset the phone ☺, Always do thatfirst. Whatever you have setup as the server name or are you using IP?Can you surf to www.smbnation.com/owa? Uncheck use SSL

AV ServerIan Watkins, Director, Oxbridge Technology LTD: Check that therearen’t any funnies with your AV on the server. There are issues I knowwith Sophos and WM5 synching, so worth a check.

Chris Lang, Sr. Network Engineer, TAG Solutions LLC: I had asimilar issue at a client and it turned out to be the scanning of Exchangeusing eTrust antivirus mail option. If you have a virus scanner especiallyeTrust disable the mail option and test it out. It may just fix your problem

Oliver Sommer, Trinity Computer: I found out that also every emailthat one “read” in OWA is instantly going to be pushed to the WMdevice. This has been a week long search for me, too. Solution is theAntiVirus Scanner at which you probably enabled “backgroundscanning” for the Exchange database!? Disable that!

Edward Haynes, Network Architect, Axisfirst: In my experience thishas always been down to antivirus on the Exchange server. It seems to dowith the way the exchange antivirus API works, by default a lot ofantivirus programs only scan emails when they are accessed in somewaye.g. with Outlook. This causes Exchange ActiveSync a problem because itwill not touch any emails until the API has flagged the email having beenscanned. The way to get around this problem is by configuring theExchange section in the Antivirus program to perform ‘proactive’scanning, this then scans the emails as they arrive in the Exchangequeues and you no longer need to open Outlook to trigger it. Someantivirus products have ‘proactive’ and ‘background’ scanning options, ifthis is the case only select the proactive option because backgroundscanning almost always has a massive performance impact on the server!

To make a long story short, it was exactly this issue. Several moreemails came in pointing out the same solution from JamesOryszczyn, JSO Technology, LLC, Dean Kryuer, Binaryworks andChris Lang.

Thank you all for your support!

CORRECTIONIn the May 2007 issue of SMBPC “Virtual Server 2005 and SmallBusiness Server 2003” article we stated that “if you buy the x64-bitversion of Windows Server 2003 R2, you have the right to run four virtualinstances of Windows Server 2003 R2 on top of the physical box.”

Steven Brown of Brown & Brown, P.C. www.brownpcusa.com) sent us acorrection to the article after he spoke with Microsoft for clarification.Microsoft licensing said only the Windows Server 2003 R2 ENTERPRISEedition allows four virtual instances of Windows Server 2003.

Thank you for sending in the correction!

SMB Partner Community - October/November 2007 www.smbnation.com Page 5

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

EarnCOVER STORY

by Harry BrelsfordEarnLearn to

s the glass half-empty or half-full? Wall Street is givingoff mixed signals with the Dow flirting with recordhighs while a significant number of analysts predict

we’re headed into a mild recession because of a globalcredit crunch. So how do Small Business Specialists andother SMB consultants and Channel Partners sort it all out?Over 600 such folks attended the fifth annual SMB Nation2007 conference to look into the future and fortify existingbusiness and technical skills.

Whether you believe these are the best of times or theworst of times, the content offered at SMB Nation 2007allowed attendees to engage in the oldest professionaldevelopment strategy in the book: be a life learner andlearn more to earn more. Two industry experts, ArlinSorensen and Dana Epp, provided well-receivedcontemporary content that struck a balance between visionand new keystrokes you can use on Monday morning. Forexample, the HR speech about putting the right people onthe bus struck a cord with more than one attendee seekingto hire their first employee. At the end of the day, it wasapparent that content is still king even though attendeestold me that meeting new friends and fellow peers wasperhaps the longest-lasting take-away.

New FriendsHow are you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm? That

is, how does a fifth year conference serve two masters:alumni and newbies? That answer was revealed during the

I conference as “balance.” You need both the old guard andthe new attendees to create buzz and add value. First of all,we were all once newbies and we looked to the old guardfor guidance and wisdom. In our ranks, we have a womantechnology leader who heard a radio advertisement 12+years ago to become an MCSE and today she is a well-known technology speaker and published author. Many ofthe alumni benefited from meeting each other once again.And more than one alumni commented that it is refreshingand humbling to see new attendees. In some cases thestudent taught the teacher a trick or two. This freshthinking was possible because over 60 percent of theattendees were new to the conference. One such newbiewas Hughie Baker from Oregon who made the short jauntto Redmond to attend his first professional conference.

Receiving Your CallingIn the home building industry, the sponsors are the

trade show. While SMB consultants don’t embrace vendorsas enthusiastically as home builders at the Chicago-basedHardware Show, nonetheless attendees greatly appreciatedthe opportunity to speak one-on-one with sponsors. In ayear of few Microsoft product announcements, it’s safe to

Download your free copy of the keynote andother session videos from SMB Nation 2007 at

www.smbnation.tv

Hughie Baker,a SMB Nation first-timer from Oregon!

Page 6 www.smbnation.com SMB Partner Community - October/November 2007

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


say that Microsoft Response Point, the new small businesstelephone system, owned the show! Many attendees wereable to gain insights into this telephony solution during aspeech where pricing and availability were revealedpublicly for the first time. It was nothing short of aparadigm shift and it answered the big-picture questionfirst uttered by Robert Redford in the 1972 film, “TheCandidate” (learn more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Candidate): what do I do now? Allow me to translate.An underlying conversation at SMB Nation amongattendees in the classroom and the bar room centered onmaturity in the SMB sector (there’s that Wall Street talkagain). So with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) around thecorner and a corresponding threat to stand-alone servers,attendees asked the obvious: “What do I do now?” Formany, their new calling is Microsoft Response Point.

Other sponsors making announcements at SMB Nationincluded Scorpion Software’s AuthAnvil security productand community announcement, AutoTask’s new AutoTaskGO! Product for the smallest Partners, and Digital Persona’sbiometric authentication device revealed inside the D&Hbooth. But a true show-stopper was the $40,000 completefranchise awarded to a lucky attendee from Expetec.

KeynoteArnie Mondloch, Director, Marketing and Relationship

Engines, US Partner Group, Microsoft, and Eric Ligman,Senior Manager, Community Engagement, US SmallBusiness Group, Microsoft, kicked of the conference with abig thank you to Small Business Specialists. According tothe keynote, Small Business Specialists transacted over$100,000,000 in Open revenue in FY07 and licensing salesgrew four times (4x) more than licensing sales of non-SmallBusiness Specialist VARs (Value Added Reseller). Now youcan say what you want – but we believe that the trainingavailable from Microsoft and the consistent encouragement

to take advantage of training has paid off! Announcements for FY08 included Small Business

Specialist exclusive benefits such as the Small BusinessDesktop Sales Kit and additional 50% Partner subsidiesand a new telephone resource for Small Business Specialists(more at https://partner.microsoft.com/us/sbscsecure).Another exciting announcement was the Small BusinessSpecialist “Get-The-Edge” contest with a grand prize to goGrand Canyon Colorado River rafting – to get you, dearreader, motivated to participate in training and leveragingavailable sales resources!

There were other great announcements like thehttp://www.wevegottaguy.com/, a Small BusinessSpecialist awareness campaign targeted at customersadvising them to look for the Small Business Specialistbadge. (And if you didn’t make it to SMB Nation 2007, youcan download the keynote video from www.smbnation.tvto learn about what Microsoft has in store for SmallBusiness Specialists in FY08).

Bona Fide BusinessIn the aerospace industry, big conferences such as the

Paris Air Show are used to make big announcements. SMBNation was no different in that a significant mergerannouncement was made from four members of theChicago-based SBS user group. These four parties,Randolph Carnegie, Bill Hunt and Dave Bryner (thismonth’s cover shot), and Bob Hood (2005 SBSer of the Year),seek to enjoy economies of scale by teaming up and forminga new company that will serve the Chicago market.

The noteworthy mention here is that Bob Hood (whohas announced every year for the past five years that he isgoing to retire that year) had been looking for a fitting exitstrategy that would serve him and his clients. Finally, theinteraction between Hood and three other Partners whoalso participated regularly in community events (in thiscase the local SBS user group in Chicago, IL) would be ableto have his pie a eat it too! (See “Exit strategy” side bar.)

Community ConvergenceUsually the “back nine” of a multi-day conference is

relatively quiet as activities conclude. But on the last hourof the last day, an open forum consisting of PALs (PartnerArea Leads) and Microsoft representatives, including EricLigman, Microsoft US Senior Manager, Small BusinessCommunity Engagement, and Andrea Russell, Small

(L) Steve Hogg, VP of Sales and Director of Expetec Corporationcongratulates (R) D. Alex Rogers of Bakersfield, CA (R),

the winner of a Expetec franchise during the Expetec presentation.(M) Harry Brelsford, CEO, SMB Nation

Download session PDFs at www.smbnation.comto learn more about the topics covered during

the conference.

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

www.smbnation.com SMB Partner Community - October/November 2007

Business Partner Audience Manager, WW Partner Group,came to the Small Business Specialist Town Hall openforum to help answer questions from Partners.

Topics covered included discussion of what productsor business training would help Small Business Specialistsgrow their business, how to facilitate Small BusinessSpecialist Partner partnering and how to get involved inbuilding community. It was great to hear the open dialoguebetween Microsoft and its Partners.

MPANA first at SMB Nation this year, a full day of sessions

provided by Microsoft Professional Accounting Networkmembers Alan Shrater, Robert Lindley and Jason Harrison.The session’s attendance proved that accounting is still a hottopic with our small business customers. To learn what BCM

(Business Contact Manager) Outlook 2007 and OfficeAccounting can do – download the PDF for Session 2E,“Better Together – The Integration of Technologies,” at

“Each of us is facingthe traditional problemof a one-man-bandconsultant. We eachhave hit the earningceiling - a year in servicerevenue, plus a limitedamount of additionalhardware resellingprofit. We have each“hit the wall” in terms ofavailable hours in theday, and are limited inthe amount that we cangrow our individual

businesses further. It’s a classic case of synergy where the‘whole is greater than the sum of the parts.’ Each of ushas somewhat of a unique position in the marketplace,either through a vertical market or a geographicalmarket. We came together naturally through ourparticipation in the Chicago SBS Users Group. Afterevery meeting, the four of us always seemed to be thegroup that stayed in the parking lot for at least an hourafterwards – or going out for a beer or two. Out of thatinteraction grew a strong mutual trust – which is thebinding force for any merger. We started covering foreach other during vacation breaks. We realized that forsignificant further growth, we could not do it on our own– but would have to combine forces,” says Hood.

The next steps that are undertaken is that the fourpartners will operate as a “virtual entity,” as businessrelationships are developed with new customers whilecontinuing to manage the “individual” relationships witheach existing client. “We probably will consolidate the

‘front office’ function of handling client requests, and the‘back office’ function of billing and purchasing. This willeither be handled by one of us, or by a new part-timeemployee. We also foresee hiring at least one and possiblytwo ‘techs’ to handle the routine client assignments.

