It’s a Tuesday afternoon and you’re burnt out from sending quotes. You’ve been sending out quotes constantly for the last 3 months, but now you realize that you’re wasting your time. You’ve been ...
It’s a Tuesday afternoon and you’re burnt out from sending quotes. You’ve been sending out quotes constantly for the last 3 months, but now you realize that you’re wasting your time. You’ve been sending quotes to businesses that you’ll never win. On top of that, you found out last Thursday that you’ve lost a client to a cheaper, local competitor. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That’s because this is one of the most common issues that MSPs face, but what if I told you that this time next year, you could be turning down clients instead? If you’re ready to waste less time in sales meetings, win more business, and have clients of such high quality that you’re excited to pick up the phone when they call, here’s what to do: The Importance of Identifying your Ideal Customer One of the biggest mistakes MSPs make is failing to identify their ideal customers. Ultimately, there are 3 types of customers: The customers who are a joy to work with, respect your time and experience, and pay you on time. These are your ideal customers. The customers who are easy enough to deal with, mostly listen to what you and your team say, and almost always pay on time. These are your average customers. The customers who don’t value your advice, nickel and dime you on your quotes and invoices and don’t care to pay you on time (if at all). These are your bad customers. The key to closing more sales quotes is to prioritize selling to your ideal customers and to spot bad customers early enough that you don’t waste any time on them. That’s right, not every customer is the right customer! It’s important to note that the size of the customer and even the amount they will pay you is irrelevant. If they are a bad customer they will waste your time. How to Identify your Ideal Customer with BrightGauge Like many other aspects of business, identifying your ideal customer starts with data. With just 3 gauges, you can begin to identify your ideal customer: Top 10 Tickets per Endpoint Monitoring your top 10 tickets per endpoint will help you identify which customers create disproportionately large amounts of work for your MSP. In the image above, Al’s Coffee Shop is submitting 500 tickets, and you may be tempted to put them into the bad customer category, but you’ve got to dig a little deeper before jumping to conclusions. Say you have a customer with 1000 users and they submit 500 tickets. That breaks down to 2 end users per ticket, which is probably pretty profitable for you! Now let’s say you’ve also got a customer with 100 users who submits 200 tickets. That breaks down to 2 tickets per end user, which is not so profitable! It’s all about finding your sweet spot. Which customers have the best ratio of users to tickets? Lowest 10 Tickets Per Endpoint In addition to monitoring top 10 tickets per endpoint, you should take a look at your lowest 10 tickets per endpoint. Generally these will be your smaller clients who submit few tickets because they have fewer end users, but you may be surprised to find a few customers who have a large number of users but are in your lowest 10 tickets per endpoint. Spot the customers that are outside of your norm in both good and bad ways. This might be a sign that your team needs to spend more time with them as they might not be calling you for issues if they are off the normal “range” for your sweet spot. Effective Hourly Rate (EHR) Effective Hourly Rate is a metric that many MSPs measure, but few realize its true potential! While it may be tempting to look at your clients with the highest EHR and call those your ideal customers, it’s best to find a balance between EHR, Revenue and Hours. Your highest EHR clients may contribute a very small revenue, for example, and if you tried to only sell to those customers you’d not have enough revenue coming in to survive! At the same time, your highest revenue customer may have a low EHR, in which case pursuing these types of customers would result in very low profit margins. Once you’ve got those 3 gauges set up, you need to create a baseline. Monitor them over the course of at least 3 months and then start grouping customers by category. Create buckets for each type of customer: average, ideal, and bad. Once you’ve done this, take a look at your ideal customers and bad customers. What do the companies within these categories have in common? Here are a few examples of what to look for (but I encourage you to find as many trends as possible): Industry Number of end users Revenue (theirs, not yours) How much they pay you Number of workstations Number of servers Location The source they came from (Referral, Print Ads, Pay Per Click Ads, Blog, etc.) You should begin to identify what your ideal customers have in common. Once you’re armed with this information, you can create a buyer persona which reflects your ideal customer. This is who you will target and sell to. Similarly, you’ll want to look for the trends which your bad customers have in common. Use these to create a list of red flags which indicate that a customer will be a bad fit for your MSP. Avoid these customers like the plague. Once you’ve created those two documents, you can begin selling to the right customers while turning away the bad ones. By doing this you’ll be able to more effectively sell since you know who to be selling to. Learn More by Watching Our Video on the Subject: Taking the Necessary Steps Here are the 6 actionable steps you need to take to ensure you’ll stop losing sales quotes: Track your Top Tickets per Endpoint, Lowest Tickets per Endpoint, and EHR with BrightGauge. Identify customers that have abnormally high or abnormally low EHR and Tickets per Endpoint. Use this data to find your sweet spot (in other words, your ideal customer.) Create a Buyer Persona and a list of Red Flags. Begin to market and sell to your ideal customers more aggressively, while learning to identify red flags early in the sales process so you can turn away bad clients. Profit! Have any tips for growing sales and retaining customers that you didn't see here? Share them in the comments below!
