A Vision for the Future

As I reflect on 2011, there’s one word that comes to mind… Vision.

Someone once told me that strategic planning is worthless unless you start with a strategic vision. I come from an operations background, so I’m always looking at what we’re doing and how we are doing it. I strive to improve processes and efficiency — and that really works when it comes to strategic planning. But when I was challenged to create a strategic vision, I had to look away from what we do and how we do it. I had to focus on what we are and what we want to be. So I’d like to share some of my vision for Synergy Services and give you highlights of the past year at the same time.

Our vision is to build a customer service oriented managed services company.
The key word here is “customer.”  In 2011, we made a conscious effort to put customer service at the top of our priority list. Every decision we made, even down to how we rearranged our office space, was weighed on whether or not it helped us to provide better customer service.

As business people first and IT professionals second, we will create value for our clients.
We have focused on our customers’ businesses rather than their technology long before it was the thing to do. Our new tagline, “Manage, Grow, Prosper” empathizes that we help businesses grow and prosper, not just back up data and avoid viruses. In order to provide more value to our customers, we hosted our first ever event, “The Magic of Business Intelligence,” which was a great success. In 2012, we are making more improvements to our website by adding more client stories, sharing those stories on KTLK radio and will likely have another large event in the fall.

Why do we market ourselves this way? Because we measure our success by the success our customers. If they grow and prosper in their business and we played a part in that, we have done our job. By sharing these stories, prospective customers will hopefully understand what makes us different and better.

We will grow steadily and consistently, building long term relationships with our customers and team members.
Speaking of new customers, almost every business owner (including myself) wants to grow and it never seems to happen fast enough. We decided that steady and consistent growth will get us where we want to go without losing good relationships. With that in mind, we were fortunate to meet several new customers in 2011 including non-profit organizations, an accounting firm, an auto body business and a manufacturer of playground equipment just to name a few. In 2012, we hope to meet even more customers and continue the steady growth we are experiencing.

We’ve said goodbye to some of our team members and welcomed several new ones into the family. As we continue to grow, we are always looking for talented individuals who are good with both people and technology. If you see a new face or hear a new voice on the phone, be sure to introduce yourself.

I hope that 2011 was a great year for your business, but more importantly for you. As you look into 2012, I challenge you to put strategic planning aside for a moment and ask yourself, “What is our strategic vision?” And then act on that.

Best regards!

Benjamin Moyer

“The Magic of Business Intelligence” Event Highlights

On Thursday, October 13 we hosted our first ever business event — “The Magic of Business Intelligence.” There were a couple of reasons why I wanted to host this event for Synergy clients and friends.

First, the topic of business intelligence is a timely one. As business owners and decision makers, we are all doing more with less. But the one thing there is no shortage of is information. Using the information we already have to make better and faster decisions has never been more important.

I also wanted to put the Synergy Services mission into action. Our single purpose is to help businesses harness the power of technology to manage, grow and prosper. Making technology work properly is only part of what we do. Our larger purpose is to help you leverage it in every way possible to reach the vision you have for your business. Using business intelligence is one way to do that.

We provided a few helpful resources in the event folder. If you weren’t able to attend, or if you would like a new copy, here are the documents we gave everyone: Enabling Business Intelligence for Everyone (Microsoft whitepaper); The Business Value of Business Intelligence in Sharepoint (Microsoft whitepaper); Microsoft Business Intelligence (Microsoft whitepaper); and What Makes Qlikview Unique (Qlikview whitepaper).

We have some great photos from the event…

The event was held at the Cray Business Center which used to be a theater in the Galtier Plaza.

Before and after the event, guests enjoyed a catered social hour.

Bobby, one of our engineers, talking with event guests.

Jenni, our dispatcher, got to put faces with all the names of the people she talks to!

Ron Noden spoke on the importance of knowing how to identitfy an “unshakeable” fact.

Several prizes were given out throughout the evening including an electric grille from Outdoor GreatRoom. Congratulations Tom!

Linda Taddonio from Insite Software drilled down into the details of Business Intelligence.

Ben Moyer talked about how he has applied BI in the past and now at Synergy.

The staff at Synergy picks the winner of the IPad. Congratulations Tracy from Afton House Inn!

There are a few “thank yous” that I’d like to express, now that the event is over. First, I’d like to thank those who attended. I was overwhelmed with the support and positive feedback (as well as suggestions for improvement) from many of you.

I’d also like to thank Ron Noden and Linda Taddonio for being such great presenters. You two did an amazing job! Thanks goes out to Microsoft for partnering with us. They provided guidance and insightful information as well as funding for the event. Finally, I’d like to thank my team at Synergy. You all did a great job pulling this off!