Each of [us] has developed clients in niche markets:manufacturing, financial consultants, automobiledealers and the not-for-profit sectors. However, withthe limit of available time each of us has been stymied inexpanding that niche. With the economies of scale thata combined operation – plus additional second-levelpersonnel – will give us, we will be freed up to go afteradditional business in each of these niche markets, plusnew vertical markets that we simply could not approachin the past, due to lack of additional hours in the day.

From my personal vantage point, the mostimportant aspect is that this merger represents my ‘exitstrategy’ as I move to scale down my own participationand move toward retirement. With this merger, I have anatural evolutionary path to fold my own consultingpractice into a larger whole, then execute a gradualwithdrawal from day-to-day activity, while still keepingmy hand in the game, and providing my clients with apath to continued superior support and comfort. Whilewe have not discussed all of the issues about some‘annuity’ revenue that will be generated by my clients –going forward – I anticipate that I will reap somemonetary benefits from the clients I leave behind, as Imove into a different role. Perhaps I will work part-time(remotely) while away from Chicago, or perhaps I willadopt the role of ‘senior rainmaker,’ seen often in lawfirms where a Senior Partner no longer engages in day-to-day work, but uses his broad industry contacts togenerate new business for the firm.”

Long-time SBSer Bob Hoodfrom Chicago shares the

reasons behind the merger.

Partner Area Leads Mark Crall, Oliver Sommer, Kim Walker andStuart Crawford hosting a “Townhall”open forum.

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


www.smbnation.com – you will be surprised. In a world wherewe are looking to increase service revenue and keep theexpenses for proprietary applications down, the MPANmembers showcased a solution in this session that should makeyour small business customer and your pocketbook smile.

Pocket MBA TrackThis year’s business track contained dynamite sessions

covering everything from do’s and don’ts when hiringemployees to why you need a business plan (do you haveone?) and sales and marketing sessions. The businesssessions were excellent, and regardless of whether you areabout to hire your first employee or your 50th, there wasinformation to be gained for everyone. If you weren’t ableto attend the SMB Nation conference, download a free copyof the session PDFs. To help extend what attendees learnedat this year’s conference, we will be starting a Pocket MBAcolumn in the next issue of SMBPC to follow up on thetopics that were covered.

Technical Packet TrackThe technical track was packed with live demos

presented by experts in the field. Session included topicsfrom recovering a dead box to desktop management andleveraging virtualization. For many attendees it was hardto decide which sessions to choose from. Rooms werepacked and many alumni brought business partners andemployees so they could split up and cover as many topicspossible – now that is ROI!

Community TrackAnother track gaining in popularity is the community

track. Here vendors showcase their products in a deep divesession to attendees. Have you wondered what thedifference between vendor A’s product and vendor B’sproduct is? We get many emails asking us these questions atSMB Nation. The answer: go to a vendor session and letthem educate you about their product. Only you know whatis the best fit for your venture. We can help some – again,download the PDFs of interest to you from our website.

Marketplace ExpoAnd if you couldn’t make it to a community track

session, there was always the Marketplace Expo where onecould speak with the vendor directly and have the productdemoed and questions answered.

Coming to a conference to learn and earn is not allwork, there is also fun and games – and vendor prizegiveaways! There was not only D. Alex Rogers, who wonthe $40,000 franchise, but many of the vendors had greatdoor prizes. (See if you can find who won a Lamborghinilaptop later in this magazine.)

ConclusionIn finance, investors are viewed as either optimistic or

pessimistic. Both investor types can make moneydepending on how their respective portfolios are hedged.So regardless of whether an SMB Nation attendee viewedthe fall weather in Redmond as partly sunny or partlycloudy, all parties “won” because they invested inthemselves by attending and participating in a bona fideprofessional conference! �

Robert Lindley talks about the Integration of Office Accounting 2007.

Attendees getting product information and questions answereddirectly by vendor representatives one-on-one.

J.J. Antequino, Microsoft (3rd from R) joins the circle of Office Ultimate winners for a group photo

To learn more about how this investment paidoff, see the Perceptions column in this issue for

our survey results.

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


Windows Home Server by Grey Lancaster

am honored to have been given the task of presentingMicrosoft’s new Windows Home Server (WHS) to you.I normally start my demos with the concept that as a

rule we Consultants do not want “Home” clients. But whatdo you do when your best client says, “I wish you woulddrop by the house and look at my son’s PC; I have no cluewhat he has done.” Let’s think about your own homenetwork. Do you have any digital pictures? Ripped anyMusic? Recorded any TV? Would you like to access thisfrom anywhere, or allow Grandma to see the baby pictures?

Have you got all the CDs for everything you haveinstalled on your PCs for the last two years handy? Wheredid you put the email from TZO.com with your key tounlock the software? Just how long do you think it willtake you to get that PC back to where it was when the harddrive crashes?

Windows Home Server can solve these pain points,provide more features, and be the foundation for endlesspossibilities.

Data ProtectionThis is the area that excites me the most. The real

innovation starts with the client backup piece. For now wewill skip over how your headless WHS box got into thecloset, and start with the client PC. Clients may be any XPor Vista box formatted with NTFS. You install theconnector software on a client PC, and create a user on theWHS using a wizard. By default it backs up the entire PCand all connected disc drives between midnight and 6a.m. You may edit the backup to exclude any unwantedfolders if desired.

Who really needs backups? What we really want is tobe able to do restores painlessly. WHS ships with a restoreCD, so if your hard drive fails (Tip: Or you simply want toreplace it with a larger drive) you boot from this CD. TheCD finds the WHS and then asks you from which backup,from which computer, from what point in time, you want torestore, and where you want to restore to. (Tip: This alsomeans you can restore to a drive taken from some othermachine and connected to your desktop, because that cutelittle tablet does not have a CD drive. You can then replacethe HD in the Tablet.)

I If you just need to restore a single file or a folder, noworries. Just connect to the WHS through the connectorsoftware sitting in your systray, pick a computer, pick atime, pick a drive, and open a read-only copy of the backupon your desktop to drag and drop at will.

Remember the part above about restoring an entire PC?You do not have to go online and find drivers. When youinstall the WHS connector software it creates a folder called“Windows Home Server Drivers for Restore.” So you justopen a backup from any PC, copy this folder to a thumbdrive, insert it in the “dead” PC, boot from the restore CD,and away you go.

Now this is where backup gets really cool. SingleInstance Storage (SIS). What this means is your first PCgets backed up, then the server starts on the next PC in line.Without getting too technical, the server looks at the nextPC, compares each cluster to those in the backup databaseand decides if it needs to add it. So if you have five XPboxes it only needs to backup one copy of XP, Office, etc., tobe able to restore correctly. How many copies of the codefor the Yes/No dialogue box are in your home network?WHS only needs to keep one copy. Each night the backupfires up and starts looking for any changed or new clustersto add to the backup database. All this means that you canbackup and restore up to 10 PCs using an amazingly lowamount of disc cost.

You may configure how many copies of backups youwant to keep in the WHS console, as in, for instance, 12monthlies, four weeklies, and six daily backups. Youmay also lock a backup and it will stay in the databaseuntil you unlock it. Backup cleanup is run automaticallyeach weekend.

The third area of data protection I want to talk aboutis File Duplication. The WHS has some predefined sharesout of the box - Music, Pictures, Videos for example. Oneof the obvious reasons to have a “server” in the home is tohave a central place to store and share your memoriesfrom. So if you have more than one hard drive in yourWHS, and folder duplication is enabled for the sharedfolder, and if the primary hard drive dies, you will notlose your memories. By default, duplication will beenabled for all shares if the Server has more than one hard

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


drive when it is built.As a Small Business Server (SBS) expert you know all

about Server 2003 (the foundation for WHS), so you arefamiliar with “Previous Versions.” That is the thing that hasmade you look like a hero so many times in the past with asimple right-click of the mouse. Windows Server 2003Previous Versions for shares is enabled by default on theWHS box. Previous Versions allows you to restore a file orfolder that has been deleted or changed from a givensnapshot in the past.

WHS also introduces new technology whichMicrosoft is calling Drive Extender. I have a client whohas a laptop with a seven port USB hub, and something isplugged into every port. Is it on drive L:, or was it M:?With WHS, the user never sees a drive letter. All drivesconnected to the server may be added to the storage poolsso all the user sees is “space” to put stuff. Again, since itis built on Server 2003, any drive supported may be used,USB 2.0, Firewire, IDE, SATA, eSATA, etc. Anymix/combination is fine. WHS, using the new PFM*technology, controls where a file is placed, and if the sharehas been selected for duplication it will place anothercopy of the file to a different spindle.

Sharing and Remote AccessInternet Information Services is installed, configured

and running on WHS out of the box. It has a remote accesspage that offers users access to their shared folders or theirfull desktop. The remote share security is controlled byuser, so if you want to enable the guest account for readonly access and give Grandma the password, she can seethe pictures of little Jonnie from afar. On the other hand, ifyou want to work on your PowerPoint presentation athome you can upload and work on it as long as you havegiven yourself Full Access.

The remote desktop functionality is borrowed from theSBS team (as they are under the same Windows ServerSolution Group). As you know, this is a main selling point

for SBS. A user may access his desktop offsite in a securechannel, same as if he was sitting at home in front of it.Keep in mind that “home” operating systems, XP Homeand Vista Basic, for example, do not have remote desktopfunctionality, so these machines will not be availableremotely.

FREE!! Did I mention you get free Dynamic DNS?From the remote settings tab in the WHS console you run awizard, give it your Windows Live login info, pickwhatever available name you come up with, and typehttp://the_name_I_picked.homeserver.com. You are nowat your default website.

Network Health:As I mentioned, to access the WHS console from a

client PC you double-click the little house icon in thesystray. This little icon also serves to give you Health Statusfor your home network. If the House is Green all is well,Yellow is a warning, Red is critical, and Gray means eitheryour server is off or you have your laptop at Starbucks.Events that trigger notification are: failed or no backups, iffirewall is turned off in Vista (so hard for your son to installthat spyware app when it is on), or your router is down ornot properly configured, to name a few.

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


You may also toggle off or on notifications for a PC here, aswell as start a manual backup now. For example you aregetting ready to upgrade this box to Vista, you better backthis sucker up now so you can revert back if all goes wrong.

Add-insAs stated, this is Server 2003, so it is a perfectly stable

foundation for third party vendors to build upon. Becauseour WHS has no CD drive we have a neat way to installsoftware made for WHS. You download the app to asubfolder named Add-ins located under the Software Shareon the WHS Server. Then you launch the WHS connectorand go to the Add-ins page and you will see two tabs:Installed and Available. From there you may addapplications to the WHS or remove them. Whatever appyou just installed will have its own spot on the WHSconsole for you to configure that particular app or function.WHS has just released add-ins to backup to the cloud,add/personalize links on your Web site, create new Websites for photo sharing etc., download RSS feeds, or copyyour files to an external drive for offsite storage.

Streaming MediaI feel that the Windows Home Server team has done a

great job with V1 of this product. Rather than do a lot ofthings and finding out a bunch of it has bugs, they pickeda handful of doable things and made sure they workedwell. It is not the Digital Hub of your House – yet, but thereis a tick in the WHS console where you can enablestreaming. This means you may connect to it withsupported devices like the Xbox 360 or D-Link MediaLounge. I have no doubts that future releases will havebetter integration with Vista Ultimate, for example.