After reading that data is the key to growing your business, you’ve spent hours every week poring over your sales data so that you can create plans to increase sales performance. You’ve put what you read into practice and are making data driven decisions. An increase in sales and growth must be right around the corner, right? Maybe not. Your Sales Reps still aren’t increasing their numbers and they don’t get it when you try to show them areas where they can improve. As a business owner, one of your biggest priorities is to grow the business by increasing the amount of sales coming in, but so far, you’ve not been able to improve upon your sales performance. So what’s the answer? Data Democratization: The Key to a Well-Performing Sales Team Data democratization, the process of sharing your data with everyone on your team, has the power to increase your sales team's performance by: Enabling sales reps to diagnose their own strengths and weaknesses Improving communication between you and your team, showing them when their actions lead to (or don’t lead to) results Improving your team’s decision making Changing the way your reps sell your product or service Boosting team confidence And more To give you an idea of just how powerful data democratization is, the team at BrightGauge has been able to break sales records and grow larger each year because our sales data is on a dashboard for everyone to see. Here’s how you can achieve similar results: Which Sales Metrics to Share What metrics do you share with your Sales team? Share all relevant and important metrics. For example you may want to share: Month to Date Sales Win Rate Lead Response Time Open Opportunities per Rep Average Deal Size Sales Cycle It’s important that you don’t overwhelm your team with data, so only display a handful of the metrics that matter most. Once you’ve got the precautions in place and you’ve figured out the metrics you want to share, you need to determine how to effectively share your data with your team. The Top Methods for Sharing Data with Your Team There are a couple of methods you could use to share your key metrics, and we will give each a brief overview: A few years ago, the most common method of sharing key metrics with your team was in the form of a weekly meeting. While this still works today, it isn’t the most efficient use of your team's time. Another method is to create reports that you send via email to your team each week. While this doesn’t require your team to be in a meeting each week, it has a little bit of lag time, which means that if a sale closes today, and you don’t send out a report until next week, you may not be sharing fast enough! The last method you could use is a dashboard displayed in a way that your whole team can easily see it. This doesn’t require a significant time investment from you or your team, and is often the go to choice for companies looking to share data with their team. How TUC Managed IT Solutions Increased their Sales with Data Democratization TUC Managed IT Solutions, a BrightGauge power user, has been using dashboards in their office for several years now, and by doing so have increased the number of leads they close. They were also able to cut down on the time spent on admin related tasks, helping their team to focus more on making more sales. They've incorporated some interesting ideas like gamification to create a data driven sales team. Using dashboards, they’ve uncovered new sales opportunities, built customer relationships and more. Learn about the dashboards they use and the tips they give in this webinar recording: Creating Your Own Success Story Becoming data driven on a management level is no longer sufficient. To experience real results, you’ve got to embrace data democracy. Use the tips and tactics we shared in this article and you’ll have a great chance at improving your company’s sales and growth. Take the necessary precautions, share the right metrics, and use a dashboard as I mentioned above. If you have any questions about using data democratization to increase your sales, leave a comment below and we’ll be happy to help!
