The BrightGauge Blog

When you’re first starting your managed service provider (MSP) business (or any business for that matter), there are so many things you have to think about. Apart from the work involved in getting an organization up and running, you’re likely spending hours thinking about how you’re going to define success. Success means different things to different people, but it’s always valuable to have something to compare your progress against. This is where industry benchmarks can offer important and beneficial insights. What are industry benchmarks? These are facts and figures that are compiled based on businesses like your own. Industry benchmarks are used as a standard or reference point and also as a predictor for performance. These figures and data points can be useful when setting goals for the year or determining which key performance indicators (KPIs) will be your point of focus. It’s helpful to have guidelines to keep you on track and to know what to aim for, but be careful not to make direct comparisons between your business and a competitor if not necessary or relevant. For example, if you’re a 10-person operation, don’t expect your numbers to reflect those of an organization with 1,000 employees. Looking at benchmarks month-to-month or year-to-year can help you gauge where you are and where you’d like to be. How are benchmarks calculated? Usually an accounting firm or an agency that specializes in surveys will collect information from a large pool of companies within your industry and they’ll analyze that data to find resulting patterns, trends, and averages. A lot of companies - like our partner, Kaseya - offer the results as a free resource for you to access. What data is included in these benchmarks? It varies according to the firm conducting the survey and the industry it is analyzing, but you’re likely to find commonalities across the board. Mostly all benchmark reports will include: The total number of employees in your company Total annual revenue Revenue growth year-over-year Operational costs Gross margins When it comes to MSP-specific benchmarks, you’ll probably want to look at these figures as well: Your customer size Total number of endpoints you manage Devices you manage Pricing strategy and model Monthly recurring revenue Services offered Use this data thoughtfully and carefully to set your business up as a respected competitor in your industry. You should be making data-driven decisions that move you towards growth and success. Perhaps industry benchmarks reveal that you’re offering your services at above-average prices. Driving down the costs of your services can help you bring in more customers and, ultimately, more revenue. Contact us at BrightGauge if you’re ready to learn more about how your business can benefit from using our data-driven insights.

All departments within an organization play a critical role in that company’s success. Without a good product, there’s nothing to sell. Without a good sales team, there are no customers. Without a good marketing team, there’s no awareness of what you’re offering. Without an accounting team, profits wouldn’t exist. You get the drift. When it comes to tracking progress for each department, the key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor will understandably vary. While you might track Accounts Receivable, Unpaid Invoices, and Profit for your financial team, you’ll definitely look at Leads From Website, Market Share, and Cost Per Lead when it comes to your marketing team. So what about sales team KPIs? What’s important to look at on a regular basis? We break it down. The Big 3 Sales KPIs Your sales team carries a lot of weight on its shoulders. Amongst other duties, they are responsible for analyzing the leads generated from the marketing team and converting qualified leads into (hopefully) long-term customers. No easy feat. Their progress should be tracked on a regular basis because, not only does it give insight into employee performance, but it also paints a picture of how well the current sales strategy is working. Is there something that needs to change? Should the sales strategy be more aggressive? Do more resources need to be brought in? Because bringing on new customers is imperative to the success of an organization, these metrics should be carefully evaluated and should drive data-backed decisions. But before you go tracking every metric under the sun, keep yourself in check. Don’t fall victim to analysis paralysis. We like to recommend that you set three metrics per employee, so that your process is as streamlined and effective as can be. Closed MRR MTD/YTD One of the most important and telling metrics you can track is your Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR). This will tell you how well you’re selling and will help you identify trends over time. We believe you should track MRR on both a monthly and yearly basis. It’s natural for your sales to ebb and flow when comparing month to month. Some quarters are slower than others and some months you experience a major boom (maybe you’re attending a lot of conferences that month). By tracking your MRR each month, over time you’ll be able to predict performance and be able to better set SMART goals for success. Tracking MRR on a yearly basis tells a story about how your company is or is not growing over time. Any business owner has a goal of growing more successful over time. When first