How to Get ItSo now that you know all about WHS and are dying to

have it, you wonder how? WHS is going to be offered intwo different ways for this version. The first is an OEM(original equipment manufacturer) box. For example, HP is

offering two versions in their Media Smart line. A $599version with one 500 GB hard drive, and a $749 versionwith two 500 GB drives. (go to http://www.hp.com andsearch for HP MediaSmart Server) The OEM versions are“headless,” which means there is no connector for amonitor, keyboard, or mouse. You plug the power cableinto the wall and a Cat5 cable into your router. Setup is thencompleted from the first client PC you add to the network.Other OEMs working on products include Iomega, LaCie,Gateway, Fujitsue-Siemens and Medion. Also Tranquil PC inUK is shipping a box now. (http://www.tranquilpc-shop.co.uk/acatalog/T7-HSA.html)

The second option is to purchase the OEM softwarefrom your favorite vendor. For example, Newegg.com orBuy.com. The cost of the software is running around $180.You will then need a DVD drive, mouse, keyboard, andmonitor to install the software, but you can remove theseitems after WHS is built. Just remember to set the BIOS notto halt on errors. Of course, building your own box withOEM software means you are the OEM; it is not supportedby Microsoft. If you build a box and place it at a client’s site,they must call you for support.

WHS software will not be available in the Action Packor on MSDN for download. You can download or order a120 day eval kit at for the cost of shipping and handling.(www.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver)

ResourcesThe WHS team has purchased the domain name

Homeserver, so to find help all you need to do is type what makes sense. Homeserver.com goes to the Microsoft Home server page. The MS Blog is located at

On September 18, 2007, the SBS user group meeting wasstanding room only at Microsoft's Chicago office. KevinRoyalty, SBS MVP gave a great overview and demo of thenew Microsoft Home Server and highlighted where it fitsin the SMB arena. We could all see immediate uses for itwith our SBS clients. The Chicago SBS UG is currently ledby Cynthia Slade and Ted Giesler. (Cynthia Slade)

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/, the MS forum for WHS is located at http://forums.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver/default.aspx?siteid=50. Anotherinteresting third party site is http://www.wegotserved.co.ukThis site has some info on many of the Add-ins for WHS.

Summary of why Windows Home Server is So Cool

Simple restore of entire PC or a single file. SingleInstance Backup saves disc space. Remote access to files

or entire desktops. Easy to grow and add storagecapacity. Ability to protect shares with folder duplicationor external copy. Great foundation for you or third partyvendors to build on. Last but not least, WHS is a greataddition to your SBS networks to backup your clientPCs. Many of us have actually restored entire SBSservers with this, though the recommendation is to useNTBACKUP to do a system state and Exchange backupto disc and then include these backup files in the WHSbackup of the server. �

Grey Lancaster is an amazing SouthernGentleman who has been involvedwith SBS and community since 1997.Grey was just named the first WindowsHome Server Most ValuableProfessional (MVP) in September of2007. Grey resides on his beautifulcountry estate in the foothills of North

Carolina and enjoys entertaining friends, helping folks,hunting, fishing, and of course, gizmos, gadgets, andtechnology. Making a living off of a hobby is the perfectdream.You can reach Grey at [email protected].

*PFM - see wikipedia.org

Joel Sider, Senior product manager,Windows Server Solutions

Microsoft has focused much of itscommunications about WindowsHome Server on how the productwill meet the needs of consumers andfamilies. But, while Windows Small

Business Server is the ideal IT solution for professionalorganizations with up to 75 PCs, Home Server is also agreat solution to help very small home-based businessowners protect, centralize and access their important files.

Windows Home Server provides a low-cost, secure,central place for a home business’ important workdocuments, making it easy to organize and back up all ofthe files in one place. The simple setup – of either ahardware-software solution from an OEM or a custominstallation of the system builder version – is ideal for them,and the solution provider helping them. Home Server’s easy(but robust) backup, its ready-built file share, expandablestorage, PC health monitoring and remote access capabilitiesall add up to a great tool for home business owners short ontime and IT skills.

I’ve spoken with a number of early Home Servercustomers who use it for both their personal content andtheir home businesses. For example, a part-time videoproducer told me that Home Server backup and restoresaved him a tremendous amount of time and heartache; helost 20 minutes, instead of a client. Another home-basedbusiness owner - a photographer - described how she usedHome Server to give her clients remote access to her projectfor them, helping to improve her customer service andsatisfaction.

It’s exciting to see the variety of ways customers areusing Windows Home Server – for home, for a home-basedbusiness, or sometimes both. It will only get more interestingas new types of hardware and third party applications forthe platform emerge in the coming months and years.

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


ver the last 30 years, our daily work life has reallychanged. It has been a gradual change and wemay not appreciate how much it really has. 30

years ago, the majority of the workers in the US were inmanufacturing related jobs, and a majority of those weredirect labor producing widgets. It was a fairly wellunderstood work life and happiness was a directcorrelation to the ability to make the product, meeting the production rates, andbringing home a fair wage.

Of course, that is alldifferent now. In yourbusiness, you rarely seekproduction orientedindividuals, you wantindividuals with knowledge.You most likely recruitindividuals with highintellects that are able to solvecomplex problems on theirown. You believe they will dosome research to figure it out,or they already haveexperiences that enable themto work nearly autonomouslyin the field. But that is not theonly difference in the worklife of today’s employeecompared to 30 years ago.The more complex andknowledgeable the employee, the more it takes to makethem happy in their work life. We already understand thesignificance of a good salary and added perks, but happinessdoesn’t end there. Let me introduce another dimension of acontributor to employee’s happiness.

If you manage people, you may ask yourself, “Why doI really care about an employee’s happiness in their worklife and how could I have an effect on them?” Briefly, aworker that has a positive outlook on his or her job is moreproductive and creative as will be explained in a bit. Thatwill be referred to as the person’s inner work life. An innerwork life is what is really going on inside the employee’shead, the emotions that drive them to perform well or notso well, as the case may be. People don’t check theiremotions at the door; they bring them in as well as bring

them home. As a manager, boss, or business owner, yourarely get to peak into your employee’s inner work life.Heck, you could watch them day in and day out, but youwould never really know what is going on in their heads. Arecent Harvard Business Review article, “Inner Work Life,Understanding the Subtexts of Business Performance”,written by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer takes ananalytical deep dive into the minds of 238 professionals,

based on a study undertakenover several years. Each oneof the working professionalswas asked to record theirinner most thoughts abouttheir daily work, what itmeant to them, and whatthey did that day. That studyhad some surprising resultsabout the impacts a boss or amanager has on his or herdirect employees.

The ProcessWe first have to take a

look at the process tounderstand what is going on.Everyday normal workevents happen; customerscall, priorities change,projects run into unexpecteddelays, project scope

changes. Many times employees are insulated from thewhy and how of the changes, they just see new taskscoming to them or their tasks get changed. By nature, thistriggers a person’s cognitive, emotional and motivationalprocess, who immediately begins to try to make some senseout of these new instructions. The meaning and value of thechange may be perceived correctly or incorrectly. Theperception feeds emotion and emotion in turn affectsperception. This is a key factor that a boss or manager mustbe aware off and explains why it is important to share andconvey information in order to positively affect employee’sperceptions and emotion. Negative emotions andperceptions are directly correlated to less creativity, lowerproductivity, and lower quality of work. Negative emotionslead the person to think they or their work is not valuable.

The Human Factor

Productive, Motivated, Committed Employees and how to keep it that way

O

by Rick Callaway

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


Those negative emotions are what de-motivates andhinders the employee from doing his or her best work.

There are simple ways to affect emotions positively,giving a personal thank you in advance for the work youknow needs to be done, bring in lunch for the person orteam, go out of your way to be available for questions, orsome small unexpected surprise. These seemingly trivialacts will cause people to feel good about what they aredoing or are about to do. They most often then perceivetheir work and themselves as important. There is a strongcorrelation of perceived worth of themselves or their workto motivation to do a good and thorough job.

The other side of the coin is people do their best workwhen they are motivated not by love of the work, but theydo their best work when under pressure, facing loomingdeadlines, and peer to peer competition. Amabile andKramer also studied how the inner work life affects highperformance. They determined the four main elementsaffecting performance are: creativity, productivity,commitment, and collegiality (the sense of cooperativeinteraction among colleagues). As has been identifiedearlier, creativity is linked to a positive inner work life. Somuch so, that their study determined people are 50% morecreative when they are having good days. That creativitycan last for several days afterwards as well when theemployee had a sense that their work was understood to bevaluable to the company. This also is true for productivity,commitment and collegiality. At the worker level, thismeans the employee understands that they are empoweredto make decisions and will have the appropriate resourcesto do their job. At a company level, they worker perceivedthe work environment to be collaborative and open tocommunication. All this being said, this brings us back tothe source that affect an employee’s inner work life; themanager or boss.

As explained earlier, simple acts of kindness go a longway, but according to Amabile and Kramer, that is notnearly enough. The two most important behaviors thataffect the inner work life of the employee are: providingthe ability for the employee to grow and move forward intheir career and work, and treating them like you want tobe treated, like a decent human being. Growing andmoving forward in their work boils down to the employeebeing able to make progress in a task or assignment. Whenprogress or the perception of progress occurs, the employeehas positive emotions about his or her work. This isnothing new that achieving a goal brings a sense ofpleasure. Even reaching a sub goal elicits the same type ofpositive response. So, it is very important that goals areclearly defined and achievable given enough time andresources. If you, the boss, consistently switch theemployee’s priorities, most goals will never be met. This, of

course, leads to lack of commitment, low productivity, andeventual employee turn-over. Even when clear goals areset, if they conflict with other established goals, will lead toa sense of futility. The employee will feel torn betweencompeting goals. Being able to make progress is a very bigcontributor to the positive inner work life of the employee.

As the boss, you need to understand what is going onin the minds of your employees. Most of the time you maythink you are setting clear and concise goals, but to theemployee, you have done a poor job of articulating yourexpectations. Most likely, the employee will begin workingtowards what he or she believes the goal is and will soonfind out they have been spinning their wheels. They will bevery frustrated and performance right along withcommitment and motivation will soon suffer. If theemployee senses that all of your directions and goals arerandom, they will be less inspired to act. They will say,“Why do this, he is going to change his mind tomorrowanyway”. Or they might say, “I’m not going to work on thatbecause you won’t give me time to finish it anyway.” Doesthat sound familiar? I am sure you have experienced thatbefore. Think back and remember the times when thathappened to you when you were “carrying the tool boxand getting your hands dirty”. You probably believed thatyour boss did not value your work, or you believed yourboss to be totally incompetent.