$194,276. That’s the amount it could be costing you each year to skip out on or use cheap and ineffective Business Intelligence (BI) tools. Let’s break down that number and explain why you really can’t afford to be without a good business intelligence solution. Potential Recurring Revenue - $48,000 One of the biggest benefits of using a great dashboard and reporting tool is the ability to identify just how profitable your contracts are. If you’ve ever heard of the Pareto principle, you may not be surprised to find out that 20% of your clients are responsible for 80% of your workload! The toughest part is identifying those clients, but with a gauge set up to display Tickets Per End Point you’ll be able to quickly and easily identify unprofitable clients. In addition to identifying unprofitable contracts, you can use the information to create a report that will help convince them that they need to pay you more for your services. Richard Trivedi, a BrightGauge customer and Owner of CadreNet, was able to increase his monthly recurring revenue (MRR) by over $4,000 a month by identifying these problem clients and then using the reports to raise their rates. He recently joined us on The BrightGauge Podcast and explained how easy it was for him to increase his MRR. The Math: $4,000 multiplied by 12 months gives us a nice yearly increase in revenue of $48,000. Wasted Time - $126,100 Just as a PSA and RMM will pay for themselves by making your team more efficient, having a great dashboard and reporting setup could allow you to save a few, or in some cases a significant amount, of hours per week. This is because you’ll cut down on the time spent on admin related tasks such as producing timesheets and income reports, checking and processing metrics, and running and verifying reports. Before joining us on the podcast, Richard Trivedi was a customer case study with us, and he shared his story of saving 25 hours a week after using our software. The Math: If we multiply 25 hours a week by the global average hourly rate for MSPs ($97) we get a total of $2,425 hours a week. Multiply that by 52 weeks and you’ve got $126,100 a year. Billable Tickets/Hours Lost - $20,176 Most MSPs struggle with lost billable tickets and hours. The amount lost varies by MSP, but in this example, let’s assume an average of 10-15% of billable tickets and hours are lost every week. Most managers and owners attempt to correct the issue by using incentives or even creating additional consequences for not entering all hours, but these methods don’t deliver the best results. A dashboard and reporting solution will ensure that you lose as little hours and tickets as possible, helping to minimize revenue loss. The Math: 10% of a resources time would equate to 4 hours a week. Multiply that by the average hourly rate ($97) and you get $388 dollars a week. Multiply this by 52 weeks and you’ve got a total of $20,176 a year. And that’s just for one resource. Larger MSPs could see a much higher number here! How to Use Dashboards to Increase Your Revenue $194,276 or more could be slipping through your fingers, but you can get it back. Here’s how to use a dashboard and reporting solution to recapture those hard-earned dollars: Start by tracking the right metrics. You’ll want to create a dashboard that displays all the following metrics: Open Tickets by Age - to ensure nothing is slipping through Average Time Spent per Ticket Average Time Spent per Ticket by Technician Top Tickets Per End Point by Client Profit by Client or Device Time Spent per Month by Client and Device Hours by Technician Once you’ve set up a dashboard showing this information you’ll be able to use the data to identify where you need to raise rates, what is taking up your and your technician’s time, and how many tickets/hours are being lost. Armed with that information it will be easy to make decisions that will increase your MSPs profitability, and since you’ve got the data to back the decisions up, you’ll encounter less resistance from clients and employees. If you want to see firsthand how a dashboard can increase your business's profitability, schedule a demo with our sales team.
Over the last month, our Product and Data Teams have been making it easier than ever to visualize your data. We rolled out the “Save Filter" feature, created Technician Dashboards, and now Client Dashboards. With our new Client Dashboards feature, you can now take client reporting a step further by: Being more transparent with clients and building trust. Showing clients you have command of your offering. Saving both your time and your client’s time since the dashboard is real-time. Giving clients the information they want, how they want it. These benefits make client dashboards a “must have” for co-managed IT services. Client Dashboard Examples Since every data source is different, we couldn’t just create one dashboard. Here are four examples of client dashboards and some of the metrics they contain: ConnectWise Cloud ConnectWise On Premise Tigerpaw Zendesk Client Dashboard Metrics (Varies by Data Source) New Tickets shows your clients how many tickets your team hasn't responded to yet. Tickets Currently Open will help your client see how much work they’re sending your way. Average Time to Response helps the client see whether you’re meeting your SLAs or not. This gauge is typically shown as an average for the last 14 days. Average Time to Resolution shows the client whether you’re meeting your SLAs or not. This gauge is also typically shown as an average for the last 14 days. Tickets Waiting on Customer helps you cut down on the time it takes for clients to respond by showing how many tickets are waiting on them. Opened Tickets by Type will show clients areas where they may need to train their staff or even buy new software or hardware. Tickets Open by Tech breaks down the data a bit, and shows clients how you’re handling their tickets. Tickets Open by Contact: sometimes one or two people at your client's business result in the most tickets. By showing them which people send in the most tickets they can identify who may need extra training. Tickets Opened and Closed provides a brief look at how many tickets the client sends and how many you complete. This gauge typically contains data for the last 14 days. Here’s How Client Dashboards Work With our new “Save Filter" feature we've created a template dashboard for your clients. All you need to do is invite them to log in and they'll see only their data! To find your new Client Dashboard, please log into your BrightGauge account and search for the “Client Template” Dashboard. Then follow these instructions to set up the filters for each of your clients and these instructions to invite your clients as Viewers (which are free at BrightGauge).