starting out, you may not be profitable or your growth may be negligible. But the hope is that, as time goes on, you’re able to visibly chart growth and attribute your success to a number of factors. You’ll need to track more than MRR to get a crystal clear understanding of this, but there’s no doubt that MRR needs to be a part of your story. Each member of your sales team will inevitably have his own MRR number to work towards, but it should always tie back to your overall company goal. That way, when turnover happens or there’s a shift in the members of your sales team, you still have a north star to guide you towards your sales goals. Current Sales Pipeline There should never be a point in time where your sales employees are left without calls to make or leads to follow up on. In other words, there should always be opportunities in your pipeline. Tracking your Current Sales Pipeline is another way to predict the number of new customers that will come in (so you can predict your revenue for the month or year). If you notice your pipeline lacking in opportunities, it’s a good indicator that you need to shake up your strategy and do something that’s going to bring noise (of the good kind) to your business. Each member of your sales team should always be responsible for a portion of the pipeline so that you can ensure a steady stream of potential new customers is being communicated with on a regular basis. Sales Activities This might sound similar to Current Sales Pipeline - and in a way it is - but it encompasses a lot more. Tracking Sales Activities per employee gives you an idea of exactly what they are doing every day. This is becoming increasingly important as we’re shifting to a culture where it’s the norm to work remotely or it may be hard to physically see and hear your team on the phone. This is no excuse to become a micromanager (please don’t do that), but you’ve got to make sure your sales team is productive and efficient. How many calls is each team member making? How many customers has each employee signed on? What’s the ratio of calls-to-close? What sales generating strategies is each team member employing? There are many factors that determine whether your sales team is working optimally, and it makes total sense that you’d want to keep an eye on this. No customers = no profits, so don’t take this lightly. How to apply BrightGauge to your sales team When it comes to tracking Closed MRR, Current Sales Pipeline, and Sales Activities, BrightGauge makes it really simple. You can easily put all those metrics on one dashboard that you can monitor throughout the day. Either track it as an entire department, or set up a dashboard for each employee on your sales team. With rotating dashboards, you can see what everyone is up to at any given point in time. We like to recommend a couple of things to keep your sales team motivated. One - throw everyone’s stats up onto a leaderboard on your dashboard. We have a natural inclination to want to win, so maybe you track Sales Activities on a leaderboard. When your team members see their names moving up the board, they’ll be motivated to keep going. Word of caution: don’t use this to determine performance reviews. You want to inspire healthy competition, not make anybody feel bad. The second thing we recommend is to use our Goals feature. Each team member will set personal goals per quarter - which are tied to overall company KPIs - which they can track week after week. Since every person in your company will have visibility into these goals, it can be incredibly motivating to make sure you’re “on track”. Plus, it encourages your employees to hold themselves accountable, which is always a good practice. Again, these goals shouldn’t be tied to performance reviews. They should be used as a guide to work towards success - it’s okay if an employee ends up missing a goal or two, as long as there’s a learning experience. BrightGauge helps you keep track of your KPIs every day It can be daunting for a business owner or a team lead to make room in his or her schedule to track what each employee is doing, but it’s really important. So much hard work goes into starting a business and it takes a lot of energy and effort to keep it running. BrightGauge was developed to help make the lives of business owners and managers a little easier. Our software lets you create custom gauges, dashboards, client reports, and team member goals that all work together to make you more productive and focused. We integrate with many popular business solution tools that you’re already using, like Webroot, ConnectWise, Quickbooks, Autotask, Kaseya, and more. Instead of toggling between windows or logging in and out of multiple accounts, BrightGauge pulls all your important data into one place. That means you can view your financial metrics alongside your PSA and RMM data. Plus, BrightGauge gauges and dashboards sync often, so the information you’re viewing is up to date and relevant. If you have a lot of clients that rely on you, BrightGauge helps you build trust and transparency with automated client reports, which you can set to send automatically in just a couple of minutes. Basically, BrightGauge lets you keep track of your KPIs in real-time, so you can shift your focus to revenue-generating tasks. Ready to see how BrightGauge can make your sales team even stronger? Request a demo today and one of our team members will reach out to you!