In conclusion, the boss and manager have a greatinfluence on the inner work life of the employee. Try hardto manage with the human touch, set clear and achievablegoals, don’t change the goals at a drop of a hat, provide theappropriate resources to enable the employee to completethe assignment, praise when there is real work progress,and let them and their peers know they have done goodand important work. You will end up with committed,motivated, and productive employees. �

Rick Callaway is a Senior Manager, Subcontracts, at HarrisCorporation, a communications and information technologycompany serving government and commercial markets inmore than 150 countries. Rick holds a MBA in Supply ChainManagement, BS in Mechanical Design Technology, is aCertified Purchasing Manager (CPM) & AccreditedPurchasing Practitioner. He excels at building rapport anddriving results with colleagues, customers, and supplierpartners of all backgrounds and cultures.You can reach Rickat [email protected]

Being able to make progress is a very bigcontributor to the positive inner work life

of the employee.

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


Windows Small Business Server Tech CenterImagine searching your

favorite TechNet pages forSBS-specific support in a

new interface! SBS just got its very own TechCenter athttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sbs/default.aspx.Make sure to place this one in your Favorites! The SBSTechCenter offers its very own navigation, as shown here– check out Technical Library (very cool), finddownloads, training products and support, or connectwith your community – it’s all about SBS. Great job,Microsoft and SBS Team!

OnForce and Small Business SpecialistsMicrosoft Learning, HP

and OnForce created a learning solution forOnForce providers including

Windows Vista and Small Business Specialistcertifications. Read more about this athttp://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070913/clth011.html?.v=101. OnForce is a marketplace for on-site IT serviceshttp://www.onforce.com/ - click on the “ServiceProviders” link where you can sign up for free andprofile your technology skills. This could be extra bucksin your pocket, especially if you are just starting out andneed paying customers. And if you are not a SmallBusiness Specialist yet, take advantage of the trainingoffered to distinguish yourself in the marketplace!

Small Business Developer Center Thinking about building

applications for small businesses?Microsoft has a special site to helpyou evaluate cost-efficient software

solutions designed to help you meet typical smallbusiness challenges. Find videos, hands-on-labs and freeproducts for download to help get you started. Visit the Small Business Developer Center athttp://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/smallbusiness/default.aspx

Microsoft Response Point RTM’dOn October 02, 2007,

Microsoft announced thatResponse Point had beenreleased to manufacturing,

and starting October 05, 2007, customers were able topre-order the Quanta Syspine with initial deliveriesscheduled in November. D-Link’s VoiceCenter modelwill be available in Q4 of 2007.

Additionally, pricing from OEM partners, D-Linkand Quanta, who will offer Response Point phonesystem base packages was announced.

A complete, 20-phone system will cost less than$5,500. All the system features and functionality areincluded for one price. Adding additional new phonesto the network is simple. Just purchase the phone - thereare no additional licensing fees or charges. Financingfrom Microsoft is also available, enabling customers topay for a phone system over a three-year period, with noupfront costs.

• The Quanta Syspine package includes a base unitwith an integrated secure gateway and eight phone-line ATA, both built in, and four desktop phones forapproximately $2,500.

• The D-Link VoiceCenter package includes a baseunit, a four phone-line analog telephone adapter andfive desktop phones for approximately $2,999.

• Additional Quanta phones are $159; D-Link will selladditional phones for approximately $149. Microsoft is also pleased to announce Aastra

Technologies Limited as the newest hardwarevendor for Response Point. Aastra is a global enterprisetelecommunications systems leader. Aastra models willbe available for purchase in 2008. Microsoft ResponsePoint is advanced phone system software designedespecially for small businesses that have one to 50employees.

Get more information atwww.microsoft.com/responsepoint

Technology Watch

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


SQL Server Downgrade Rights for SBS2003 R2 You can order a SBS 2003

R2 Premium Edition PremiumTechnologies Downgrade CD ifyou have licensed a copy ofWindows Small Business

Server 2003 R2 Premium Edition (which includesMicrosoft SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edition), butyour line of business applications are not yet availableon the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 platform. Thedowngrade offer is available until April 30, 2008. Visithttp://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/downgrade/default.mspx for more information.

ASCII Tech Boot Camp November 08, 2007,

Orlando FL. Topics coveredinclude sales and marketing,improving profits, avoidingsecurity assessment pitfalls,

managing desktop operating environments, IT managedservices, emerging security and business continuitytrends, spam and ending the VoIP confusion. A full andinformative day. Find out more details and register atwww.asciievents.com

Diskeeper Releases the Most Intelligent RealTime Defragmenter Ever Built!

October 23, 2007.Diskeeper Corporationannounced the launch of

Diskeeper 2008, the most automated performanceenhancement defragmenter ever built. New featuresinclude the ability to defrag in the most extreme levels oflow free space or the highest levels of crippling filefragmentation. Intelligent defrag dynamically chooseswhich software engine will net the most performancegains on a given system or environment. This is all donecompletely transparently, in real time, tapping the fullpower of otherwise unused idle resources with a highlyadvanced background processing technology calledInvisiTasking. Visit http://www.diskeeper.com/ for moreinformation.

Silicon East in the News Again! Small Business Specialist and

MSP Silicon East (SEI) havedelivered Intel’s vPro remote

management capabilities to 100% of their clients for anentire year. SEI and their client, Atlantic Realty,participated in a pilot program to evaluate and measurevPro in businesses with multiple branch offices. Theresults? Watch the video on Intel’s website -www.intel.com/smallbusiness . This case study wassuch a success that a national Intel advertisingcampaign is being launched right now by Intel –featuring Silicon East!

If that is not enough, Microsoft also did a case studywith SEI and another client, Model Service Agency,describing how Vista can really make a big difference to a small business. Check out the video atwww.microsoft.com/casestudies/resources/Files/200579/MSA_Final.wvx .

Way to go, Silicon East!

Reduce Sales Friction Through Training Microsoft is

presenting 50webcasts covering

five topics over a 12-month period. Take a look at the at-a-glance list and find the content that suits you. Have you been spending money on sales and marketing literature and media? Well, here you get it forfree – all you have to do is click through tohttp://www.mssmallbiz.com/sbstraining/ and learnfrom the best how to really make money!

Steganos Protects Your Privacy Check out this company

and its security products!Using encryption solutions bySteganos, hiding your datafrom others is a piece of cake –extremely important in case ofhardware loss or theft.Hardware is replaceable. Yourdata is not. Steganos offers

products to protect your data located on laptops, PDAsand USB sticks, as well as data sent over the Internet.Take a look at https://www.steganos.com/us/

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


Microsoft Business and TechnologyAssessment Toolkit v. 3.0.0.5

So what’s new? There arenew assessments toevaluate your customers’server, mobile, desktop,

and Exchange needs and to help you identify solutionsbased on Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2,Windows Mobile, the 2007 Microsoft Office system,Windows Vista, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007technologies. And another new feature is the Windows-based platform that’s compatible with MicrosoftWindows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and64-bit processors. Yes!

Download athttps://partner.microsoft.com/global/40025740

Join the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community

If small business is yourbusiness, then become aMicrosoft Small BusinessSpecialist and get specialtraining to help you sell morein this important market. Go to www.smbizspecialist.com

to engage with Microsoft about joining thiscommunity or call a Small Business Specialist expert at (888) 298-6303.

Montreal Canada, ITA Fall Collaborative From October 28-30,

2007, The InformationTechnology Alliance (ITA)will once again bring thenation's leading ITprofessionals and SMBvendors together in an

environment where everyone can network and learnfrom each other! This unique five-track, 2 1/2 dayopportunity comes alive every fall for all ITProfessionals (ITA members and non-members)! Getmore information at http://www.italliance.com/Calendar.aspx

DigitalPersona Pro SBS Solution - For 75 Users or Less

DigitalPersona Pro SBS is a enterprise-level fingerprintauthentication for secure sign-ondesigned to work specifically withWindows Small Business Server2003 R2. DigitalPersona Pro ServerSBS Edition integrates into Active

Directory to provide secure sign-on control andpassword management for networked DigitalPersonaPro Workstations. You can securely and centrally storefingerprint and other user authentication credentials,use Active Directory group policy architecture tocentrally manage and distribute security policies and provide centralized, biometric event logs forenhanced regulatory compliance and assistance with forensic investigations. Learn more athttp://www.digitalpersona.com

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


ne of the benefits of working in the IT Industry isthat it is never boring. No two days are ever thesame. You could help an end user with a laptop

one day and rebuild a server from scratch the next. Wehave grown up with the technology industry and continueto upgrade our technology skill sets. The problem,however, is that our communication skills were neverupgraded with our technical skills. When we first startedusing Windows 3.1 we needed to understand what acomputer was and what a GUI was, and help the customeruse them. Technology today is about collaboration andcommunication; be it e-mail, voice mail or fax. One of themost important qualities of a good CIO or CTO is his orher communication skills. Communicating with the CEOand the board of directors is as important as his or hertechnical skill set.

So how do we upgrade our communication skills?Some questions to ask yourself are: How good are mycommunication skills now? Do I connect with customersand co-workers on a sincere and effective level? Do theyunderstand what I want and need? Am I making myselfclear? When I am called upon to discuss business issues

with my peers or manager, do they listen? Do people trustmy judgement? When you are doing a presentation do youfumble with your pockets? Do you use filler words likeanyway or so. Do you shuffle your feet or do a back andforth tap with your shoes? Fear not, my technology peers!Help is on the way.

Night schools, summer schools and business schools all teach communication classes. There are also Toastmasters clubs all across North America(http://www.toastmasters.org). There are books, audiobooks, coaches and mentors. Any of these options willassist you in your quest for better communication skills.You have to decide to improve them and then take action.Set a goal and a timeline if need be. New year’s resolutionsare an excellent impetus to start.

I can speak from personal experience, having doneseveral of the above. I joined Toastmasters three and a halfyears ago, as part of my new year’s resolution. I hired abusiness mentor to help me understand what my businesswas to me and what I needed to do for my business. I haveread countless books on business and effective businessleaders (Mark McCormack, Richard Branson and others)

and I have listened to both the E-myth series and Good to Greaton CD in the car.

So, how do you practiceyour skills? What else can you do to become a bettercommunicator? Communicationis not just about speaking. It isalso about listening. You haveone mouth, but two ears. Are youdoing twice as much listening asspeaking? For practice, ask a fewparents to talk about their kids.Watch their faces light up. Seehow expressive they become.Listen to the words they use.They don’t stammer or fumblefor the right word. They knowwhat to say and how to conveytheir excitement because theyknow the subject and they lovethe subject very dearly. Can youtalk that effectively about your

101 Series

Upgrade yourCommunication Skills

O

by Larry Nicholson

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


technology product or service? Ask your customers to talkabout their businesses and where they will be two, three,and five years from now. Ask them what the biggestchallenge in their business is right now. See how theyexpress themselves. Watch their facial expressions. If youwant to practice on your own, ask yourself those questionsand use a mirror or videotape yourself. If you really wantto dig deep, videotape yourself doing a presentation. If youwatch the video later and start to nod off then you knowyou have work to do. Can your kids understand a topicthat you talk to them about? Remember, non technicalpresentations are key. Describe what an SBS Server will dofor a customer’s company. The kids don’t want to hearabout CEICW or Active Directory. Talk about constantcommunication through mobile devices, e-mails andcalendaring. Talk about staying in touch with the outsidesales staff. Talk about being able to work from home on asnow day. Employees are productive, rain or shine,weekday or weekend. When you do your practice talks orspeeches, have someone count the umms and uhhs. Youwon’t like that number.

