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Amanda McCluney

Customer Success   |   Read

Tips on Identifying Your Ideal Customer, with Richard Tubb

Join us on August 27th at 10:30am EDT (3:30pm BST) for Tips on Identifying Your Ideal Customer. During this 45-minute webinar our co-Founder and CEO, Eric Dosal, will be joined by Richard Tubb, one ...
Join us on August 27th at 10:30am EDT (3:30pm BST) for Tips on Identifying Your Ideal Customer. During this 45-minute webinar our co-Founder and CEO, Eric Dosal, will be joined by Richard Tubb, one of the most well-known consultants in the British Managed Service Provider (MSP) business. As the former owner of a MSP business, Richard understands the challenges IT business owners face every day and can help you to overcome them while retaining what's left of your precious sanity. We’ve worked with Richard on other topics in the past (Internal Metrics that Matter for MSPs) and the feedback was excellent, so we knew it was time to bring him back again for an in-depth discussion on a challenge that many Service Providers face - how to choose the right customers for your business. During this discussion, we’ll cover several specific topics so that you walk away truly understanding which customers deserve your precious time and energy: Understanding the different types of customers Red flags in the Sales Process How to spot a bad customer Finding a customer’s budget and so much more! Whether you’re the MSP owner or the person in charge of sales, you’ll walk away ready to implement proven techniques from an industry veteran. To access the webinar recording, click the image below or visit: Tips on Identifying Your Ideal Customer.
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3 Benefits of Using Dashboards as a Sales Tool

As a newcomer to the world of software and IT Services, I knew when I accepted the Inbound Marketing position at BrightGauge that it would be an incredible learning opportunity. So when our co-Founder and Product Manager, Brian Dosal, suggested that I participate in a few customer feedback calls I was excited to learn more about the benefits each customer sees - besides the obvious solution for creating reports and visualizing data. Nearly every customer we’ve spoken to so far has mentioned that they would love to know more about what their colleagues are doing with BrightGauge dashboards (point noted by yours truly). As I was taking notes and letting it all sink in, there was a pattern I noticed within the first few calls and I have to say it took me a bit by surprise. Our customers are making great use of Dashboards as a Sales Tool when signing up new clients for Managed Services. So in the spirit of kicking off our new efforts to share customer success stories, here are the 3 Sales Benefits the BrightGauge community sees as a result of having their dashboards on display: Quality Control Potential clients want to know how a MSP keeps tabs on the criteria as outlined in their contract. Think about it. Who comes to these Service Provider facility tours and makes the decision to sign up or keep looking? Chances are it’s a C-level group: folks who are up to their eyeballs in meetings, emails, paperwork and phone calls. With dashboards in place, it’s easy to keep a pulse on what’s happening and make any necessary changes in real time. It shows that a Service Provider is committed to tracking and maintaining performance and also ties into the time agreement of the SLA. Differentiation from the Competition In today’s market with so many options for IT Support it's important to stand out in the crowd and show your prospective customers you are different. Having dashboards up in your office shows that you take your service seriously and that you are on top of what your team is doing. You would be surprised at how often we hear this is a factor in a prospective client’s decision making process. Aesthetics Let’s be honest, it’s human nature to be drawn to things that look good and please our eyes. We’ve heard several of our customers say that while giving office tours to prospective clients, having dashboards on display helps with the vanity factor. They look cool, and having TV displays offers a modern take on the old spreadsheet charts and graphs from years ago. Dashboards impress those same execs because the data is current and updates every few minutes. Nucleus Networks displays several dashboards throughout their office It’s exciting to be able to share new ideas within our community, so I hope you’ll stay tuned as I continue rounding up notes from our customers about ways they’re using BrightGauge. Oh, and if you have an idea or a beautiful dashboard photo to share with our community? I can be reached at amccluney [at] brightgauge [dot] com. Want to learn more about Sales Best Practices? Hear about the lessons our co-Founder and CEO, Eric Dosal, learned while growing his MSP practice 10x in 5 years [free webinar download]:

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Adam Merille joins BrightGauge as Web Developer