Our office is divided into 3 distinct groups: The sitters, the standers and the statters. No, that doesn’t sound right. Stinders isn’t any better either. Well, there’s no good name for people who both stand and sit (if you think of one, leave it in the comments below!), so we’ll move on to the reason why we’re sharing a special look at the work habits of BrightGaugers. As part of our “The People Behind the Product” blog series, we’ve asked the team which they prefer: Sitting, standing or both? Here are their responses: Adam: I sit since I don’t have a standing desk yet. I tend to get up and walk around a few times throughout the day. Brian: I sit. Eric: I used to stand all day but then got into working out and need to sit on the days that my legs are tired. I plan to go back to standing very soon as I miss it, I feel more awake standing. Kristian: I actually take turns between sitting and standing when using my Geek desk. Truly, it all depends what mood I'm in. Larry: Both. I’m trying not to be too sedentary. Randall: I stand, I have back issues and it feels 100x better when standing since it works my core. Plus, standing desk dancing is better than chair dancing! David: #TeamSit I tried standing one day during my week in Customer Support and thought it was terrible. My back felt uber compressed and my feet felt swollen so that sorta sealed my impression of this whole standing-while-working thing. Steve: I split the day by starting out standing in the morning and sitting after lunch. I went a stretch where I stood all day but think it was doing more harm than good. Francisco: I sit while I work mostly because I've never really tried standing. I can't see myself standing all day though, it would probably be exhausting. Amanda: I alternate between sitting and standing. Most often, I'll sit in the mornings and then, when the after-lunch slump hits, I usually spend a couple of hours standing. It also depends what I'm working on since I find myself concentrating more when I'm sitting. Orlando: I sit. But I just got a standing desk so I will be standing more. Christian: I sit - I haven't really got the hang of standing desks. Lin-Dai: Sit usually, but now that I’ve seen the convertible desk in action, I may be requesting one soon! :) Rick: A little bit of both. I tend to sit until I feel a little ashamed and then I'll stand. Then, I ultimately sit down again and it's just a mean cycle that repeats. Stephen: Depending on the nature of what I’m doing I'll either stand or sit. Definitely prefer standing while on calls. Jessica: Sit. Currently, the standing option is not all that comfortable. Okay, so maybe we aren’t divided into groups by our decision to sit or stand, and maybe most people are sitanders (still can’t come up with a good mix between those two words!). At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal preference. Tell us which you prefer!
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As a Customer Service Manager, one of your biggest responsibilities is to keep the churn rate low. Your churn rate is the percentage of customers which stop subscribing to your services, and even a 1% change in churn can result in the growth or decline of your business. You may have a whole dashboard tracking customer service KPIs, but if you’re not seeing any noticeable change in churn then you may be missing this one key metric: How Responsiveness and Churn are Connected Responsiveness is the single most important attribute of any service organization and it especially holds true for IT Service Providers given the criticality of an end user’s network. Understanding how long it takes your team to respond to client issues is the most important metric your team should be monitoring. Did you know: Failure to resolve an issue quickly is one of the top 2 reasons for a customer loss. 41% of customers expect a response within 6 hours, and 24 hours is often considered the maximum acceptable response time. The above facts, from Help Scout, show just how closely responsiveness and churn are linked together. Cutting down on the time it takes for your team to respond will directly reduce churn. How to Monitor and Improve Responsiveness As the saying goes: “what we measure, we improve”. You can’t begin to improve your responsiveness without doing the following first: Begin collecting data on your response times and verify this data for accuracy. Establish a baseline for your responsiveness so you know where you currently stand. Organize the data and display it in a way that is easily digested and holds you and your team accountable. At BrightGauge we monitor response time rigorously and if it is ever out of line we immediately huddle up to figure out what happened and what we can do to fix it. For those of you using ConnectWise, you can monitor these key metrics… Tracking the average time to acknowledgment helps you to monitor your response time for any given day, allowing you to quickly see if things are getting off track. A good way to “wow” your customers is to keep this number under an hour at all times. Tracking the average time to response over 7 trailing days will give you a better indication of the recent trend in volume