Another and more important form of communicationis the presentation and it is KEY to making a goodbusiness impression, especially a first impression. There isno substitute for experience here. You have to know bothyour audience and your speaking skills. You need to besmooth and relaxed. If you are tense and nervous, so willyour audience be. You need to be composed and presentyour technical skills in a NON technical manner. No onewants to hear bits and bytes at a management- orexecutive-level meeting, especially the first meeting. Theywant to hear about you and your business and whatexcellent work your company has to offer. If you showanything is less than confidence they will have doubtsabout your work, which we both know you do extremelywell. Be wary of turning your back on the audience. Donot stand in front of the projector and have the imageshine on your shirt. Do not involve anyone else in theroom until you are done speaking. It will break theaudience’s focus and they will distracted by the back-and-forth. Keep your props and other items needed for yourpresentation close at hand. Do not fumble with themduring your presentation. Make sure everything worksflawlessly. On the other side of that, a true professionalwill be able to recover from a prop that does not performwhen called upon. I remember a Vista presentation whenthe presenter wanted to demonstrate a feature to anaudience member. When he did the shut-down, the laptoptold him he had updates to install before it would restart.Needless to say, the presenter went on a solo flight whilethe laptop did its routine and he held the audience

through the unexpected delay. That is the sign of a trueprofessional presenter.

Your next step is to meet with your manager or acustomer you have known for years. Tell her of your questand let her tell you what you are and are not doing well(the truth hurts) and then decide from there how much ofan improvement you need to make.

Then determine a timeline. This is determined by howmuch you want to improve and whether you want alifestyle change or just to be better with your words. As Imentioned above, I decided to do the former and joinedToastmasters three and a half years ago. To say it made mea better communicator is an understatement. Set yourselfa goal and reach for it. Many months or years from nowyou will be presenting and communicating at a wholenew level and with a new level of confidence. Smile andmake sure the audience knows who you. Make a wittyquip about what you thought of the morning’s news (lighthumour). When you meet someone new at work, make anote of their name and their eye colour. If you do that youwill be remembered everywhere you go.

Effective communication will change your life. It willkick in when you are put on the spot. When you used tobe quiet or reserved about a topic your new found skillswill light up and you will speak effectively and make yourpoint of view heard. It will be like an out-of-bodyexperience. You will hear yourself speaking but you willnot know where it came from. That is the practiced side ofyou taking over, always ready and always with anintelligent comment. (Well, most of the time. Even thepros have fumbles once and a while.) So get out there. Gowatch a professional presenter. Go sign up withToastmasters or talk to your manager or supervisor aboutbecoming a more effective communicator. It will be theone upgrade you will never forget. �

Larry Nicholson has over 20 years of experience in theInformation Technology industry. He is an MCP on WindowsNT 4.0 and Server 2003 and admits he and Windows, havecome a long way. His background consists of sales, services,sales support engineer, help desk co-ordinator, purchasingofficer and recently, President and owner. Working foryourself really brings it all together. Thinking on your feetand being able to execute is what has really made a differenceto Larry in recent years. A Past President of the localToastmasters club, Larry has learned firsthand theimportance of communication and presentation skills. Astudent of life, Larry enjoys learning, every chance he gets.You can reach Larry at [email protected]

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


famous radio pundit, Paul Harvey(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Harvey) hascoined (read, branded) many interesting phrases in his

long-running radio show in the USA (heard by over 22 millionlisteners). One segment is “Bumper Snickers,” where he recitesinteresting bumper stickers seen on automobiles. Recently, as Iwas driving, I saw a “funny” bumper sticker that recited“Visualize Whirled Peas,” which is a play on the phrase “VisualWorld Peace.” So what in the world does this have to do withthe Small Business Specialist Community, Windows SmallBusiness Server and all things SBS? Hang on to your hat.

The play on Paul Harvey is this. Our recently completedfall conference drew attendees from over a dozen countries (seelist below). So instead of sitting around creating “whirled peas,”I submit for your consideration that these global citizensgathered to create world peace. It was especially rewarding tosee the big fall conference reveal a very international audienceand that can only lead to goodness.

So didn’t most of the attendees come from the USA and eatwhirled peas as baby Americans? Yes. But I believe that the localnatives benefited from being exposed to folks from far-awaylands. I was in a meeting in early October with an SMB productmanager who had just returned to the USA from 12+ yearsserving HP overseas. She commented that her work in EMEAtaught her that “everyone is different,” and that is assumed andrespected. When she returned home, she realized Americans arethe same. This theorem holds true and only underscores theimportance of having global citizens at events, such as our fallconference, to “shake things up.”

Global Facts Are Stranger Than Fiction!Did you know?

• Most content-track speakers came from Canada. This istrue and reflects the amazing intellects found just north ofour borders. It’s a long standing but little known fact thatMicrosoft recruits more employees from WaterlooUniversity in Canada than from Harvard in the USA.

• Weak US Dollar (USD) promoted significant internationalattendance. Perhaps you don’t care much for worldeconomic activity. Fair enough. But as a successful SmallBusiness Specialist, it’s likely you’ll reward yourself withan international vacation at some point in your career.Bravo! At that time, if the US dollar remains as weak as itis, you’ll suffer severe sticker shock! It is very expensivefor Americans to travel overseas right now (hopefully thatwill change in the future). Conversely, the foreignattendees at our event found the experience to be verymodestly priced (I won’t say cheap) and that implicitly

underwrote and boosted global participation. It’ssimple math. SBSers follow value.

Quick StatsSo what did the customers think? We took a

quick peek at the survey results from the overallconference survey and found that we scored in thehigh sevens out of a possible nine, which puts usin the B+ range. Over 2/3 of the attendees werenew to this conference which was truly exciting!Over eight out of ten participants scored “peer-to-peer networking” (meeting fellow professionals,not using the old Windows For Workgroups 3.11product) to be of the highest value at theconference (business training followed at 74

percent). Nearly six out of ten attendees will enthusiasticallyrecommend this conference to others and 56 percent wereALREADY Small Business Specialists.

So there you have it – now time to get back to work andputs these “learnings” to the test. See you next issue.

Next Survey: Home Server! Please talk to us about Home Server. We would like

to know your opinion about it. What does it mean to you as a business opportunity? Please click over to www.smbnation.com and provide your answers. Thank you! �

ABumper Snickers!

Perceptions by Harry Brelsford

1. Australia2. Canada3. Dominican Republic4. Germany5. Ghana6. India7. Ireland8. Jordan9. Netherlands10. Philippines11. South Africa12. Taiwan13. United Kingdom14. USA

We’ve got the whole world in this figure, allowing you to graphically see the distribution of international attendees.

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


Customer Focus by Jeff Wuorio

s a small business specialist, there’s little doubt thatyou’re familiar with the exploding world of blogging.Chances are good that you have a blog of your own,

where you share your opinions and ideas on a variety of topicswith others throughout the Internet.

But consider what blogging might be able to offer to yourbusiness. If blogging to you has been more of an avocationthan a professional activity, read on to find out the variety ofopportunities that a business-related blog can offer.

1. Introduce your customers to a new or little-known productor idea. You’ve probably been through this drill before. Youoffer a terrific new service or a product that's likely to knockyour customers straight out of their wing tips. Trouble is, howdo you let them know?

Enter a blog. By posting information about anything newor particularly interesting, you’re establishing a steady flow ofcommunication between you and prospective customers.Notice that this isn't one way. Since blogs allow readers to postfeedback and questions, you’re immediately engagingprospects in a sales dialogue that may eventually proveprofitable.

Moreover, it can prove highly efficient from a timestandpoint. Rather than your making the time and effort topitch your product or service to a client who may not need it,a blog effectively supplants you as an information source. If aprospect contacts you with an urge to do business, great. Ifnot, you’ve wasted no time in explaining something thatgenerates nothing in return.

2. By blogging, you’re helping to create a more educatedconsumer. A smart customer is usually your best customer. Heknows what he wants and where it fits into their business, andhe can engage you in intelligent discussion.

Without adequate information, many customers maycontact you without an inkling of what they need or how toeven go about asking the right question.

A blog steps into this information breach by offering aconsistent means of interaction with your customers. Whilesome of your blog may be sales-related, other elements may bepurely informational, such as tips and advice that customerscan use to better operate the products you sell. And, bymaking your customers better informed, you’re building apotentially stronger customer base at the same time.

3. A blog helps maintain contact. Clients can come and go forall sorts of reasons, but one sure way to lose a client is to losetouch. Once you’re out of a customer’s mind, it’s alwayspossible that he may look elsewhere for the products andservices that you offer. A blog is an easy and effective way tostay in a customer’s headlights. No matter how often you postto a blog – be it daily, weekly or even less frequently – the factthat you’re in ongoing communication with clients help placeyou front and center in their awareness. That means that when

the time comes when a product or service may provenecessary, you will be the first thought in their minds.

4. Look to a blog for customer feedback. Far too often, manyof us do the wrong things often – time and time again—without ever knowing that we’re doing it. A blog can help fillthat hole. Blogs that solicit reader comments can provide asense of immediacy with your customers, providing a readysource of feedback on what you’re doing right and what youneed to polish. That can boost your business in all sorts ofways, from correcting problems and missteps before theybecome major headaches to providing valuable informationand insight that may be useful in marketing and salescampaigns.

5. Position yourself as an expert in an industry or field. Okay,you know your stuff inside and out. If that’s so, use your blogto let others know just how much you know.

Blogging can prove an implicitly effective marketing toolto establish yourself as an authority in your field. Not only canthat generate leads, it also sends a positive buzz about yourcredentials through the marketplace. That can also lead to avariety of media opportunities, such as a newspaper ortelevision station contacting you for insight or a comment on arelated topic.

For lack of a better way of putting it, blogging is also aneffective way to vent. If you’re concerned or upset aboutsomething in the field—perhaps you’re aware of some ratherunscrupulous business practices that you think your clientelewould do well to know about—your blog can be a terrific wayto let others know how you feel. Not only can that let you blowoff some steam but, once more, you position yourself as amember of your community with something valuable to say.That, in effect, lets you become your own media outlet,bypassing more traditional venues to talk directly to thepeople who will likely take an interest in what you say.

6. A blog can boost your search engine rankings. While muchof your business may come via more traditional routes, such asreferrals from satisfied clients, you may also rely some on theInternet to generate contact with customers. Once more,blogging fills the bill. As any company with a position on theInternet realizes, hits via Google, MSN and other searchengines can provide a groundswell of leads. Blogs can addfurther leverage to the frequency with which search vehiclesidentify you and your company, particularly if your blogallows readers to post a response. Since search engines tend tofavor larger web sites, the more readers respond to your blog,the bigger, in effect, your site becomes. Tacking on additionalkeywords that search engines can identify will also increaseyour blog’s effectiveness. �

Jeff Wuorio is a business author and columnist. He can be reachedat [email protected]

ABlogging for Business

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


Partnering

re you looking to improve your business andprofessional life? Some of us are content withwhere we are at while others want to grow their

businesses. If you are happy and content, this article will beof no interest to you. So please stop reading this right now!For all of you who are serious about growing your businessand are experiencing the "forgetting to drain the swampbecause you are up to your backside in alligators”syndrome, please feel free to continue.