We’re thrilled to announce that Adam Merille has joined BrightGauge as a Web Developer! The younger years As a Miami-area native, Adam spent his first university days at Miami-Dade College, where he graduated from The Honors College with a focus on Anthropology. After graduation, the world was calling to be explored so Adam took six months off and used that time to travel around southeast Asia in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma. It wasn’t long after his return that he felt the need to continue his studies and so he enrolled at The University of North Carolina where he would major in Global Studies with a focus on Asia and minor in Religious Studies. During this second school phase, Adam also participated in a study-abroad program allowing him to live in China for a semester. After his days at UNC, Adam accepted a job with Fidelity Investments as a Financial Representative, but realized after a while that it wasn’t his calling, so he resigned with a decision to learn more about programming. After some initial learning on his own, Adam enrolled at Florida International University for Computer Science. He studied a lot, signed up for any internships that came his way and even worked with BrightGauge on his senior project. Long story short, he is now the freshest face on the BrightGauge team! Looking to the future at BrightGauge Adam tells us he is excited to work with our team because we have fun while working hard. While he was looking for an opportunity to learn more about web development, he specifically chose BrightGauge as his home because of our company culture and because we have “a product that people love and the company is always trying to make it better” (we couldn’t agree more). Plus, working in a small company gives Adam much more exposure into the different aspects of the business while also enabling him to contribute in ways outside of the standard job description. Behind-the-Scenes scoop Outside of our office, Adam is most likely to be found reading books/articles, watching movies or of course traveling the world. Besides his stops in Asia, Adam has also spent time in Turkey, Austria, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Belgium, Guatemala and more. It’s safe to say that Adam loves trying new food and experiencing different cultures, whether he’s out leaving his mark on the world or right here in his hometown of Miami. Please join us in welcoming Adam to the BrightGauge team!
Customer Success   |   Read

Productivity Hack: How to Save Time with Dashboards

Time. It’s one of those elusive things that nearly every adult has on or near the top of their wish list. Along with trees that grow money and the fountain of youth, having more time in a day is like the grown-up version of a fairy tale. And since we don’t have any fairy godmothers hanging around to help cross those wild wishes off the list, we decided to focus on the tangible way to help save some of those precious hours during your workday - by using dashboards to manage your data. If you work in the IT Services industry, you know first-hand how much information and analysis is at stake when it comes to tracking open and closed tickets, servers online vs. offline, workstation disk space used, and the list goes on… all tying back into an SLA in many cases. So if you’re the one in charge of providing updates to your team and making sure everyone is on the same page, you understand the pain of logging into your RMM or PSA to run reports. Enter dashboards. On the rise in popularity over the last few years, dashboards are a huge time-saver because they give you, as the user, an automated and streamlined way to process huge amounts of data. But they aren’t just for making it easier to pull data. So popular are dashboards in all aspects of business, that Fortune recently featured an article full of advice from the acclaimed entrepreneur Verne Harnish about leading better meetings by using “...dashboard technology to keep up with the progress of projects in real time so you can devote your meetings to debate and decision-making…” Dashboards can also help companies save time by using the information at their fingertips more effectively. Each user has an overview of data at a glance, but one click gives them the ability to drill down into each metric or chart for more details. With a closer look at the information at hand, it’s easier to see negative trends and address them quickly. Aside from the time savings in a management and reporting perspective, dashboards will also enable your team to be more efficient. Your Sales team may be using dashboards to track how many more clients need to be closed to hit their goal for the month. Then your Service team will need a closer look at how many tickets are outstanding and which ones should be addressed first. While dashboards displayed on televisions around the workspace may look pretty awesome, there’s science behind using images to make faster decisions - the human brain processes an image 60,000x faster than reading text! Now that’s some food for thought when it comes to using images for data visualization!
Customer Success   |   Read

Rick Aquilia joins BrightGauge as Customer Success Specialist

BrightGauge is excited to welcome Rick Aquilia as a Customer Success Specialist! The Story Begins Like many folks who settle in south Florida, Rick grew up in New York as a resident of Long Island. After attending LIU Post, Rick joined Piping Rock Country Club where he spent time serving, bartending and most importantly fixing issues with their less-than-stellar computers. He moved to south Florida with his sights set on breaking into the software industry and had even heard about an opportunity at a growing, family-owned SaaS company. A New Chapter Rick initially joined our team as part of a short-term project, but he quickly proved that we needed him on board full-time at BrightGauge. He’s excited to be part of the team as he continues learning the industry and also “helping to push BrightGauge to the next level!”. As a Customer Success Specialist, Rick will spend the majority of his time helping with implementation support and building gauges as we continue to roll out our Default Dashboards and Reports program. On a side note, Rick may have the most amusing welcome to our team: in an unusually quiet moment in our cozy office, we planned a sneak-attack standing ovation as soon as he hit his chair on the last day of his project role. Poor Rick was startled so bad he was temporarily speechless while we all cheered about the awesome news he would be staying on board full time! Let’s Get Personal Outside of the office, Rick enjoys spending free time with his girlfriend. When their busy schedules allow it, traveling is a favorite hobby - California is a tried and true destination while Japan is # 1 on his wish list. We also know Rick is pretty serious about gaming in his downtime, going to weekly Street Fighter playing sessions in Miami’s Art District. You can also find Rick studying online courses to learn new things - especially in the programming realm as he works to establish himself in a new industry. We’re happy to have Rick as an official BrightGauger, and look forward to seeing him grow with the team!