When starting a new job, it’s so important to be properly onboarded so that you and the company you’re working for are set up for success. Proper onboarding allows you to adopt the company’s culture, mission, and values as your own, so you can adequately represent the product or service you’re backing. We’ve previously shared that we’re big believers in shadowing your support team - you’d be hard-pressed to find a quicker way to receive on the job training, especially as a new hire. But there’s another team that can also provide incredible value to all employees. We’re talking about the Sales Team. The Sales Team is crucial in pinpointing your target audience With the Support Team, a wealth of knowledge can be gained about the current customer. But what about future customers? Aren’t they just as important? Absolutely! That’s where shadowing the Sales Team comes in. Discovering what your target audience is looking for can lead to stronger marketing tactics, new product features, and maybe even an entirely new audience to tap into. It’s important to remember quality versus quantity, because the most desirable customers are the ones who will actually stick around. The Sales Team is vital to weeding out quality leads versus quantity and every employee (especially those in marketing) should know the type of leads to focus on. Employees should find it interesting and useful to learn how your sales funnel works - how are leads generated? How are we communicating with prospects? What does our customer journey look like? When and how is a demo set up? What are we learning about the prospect before we speak with them? All of these answers can be found by spending quality time with the Sales Team. What can sales calls teach you? Most likely, a sales call or demo is the first time anyone at your company will have verbal contact with a potential customer. This is a pivotal moment. Clearly, it’s an opportunity to win new business, but it’s also a chance to learn and take action. Ask thoughtful questions. What are most customers asking for? What part of the demo are they finding most useful? Are we taking the right sales and marketing approach? What can we change and improve upon? Especially for a new hire, an obvious takeaway from sitting in on demos is that calls are like snowflakes - no two are alike. Sure, prospective customers may be looking for similar outcomes, but there will always be variances with their exact needs. No matter what, seeing a high-level overview of what you have to offer in action (in our case - dashboards, filters, reports, the ability to drilldown and get further information, etc.) is a powerful driver of decision-making. What’s more - having a chance to witness an account win and see the process by which a new customer is brought onboard lends itself to a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of your business. Plus, it’s really motivating. Everyone loves to celebrate a win and it’s just another chance to build upon team spirit! Trust your work family We all know and stress the importance of building long-lasting and trustworthy client relationships. Clients who trust and believe in you will stick around for a long time. When growing your company, it’s also really important to hire and retain employees you can trust and that will trust in you. Onboarding and all that it entails creates a really strong culture of transparency. When employees feel everything is out in the open and they aren’t operating under smoke and mirrors, it makes them a true and valuable team player. An evangelist of sorts who is motivated to speak about your product or service with deep knowledge, anytime, anywhere (what CEO would not be proud of that?). Wondering how to grow your business through your sales team? Check out our free webinar, ‘Sales Best Practices’ to see how we grew our MSP 10X in 5 years.

At BrightGauge, we are proponents of fostering a team spirit. We don’t work in silos, we make sure everyone has visibility to all company projects, and we’re constantly hanging out together, both in and out of work. However, we’re also strongly encouraged to work independently. It may seem counterintuitive, but it is wholly possible to be both team-driven and an independent worker, and we’ve found that this approach results in highly creative thinking. We are Managers of One Have you been introduced to the concept of a manager of one? In the simplest of terms, it’s basically somebody who doesn’t need to be told what to do. Think of a typical manager at any workplace: they are expected to set the tone for their team, come up with goals, execute and analyze them, and work productively without a lot of direction from the executive level. A manager of one is expected to work the same way, but for themselves. This is great for so many reasons. Being a leader for yourself First, when you’re hired as a manager of one, you understand that a lot of trust has been placed in your abilities and capacity to get things done. This is an awesome vote of confidence that feels like years of hard work paying off. However, one must not forget that this comes with a big responsibility - you’ve got to live up to expectations. At BrightGauge, we simply see it as motivation! Secondly, you can kiss micromanaging goodbye. Nobody likes to work with someone standing over their shoulder, watching their every move, making sure it’s done to their liking. No thank you! As a manager of one, no one is breathing down