Do you ever get really fired up during a conference orworkshop session, telling yourself, “Yes that is what I need;when I get back to the office I am going to implement this,”and then find yourself answering e-mails and phone callsinstead, and one week later the conference notes are buriedsomewhere in a corner while you are busy keeping up withbusiness and life? I am not suggesting that you have aproblem holding yourself accountable, so stop beatingyourself up. I think we all have fallen victim to this at onetime or another. Setting goals and tackling new hurdles byyourself is like trying to score a touchdown by running

down the entire field, facing the opposite team on yourown. How high are your chances of really scoring?

Arlin Sorensen, CEO of Heartland TechnologySolutions (HTS), was keenly aware of this feeling andnoticed a lack of peer groups in the mid-market space(defined by 50-250 seats, according to Sorensen). With goalsetting and achievements in mind, he started the first HTGPeer Group in 2001. On top of the agenda werecollaboration and sharing of best practices, and measuringsuccess. Today there are nine peer groups nationwide, witheach group being made up of 12 members. An HTG peergroup doesn’t collaborate on technical bits and pieces; theyare strictly for business owners. Members of the group meetevery quarter for two days, and may bring a C-level personfrom their business depending on the topic of the day. Theyspend about 10 hours each day in sessions, followed up byevening activities. During the two-day meetings, three goalsare set, which will have to be fulfilled before the nextmeeting. Members are accountable to one another – inevery meeting they have to produce a number of documentsand proof points showing that they achieved their goals.

In order for group members to be able to trust eachother, the peer group will not allow any kind of competitorwithin a group and members must sign a non-competecontract. “These groups are all built in silos because of thecompetitive nature of the business so each group has theirown group site and collects their own data and information,but it’s not shared outside the 12 members,” says Sorensen.HTG has a screening process for new members, which startsby having them fill out an online survey and continues allthe way to discussing the prospect’s desire to grow his orher business. “If it’s a lifestyle kind of business, this isn’t thegroup for them,” says Sorensen, “Because we very muchpush people to grow.”

Each group has its own agenda and it is different everyquarter. At each meeting, the group members submit thetopics they would like to talk about during the next meeting.“It’s totally member-controlled and driven, we aren’tbeholding to any vendors or to anybody outside of the wallsof their community. It’s all about building the community of12 partners that really invest in each other. That is where wereally see the impact … they literally get involved in eachother’s business to a level that it really matters.”

What if one of the members starts to slack? “If a partnerdoesn’t show up or doesn’t fulfill his quota he’ll be votedout of the group,” says Sorensen.

AStaying on the Ball

by Beatrice Mulzer

My participation inHTG has been one of thekeys to managing thegrowth in my business. I have been able to learnfrom the other businessowners in my group howthey have handled similarsituations, which havemade it simpler and morestraightforward for me.I’ve also found the

discipline of setting quarterly goals and communicatingthose to the group has helped one execution not leastbecause of the accountability of having to report backprogress at the next meeting. I would highly recommendHTG to any technology business owner who wants toaccelerate the growth and success of their business.

Dan HayCEO, isoutsource.com www.isoutsource.com

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:36 PM


Sorensen also launched an online “entry-level version” ofthe HTG Peer Groups method for a select group ofparticipants during SMB Nation 2007. “It is not going tohave the face-to-face community peer building but also itwill not cost as much to travel and spend time away fromthe office either.”

This idea is designed to support and reinforce topicsfor attendees who visited one or more of the Pocket MBAbusiness sessions at SBM Nation. Using monthly LiveMeeting training and having each peer group meetmonthly online to talk about the topics for the next sixmonths will help drive home the things they learned atSMB Nation. Participants will have an assignment tocomplete and should implement what they have learned atthe conference. Sorensen adds, “Microsoft stepped up andif people fulfill the six assignments they are going to get afree copy of SBS. It’s definitely worth their time and energyto do the work; besides it’s the right thing to do for theirbusiness anyway.”

Going through the six-month stages after the conferenceis akin to tackling the big goal one ten-yard line at a timewith a team. What a great way to reinforce newly-learnedconcepts. We’ll look forward to reporting on the results in afew months. And if you would like to be part of a winningteam and really commit to the big league, go towww.htgmembers.com to learn more and join a peer group.

So what makes Sorensen tick? “Passion, I love to teachand educate and the industry has been good to me and Ihave learned a lot from others so it’s a way for us to giveback and help grow the next leaders. We learned it in theschool of hard knocks. We didn’t have it figured out whenwe got started and it has changed over the years. Todaywe’ve got a lot of things figured out and continue to, basedon the needs of the members. We didn’t have it when westarted and it’s taken six years to figure it out.”

The moral of the story: If you want to advance the ball,join a team! �

HTG-All-Session: Members from all peers groups get togetherwhen at a conference, where they tackle different problems or

opportunities as a group.

Being part of a peergroup became a goal ofours after a corporateretreat identifiedlimitations in our keypersonnel related tobuilding our company toscale to the next level.

With issues like HR, training, legal, product/servicemix, vendor relationships, finances…all becomingmore critical in order to support year over year growthrates >30%, it became clear that we needed to interfacewith companies who have worked through some ofthese problems in order to leverage their successes andsidestep the pitfalls. Now with 25 people and over $3million in revenue, we feel confident in our growthstrategies and the business decisions we're makingtowards those goals.

As for my personal life, without sound financials,key staff development, and process improvement Idon't think I'd have one. The HTG Peer groupcontinually reinforces the need we have to develop ourpeople to their fullest potential and to refine processesto improve performance, all designed to drive clientexperiences beyond expectations…and inevitably bringprofit to the bottom line so that we can do it againtomorrow. In our company there isn't a single aspectthat's totally dependant on any one individual -including me. Knowing that our clients, ouremployees, and our families don't have to worry ifsomething happens to me or anyone else is verycomforting. These days sleep comes easier and theroses smell better, no question.

We might never have made it this far without ourHTG Peers.

Dan ShundoffPresident/CEO, Intellicom

www.intellicominc.com

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM


ales contests are important ingredients in exceedingyour revenue targets, building high-performing salesteams and even creating the right organizational

culture-one that's both sales-driven and fun. Different types of contests can help you achieve different

goals. Some should be held annually to address salesobjectives, company business strategies and potential seasonalfluctuations. Others can be scheduled as needed to help launchnew products or services, promote new releases or upgrades ortie into larger Microsoft campaigns. Still others are short-termincentive games designed to motivate sales personnel toaccomplish specific objectives by a specific deadline.

Following are some typical goals and ideas for conteststhat may help achieve them:

• Increasing sales volume. Consider adding a cashbounty for each additional new seat or license soldbeyond a certain target. Set a quarter-to-date objectiveabove your sales goal; that way, everyone on the teamcan win.

• Improving customer service. Periodically survey yourentire customer base. If satisfaction reaches a certaingoal (for instance, when 95 percent of your clients saythey're "highly satisfied"), and if your company isprofitable, everyone gets a cash bonus.

• Acquiring new clients. To boost the number of newclients you add each quarter, consider creating a"bounty bonus" plan. For example, salespeople earn abounty bonus -- either in cash or in points that can beredeemed for rewards-for each new client or eachcompetitive replacement of a specific vendor'scustomer. In addition, you could offer bounty bonusesfor salespeople who exceed their quarterly or annualquotas for new accounts. You might even post "wanted"posters -- with the bounties prominently displayed-tohelp keep salespeople focused on contest objectives.

• Overcoming seasonal slumps. If your sales typicallyslow down over the summer, try launching a salesprospecting activity contest in March, April and May.For example, award sales team members points foreach new face-to-face call or sales demonstration thatthey make during those months, with accumulatedpoints eventually eligible for prizes. Such an effort cango a long way toward increasing the number ofopportunities in the pipeline from June throughAugust.

Following are some issues to keep in mind as you plan salescontests:

• Determine what you want the contest to accomplish.Will it add incremental new business levels or simplyshift future orders to a nearer term?

• Set the ground rules. Are all sales executives on anequal basis for the contest? Can everyone win-or justcertain team members?

• Make the contest length the same as the sales cycle. A30-day sales contest won't be effective because, ofcourse, all prospects are already in the pipeline, readyto close.

• Set specific goals that can be measured weekly ormonthly. Create a visible tracking tool to show theresults.

• Incorporate an exciting theme. If your top prize is adream vacation, post pictures of the destination andbuild your annual sales slogan or motto around thegoal of winning that trip.

• Consider making rewards gifts, rather than cash.Salespeople may want you to “show them the money,”but, in truth, cash bonuses are typically wasted andsoon forgotten. Instead, try awarding somethingtangible, whether it's a laser pointer, a gift certificate toa local store or an expenses-paid weekend getaway.

• Boost team members' motivation by getting theirfamilies involved. For long-term games involvingsignificant gifts or major trips, send rules and teasergifts to salespeople's homes after announcing thecontest at work. Send congratulatory letters to winners'homes as well.

• Never run contests to the last day of the month orsales period. Halting them five days before the endallows time for making your month's objectives. If allgoes well, you'll exceed your targets -- with nearly aweek to spar. �

Ken Thoreson is managing director ofthe Acumen Management Group Ltd.,a North American consultingorganization focused on improvingsales management functions withingrowing and transitional organizations.You can reach him [email protected].

S

Playing to Win: Using Sales Contests to Hit Your Goals

Goals and ideas for growing sales organically – and adding some fun to the process.

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM


Tech Corner

icrosoft has provided best practices analyzers formany different products - for example, Exchange,SQL and ISA Server. Because 80% of all faults are

“manmade,” the BPA is supposed to cover misconfiguredservers and systems. It is a very nice tool for different usersand for different reasons. Best practices analyzers arebasically very good and they get better over time. In an SBSenvironment they’re even more important than in otherconfigurations. We run Active Directory, Exchange Server,SharePoint, Windows Server Update Services, SQL 2005 andsometimes ISA server, all on the same box. Some of thesecomponents are also dependent on each other. There isalways a risk of that something will go wrong.

The time has come for all customers, IT pros, and ITgeneralists to get the the new assistant in the hunt formisconfigured SBS Servers - Small Business Server BestPractices analyzer. Although this application is still in BETAand not available for download yet, it wont be very hard tofind. Every blogger is going to write about and Microsoft willdo some commercial promotion around it. This BPA is basedon the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer but has beentweaked and modified for SBS.

So, what can you use the SBS BPA for? Well, you can doa lot of things if you just know how to use it. So let me showyou how it looks and feels.

When you first start SBS BPA up, you will get a startupscreen. Actually you will get a screen before this where theSBS BPA offers to download the latest .XML file. That’s agood thing to do; these .XML files contains all the stuff thatthe BPA is checking. In figure 1 you can see the rules thatcollect information about the operating system. It also reportsback if the OS version is older than SP2. As you see, it isimportant to update these .XML files, otherwise they willbecome obsolete.