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3 Key Themes We Learned at Schnizzfest 2015

Last week we had the honor of sponsoring the 2015 Schnizzfest Conference hosted by Gary Pica and the team at TruMethods. This is our 2nd time sponsoring a TruMethods event as last year we participated in their fall Winner’s Circle Peer Group Meeting. Schnizzfest did not disappoint this year and both Larry and I really enjoyed spending time with the TruMethods members. It’s safe to say our schnizzing is nearly perfected at this point and as always we walked away with several key themes that we wanted to share: Transparency & Sharing - By far, the majority of our conversations with attendees was around transparency. The common thread? Each leader wants to ensure that every member of their team knows where they stand at all times based on individual performance and to also see at a glance how the entire team is performing. Given that one of our main functions at BrightGauge is our dashboards, which help hold people accountable, we were very excited to learn more about the challenges each service provider experiences and then share ways that data visualization can help solve those challenges. Sales Focused - While most conferences we sponsor focus on operations and service management, Schnizzfest was a refreshing change because most of the people we met were either business owners or team members in sales / business development. I had several folks that wanted to learn more about the Sales Best Practices Webinar we hosted last month and our ongoing Sales Best Practices Blog Series. On a side note, these topics have been so well-received that we’re looking forward to bringing you more content soon in our ongoing Educational Webinar Series. Moving Up The Stack - The industry landscape known in years past to typical Service Providers is changing quickly, and this was a major theme of the conference which Gary brought up several times. Both MSPs and ITSPs are being commoditized and the services they are offering are being pinched on pricing. Gary’s suggestion for providers was to “move up the stack” and become a true business partner to their customers. Those who have adopted this mindset are thriving better than ever. Over the few days of the conference, I spoke with several people who have implemented some very unique ideas to move up the stack and present their business partnership as a valuable necessity rather than an extra support expense. All in all, Larry and I had a great time visiting with the TruMethods community and learning more about their goals and what they are focused on. We’re excited to continue the partnership and we look forward to more schnizzing and finding more ways to get integrated with the community.
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Sales Best Practices: How We Grew our MSP [FREE Webinar Download]

Watch Our Free Sales Best Practices Webinar: Lessons Learned from Building our MSP Back in action with another webinar geared towards Managed Services and IT Services Providers, the Growth Team at BrightGauge recently shared the tips and tricks they used to grow their MSP 10x in 5 years. Featuring our co-founder and CEO, Eric Dosal and joined by our Director of Sales, Larry Garcia, this 35-minute tutorial is another popular topic in our ongoing BrightGauge Educational Webinar Series. As the duo talks about ways to increase your closure rates and unlock growth at your MSP by implementing a sales process, they'll cover several topics to get you started today on an implementation at your company: Implementing a simple process that works How we increased our closure rates by 40%+ with our process Leveraging the "Rainmaker Approach" to sales The key metrics you should be following Locking in customers to 3-year contracts with annual increases Review of our simplified contracts To download click the image above or this link
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Kristian Munoz joins BrightGauge as Customer Support Specialist

