Richard Tubb's Blog, page 63

Mint H – Wireless Item Beeper

Every Friday I share one of my favourite finds of the week — a website, tool or an app that has impressed me.

My Friday Favourite this week is Mint H – Wireless Item Beeper.

What is it?

The Mint H is a wireless item beeper that you can attach to items to track them around your home.

How can it help me?

I’ve looked at item beepers before, including the MYNT ES – Keep Track Of Your Things Near And Far and the original Mynt – Smart Tracker and Bluetooth Remote Control.

Both of those beepers are Bluetooth-based, for tracking items (such as luggage and your Smartphone) when away from the home.

The Mint H is a wireless item beeper that you would use for items in and around your home. It uses an RF (radio frequency) transmitter, so the range is better than Bluetooth.

If you’ve ever misplaced your house keys, lost your iPad somewhere around the home, or can’t find your wallet or purse, then the Mint H wireless item beeper can help you.

The boxed set comes with a 6 x trackers and a remote control unit.

The trackers are keyfob-sized buttons which run off CR2032 batteries.

You attach the trackers to your items via metal hoops (included) or tape.

When you need to find any of your items, press the remote control and the trackers will sound a beep to let you know where the items are.

The remote control also includes a handy little LED torch for when you’re peering behind a cabinet or down the back of the sofa!

In practice, I found that I could track items anywhere in my house with the Mint H. It even worked when placed around the Cat’s collar (although she was a bit bemused at the beeping).

If you’re constantly finding yourself trying to find everyday items around your home, Mint H should help you!

How much does it cost?

The Mint H boxed set costs from £25 in the UK and $25 in the USA.

How can I get it?

The Mint H – Wireless Item Beeper is available from Amazon in the UK.

For more information on buying globally, visit www.themintbeeper.com.

You can also visit the homepage of the creators of the Mint H at Slightech.com, follow @Slightech on Twitter or visit the Slightech Facebook page.

You Might Also Be Interested In

3 Free Tools for Tracking your Lost Laptop, Smartphone or Tablet
What to do if you lose your Amazon Kindle
How to Protect the Data on your Laptop or Mobile Device

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Help us voting on the Live Video for MSPs!

A heads-up that on September 19th, we’ll be broadcasting the latest in our series of Avast Live Video for Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

The topic of the video? Well, we want your help in deciding!

What topic would YOU like us to cover to help your IT Solution Provider or MSP business?

The Avast Live Video for MSPs Series

If you’ve missed any of the Live Videos for MSPs so far, then you’ve missed out on some great educational content.

Each live video is brought to you by Avast Business, and are vendor-neutral, educational videos.

The videos are recorded in the studios at the London Stock Exchange (LSE). I host a panel of experts who discuss the most pressing topics that MSPs face and share real-world, practical advice on how MSPs can grow their business.

The panel answers questions from a live audience — and we’ve had some pretty interesting questions to answer, too!

Each of our sessions has been recorded to watch on-demand.

Here’s what we’ve recorded so far.

Best Practices for Running a Successful MSP

I was joined by Andrew James, Commercial Director for Sovision IT, Richard Whybra, Technical Director for Taurus Clearer Communication and Tim Wilkinson, UK Sales Leader for Avast Software.

We discussed:-

The Managed Services Model: Advantages and pitfalls to be aware of.
Key elements of a successful managed services business.
Peer-to-peer advice on the strategies and tools to implement and run a profitable business.

Check out the Best Practices for Running a Successful MSP – Live Video for MSPs.

Social Media for MSPs

This was an amazing session!

Panellists Robert Gibbons, Head of Managed Services, Evaris Solutions, Claire Jenks, Head Designer, Claire Jenks Design, Fiona Challis, MSP & Channel Enablement Expert and I discussed:-

What should you talk about on Social Media?
How to win new customers via Social Media
Overcoming the fear that you’re giving too much away

Check out the Social Media for MSPs – Live Video for MSPs.

