When they arrived the first to be commissioned was the file & print server as this was a straight forward migration to Windows 2008 from Windows 2003. This went fairly smooth, and apart from printers, it didn't really cause us any hassle. The other server run's the clients line of business (LOB) application which was not compatible with Windows 2008, but as the client planned to upgrade we went ahead and ordered the new server anyway. Various meetings took place with the LOB support company and the client did not progress this despite making it clear that we *really* needed to do this as by now the hardware it was on was almost 7 years old. Before we completed this the business was sold, and while our services have been retained, this LOB application is still on the old server.

Now it was time to push, so I explained that we had to move this project forward and given that the LOB upgrade was not on the short term plan the best route was to virtualize the current server onto the new one using Hyper-V so that it is then on new hardware.

So this is where I find myself now and we are moving along great. The whole process has been made simple with the use of Paragon Drive Backup Server Edition, which the client already had, as it has a P2V Copy tool. Without this it would not have been so straight forward. So I will continue to 'sup' tea and eat my biscuits while we continue.

- Rob

Over this last week I have been speaking a lot with a good friend of mine. He is currently setting up the UK office for a German company who provide encryption solutions for businesses. Now, he has come from an 'employed' background which means that there has always been a 'man' for every job that needs to be done in the business. There's a marketing team full of creative luvvies just waiting to come up with some great one-liners and hair brain adverts just like the Cadbury's one's. There has been a group of techies huddled up in a dark corner just waiting for a new problem so they can get their 'geek on'. Then there's the small group of people in the accounts office that love 'figures' in the way that only an accountant can and chase payments like a dog chases a bone.  Of course there has been the MD sitting in his large office, lording it up over the business making sure that everyone is working hard. Somewhere in the midst of all this typical business has sat my friend, performing his duties with all the diligence of a man that has true passion for his job and the people he serves.

Now, due to a twist of fate, he has found himself in the role that many small business owners find themselves. Where this army of people that do every part of the business only exists within your mind, in what can only be likened to "Dissociative identity disorder". It got me thinking about how each day small business owners go to work and assume more roles in one day than most actors undertake in a lifetime and still they continue to project an image of sanity, integrity and professionalism within that. Then as the business starts to grow they start to pass some of those personalities on to the subordinate that are brought on-board, again in the hope that they can off-load another one soon. So the enterprising people of the world continue.

Now I am sure that all of this probably sounds quite depressing but it shouldn't. It is a stark image of how amazing small business owners and entrepreneurs are and continue to be as each day passes. For this I salute all Small Business Owners and Entrepreneurs out there and long may enterprise continue.

For my part, I will continue to help my friend through his period of having a split-personality and pass on the lessons I have learned, especially the one's I learnt that hard way!

If you have any great stories about life as a Small Business Owner or Entrepreneur then please leave them in the comments below.

- Rob

What happened is that on Friday a client called in to the office and logged a call just after 9.30am to say that their network was down and they needed a call back urgently. I was on holiday at the time but I did see the message come in. As there are systems in place to deal with these things I resisted the urge to jump on the problem and call the client. However I couldn't resist the urge to log on to the clients server and check things over, I did and all was well again. So I left it to the guys to deal with the 'personal' side of the support call.

Then just after 12 noon another message was passed through to say that the client had called in again and was extremely upset that, while the problem was resolved, he had not received a call back from anyone to assist with the issue and wanted to discuss the support service as soon as I was back in the office next week. This is the type of call that every service provider, IT or otherwise, dreads getting from any of their clients. After checking in to the issue we found that the call had gone into an 'unassigned queue' in the ticketing system and had just been missed. The system which I created had failed which resulted in this situation and the bottom line is..'We screwed up'.

Now, despite the fact that the client had asked for a call next week when I was back at the office I called him immediately. The first thing that he said was 'you're on holiday right?' to which I answered 'yes', he responded by saying 'well you shouldn't be talking to me if you're on holiday'. I went on to tell him that I should be talking to him as this situation is not only important to me but I take them very seriously. The first thing I did was apologise for letting him and his business down, we had not delivered when he needed us most. I went on to explain to the client what had happened which resulted in the lack of call back from our office. I then explained what had been put in place to prevent this from happening again. The call ended with the client while unhappy about the situation in the first place, he also appreciated the fact that I had admitted that we had made a mistake and that processes had been put in place to prevent this in future.