that may not be visible if you are only looking at the metric for a given day. Taking Things a Step Further with Client Reporting Sharing average time to acknowledgement with your clients via our client reporting feature allows you to share the great response time you are providing them. This helps to reinforce the fact that you provide quick service and will help to further reduce churn. Even with a spike in response time as shown above, it’s still good practice to share this with your clients. The key to building trust is being fully transparent, and by building trust you’ll further lower your churn rate. To recap: Collect and verify your data Establish a baseline for responsiveness Visualize your data Share your data with client reporting Accomplish these 4 steps and you’ll have an increase in responsiveness and as a result, a decrease in churn. Ready to learn more about how to exceed your customers’ expectations through account management? Check out How Investing in Customer Success Drove our MSP Growth:
A drop in energy levels is one of the toughest parts of the work day. It’s a universal problem, but the trick is to find a technique that boosts your energy during that workday slump. Similar to our series on The People Behind the Product, we asked our teammates to fill us in on some of their favorite ways to boost energy during the workday, and here’s what they had to say: Adam: I usually take a walk around the parking garage or do some stairs. Coffee, tea, snacks, and jokes also work. Brian: Double espresso from Starbucks. Eric: A cup of tea and/or a short, brisk walk help me refocus and clear my head. Kristian: Cafecito Cubano! I introduced the electric cuban coffee maker into our office and it is now a daily ritual towards later in the day once drowsiness starts to kick in after lunch. Larry: I take a walk. Anthony: I usually get some tea, coffee or a snack, but I’m trying to get away from doing that. I also like to get up and walk over to the sofa and work there. The more comfortable seating surprisingly makes me more focused and energized. I also normally walk with the team when they go to pick up lunch (even if I’ve brought lunch). I’ve noticed that on the days where I don’t walk, I don’t get as much done. Randall: I change Pandora stations. Simply changing the music can reinvigorate me. Steve: I'm assuming this means other than coffee, because that's a given. I usually go for a walk a couple of hours after lunch. Getting some sunshine is nice, especially if I've brought lunch and haven't been outside the whole day. Francisco: Usually a regular American coffee does the trick for me, and if I'm really feeling off, two cups of coffee. I know, boring. Amanda: I like to get up and move around, maybe take a walk around the garage or down the block. Using my standing desk helps as well. I also enjoy spending a few minutes socializing with my teammates - we have some real characters around here and they always make me laugh! Orlando: Coffee. Lots of coffee. Christian: Kiki (Kristian) usually has the timing right - he'll magically appear by your desk with a Cuban coffee right when you're fading away. Lin-Dai: Having more than the ordinary dose of coffee or candy will usually do the trick. Rick: I call upon the almighty Kiki for an exceptional dose of Cuban cafecito. Stephen: Black tea usually gets the job done. Jessica: Healthy option: stretching and drinking black tea. Unhealthy option: eating lots of candy. Of course our answers were mostly coffee! We’re talking about the team that created a dashboard just to monitor coffee consumption! What’s your go-to for fighting the afternoon slump?
Our most recent webinar addressed one of the most popular questions we get from our customers (and prospective customers) about dashboards: “what metrics do you recommend?” While data is not a “one size fits all” thing that is easy to copy from customer to customer, there are some fundamental metrics and best practices we see our most successful customers using when it comes to their dashboards. We’ve compiled these dashboard best practices, along with plenty of examples, into one fantastic webinar. Some of the topics covered include: Top 5 rules for designing dashboards Most popular dashboards for Service, Sales, Management, and Finance Building the right client dashboard Driving competition the right way Management by exception Increasing transparency & efficiency New dashboard features: rotation, filtering, etc. and much more! If you missed the live Webinar, you can still access the full recording and slide deck here:
The Miami tech scene is in its dynamic youth. If we look back not too many years ago, it’s safe to say that tech-related events were few and far between, but now there are events almost every week. As a software company, keeping up with these tech gatherings (and other networking events) in Miami is important to our team because we’re excited to see this special community grow. Plus, we also enjoy the opportunity to learn and teach alongside others who have the same passion that we do... not to mention, we know the challenges and growing pains that come with creating a startup! Since the tech community in the greater Miami area is still relatively small, we really pride ourselves on keeping up with what’s going on with different companies, mostly by attending events as often as possible. We’ve even created an “Events” channel in Slack to help keep a running list of all the upcoming meetups, happy hours, breakfast groups, networking, and more! Similar to our series on The People Behind the Product, we asked our teammates to fill us in on some of their favorite local events, and here’s what they had to say: Randall: I like to attend the Refresh Miami talks because they're often more seasoned and appropriate for the type of business we do and need info on. I appreciate the talks more so than the meetups as it's a chance for me to learn. Steve and David at Refresh-ing Hour with Brian Breslin, Founder of Refresh Miami. Brian: In previous years, before a little baby and a fast growing company, I attended more events locally. I'm planning on attending more Refresh Miami events in the second half of 2016. Plus any other appealing tech events but from my research, Refresh seems to hold the most applicable events. I usually come out of events with the following takeaways: Keep going (in the company) Keep working hard Keep fighting to grow Find good talent A lot of folks who attend Miami’s tech events are trying to start companies and being surrounded by like minded individuals gave me more confidence that we can really build a special company and succeed. I always recommend Refresh events to anyone interested in tech in Miami. It's the go-to group just to connect with other like minded folks trying to stay in Miami and be in this industry. With a caveat of this industry being size of companies as well, Refresh is geared to non-large tech software companies. Amanda: I enjoy trying a mix of professional events: Like some of the others here, I've done Refresh Miami events - last summer there was a cool look at Conversion Marketing (aka Growth Hacking) presented by Dropbox. That was nice because the Miami tech community usually features events that are a bit more focused on developers or founders, so I enjoyed the marketing theme for a change. There was a full house for Refresh’s Dropbox feature! For social opportunities in the Tech community, the weekly Waffle Wednesday sessions hosted by LiveNinja are a popular choice... not to mention the gourmet waffles are delicious. LiveNinja’s waffle bar Not specifically related to tech, but from a networking perspective, I really enjoy teaching others about Inbound Marketing and the results we see from the methodology, so I was excited for the opportunity to co-host a Content Marketing workshop last year. There's something really cool about being able to help inspire others in their marketing, answer questions, and trade ideas in a room full of like-minded people. I also recently joined the Young Professionals organization here in Coral Gables for its mix of professional events and community outreach. I enjoy it because I get to meet a variety of people from different professions, and also have great opportunities to make a difference in the neighborhood, like the time we painted a mural for the local middle school. Orlando: The last event I went to was one of the Jurnid Sessions. It was an interesting Q&A style event about the state of Miami as a tech hub. The panel mostly talked about how raising money in Miami is difficult because investors from outside Miami can be hesitant to invest down here. It was an interesting panel and most of the people on it were interested in improving Miami's tech scene. It was a good event and there was networking after the panel stopped taking questions. I am definitely interested in attending other Jurnid Session events. Steve makes a connection during the Jurnid Session event Adam: I went to "Jurnid Sessions// The State of Miami's Tech Hub | Real vs. Hype" (the same event as Orlando) recently and that was interesting. My main takeaway was that there is some hype within the Miami community, but not about Miami from the outside. That and to focus on doing the work first. Eric: Most of the events I've attended recently are related to YPO (Young President's Organization) and they focus on education and leadership development. However in 2017 I'm excited to attend BrightGauge’s Gauger Rager, but we'll have to wait until later this year to share what that's all about. My biggest takeaways are that getting out of the office and of your normal routine to learn from others is a great use of time. Any time I attend an event I usually walk away with at least one nugget of information or make one interesting contact. Last year I went to eMerge Americas and that was a lot of fun if you're in technology in Miami or South America. They bring a lot of different topics together and the collaboration is amazing. What the Future Holds… Our team has only skimmed the surface when it comes to tech events in Miami, and we’ve started to attend more events just as the frequency of events is picking up. You can expect to hear more about local events on our Twitter, Instagram and blog. If you’re looking for some events to attend yourself, check out the Refresh Miami Event Calendar.