How to offer awesome MSP Endpoint Protection

In this video, the panellists were Gareth Brown – Sytec, Steven Pretlove – CCS, Jonathan Fox – Foxability and Paul Fenwick – Avast Business.

We discussed:-

An overview of the security gaps that SMBs are exposed to by using on-prem appliances or UTMs.
A look at the advanced protection and cost savings that cloud-based network security offers to SMBs.
How to add Security as a Layered Service to deliver agile services to your SMB customers.

Check out the How to offer awesome MSP Endpoint Protection – Live Video for MSPs.

Vote on the next Live Video for MSPs topic!

Our next Avast Live Video for MSPs is taking place on September 19th, live from the London Stock Exchange.

Which topic would you like to see us cover? What would help you in growing your MSP business?

Leave your response below. Polls close at 0800 GMT on August 22nd. We’ll announce the results and details of how you can sign up shortly afterwards.

Which topic should we cover in the next Avast Live Video for MSPs?Service DeliverySales & MarketingLeadership & ManagementSystems & ProcessesProductivity and EfficiencyOtherVote

Is there a specific speaker or panellist you’d like to see us feature in this or a future session? I’d love to hear your suggestions. Leave a comment below or get in touch!

You Might Also Be Interested In

How MSPs can Market Themselves Better – TubbTalk #28
Questions to expect from your clients about using social media safely
What is a Managed Service Provider? My definition of an MSP

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Best Practices for Running a Successful MSP – Live Video

Running a Managed Service Provider (MSP) business is no easy task.

There are multiple aspects of the business to deal with including Service Delivery, Sales and Marketing, HR, Finance, and much more.

How can you be sure you’re doing everything the right way?

We covered this topic in our latest live video for MSPs on Best Practices for Running a Successful MSP.

Live Video – Best Practices for Running a Successful MSP.

Recorded in the amazing studios at the London Stock Exchange (LSE), this live video session was hosted by our friends at Avast Business. It featured a panel discussion.

If you caught our live video on How to offer awesome MSP Endpoint Protection then you’ll know these are lively and very interactive sessions!

The panel and I talked about how the Managed Service model, and how to deliver it effectively.

Our panel consisted of:-

Andrew James, Commercial Director for Sovision IT
Richard Whybra, Technical Director for Taurus Clearer Communication
Tim Wilkinson, UK Sales Leader for Avast Software

We answered the audience’s questions about running a successful MSP live on air. There were a LOT of challenging questions!

How GDPR is Raising Awareness of Cyber Security

In this excerpt from the full video, Richard asks Richard Whybra on how GDPR is changing his client’s view of cyber-security.

Richard also shares the opportunity for MSPs in providing “downstream” support to internal IT departments within client companies.

Why Your MSP Should Have an RMM Tool

In this excerpt, Richard asks Andrew why an MSP should use a Remote Monitoring & Management (RMM) tool.

Andrew explains how RMM tools have enabled his business to become more efficient and help their clients with their cybersecurity.

How to view the video on demand

The live video broadcast took place on 3rd December 2018. Did you miss it? Never fear! You can now view the video-on-demand at your leisure.

Visit the Avast Business BrightTalk website and register for free. If you’re already registered, then here’s a direct link to this Best Practices for Running a Successful MSP video.

We will give you on-demand access to this Managed Services video, and we will give you access to a library of other videos. They are all aimed at helping you grow your MSP business.

Conclusion

How is your IT Solution Provider business utilising the right tools to keep your client safe?

Has GDPR had an impact on your business growth?

Do you have questions about how to scale your MSP business?

Leave a comment below or get in touch to let me know.

You Might Also Be Interested In

Why Your MSP Business Will Never Be Completed
Why Successful Business Leaders Read Regularly
How to run a successful MSP in an area with no big businesses – TubbTalk #32

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iStorage DataShur – PIN Encrypted USB Flash Drive

Every Friday I share one of my favourite finds of the week — a website, tool or an app that has impressed me.

My Friday Favourite this week is iStorage DataShur Personal 2 – PIN encrypted USB Flash Drive.

What is it?