In any customer service situation where they client has a genuine complaint that is quite obviously 'your' fault (you or your business) the single worst thing that you can do is to say that it is not your fault,  'pass the buck' or in some way not accept responsibility. In this situation I told the client that it was totally my fault and explained what had been done to prevent this in future. Now I was on holiday at the time so 'technically' it wasn't my fault but the fact is that when you are in a position of authority/responsibility you must accept responsibility for the actions of those that you entrust to undertake work for you or on you behalf, this may be a member of your team or a contractor; regardless they are still your responsibility. This simple act of acceptance of responsibility instantly creates 2 feelings within a person. The first is relief; the reason for this is whenever we complain we instantly get ready for a fight, no-one wants to have a fight but we get ready. The fact that he didn't have a fight on his hands was an immediate relief and took the 'wind out of his sails'. The second was that the partnership was right; this probably seems like an odd one but when you work with any service provider you want to feel its a partnership and feel comfortable that when you ask them to do something it will get done without badgering them. Likewise when they screw up and you are forced to complain then you also need to feel reassured that it will be dealt with efficiently and to your satisfaction saving you the frustration of keep having to shout. By dealing with this complaint in this way the whole situation what completely defused and we were able to discuss the problems rationally and allow the client to explain to me where we had let him down. That way I was able to make sure that we will deliver next time and more importantly make sure he is not put in that position again. A very good friend of mine once told me "You're only as good as your last job", never a truer word has been spoken.

This is something that I feel passionately about as on a personal level I have a lot of dealings with the NHS for our child and the people we deal with do not follow any of the standard guidelines above on dealing with complaints. This creates a great deal of frustrations when dealing with them so I would never want to put any one of my clients in this situation.

I understand that accepting complete responsibility in the first instance may not always be the right thing, if for example it may lead to legal proceedings. As a general rule I believe this is the right way to deal with clients as this is how I would like to be dealt with.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter and how you deal with failure. I do not believe that my way is right but I know what works well for me.

- Rob

Right now I am sat in a TravelLodge in Leicester as I am attending the CompTIA resellers forum at 7.30am at the Holiday Express followed by the TCA Conference at 10.45am at the Walkers Stadium. Yesterday evening all of the people attending the Resellers Forum were out for a dinner kindly laid on by Kaseya, and yes it was a room full of geeks but it was a great night out and fantastic opportunity for me to get together again with Chris Timm, Richard Tubb, Andy Parkes, William Linard, Adam Harris and many others some of whom I had not see for some time. These guys are some of the best in our industry and I proud to say my friends. On the face of it some of these guys run IT companies that are doing what I do so why on earth would I want to be socialising with them much less sharing the way we work? Quite simply because through sharing, you get the reassurance that 'that awkward customer' is not just unique to you and that others face the same challenges that you do. Also by working together we can all help to raise the standard in the industry and that is what the Resellers Forum is all about. If you run an IT business and are interested in getting involved in the Resellers Forum then you should contact William Linard for more information.

None the less the first person to that came to speak with me was Adam Harris from Bear-IT who came over to speak with me and discuss what I did. This totally opened my eyes to the fact that maybe, just maybe, those other IT companies were not so evil after all and that maybe, just maybe, there could be synergies between seemingly rival businesses. After this Adam invited me up to meet with him to discuss things further. I was told by another IT company that I was working with at the time not to discuss software and tools etc as they should be a closely guarded 'secret'. However, once I started talking with Adam I found that we all do the same things, same tools, same software just a different business with different faces. So I reciprocated the openness that was shown to me.

Fast forward on to the beginning of this year when I was approached by another IT consultant and fellow business owner from Birmingham. Richard Tubb from Netlink IT contacted me following some posts which I had made on Twitter. After reading Richard's blog it seemed clear that he had travelled the business path which I wanted to embark upon, making the move from being 'self-employed' to being a 'business owner', so we began to talk. Once again I was astounded at the openness of information that was being afforded to me by someone I had only known a short time. Things such as the type of tools to use, how to deliver the best customer experience, service management and delivery, all of which is normally hidden information within the IT trade. So why was all of this being given free of charge, without a catch or clause? Because Richard believed in the community and the power of working together instead of against each other. Now all of this collaboration what highlighted when in May 2009 I was drafted in by Richard and some of his peers to assist in a massive nationwide upgrade project for one of their clients, you can read all about it here. All in all there was 8 different IT businesses working together under on collaborative umbrella which meant that what was a massive project which included over a dozen servers, 200+ desktops across 13 sites was all made possible by the IT community working together instead of against each other.

It was once said by John Donne "No man is an island", and no truer word has been said. For those that run businesses it can be quite isolating but there are people out there who are willing to work with you and help you so don't be afraid to ask.