Figure 1

The Startup Screen is not very difficult to understand(trust me, it cannot be misunderstood) In Figure 2, you cansee how it looks and the settings. You have two options here:

• Select options for a new scan.o With this option you start a new scan and you have

to type in a name for that scan.• Select a Best Practices scan to view.

o With this option you can view, print and export a previous scan.

Figure 2

Let’s “select options for a new scan” so that we can startdoing some serious analyzing. The only thing we need to dois to type in a name. I recommend using a standard for scannames, like date-customername-servername or somethingsimilar. When you select a report to view at a later time, theonly thing you can see is the “name.”

Figure 3 – Selecting a nameWhen you press,

“Start scanning,” theapplication startsscanning the system,as shown below. It checks against the .XML file to see ifeverything is OK. It checks .Net, Exchange, Hardware(including BIOS), hard drives, Nics, OS, SBS components,SharePoint and a lot more.

Figure 4 – Scanning

by Mikael Nyström

M

SBS 2003 Best Practices Analyzer

Download the SBS BPA athttp://tinyurl.com/2jpz2f

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM


When the scanning is done we can look at the report byselecting it. And in my case I have some Critical Errors, as youcan see. There is one important thing here to remember, andthat is that the view you first see ONLY shows the “CriticalErrors,” not the other “errors” as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5

By selecting “All Issues,” (see Figure 6), I get thecomplete list of potential problems. I say “potential,” becausethere are situations where a couple of yellow markers couldbe absolutely OK. This is just a Best Practices Analyzer; youneed to read and understand what it says before making anychanges.

Figure 6

As you see, there are more issues than the two Criticalones. (Just so you get me right here, this is NOT myproduction machine ☺.) Let’s open the first one of these andsee how to proceed. It tells me that SBS only supports one ortwo NICs and I have been stupid enough to add more NICsto this SBS box. That’s not supported, and that explains whythe CEICW doesn’t work when I run it. So this warning is a,“We don’t support that config, it may work, but…” as shownin Figure 7.

Figure 7

This is another one. It explains that I have TaskOffloading enabled. This configuration can be a problem andyou should disable it. It also provides a link to a KB article.The “Do not show me this again for all instances,” option issomething you should be very restrictive about using. Thereare also different ways to view the report. There is one optioncalled List Reports (the default), one called Tree Reports andone called Other Reports. (I wonder how long time it tookthem to figure out the name “other”…)

Figure 8

If you select “Tree Reports,” you can see a “DetailedView” and a “Summary View.” If you want to see it all, select“Detailed View.” As you can see, there is a “Print report”button. Before I tried this, I thought that if I printed thisscreen, all the information would expand properly, but itdoesn’t. So if it looks like this in Figure 9 and you print:

Figure 9

… it will look like this when printed ☺:

Figure 10

That means that you need to expand every piece ofinformation you need. Of course, you have the option toexport the .XML files and use them in other applications.

If you “expand” the view or use the summary it will lookmuch nicer as shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11The only thing I have found to be negative so far is that

there are no command line capabilities in the product rightnow. Hopefully they will understand the need for that andthrow it in before RTM or at a later time. My recommendation

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM


is to use this tool as soon as possible. Continue to use it so thatyou can be sure that your configuration is following BestPractices according to Microsoft product team for SBS and

PSS. For all of you working with managedservices, this tool should probably be a part of thedaily/weekly/monthly check. One thing that Iwant to remind you of is that you should notfollow every recommendation withoutunderstanding why Microsoft thinks the changeshould be made and what impact you will have onthe system if you change the configuration. If youneed a tool that is more focused on security issues,you should try the new Microsoft BaselineSecurity Analyzer 2.1 (still in BETA). The MBSA isa better tool for security analysis. You candownload the new BETA version from MicrosoftDownload. �

Mikael Nyström is a Microsoft MVP in WindowsServer – Setup/Deployment. He is active in theSwedish SBS community and newsgroups. Mikaelis a trainer and seminar speaker. He works on largenetwork solutions involving Virtual Server, MOM,

SMS, BDD, Exchange, and collaboration solutions. But in hisheart there is a Small Business Server.You can reach Mikael at [email protected]

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM

f new sales and high profits are the lifeblood of anybusiness, then lead generation is the heart pumping italong.But as important as it is, generating qualified leads is

one of the most difficult and misunderstood marketingfunctions in the IT world. I subscribe to many industrypublications and haven’t seen a really well-done leadgeneration ad in over five years – not ONE. With so fewgood examples to follow, it’s no wonder this industry is sobereft of great marketing.

But I’m about to change that.First, let me explain what a good lead generation

campaign is and what it should do. The purpose of a leadgeneration campaign is to:

1. Get highly-qualified, ready-to-buy-prospects toseek you out and request more information orinteraction with you.

2. Position you as the go-to expert in your town,industry, or market.

3. Educate the prospect to lower or eliminate priceresistance and (again) position your solution,services, or products as the best possible option.

4. Pre-frame the prospect to eliminate commonobjections and set up the sale.

To accomplish the above, you need an offer for a“thing” that will be of high value to the recipient, have lowto no risk to request, and further the sale via an educationalsales pitch. This can be in the form of a free teleseminar,audio CD, report or guide, in-person seminar, networkaudit, etc.

But be warned: Offering a “free” thing (appointment,network audit, seminar, report, etc.) is only marginallyeasier than selling a service someone should pay forbecause you are asking someone to take time from theirout-of-control busy life to be inconvenienced, interrupted,or put into a situation where they may feel uncomfortableand intimidated. They know they are eventually going tobe “sold” something – and since most people don’t likeconfrontation, they choose to do nothing rather than putthemselves into a situation where they might have to sayno. Therefore, you have to SELL the free thing by listing thevalue the person will receive simply by consuming the freething, providing testimonials about the free thing (NOT

your company, products, or services), and scarcity (only 23will be made available).

More money is wasted in marketing and advertising byinadequately selling the free “thing” than any othermistake in direct marketing. Most ads, sales letters, or websites offer the free thing almost as an afterthought in theirads – but if you want to be really successful in generatingan abundance of high-quality leads, your offer has to be theentire focus of the campaign. This means you should nottry to sell (or even mention) the other products and servicesyou offer in the initial communication.

Yes, it’s a proven fact that this works. If you try to offer, sell, or even mention other products

and services in the same campaign or communication, itwill lower response. To paraphrase an old saying, you can’tkill two rabbits with one stone. In marketing, offering,featuring, or talking about more than ONE product, serviceor thing will lower your response.

Your campaign – whether it’s direct mail, Web sites, e-mail, radio or newspaper ads – should focus every word,phrase, and picture on one single accomplishment: gettingthe reader to request the free “thing” you are offering andnothing else. Once you get them to respond to THAT, thenyou can sell them on the additional steps to eventuallymaking the BIG sale.

Think of it like rungs on a step ladder. Stepping on eachrung is necessary to climb the ladder. Leave one rung out,or make the first rung too high to step on, and yourprospect won’t climb. Offering a free lead generation“thing” and then also trying to sell your services in thesame communication sets the first rung too high. Theprospects will only “see” the service and decide whether ornot they want or need that based on very limitedinformation and misconceptions they may have about you,your industry, or your services. This absolutely crushesyour chances of getting them to respond.

Now, let’s outline the lead generation ladder:Step 1: Read your communication. To accomplish this, youhave to make sure you are targeting the RIGHT list, withthe RIGHT offer. You also need to use proven directresponse marketing copy to get the prospect’s attention,build interest, and command immediate action. (“Copy”are the words on the paper…the headline, openingparagraphs, bullets, offer, etc.)

I

Secrets To Getting Pre-Sold,Pre-Qualified Prospects To Seek YOU Out

by Robin Robins Money Shaker


Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM

Step 2: Consume the free thing. Once you’ve been able toget someone to request your free thing, then you need tomake them consume it; meaning they have to listen to theaudio, attend the seminar, or read the report, which bringsme to the next critical rung in the lead generation ladder…

Step 3: Follow up. The second after a prospect requests afree “thing,” he is starting to cool off and forget about you.Fast and frequent followups and reminders are critical toget prospects to stay on the slippery sales slope. Followupwould include e-mail autoresponders, phone follow up,and the “thing” itself. When I send out the free CD offeredon my web site, the envelope reminds the prospect of whathe requested and re-sells the free CD. Then I have a seriesof e-mails, phone calls, and followup letters to get theprospect to listen to the CD, read the report, and buy, whichbrings me to another important point…

The free “thing” has to educate the prospect, eliminateobjections, and set up the sale. It can’t be information forinformation’s sake. We are already buried in a sea ofinformation so your communication has to be interesting,enlightening, and informative.

Again, this is why great direct response copy is socritical to your success. I believe that selling is equivalentto educating. Give me an educated prospect, and I’ll easilymake a sale for what I offer. Give me someone whodoesn’t understand or appreciate marketing, doesn’tknow what it costs to hire a copywriter or agency, ordoesn’t understand marketing math, and I’m going tohave a hard time convincing him of the incredible value Igive to my clients.

Same goes for you in your computer consultingbusiness. Don’t you find that the best customers are theones who understand the value and expertise you bringand the important role your service plays in the operationsand productivity of any business? If you get a prospect whoonly sees technology as an expensive, necessary evil, he’sgoing to constantly complain about price, undervalue yourservices, and have unrealistic expectations about what youcan – and can’t – do for them. That is why the free “thing”has to educate.

Now, let me give you some additional pointers togenerate a higher response from ANY lead generationcampaign, online or offline:

1. The title of your free thing is VERY important. The“Ultimate Success Secret for ComputerConsultants” is a title of a free report I give to mynew clients. The name makes you curious to read it.Here’s another: “The 27-Point Problem Prevention

Audit.” While this is a sales call, if you call it a “freeconsultation,” you won’t get as many responses.

2. Include a picture of the free thing. I found thatincluding a picture of the free CD on my Web sitealmost tripled conversion. And, every time I’vedone this with a client’s marketing, it hasdramatically boosted response. If it’s a free reportyou are offering, include an image of a free report.Any graphic designer can easily do this for you.

3. Give a free gift for responding. For example, manyseminar promoters who use a free seminar to selltheir services offer to give attendees a free day-planner and calculator, books, and lunch. You mightoffer a free wireless mouse with every free audit, orfree computer speakers for being one of the first 10to respond.