The iStorage DataShur Personal 2 is a PIN encrypted USB Flash Drive.

How can it help me?

If you store data on a USB flash drive, then you should make sure this data is encrypted. If you lose that USB flash drive and the contents aren’t encrypted, then that data can (and most likely will) be used for nefarious purposes.

I’ve shared before the lessons I learned from losing my laptop computer. The top lesson is this — encrypt your data!

Most USB Flash Drives can be encrypted by way of software. Microsoft Windows uses BitLocker for encryption, for instance.

The iStorage DataShur Personal 2 is a USB Flash Drive with a difference. It doesn’t rely on the Operating System for encryption. The data stored on your USB Flash Drive is encrypted but can be used on any Operating System.

The DataShur Personal 2 Flash Drive is secured by way of a physical PIN. You can set this PIN to a unique 7-15 digit number.

To decrypt the contents of the drive, enter the physical PIN before popping the Flash Drive into a USB slot as normal.

When you remove the DataShur Personal 2 Flash Drive, it is secure again.

For IT departments or Managed Service Providers (MSPs), the DataShur Personal 2 range can use independent user and admin PIN codes. If the user forgets their PIN, the administrator can allow the user to set a new PIN.

The DataShur Personal 2 Flash Drive uses the USB 3.2 standard and is backwards compatible with earlier USB standards.

It comes in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities.

How much does it cost?

The iStorage DataShur Personal Flash Drive starts at £39 for the 4GB version.

How can I get it?

You can buy the iStorage DataShur Personal Flash Drive at Amazon, plus a series of distributors globally.

You can find out more about the Datashur Personal 2 range on the iStorage Website.

You can also follow @iStorage_Ltd on Twitter, check out the iStorage LinkedIn page, or visit the iStorage Facebook page.

You Might Also Be Interested In

How to Protect the Data on your Laptop or Mobile Device
pCloud – All your files with you, anywhere you go
ExpressVPN – High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service

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Yelp – Discover Local Businesses

Every Friday I share one of my favourite finds of the week — a website, tool or an app that has impressed me.

My Friday Favourite this week is Yelp – Discover Local Businesses.

What is it?

Yelp is an online directory for local businesses with crowd-sourced reviews.

How can it help me?

You can use Yelp to find good local businesses. Yelp is great for finding restaurants, cafes, pubs, hotels, shops and more.

As a Yelp user, you can “check-in” to the places you visit and leave reviews and tips about the place. This helps other Yelp users to find the best places – and avoid the worst!

I use Yelp a lot when travelling to a new City, to make sure that the places I’m visiting are worth spending my time and money on. Thanks to Yelp’s crowd-sourced reviews, I’ve found some real gems in terms of places to eat, and some fun, quirky shops to visit.

You can also use Yelp to bookmark places that have been recommended to you, that you would like to visit in the future. I often use this feature to do some research on a location before I travel to it so that when I arrive in that place, I’ve got a number of curated recommendations of places to visit ready to use.

I’ve been using Yelp for many years now. I use it every day to check-in to places and leave reviews that I hope will help others. I think this can help connect people with the best local businesses,  and it also helps the best local businesses to stand out from the crowd.

Yelp recognised these contributions and made me part of their Elite Squad a few years ago. You can connect with me on Yelp to follow my recommendations.

As my friend Chris Marr talks about on using social media to win local business, if you own a business-to-consumer (B2C) business, then I’m not sure why you wouldn’t maintain a listing to be found by people on Yelp.

How much does it cost?

Yelp is free to use.

How can I get it?

Yelp is available to use as a website, and you can download apps for iOS and Android devices.

Visit Yelp.com for more details.

You can also follow @Yelp on Twitter, or visit the Yelp Facebook page.

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Sanebox – Email Management Software

Every Friday I share one of my favourite finds of the week — a website, tool or an app that has impressed me.

My Friday Favourite this week is Sanebox – Email Management Software.

What is it?

Sanebox is email management software that you can use with any email inbox.

It identifies important email messages and hides distractions.

How can it help me?