The Team at BrightGauge is excited to welcome Kristian Munoz, our new Customer Support Specialist! Pre-BrightGauge Kristian was born and raised in Miami, FL and is currently attending Florida International University pursuing a Bachelor of Science Degree in Information Technology. Before his days at FIU, Kristian graduated from Doral Academy Preparatory School, where he later worked as a Computer Lab Supervisor/Mediator assisting students with their virtual courses and basic computer needs. His time at Doral Academy inspired Kristian to pursue his passion for computers and so he began working as an IT Support Specialist for NetaCorp Technologies. Here he provided contract technical services to a gamut of customers ranging from K-12 schools to corporate accounts. The gig gave Kristian the opportunity to immerse himself in the technological world, but more importantly he also gained hands-on experience in the customer service aspect of his career! Being part of Team BrightGauge As a recent addition at BrightGauge, Kristian looks forward to broadening his career into the software application portion of the IT world. While he’s hustling to earn his chops, Kristian will also work with our clients to provide support and guidance for all their technical needs with BrightGauge software. His favorite part about being on Team BrightGauge is getting to work alongside such a diverse team that strives to serve others just as much as he does - while still growing stronger together in the goal-oriented and family-style environment that we’re proud to keep in our office. After office hours When he’s not anchoring the BrightGauge Customer Support team, Kristian is a very family oriented young man with a passion for music and craft beer. If he is not spending time with his girlfriend or family, you will most likely find him attending/participating in music events or visiting local breweries here in south Florida. We say Cheers to Kristian and welcome to the team!

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How to Generate Powerful Autotask Reports

You know what clients love? Partners who are trustworthy and transparent about what they’re doing. Know what’s even better? When that foundation is set naturally, without clients having to ask. It’s likely a priority of yours to foster a really strong sense of trust between you and your clients, which is great. Trust breeds long-term relationships and repeat business, putting you on a path towards success. And a really simple, yet powerful way to build that trust is to get in the habit of consistently sending out client reports. It’s not as tedious or time-consuming as you may think, and the payoff is substantial. Determining what to report on Let’s say you’re using Autotask Professional Services Automation to track your support tickets, SLA data, engineers’ hours, and more. That’s some pretty important data! How do you show your clients what you do with that data to keep them running efficiently? This is where Autotask reports come in. Consistent reports give you the opportunity to visually display your value to your client and reinforce the reasons why they are paying you. Autotask reports also show that you’re proactive and committed to helping them run their business - a.k.a., you’re a partner, not just a service provider. However, while we are clearly in support of showing off your data management skills, we should caution against dumping too much Autotask data (or any data) on your clients. The key is to choose the right data. There are a few questions to ask yourself whenever you’re choosing the Autotask data to report on: How does this fit into my client’s SLA? Referring to the SLA you and your client agreed upon is an excellent way to refresh yourself on what matters to them. For example, if the SLA specifies a satisfactory support ticket response time, you’re going to want to include your Autotask Average Time to First Response on each report you send. Does this impact my client’s bottom line? Only include the Autotask data that’ll have the most impact to each specific client. They may not need to know nitty-gritty details like Hours Today by Engineer, but would probably appreciate an update on Projects Opened vs. Closed. Am I spending significant time on this? If it’s not something that matters a whole lot to you, it’s not likely to matter a whole lot to your client. Remember, this is an opportunity to report on your value, so show off Autotask data that you spend a worthwhile amount of time on. Once you’ve got your data ironed out, you can start pulling your Autotask reports together. A little help goes a long way You’re really busy. You don’t have 8-10 hours a week to spend on compiling reports. And no one says you have to. Using a business intelligence tool like BrightGauge can help you get your Autotask reports out with very little work on your end. First of all, BrightGauge takes all your Autotask data (plus data from your RMM, BDR, security, finance tool, etc) and puts it up on one seamless dashboard, so you can keep an eye on the metrics that matter to you in real-time. Then, when it comes to building reports, the whole process is automated and can be set up in just a few clicks. When you connect BrightGauge + Autotask, your account will come pre-loaded with 8 report templates to get you started, including Daily Member Scorecard, Weekly Project Work Summary, Service Calls, Sales Daily Wrap Up, and more. You can open one of these templates, personalize it with a client logo, choose your client recipient(s), and then schedule the report to automatically be sent out at the frequency you choose (like every Monday at 8 a.m.). If you’d rather build a report from scratch, it’s just a matter of dragging and dropping the data you’re already tracking into the report template, and then personalizing it and scheduling it out. It’s honestly that simple. And the reports look clean, professional, and digestible. Once you get your Autotask reports scheduled, you can rest easy knowing they’re automatically being delivered to your client’s inbox every week/month/quarter and that your client’s can rely on you and trust you to receive this information. High-five! By the way, in addition to 8 report templates, you’ll get almost 200 default KPIs and 9 pre-built dashboards to get you started. Some KPIs include: Amount on Invoices 90 Days Past Due Average Time to First Response Average Time to Resolution Breached SLA Summary Per Resource Customer Satisfaction This Month Leaderboard Opened vs Closed Tickets Project Phases - Current Month Tickets Assigned by Tech Tickets Completed This Week Leaderboard Tickets by Issue Type Watch this video to learn more about setting up and sending out reports. If you’d like to add Autotask to your stack of BrightGauge datasources, please contact us today.
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Dashboard of the Month: RMM Overview - Endpoints