If you are interested in developing a strategic alliance with myself then please feel free to contact me at rob@potter-tate.co.uk. Alternatively if you have a storey you would like to share about how the community has helped you then send it over as it would be great to share.

- Rob

At the end of this, for the cost of a license, they have a very satisfied client who will tell a good few people how well ESET looked after them.  It was once said that sometimes you have to give something away free in order to get more business, this is a classic example of how to look after you client even if it may cost you a little; in the long run it will be worth.

Me: "Hi there, I have a problem with BackupExec for Small Business Server that was supplied with these new servers for my client".

Dell: "What is the problem?"

Me: "When I enter the license key it says that it is invalid. It accepts the "Premium" license key but it will not accept the SBS key"

Extended period of silence...now 15 minutes in to the call and not progressed

Dell: "What license number do you have?"

Me: "The license key is..."

Dell: "That's a serial number"

Me: "It says license key?"

Dell: "No that's the serial number"

Me: "But it says on the front cover that it is the "Software License Key" and inside, just above the key, it says "Software License Key". Surely it would say serial number if that is what it is?"

Dell: "No that's the serial number, you need to go to the Symantec licensing portal and register the serial number"

Me: "But I have done dozens of these and I have always just entered the key into the software"

Dell: "They have tightened up the licensing recently"

Me: "Hmm, ok where do I go to register the 'serial number'?"

So now we go to the Symantec licensing portal, I complete the registration in order to log on to the site. After entering the 'serial number' it says that the 'serial number' is invalid.

Me: "It says the number is invalid"

Dell: "Are you sure it is entered correctly?"

Me: "Yes I'm sure but it does not say it is a serial number it clearly says it's a license key"

Dell: "Ok I need to speak with Symantec, can you hold"?"

Me: "Err yeah ok"

So I was put on hold, 35 minutes in to the call and I had made no progress. Needless to say I did not stay on hold as by this point I was completely frustrated by the fact that the support technician was simply not listening. The conversation above it not verbatim but I must have explained to this guy about 10 times that it clearly states it is a License Key and not a Serial Number but he was not listening.

The most important skill that any person who is in a customer facing role can do is just listen. By not exercising this most fundamental skill during this call my whole experience with Dell's "Pro-support" was completely destroyed and had this been my first experience then I would be one very unhappy client and would think twice about buying Dell again.  That said only a week before I had spoken to them and the support tech I spoke to I cannot say enough about. He listened and acted on what I was telling while verifying what I was saying was correct.

I can only assume that my bad experience was a one-off but none the less it was a bad experience.  So if nothing else, don't talk just listen and everything else will take shape.

Overview
Award winning marketing consultancy, Fresh Marketing Solutions have put together a course to help all businesses maximise the return from their website. The 1 day Web Masterclass will provide the opportunity for learners to put together a website action plan that is tailored to their business. They will learn about the different considerations when producing a successful website and will be able to put together an action plan to be used in their business.

Masterclass Content
During the intensive 1 day course, learners will cover a variety of topics such as graphic design and page structure, web standard and technologies, getting the right content, search engine requirements, being realistic with your budget, planning your website and writing a brief for web designers. The course is suitable for any team member that wants to understand how to maximise return from their website.

The Benefits
Upon completion of the course each learner will have a good understanding of the various elements that will help their website to become more successful. By having this first hand understanding you will be in a better position to chose the right web company and get the most from their current website.

The Web Consultant
With over 10 years experience, our Web Consultant selected to run the Masterclass has a wealth of experience across businesses from a variety of sectors. These range from large organisations, small to medium enterprises and independent sole traders.

Course Details
Masterclasses will be held in May 2009. The course will be delivered in a local training facility where refreshments and lunch will be included. Specific details of location, times etc will be issued in the learner packs sent 2 weeks before the course begins. All learning materials will be provided.

The course is priced at £500 per learner (excluding VAT) with the option of group discounts.

Funding Now Available
For eligible companies*, Fresh will be able to arrange government funding to meet 100% of the course costs.

Important Information
The course will be delivered over 1 day from 9.30am to 5.30pm You will receive notification by email that we have received your booking form.
A pre-course information pack will be sent out to all learners in advance of the course. The course must be paid for in full before the start of the course. This booking form constitutes a legally binding contract. In the event of cancellation, refunds will be made minus any associated costs.

* For businesses that are eligible for funding, payment will be required prior to the course which will then be reimbursed to the learner.

If you are interested then please feel free to contact me directly rob@freethecityone.co.uk or contact Fresh Marketing Solutions directly on 01623 786786