your neck. You know what you’ve got on your plate and you’re given the autonomy to get it done in the time and manner you see fit (within reason, obviously). One of my favorite aspects of being a manager of one is that possibilities seem endless. Take 30 seconds to think about five things you look for in a new job. Was ‘room for growth’ on your list? It’s always on mine. As a manager of one, you can carve out your own path and show your worth in so many ways. And since you don’t have somebody dictating your every move, you really have the freedom to get creative and control what your role looks like and what it will evolve into. Which brings us to our next point. Our creativity bells are ringing loudly When you are given the space to be independent, introspective, and self-reliant, your mind can go to wondrous places. Working alone frees up space in the mind and allows for the creation of new thoughts, ideas, and processes. Many innovators and leaders throughout history have spoken of the importance of being alone. Pablo Picasso said, “Without great solitude no serious work is possible.” Inspirational inventor Nikolas Tesla said: “The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.” The impact of creativity on BrightGauge Software BrightGauge is a technology company. You might think, “what does technology have to do with creativity?”. Well, a lot, in fact. Creativity isn’t reserved solely for artists, writers, poets, and filmmakers. If you think about BrightGauge on a deeper level, we’re more than just technology creators. We’re in the business of helping people live better and easier lives. Putting it in that context, it’s clear that creative thinking is needed to build a great product, with intuitive features, a smart design, a robust support team to back it up, proactive marketers to get the word out, and so on. Some of our best ideas - which have resulted in improved product features like moveable gauge layers - have come out of independent, focused deep work sessions: periods of time where we’re each able to work without interruptions, on our own, with the goal of achieving high-quality work. Without pressure from the top and by eliminating unnecessary distractions, we’re able to get to the deeper level of thinking we all strive for. Where do teamwork and independence intersect? While a lot of our work, thinking, and ideating is done alone, no level of output would be possible without the entire team coming together. You may already know that we use Basecamp on a daily basis to manage our projects and keep our weeks organized. When somebody lands on an idea they’d like to explore further, the first step is to pitch it to the entire company (or to specific team members, if desired) on Basecamp. That way, everyone can voice their approvals, concerns, ideas to make the concept even stronger, etc. No project moves forward without buy-in from the team. We’ve found what works for us and it’s inspiring to thrive within such a creative environment. We’ll never stop coming up with ways to improve - and it’s highly possible a golden idea will strike when one of us is in our own little focused bubble. You may like our management style, but it’s always good to hear from others. Check out our free webinar, ‘In Service to The Team’, to listen in as Todd Kane of Evolved Management Consulting talks about his approach to management.

If you know us at all, you know we love talking about how much inspiration we draw from companies and people we admire. There’s so much to learn from industry leaders who have “been there, done that” so to speak, and there’s no shame in recognizing that we’ll always have room to grow. At BrightGauge, we’re huge fans of Jason Fried and DHH and what they’ve done with their super successful company, Basecamp. They seem to have found a sweet spot when it comes to balancing work and life. Basecamp employees are hard-working and productive, but still find time to explore the hobbies and passions that make them happy. We love that. So not only do we actually use their product on a daily basis, but we’ve also tried to adopt some of the work habits that make their culture so unique. One such habit - a big one for us - is trying to eliminate unnecessary distractions. We’re Focused on Staying Focused How many times have you left a meeting and thought everything could have been accomplished with a simple email? Or worse, the meeting time ran out so you set up another meeting to keep the conversation going (what I like to call ‘a meeting about a meeting’). This is an incredibly frustrating aspect of working at many companies. So, when the good folks at Basecamp started writing about the idea of eliminating recurring meetings and status meetings, it struck a chord with us. It was something we had already been thinking about, so reading about how others were doing it inspired us. You know, that whole ‘be the change’ thing. And we did it! We said goodbye to meetings. No more weekly status meetings. No more formally putting time on someone’s calendar in order to get questions answered. No more spending half your workday stuck in meetings and away from your actual work. If a meeting is absolutely necessary, we’re encouraged to limit it to 15 minutes when possible, or even to meet over lunch. There are, obviously, exceptions and special circumstances but we try our best to practice what we preach. Once we started working this way, a funny thing happened. Less Meetings, Way More