Do you manage your email inbox, or does your email inbox manage you?

For many of us, email becomes something we endure. I speak to lots of people who share with me that they ask ruefully themselves “When did my job become doing email?”

I’ve written before about my experiment in reducing my email by a quarter. I now work with the inbox zero as part of my GTD methodology (find out what is GTD and hot it helps with productivity) and Sanebox has played a large part in this.

Sanebox is a cloud-based app that connects to your inbox. It works with almost any provider, including Google, Office 365, Apple iCloud, Yahoo and many more.

Once you’ve authorised Sanebox to manage your inbox, it makes your email smarter through Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Sanebox adds some new folders to your email and over a short period of time, learns how you use email. It detects who are important contacts for you, and which emails are not urgent.

These unimportant emails, which can distract you, are moved out of your inbox and into the @SaneLater folder where you can browse them as time allows.

Other folders Sanebox can optionally implement include

@SaneNews (which you can use alongside the Unroll.me app for email newsletters. Here is a Google Script for using SaneBox alongside Unroll.me)
@SaneBulk — for bulk emails such as “Confirm your email address” and notifications.
@SaneBlackhole — for pesky spam senders who just won’t take no for an answer. Drag them into your SaneBlackhole folder and never hear from them again!

Sanebox has become an essential tool for me, and I’ve included it in my list of useful resources that I actively recommend. You can see the entire list of useful resources here.

How much does it cost?

Sanebox plans cost from $7 per month.

How can I get it?

Visit the Sanebox homepage to find out more.

You can also follow @Sanebox on Twitter, or visit the Sanebox Facebook page.

You Might Also Be Interested In

Why using email could be killing your business relationships
Are you hiding behind email?
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Social Media for MSPs – Live Video

Social Media for MSPs. It’s an incredibly powerful way for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to build trust, demonstrate their expertise and win more business.

Why is it, therefore, that there are SO few MSPs who are using social media successfully?

And many IT businesses are actually not using social media at all!

We covered this topic in our latest live video on Social Media for MSPs.

Live Video – Social Media for MSPs

Recorded in the studios at the London Stock Exchange (LSE), this live video session was hosted by our friends at Avast. It featured a panel discussion.

If you caught our live video on How to offer awesome MSP Endpoint Protection then you’ll know these are lively and very interactive sessions!

The panel and I talked about how MSPs can use social media to effectively find new clients and grow their business.

Nimble CRM- Social CRM for Small Businesses

Every Friday I share one of my favourite finds of the week — a website, tool or an app that has impressed me.

My Friday Favourite this week is Nimble CRM- Social CRM for Small Businesses.

What is it?

Nimble is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) app focused on social relationships for small businesses.

How can it help me?

Many small businesses don’t keep track of their sales opportunities. When I ask them:-

How does your business keep track of the people and organisations you’re doing business with?
Do you maintain records of the conversations that you’re having with prospective clients?
Are you keeping track of the sales deals that you are pursuing?

… the answer I get is that they either aren’t tracking these details or they are relying on keeping these details in the business owners head.

Nimble CRM helps you to keep track of your sales efforts and customer relationships.

In my article with advice on how do I choose a CRM vendor to work with? I highlight that you must choose a CRM product that is focused on Small and Medium-sized (SMBs).

That’s a huge reason why I chose Nimble CRM to work with on my own business.

Nimble was created by Jon Ferrara, who I refer to as the Godfather of CRM. Ferrara was the co-founder of Goldmine software, a pioneer in CRM solutions.

Nimble is easy to set up and get started with.

It has a focus on Social CRM — tracking your relationships with the people you do business with via email and social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

As my friend Michael de Groot explains in his free eBook on Social Selling, this type of selling is the most effective way of growing your business.

Nimble integrates with platforms such as Google Mail and Microsoft Office 365 and brings all of your conversations into one sales and customer dashboard to manage.

I personally use Nimble every day. The Today Page Dashboard reminds me to stay in touch with important clients and prospects and to keep track of sales deals I’m working on.