4. Build urgency. An offer without urgency is not agood offer. Use deadlines, scarcity (only 12available) or both.

5. Clearly communicate the VALUE or benefitsprospects will receive by consuming the free offereven if they never do business with you. Again, it’sall about what’s in it for them. If the biggest benefitto responding to your offer is that they will learnmore about your business, what you do, and otherfacts about your business, that’s a benefit only toYOU. To sell the value, bullet list what they willlearn and include testimonials about the free thing(NOT your services). You might even want to put aguarantee on the free thing: “If you don’t feel agreater sense of relief after allowing us to audit yournetwork for lurking disasters, hidden viruses, orother pending problems, we’ll donate $50 to yourfavorite charity.” �

Robin Robins is an independent marketing consultant, salestrainer, and author who specializes in unusual and highlyeffective marketing strategies for small VARs, SolutionProviders, MSPs, and IT consulting firms. Robin runs thelargest sales and marketing coaching program in the world forsmall computer consultants. Under this program, Robin givesher members done-for-them marketing campaigns,newsletters, web sites, and other campaigns to drive new sales.She also provides ongoing strategy and coaching to help hermembers significantly increase their income and profits whilereducing the number of hours they work in their businesses.


Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM


e have all heard one story or another – aboutcompany culture and how hard it is to change.It is a known fact that companies with an

adaptive culture outperform competition; but culture notonly makes a company, it can also break a company.

Josie Kocsis, President of Working World(www.workingworld.ca) was well aware of thechallenges lying ahead when she made the decision totake her company from being a training provider tobeing a managed services provider. I met Josie for thefirst time at SMB Nation East in 2006, when word was outthat a “van full of Canadians” had driven ten hours fromToronto, Ontario, Canada, to the conference in Islandia,New York! Not that this long border-crossing trip to theUSA was something unexpected of Canadians, eh, butthe fact that a crew consisting of six people agreed to bestuck together in a van for this long was enough cause forme to investigate this matter further.

Turns out that the year before, Keith Benedict, theSenior Technical Manager at Working World, hadattended SMB Nation 2005 in Redmond and hadreturned with lots of materials from the conference.Keith and Josie had sat down and put together a proforma business model on becoming a managed servicesprovider and had started to chat with some of theirclients. “The very first client we presented to – youknow, we put together some information we presented

to one client – we won that client right away. We werelike, wow this is going to work, right? So we decided asa company we wanted to make that change but nobodyreally understood what we were trying to do – not in abig way,” says Josie.

So the decision was made to go to SMB Nation East(2006) with six team members from sales, marketing,and others who were really involved at themanagement level so they, “Could really understandwhat we were hoping to accomplish with managedservices.” Up to that point in time, Working World hadbeen a training provider. In order to achieve their goalof becoming a managed service provider, WorkingWorld had to implement organizational changes andget everyone aboard.

Sure enough, the following year, seven staffmembers of Working World got into the van for anotherten hour drive to Islandia, New York to attend SMBNation East (2007). “When we left last year, we definitelywere all aboard and started to really implement that[change]. This year we made the decision that we weretotally going to stop training and really make a move tojust being a managed services company. We drove there(SMB Nation East) to help the rest of our staff to get onboard and really understand absolutely everything andallow them to transition, so that they understood. Someof the staff that came this year were different than the

staff that came last year; some werethe same to reinforce [the concept].”

“It took about 18 months to geteveryone on board,” says Josie. “Oncewe had the vision, it was a very easytransition. We began with a test groupof clients and did very well. To haveeveryone transition took a little longer.Taking everyone to SMB Nationhelped the transition move muchquicker and got everyone on board somuch faster, in understanding whatwe were trying to accomplish.”

Working World also providedmaterials to assist with the studying,held frequent staff meetings to discuss

W

Global Perspective

All Aboard!A Company’s Odyssey to Managed Service Provider

Everyone aboard in the Mobile Command Center!

by Beatrice Mulzer

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM


issues people encountered during the transition andencouraged staff members to participate in Microsoftand other events to truly learn about what was availableto them. While all this was in transition, Working Worlddidn’t miss a beat and went out to their existingcustomer list. “We’ve been a training center forever,”remarks Josie. “So the clients we are targeting right noware clients that have been our customers from thetraining end. We have rapport with close to 2000 clients.And as we target these clients we are finding that mosthave a pain point or something goes wrong and they go,‘You know, you would be perfect to help us solve that.’Anybody that has a real pain point we almost winalmost immediately.”

So how did Working World approach announcingthe change in service offerings to their customers? Josieexplains, “We use Robin Robins’ material and havemodified it for ourselves. We have an eight-page letterthat we send out. We follow that up with a fax, wefollow that up with an email and then we call them.”Once on-site, Working World will use the MicrosoftBusiness and Technology Assessment Toolkit to learnabout the company. “We ask them all the questions.Sometimes the business owners don’t know what we areasking so we have to do a little bit more digging to findall the information we need. We work very hard duringthe network audit process to build rapport with allclients. We give them information on what is working ontheir systems, how they can improve, and what is notworking. This is a full audit report. We believe theytrust us and are very happy with the information we aregiving; therefore, most choose our services almostimmediately.”

This method works so well for Working World thatthey ended up closing four new companies all on thesame day “…and panicked,” says Josie, “Because thatwas more than we felt we could handle. Those fourclients actually included server projects with them sothere were new server setups. A lot of new Officedeploys, and new workstations deployed. We won six[new contracts] that whole week. After that westepped back and went, okay, let’s re-look at ourprocess a little bit and redefine to make sure what weare doing is perfect.”

Currently Working World employs eight full-timestaff and one contractor, allowing for one full-time salesperson, four full-time technicians and one dispatchperson. Working World started out using ZenithInfoTech for the monitoring and is now in the process ofswitching to System Center Essentials on the client side

and the System Center full product in the office. Theyalready have a few test sites up now, and are moving tothis fully in the next few months. They are also usingConnectWise for business service automation.

Working World services mostly SouthwesternOntario, Canada, but also has clients with branch officesacross Canada and into the US. They have servicedclients worldwide including some in Australia,Mongolia and Europe. “With technology these days,there is no limit,” states Josie.

So what about managing the change? Josie admitsthat there were a lot of upfront costs as they wentthrough the transition and that mistakes were made. Allthat cost the business extra time. “But now our revenueis growing, and because of the residual, a client stays aslong as you service them well, so we will keepexpanding. This also forces us to find the next new thingand provide them with more services.”

Working World recently became a Microsoft GoldCertified Partner and became involved in a few of theMicrosoft-offered programs. This is the first time in yearsthat Working World is getting more actively involvedwith Microsoft and they can already see the benefits.

Josie also shared that Working World trulybenefitted by participating in conferences and eventswhere they gained new knowledge, learning from otherPartners who shared freely as well. “We would not bewhere we are today had it not been for them, and nowwhat excites us is, as we continue to expand, is that wealso have information to share on what works, whatdoes not work and best practices.”

So there you have it folks. To be truly effective in anorganizational change, model behavior must be drivenfrom the top. Which springs one more question – andhow exactly did you get everyone to agree to sit in a vanfor ten hours? �

The Working World Team

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM


et’s start with Managed Services. Wow, this is getting a lotof play in the industry. Here is why I think it is worthtalking about. It is really about evaluating your business

model. Are there times when you feel like you are just runningaround like crazy? Do you ask yourself, what did I accomplishtoday? A major inefficiency is the travel time to and from clients.This is called a Break-Fix or a “Reactive Mindset” model, justwaiting for the next problem or phone call, and then we dispatch.

Shifting the needle from reactive to “Pro-Active” andmoving towards a Managed Services approach will allow us tobecome more efficient. Using a pro-active solution includesusing a monitoring solution that allows you to not only seewhat is happening with your clients (Computers, Servers,Devices, and Network…), but also remediate any issues from aremote interface. As you are working remotely, your efficiencywill increase because you can do more than one client at a timewith multiple remote sessions. Travel will not be completelyeliminated but will be significantly reduced. It is about usingtools available to us to work more efficiently and effectively.

Speaking of tools, recently Microsoft launched the SystemCenter family which encompasses an entire suite of management products. http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/default.aspx. System Center Essentials(replacing MOM workgroup edition) is targeting the Small-Medium space as a single console IT management solution.Check out http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/essentials/

default.mspx and get the 90 day trial.As a Microsoft Partner, you are then able to take

advantage of the SPLA program and deploy RemoteOperations Manager at your site and start to aggregate your clients’ System Center Essentials deployments.https://partner.microsoft.com/global/productssolutions/servers/systemcenter/remoteoperationsmanager. Usingthese tools will enable you to pro-actively monitor andremotely administer your clients’ infrastructure.

How many times have you heard about Solution Selling?I definitely agree with the approach of not trying to sellProducts, but it is more than developing a solution. The keycomponent to any successful business venture is building trustand relationships. It is about listening to your customers’needs, as well as getting to know their businesses,understanding what makes them who they are professionallyand sometimes even personally; then developing a solutionfor their needs. This will build long-term relationships andhelp you become a trusted advisor. It is much more effective tospend time developing an existing customer’s relationshipthan to find and court new customers. Are you becoming atrusted advisor, or are you just cashing the checks and waitingfor the next person to call? It is your relationship with repeatcustomers that will help you build a sustainable practice.

For more information about these topics, as well as manyother resources check out http://www.ts2seminars.com.

TS2Nami

L

AL 10/16/2007 Huntsville

AR 12/4/2007 Rogers12/6/2007 Little Rock

AZ 10/23/2007 Tucson12/20/2007 Phoenix

CA 10/16/2007 San Jose10/18/2007 Sacramento10/25/2007 San Diego11/29/2007 Redding12/4/2007 Irvine12/6/2007 Riverside

CO 10/30/2007 Colorado Springs11/1/2007 Fort Collins

CT 10/23/2007 Farmington

FL 11/7/2007 Miami11/8/2007 Palm Beach12/11/2007 Fort Lauderdale12/13/2007 Tampa

GA 10/18/2007 Atlanta

HI 11/7/2007 Honolulu

IA 10/18/2007 Cedar Rapids10/25/2007 Davenport

IL 11/13/2007 Peoria11/15/2007 Rockford11/29/2007 Chicago

LA 11/7/2007 Baton Rouge11/8/2007 New Orleans

MA 10/25/2007 Boston

MI 11/29/2007 Detroit

MN 10/16/2007 Minneapolis

MO 10/30/2007 Springfield

NC 10/18/2007 Raleigh12/20/2007 Greensboro

NJ 12/4/2007 Atlantic City

NM 12/18/2007 Albuquerque

NV 11/29/2007 Las Vegas

NY 11/29/2007 Albany12/6/2007 New York

OH 11/27/2007 Cincinnati12/11/2007 Columbus12/13/2007 Cleveland

PA 10/30/2007 Pittsburgh11/1/2007 Philadelphia11/27/2007 Allentown

RI 11/15/2007 Providence

SC 10/16/2007 Greenville

TN 11/1/2007 Memphis12/18/2007 Chattanooga12/20/2007 Knoxville

TX 10/23/2007 Dallas10/25/2007 Houston12/11/2007 Fort Worth12/13/2007 Austin

UT 11/27/2007 Provo

VA 12/18/2007 Vienna

VT 11/13/2007 Burlington

WA 11/13/2007 Tacoma11/15/2007 Seattle

WI 11/27/2007 Milwaukee

WY 11/7/2007 Cheyenne

Upcoming Live Events:

by Bryan Von Axelson

Buzz Words: Managed Services,System Center, and Solution Selling

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM

Oct 2007 10/19/07 4:37 PM

oct 2007

Documents