Productivity When we got our work hours back, everything started to change. Suddenly, if one of our developers was deep into writing a complicated piece of code, he wouldn’t be forced to interrupt his train of thought just to attend a meeting that likely didn’t carry any urgency with it. Instead, he could continue to be laser-focused on his project without pressure to be anywhere else, meaning he’d probably have an uber-productive day. Productivity lends itself to higher-quality work. It’s not just a coincidence. Less Meetings, Less Anxiety I started to realize something recently. This corporate culture of having lots of meetings on our calendars is causing us to operate in an anxious state. In previous jobs, I remember opening my calendar at the start of the day, seeing the hours upon hours that were blocked for meetings, and thinking “when the heck am I going to tackle my to-do list?”. Sometimes, I even had meetings that overlapped with other meetings. We’re somehow expected to be in multiple places at once while consistently producing good and on-time work. Some days, I’d get home from work and be totally drained and exhausted. Not to mention, I’d be at work late, since my to-do list wasn’t checking itself off just because I was in a meeting. Having a wide-open calendar with plenty of freedom to actually complete to-do list items does wonders for the mind and soul. It allows you to go about your day with a sense of calmness, instead of feeling the buzz of high-anxiety coursing through your veins. You can actually take a deep breath and focus. You can actually smile at your co-workers instead of rushing past them yelling, “I’m late for my 3:00!”. You can actually get to work. What a concept. Quality Matters, A Lot When did we get into this habit of trying to do everything? Why do we treat it like its an accomplishment when someone says they worked 90 hours in a week and barely got any sleep? Why are we sacrificing our health and our free time just to say we did more, more, more? You know what people are actually going to notice? When a job is well-done. When you can tell that time and care were put into it. And when the product or service you’re working so hard on actually truly helps the end user. Cal Newport, author of Deep Work (a BrightGauge favorite), said, “If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive - no matter how skilled or talented you are.” It’s true. We need to be afforded the space and time to create. We’re living in the age of information where quality is king. There’s no shortage of information out there (i.e. quantity) but not all of it is worth our time (i.e. quality). Meetings, social media, a 24-hour news cycle, pool tables - they’re all distractions, and distractions hurt our focus much more than we think. Phasing out meetings is about more than just taking away a tedious task we all roll our eyes at. It’s about retraining our brains to remain focused and to be better. So, How Do We Communicate Internally? It’s a good question. Let us be clear. Doing away with meetings is no excuse for working in silos. We still very much stress the importance of good communication and visibility. Now, instead of talking about something out loud in a meeting, where people are most likely not even taking notes, we just write it all down. We use Basecamp to keep things orderly and organized. Something that could have been said in a weekly status meeting is instead written in a Basecamp post and shared with relevant co-workers. Anyone who has a question can pose it in the same thread and all pertaining notes and comments will live in that thread forever. It’s awesome, really. It’s so easy to go back and reference, plus it saves a ton of time that would have been wasted asking people to rehash what was said in a meeting or digging through lots of different emails to try to piece the puzzle together. The mental clarity you get from knowing you have 8 solid hours a day (give or take) to get your work done is insanely valuable. Add in the fact that Basecamp has your back and it’s no wonder that the quality of work will noticeably go way up. Make Small Changes at First It can be pretty jarring to jump to a meeting-free culture, so we took Fried’s advice on this one. He recommends getting rid of one meeting a month, then one a week, and so on. This has made a huge difference in our rate of productivity and the quality of work we’re putting out - whether that’s in blog posts, new product features, support team responses, or even our sales calls. Try it out and see how it works for you. We’d love to hear about it. Want even more productivity tips? Check out our free webinar, ‘Managing Productivity of a Service Team’, to learn how one of our customers leads his Service Team operations.