Thanks to the integration with PieSync, I also use Nimble CRM as my main contact management tool between the various Cloud tools that I use.

Nimble is very simple, yet very powerful. It’s transformed the way I manage my relationships and helped me regain control over my sales opportunities.

How much does it cost?

Nimble CRM costs from $19 per user per month.

How can I get it?

Visit the Nimble Homepage and sign-up for a free 30-day trial.

You can also follow @Nimble on Twitter, or visit the Nimble Facebook page.

You Might Also Be Interested In

Stop Writing Sales Proposals!
Questions to expect from your clients about using social media safely
Using Social Media to win local business – TubbTalk #11

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MailChimp – Email Marketing Service

Every Friday I share one of my favourite finds of the week — a website, tool or an app that has impressed me.

My Friday Favourite this week is MailChimp – Email Marketing Service.

What is it?

MailChimp is an online email marketing service.

How can it help me?

If you have a business or organisation, you should be using email marketing as a way to reach your prospective and existing clients.

As marketing expert John Jantsch said in our interview on how MSPs can market themselves better, people start a business because they’re good at something, such as IT. There’s a fear around marketing because it’s viewed as something strange that requires help from an expert to get right.

Email is the number one way that businesses stay in touch with one another, yet many businesses overlook email marketing.

MailChimp allows you to get started with email marketing quickly, easily and for free.

We use MailChimp here in Team Tubb for my email newsletter (you have signed up, right?) and also to send blasts to let subscribers know about upcoming events, such as webinars I’m running.

MailChimp allows you to easily create sign-up forms to allow you to build your email list in a GDPR-compliant way.

It has strong reporting and integrates with lots of other platforms for automation.

While there are certainly more powerful marketing platforms out there, MailChimp is the platform I recommend to anyone starting out with email marketing.

How much does it cost?

MailChimp offers a free plan that includes up to 2,000 contacts and 10,000 email sends per month (with a daily send limit of 2,000).

As you grow, MailChimp offers paid monthly plans and Pay As You Go plans too.

How can I get it?

Visit the MailChimp homepage to create a free account and get started.

You can also follow @MailChimp on Twitter, or visit the MailChimp Facebook page.

You Might Also Be Interested In

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Todoist – To Do List App & Task Manager

Every Friday I share one of my favourite finds of the week — a website, tool or an app that has impressed me.

My Friday Favourite this week is Todoist – To Do List App & Task Manager.

What is it?

Todoist is a To Do List App that helps you keep track of everything in one place.

How can it help me?

I recently wrote on What is GTD and how it helps with productivity.

The key element of being productive with the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology is a simple idea. That your head is a great place to create ideas, but not to hold them.

When you have an idea, you need to store it in an “external brain”.

For me, when I think of something I need to get done — personally or professionally — I record it in Todoist.

Having this external to do list brings great peace of mind. You will never worry about forgetting anything again.

At it’s simplest level, Todoist is an app that allows you to record things you need to get done, and then tick them off as you do them.

It allows you to use natural language to record tasks. You can input “Water the plants at home on Monday every week” and Todoist will convert to a weekly recurring task, for instance.

But Todoist is more sophisticated than that (if you choose it to be!) and you can also

record sub-tasks
create notes
set reminders
set priorities
create recurring tasks
review your day or week ahead
delegate tasks

… and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZKq0...

For many years I used the excellent to do list app Remember the Milk (RTM).

I recently moved from RTM to Todoist for an important feature — Todoists ability to create tasks via voice command.

I can now use Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant and say “Create a new task” and speak that task. This is useful when on the move.

The bottom line is, Todoist enables me to keep my head empty of nagging thoughts and focus on doing the things that are the most important.

How much does it cost?

Todoist is free to use.

There is also a premium version of Todoist with additional features, starting at £3/month.

How can I get it?

Visit the Todoist homepage to find out more.

You can also visit the Todoist Facebook page, or follow @Todoist on Twitter.

Thanks to fellow Team Tubb member Claire Jenks for introducing me to Todoist!

You Might Also Be Interested In

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