Dashboards and reports play a vital role in streamlining data and extracting valuable insights. In the dynamic realm of endpoint management, it is imperative for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to have real-time access to consolidated data from their array of tools, enabling swift action on behalf of their clients. Utilizing metrics not only aids in pinpointing areas for enhancement but also empowers them to enact precise strategies for advancement. In this month's featured Dashboard, we delve into RMM Overview metrics tailored to streamline endpoint monitoring and management. Our inspiration stems from a recent user showcase webinar featuring Nate Ginn, the Centralized Systems Manager at ESI Technology Advisors, who shared insights on leveraging ConnectWise RMM and ConnectWise PSA data for enhanced client management. Tune in to Optimizing Remote Monitoring and Client Management with Data to discover more on how Nate drives performance enhancements through data utilization. Nate and the ESI team rely on the RMM Overview dashboard to gain a snapshot into critical indicators like patch status, warranty updates, and disk space utilization, guaranteeing optimal functionality of their endpoints. This visual aid, shared among their team, helps them stay ahead of RMM tickets for prompt issue resolution as well. RMM Overview - Endpoints - view here. Here are some featured metrics: Ticket & Configuration Information - These segments organize RMM tickets based on their status, time spent, and attached configurations. It also offers a historical perspective on ticket volume, and provides insight into the endpoints and software under your management. Patching & Disk Space Utilization - These metrics provide valuable insights on missing patches, OS patch compliance rates, and disk space utilization percentages. These data points are crucial for addressing performance concerns and identifying potential security vulnerabilities. Thank you, Nate, for collaborating with us and sharing your valuable insights! Recreate in your BrightGauge RMM Overview - Endpoints Dashboard (public view link) RMM Overview - Endpoints Buildout Key Make sure to visit our library of more report and dashboard templates and please feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com with any questions!
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Report of the Month: Service Desk 30-Day Summary

Managed Service Providers (MSPs) play a vital role in ensuring the smooth functioning of their clients' IT infrastructure. One effective way for MSPs to showcase their worth and maintain transparency is by crafting monthly client reports. These reports can spotlight important metrics around ticket volume, response and resolution times, and customer satisfaction ratings, illustrating their dedication to meeting service level agreements (SLAs). For June's Report of the Month, we are excited to present a Service Desk Summary Report inspired by a recent User Showcase Webinar on Client Reporting Excellence featuring Scott Kingston, the Service Delivery Manager at Spark in New Zealand. This 30-day summary offers a comprehensive view of the services delivered in the past month. Utilizing dynamic filtering capabilities in BrightGauge, this report can also display data from the previous month, tailored to your reporting preferences. Scott and his dedicated team at Spark NZ diligently distribute their Caretaker Plus Service Desk Report on a monthly basis, providing both interactive drill-down features and a downloadable PDF version for convenience. These reports offer a detailed backdrop for their regular meetings and consistently showcase the tangible advantages and improvements facilitated by Spark's exceptional services. This not only validates their pricing structure but also strengthens their reputation as a reliable and valued partner. Service Desk 30-Day Summary Report - view here. Here are some featured metrics: Ticketing Information - This section offers a concise overview of active tickets, the 30-day history of both open and resolved tickets, and key performance indicators such as resolution rates and customer satisfaction scores (CSAT). Ticket Trends - This section categorizes tickets to easily identify trends. For instance, metrics include tickets by type, subtype, item, source, and ticket opener. Additionally, it provides insights to highlight potential problematic tickets, such as those with extensive time entries and an aging ticket summary. Open Projects & Managed Servers - Concluding the report with a brief summary of ongoing projects and the effectiveness of managed servers opens up avenues for further improvements and additional tasks to be explored. Thank you, Scott, for collaborating with us and sharing your Caretaker Plus Service Report template! Recreate in your BrightGauge Service Desk 30-Day Summary Report (public view link) Service Desk 30-Day Summary Report Buildout Key Make sure to visit our library of more report and dashboard templates and please feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com with any questions!

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