It’s no secret that a ton of companies look up to Google and the way they run their business (us included). What if I told you that you could implement one of Google's core management techniques in your company tomorrow? And that within 6-12 months it would improve your business to grow faster and run more efficiently and calmly. Would you believe me if I told you it all centers around goal management? Yes, GOALS!!! We say Goals, Google says OKRs Google follows a simple, yet powerful goal management system called OKRs, which is an acronym for Objective, Key Results. The short history is that Andy Grove at Intel came up with this system as an iteration to Peter Drucker’s original Management by Objective philosophy. Grove’s approach, which later became OKRs, was popularized at Intel and then introduced to Google in their early days by John Doerr, an investor who used to work at Intel. John just recently wrote a book called Measuring What Matters, and according to him (and Larry Page), Google credits much of their scaling success to being able to set proper goals company wide. Making sense of OKRs So what the heck is an “OKR” and how does it work? It’s incredibly simple. An Objective is the over archiving statement of what is to be accomplished in a given time period. The Key Results are the measurable items that, once completed, mean the Objective has been reached. Here’s an example: Objective: Expand into XYZ New Market Key Results: Hire or transition 1 new employee focused on XYZ Market Build 10K in new MRR pipeline in XYZ Market Close 2.5K in services revenue in XYZ Market Think of your Objectives as an aspirational statement about what you want to accomplish - they are easy to remember and easy to rally the troops around. Key Results are then the specific and measurable items (the boring stuff!). And just like many goal management systems, Key Results are time bound and typically done every quarter. OKRs keep everyone engaged and in sync with the aspirational (the Objective), but focused on the tactical (the Key Results). Putting OKRs into practice Google bases actions on knowing that in order to be successful with goal usage, you have to be well-rounded when implementing goals in your company. We’re in the habit of establishing goals here at BrightGauge and we’ve picked up a few pointers along the way that will help you unleash the power of goals: Alignment is key - buy in from the top, and everyone else as well. Everyone in the company should have a few goals (OKRs) per quarter and be okay with missing 1-2 of them. Don’t tie in goal achievements to performance reviews or salary bumps. To work like Google, you have to be disciplined with your goal management. And as always, it has to start at the top. The leadership team should have goals and they should be transparent to everyone. When everyone sees leaders going for stretch goals, not only do they understand priorities better, but they see that it’s okay to stretch for something BIG themselves. It’s okay to not be afraid to fail and to not settle for mediocrity. This can seem intense. But because of this culture of aggressive goal setting, Google does not tie performance or compensation to goals, they are completely separate. This can be hard to fathom and hard to do but if you want to push people to stretch, you can’t tie in compensation because we’re only human and people would end up choosing only attainable goals. BrightGauge can help you get started I’ve always bought into the idea of goals. I think it’s important to have constant motivation and a culture of accountability and transparency. Plus, since I’ve been consistent about goal-setting at BrightGauge, the proof has been in the numbers. Since we implemented goals seriously in early 2016, we’ve had our best growth years while also running more calm and focused. It’s no coincidence, setting goals across the company has helped propel our growth. All that being said, to run like Google, all you have to do is get started using Goals in your company. You’re not going to get it right the first cycle or second, but you’ll notice a massive difference in your company 6 to 12 months later when everyone is on the same page, engaged, and motivated to hit their goals. Using our Goals feature can help you get started since we automate some of the annoying stuff (reminders and data pulling). Your employees will be reminded to check into their goals on a weekly basis and assess whether they’re on or off track. Again, since OKRs are ideally not tied to performance and compensation, this will simply keep your team working towards a greater good, without unnecessary pressure. You might be stumped by what to focus on, so we’ve put together a guide for you that can help inspire company-driven goals. Just click on ‘Find Inspiration’ when you start a new goal list in Goal Management. Give it a shot and if you need help, let us know. We love this stuff!

In case you missed it live, here’s your opportunity to watch our most recent webinar, featuring Ryan Giles, founder of Traction Strong. In the webinar, Ryan and BrightGauge CEO Brian Dosal talk all about how to improve the efficiency of your business by implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) process made famous by Gino Wickman’s book Traction. Simply put, EOS is a framework for building a business with an actionable and trackable plan for success. Many MSPs and other companies in the technology sector have adopted the EOS process because it is easy to implement and has proven to be effective. In the webinar, Ryan and Brian cover: What a successful business plan looks like Common issues that many companies face The 6 key components of EOS What it takes to implement EOS into your business How to create and track goals quarter by quarter Ryan himself saw a 30% year-over-year growth immediately after implementing the EOS process in his MSP. After this webinar, you’ll be armed with valuable information that can put you on your own path to growth! “Vision without traction is just hallucination!” - Ryan Giles Watch ‘Guiding Growth Through EOS & Goals’ now to learn more about the simple process you can take to optimize your business.