Imagine that you just bought a movie, but were charged for each person who watched the movie with you. That’s similar to what many BI tools do when they charge businesses to add user accounts. We believe that you shouldn’t have to pay to let your team or clients view your data, which is why BrightGauge gives viewer licenses to all customers for free. The Benefits of Free Viewing Accounts Free viewing accounts have three primary benefits: They allow all of your clients to access relevant data which builds trust, increases client happiness, and lowers your churn rate. They allow all members of your team to consume the data contained on your dashboards increasing team performance, efficiency and, ultimately, your bottom line. They allow businesses that value transparency to share their performance numbers, showing clients that they are in fact meeting their SLA and promoting an honest work environment for your team. Viewers, Admins and Analysts Let’s take a look at the differences between BrightGauge’s user types: Viewer We designed viewer accounts to be used for team members that don’t need access to the gauge builder, or for your clients. A Viewer is a user who has read-only access to the dashboards that are shared with them. Viewers can be added for free to any BrightGauge subscription. Admin An admin has full access to the BrightGauge platform, giving them the ability to create datasets, gauges, dashboards and reports. The number of Admin users available is based on your plan with additional users only $25. Analyst An analyst account is similar to an admin in that it has the ability to build gauges and reports, but they differ in that they cannot import their own data sources or create their own datasets. Analyst accounts are only available with the Advanced plan. To learn more about the different plans and adding admin or analyst users to your account, check out our pricing page. What Other BI Tools Charge: While other BI tools charge as much as $125.00 to add more viewers, BrightGauge allows you to create them for free. Viewers can receive reports and log into dashboards so they can consume all the data. Learn more about how to add and manage/delete viewer accounts.
Your priorities are wrong and so are most other businesses’. No, I’m not referring to your work/life balance. I’m talking about how you and other businesses have let metrics become the captain of the ship while your vision is forgotten. Businesses tend to fall into the trap of thinking that metrics should set your goals which in turn create your vision, when it’s actually the other way around! This doesn’t mean being data driven is wrong, it’s a necessity, but most companies go about being data driven in the wrong way. Here’s how to do it the right way: Vision: The Key to Success Even though the term “data driven” would suggest that your data drives your business, you’ll actually want to be driven by your vision. Your vision is why you started your business in the first place. It’s what determines where you’re heading and will determine what you achieve! Your vision is more important than your metrics because metrics can only tell you where you’ve been and how you’re doing. They don’t tell you where you will be going like your vision does. Taking Action First, ensure you have a vision. If you don’t have one, now’s the time to make one. Hint: why did you start your business? Many companies display their metrics with dashboards on TV’s, but few put their vision on the wall like they do their metrics! Be one of the few companies that proudly displays their vision so that your employees know to work towards that vision. Some examples of famous corporate-brand visions: “To offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially-conscious business.” (Warby Parker) “To create a better everyday life for the many people.” (IKEA) “To bring humanity back to the skies” (JetBlue) Once you’ve got your vision, you can begin to create goals. Goals: Milestones Towards Achieving Your Vision Goals are the smaller chunks that make up your vision broken down into achievable milestones. Ideally, these are in the form of quarterly SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) goals. Each goal that you successfully complete brings you closer to achieving your vision. Taking Action Take the time to create a few SMART goals based on your vision. Unlike a vision which isn’t always measurable, these need to be clearly and quantifiably completed. Here’s a great example of a goal: Based on Warby Parker’s vision (“To offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially-conscious business.”) we can create the following goal: Lower the price of our glasses to $85 from $95 by the end of Q4. You can have one goal or create multiple goals, just ensure that you don’t lose focus with too many goals! Once you have your goal (or goals) you can move on to discovering your KPIs. Metrics: Making Sure You’re Reaching Your Goals Metrics, and more specifically KPIs, are what you use to ensure you’re on track and will reach your goals and eventually your vision. Contrary to popular belief, your KPIs don’t actually tell you how much progress you’ve made towards a goal. They only indicate your performance. Here are a few other things that metrics can and can’t do: Metrics can: Measure performance Inform decisions Expose opportunities and challenges Metrics cannot: Fix your problems Motivate your staff Run your company Taking Action Your KPIs will be determined by the goals you set, and they should be able to provide the full picture as to how your business is performing. You want to avoid choosing more than 5 KPI’s as it would become too difficult to actually track performance, but choose too few and you won’t have the picture. 3 or 4 KPIs is the sweet spot. Example KPIs: Continuing with the Warby Parker example, if your goal is to lower the cost of glasses here are the metrics you may want to track: Total cost of goods Profit Number of glasses sold Number of glasses returned for quality issues These metrics would allow you to see your cost of goods which tell you how much you could lower the price, profit to ensure your margins are still good, glasses sold to see how the new pricing is affecting sales, and the number of glasses returned for quality reasons - important if you switched to a cheaper material and it’s not holding up as well as previous materials. Conclusion Remember, vision is more important than goals which are more important than your metrics. Get your priorities in order and become data driven by starting with your vision. If you don’t, your business will lose what drives it in the first place.