The search for the right business growth plan can feel like a real shot in the dark. Businesses may spend lots of money on advertising and marketing with little to show for it in the long run. On the flipside, with a little success, business owners may think they’ve nailed their MSP growth strategy. The key to a successful growth plan comes with a strong analysis of what you’re doing right and wrong and with a whole lot of attainable goal setting. No matter where you are in your business lifecycle, a newcomer or industry pro, reading Gino Wickman’s book Traction is a sure fire way to set a path to help your team achieve its core vision. Traction’s success can be attributed to its actionable breakdown of the Entrepreneurial Operations System (EOS) process, showing readers how to help them grow and optimize their business. With an avid fan base of business owners and operators singing it’s praise, it’s come to be the creed for MSP business growth. Due to its popularity in the MSP/ ITSP industry, It’s pretty unsurprising that this has become required reading for the whole BrightGauge team. We have a hard time not recommending it to potential and existing customers alike. So what’s the whole popularity behind Traction and EOS about? The EOS Framework Founded by Traction author Gino Wickman, the Entrepreneurial Operations System (EOS) is a framework for building a business. Widely incorporated by IT and SaaS industries, EOS has helped many to look at their business under a new scope. Especially true for successful businesses who have been around for a while. No matter your level of customer loyalty and longevity, there’s always room for improvement. With EOS, companies can set their vision and measure their growth tactics under six key points of focus: Vision — Success doesn’t just come with having a vision, the whole organization needs to be in on the big picture. More clarity and alignment between your team members means less friction. Focusing everyone’s energy towards the end goal will lead to some amazing results. People — Your most valuable team members don’t just sit at the top of your organization. Great leaders see the potential in everyone and work towards helping them see it in themselves, too. If you don’t have the right people in place, how can you expect to grow? Data — “What gets measured gets improved”. We operate based on this mentality everyday. Focusing on the right metrics helps you keep a finger on the pulse of what’s driving your business to thrive or falter. Issues — It’s natural for every business to face issues and frustrations. But, these obstacles keep you from reaching your vision and must be dealt with head on. Process — Your process is how you operate as a business, and what keeps your team in check. This is meant to be reformulated as you grow. For example, BrightGauge has changed our product development process a handful of times this last year in search of what works best for our team communication and work style. Currently, 6-week cycles are holding strong. Whatever process you set will be better than just winging it. Traction — This is the key characteristic of the most successful business leaders. Their influence drives accountability, focus, and discipline throughout their team. How this has proven effective for us Back in 2016, BrightGauge adopted a a more data driven style to managing our growth. We set out to make sure everyone in the company bought into a growth plan. At the suggestion of many customers, we read Traction. Working off its many great, practical takeaways, Traction encouraged us to implement the EOS system. We saw a 60% spike in growth within the next year. With a company-wide dedication to more transparency, accountability, and cadence came greater teamwide alignment. You can see why we’ve since recommended that everyone pick up this book. A central theme in Traction that’s carried over to BrightGauge is Goals (previously named scorecards), or quarterly rocks. By breaking down your company vision into quarterly goals, you lay down an actionable and trackable path to success. Team members are able to check-in on the progress of their goals on a regular basis, holding everyone accountable to our overall growth plan. Goal setting also encourages commitment. It’s easy to try something new and give up after a short period of time, especially when it comes to setting marketing or sales objectives. Through committing to your team’s top 1-3 quarterly objectives, you’re more likely to feel accomplished and enact positive change in your company. At the very least, you’ll also be able to learn what isn’t helping you work towards your greater vision. Implementing EOS for Your Team We see great value in companies, new and old, taking a fine look at their company vision. To answer a lot of the questions that come up in implementing EOS and choosing the right goals for your growth, we’re hosting a webinar on May 22nd with Ryan Giles, the founder of Traction Strong. An EOS implementer, Ryan is also a previous customer of BrightGauge and has shared his knowledge of the benefits of EOS in Episode 37 of the BrightGauge podcast: “When Ryan discovered and implemented the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) at his MSP, the move yielded immediate results - 30% year-over-year growth, an additional 14 points to the bottom line, and triple the valuation. Seeing first-hand what can be accomplished with the system led Ryan to launch a new chapter in his professional journey, this time as Professional EOS Implementer at Giles LLC.” To learn more about how EOS and goals can make an impact on your business, watch our webinar Guiding Growth through EOS & Goals.

A strong work team is marked by a mix of employees who are dedicated, proactive, solutions-oriented, supportive, and always willing to help each other out. Above all else, successful team members have got to be productive and accountable. Good managers encourage productivity and accountability by being motivating leaders and by knowing when to step in to lend an extra hand. Managers can’t do it alone, though. In a work environment that encourages independent thinking and ‘managers of one’, what can be done to increase the rate of productivity? For one thing, you can put everything in plain view, with dashboards. What you accomplish with dashboards Aside from streamlining your business and keeping sensitive data organized, BrightGauge dashboards just keep things real. They are comprised of gauges that analyze data and key performance indicators (KPIs) of your choosing, in real-time. The data you view syncs automatically, so everything you see is current. This means you can’t hide from hard facts. Visible data takes employee performance and hangs it out to dry, where everyone can take a peek. See how many support tickets Jane has resolved today. Look into stats behind a customer account to see why they might’ve churned. It’s all there with the right integrations. Accountability becomes a given When the truth is out in the open and accessible, the only option is to be accountable. You have no choice but to own up to everything you do, both good and bad. And that’s awesome. It’s true what they say - when you have no lies to hide behind, it kind of sets you free. It allows you to say, “This is who I am and this is what I’ve done” and it motivates you to always perform to the best of your abilities because, honestly, we’re humans and we like looking good in front of our peers. With accountability comes the acceptance and awareness of where improvements are needed. It becomes easier to push for productivity Visual cues are really powerful. If your boss is trying to raise $10,000 for an important cause, and verbally tells you she’s raised $5,600 so far, that’s cool. If she shows you a gauge that gets filled in with green with each dollar raised, that’s even better! It becomes almost like a game to completely fill in the gauge and there’s an actual emotional response that comes along with fulfilling your goal. It’s the same with work (or even personal) goals. If Jane’s goal is to respond to tickets within 30 minutes of receiving them, and her average response time is displayed on dashboards on flat-screen TVs around her office, you better believe that she’s going to do everything she can to get that average time down to 29 minutes or less. She’s going to be incredibly motivated to help her company meet important goals and to set new personal records. This is a win-win for all. It’s important to motivate, not discourage BrightGauge dashboards serve two main purposes: they put your KPIs on display in one easy-to-access place, and they motivate teams. Remember that: motivation is key. Using KPIs to track employee and company goals is smart. But turning that data against team members is dangerous. Nobody should be discouraged or shamed for their performance and goals do not have to be strictly set in stone, forever (glaring or repeated issues are an exception, of course). Instead, dashboards should be used as a barometer for health and as a conversation starter. We believe that regular check-ins and reviews help a company remain profitable and efficient, and the data gathered from dashboards can help kick off those check-ins. If applied correctly, dashboards and goals act as a guiding light for employees, rather than as a point of pressure. Dashboard Best Practices Some quick tips to optimally using dashboards for productivity and accountability: Be upfront with KPIs so that every employee has insight into company goals Encourage employees to come up with their own goals; this emphasizes the importance of being accountable Use our rotating dashboards feature to get a complete view of all your important data and to drive productivity Schedule regular, honest check-ins with your team to make sure nothing is falling through the cracks Learn the right way to set and track goals, establish a cadence, and drive your organization forward using accountability.

Since getting their start back in 2007, Be Structured has sought growth while sticking to their original mission of providing unwavering customer service that builds noteworthy customer loyalty. Over time, their business model has continued to evolve. Now, Be Structured serves hundreds of clients throughout the Los Angeles area and beyond. They seek to be your strategic partner and one-stop-shop for everything from fixing a printer to managing multi-million dollar capital budgets or very large projects. We spoke with Chad Lauterbach, the CEO of Be Structured Technology Group, to see how they differentiate themselves from competitors and where BrightGauge's dashboards have changed the way they do business. A BrightGauge customer since 2015, Be Structured signed up to see their Kaseya, AutoTask (now AEM), and QuickBooks data in an easy to digest, actionable format. They now use Autotask and Autotask Endpoint Management(AEM) to cover their sales and ticketing needs. Favorite Feature Their go-to tool for keeping on top of all of their customer tickets and to motivate their team with the latest sales data: television dashboards. Building custom widgets to meet their needs, Be Structured's custom KPIs are on display on TV’s throughout their office for all to see. “BrightGauge has helped us with seeing our KPIs through fun, simple math and the real-time ticket data displayed on the 4 TVs we have around our office." A little customer care goes a long way Since acquiring a PSA and RMM over the last decade, Be Structured has come to take on more responsibilities than being a break/fix consulting shop. With most of their growth being organic and through word of mouth, they place a lot of emphasis in treating their employees and customers well. Being kind always pays off in the end. Not only does it build trust and loyalty, it allows you to not be “perfect”, make some mistakes, and work through them as a team. Be Structured also knows it's about understanding what their customers truly need. "We know what we can and can’t deliver and we know what will and won’t be a good fit for us and the client. I think that differentiates us because we care about the technology, the customers business, and how the two fit together. We don’t undersell or oversell the clients based on their needs." "I meet too many MSP owners that are just business owners and sales people. They have an understanding of tech of course, but not down to the detail configuration level, which makes them incapable of actually engineering the right solution for the client. Often they just default to their technology stack or “their way” regardless of it is in the clients best interest… or if it will even work".