As a follow up to our event, Linda from iQdecisions is hosting a QlikView JumpStart workshop for those who want to experience Qlikview in action. Click here to learn more about this event. I will be attending, so I hope to see you there!

We will be hosting more events in the future, so stay tuned for what’s coming next. If you have a topic you’d like to learn more about, please email me and let me know.

Thanks!

Benjamin Moyer

Keep Your Head Down and Your Eye on the Ball

I’m not a regular golfer, but I enjoy getting out when I can. I played in a charity tournament recently and had a lot of fun, despite the challenges of a difficult course due to scorching heat and heavy rains the night before. In some areas, the ball was rolling very slowly because it was wet and in some areas it was fast because the sun dried the ground quickly.

Golf, like business, doesn’t always have perfect conditions. In fact, it’s rare to experience perfect greens and fairways. One of the conditions we’re all experiencing in business today is a terrible economy. It seems to be the main topic at many meetings and events lately. I’d like to share my views on the subject, and anyone who knows me won’t be surprised that there’s a few golf analogies mixed in. Whether you golf or not, I think it will make sense.

What I won’t provide in this article is golf tips! Believe me, you don’t want them from me so I’ve asked Bryan, one of our engineers and the best golfer in the office to give us some advice on improving our game. Click here to read his tips.

So here’s  my analogy… If you’re a business owner, picture yourself as the golfer. Your business is the golf course and the economy is the weather. It’s your job to get the ball into the hole with the least amount of swings as possible. If you’re good at what you do and the conditions are perfect, this isn’t too difficult. But when the weather affects the course with too much or too little rain, your game will definately be affected. In these situations you can choose to continue playing as you always have and be frustrated or make the adjustments needed to improve your game. 

From personal experience, I know that when I’ve complained about a rough fairway or slow greens, it never helped me improve my score! I’ve also learned that in business when I stop griping about things I can’t change and start focusing on ways to grow my business, I score much better. Here are some adjustments that I’ve found helpful for me during these times:

Find A Secret Weapon. While at the tournament, my golf partner found himself in a really tough spot. He immediately pulled out his secret weapon – a driver that he saves for situations just like that. He invested some money on this driver, but he knew it could save him a lot of strokes and frustration so it was worth it. At Synergy, we’ve invested in productivity tools that have helped us streamline our work and improve customer service. It wasn’t cheap, but has become an invaluable resource for us. 

Keep Your Head Down and Your Eye on the Ball. One thing I learned at my first golf lesson was tokeep my head down. My tendency in golf is to look up to see where the ball is going as it’s being hit. If I do this, I top the ball almost every time so I try hard not to. In the same way, I don’t spend a lot of time trying to guess where the economy is going or thinking about things I can’t change. Instead, I work hard to meet new customers and make sure I don’t lose the ones I have. These are the efforts that help me reach the vision I have for my company.

Change Your Course. As a golfer, I can’t really change the course I’m playing. As much as I’d like it to be much wider with no sand or water, it just isn’t going to happen. But as a business owner, I own my course! A bad economy proved to be a great time for me to be innovative. I reexamined what I was selling and how I was selling it. I have had success since introducing a new brand, marketing, and approach to sales. It wasn’t how we used to do things, so it took time to get used to. But it was a necessary change I had to make in order to stay competitive.

Golfer Bob Toski once said, “Most golfers prepare for disaster. A good golfer prepares for success.” Even in the worst conditions, we all need to have a vision of success for our businesses and spend our energy preparing for it.

You are invited to an event we’re hosting on October 13, 2011 — THE MAGIC OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE. Keynote speaker, Ron Noden, specializes in helping business owners reach the full potential of their businesses. Ron is one of my most valuable business resources and I guarantee you don’t want to miss this opportunity to hear from him. Also speaking is Linda Taddonio from Insite Software, a Synergy client and very intelligent business owner who has grown her company during these tough times. I will also be speaking during the event, so you won’t want to miss that for sure!

We have room for 150 guests and will be sending out the official invitation soon so don’t want too long to register! Click here to learn more about the event and reserve your spot in advance.

Golf Tips from Bryan (the best golfer in our office)

Golf is a very challenging sport and can cause a person a lot of frustration, but there are some basic strategies that you can follow to try and improve your game and minimize that stress.  The most important part of your game is your swing and how you aim your shots. Here are some swing pointers that I hope you find helpful.

The Stance.
Square up your foot stance and the ball to the target. Pick something out that is on the ground close to you, in the line of your target, to square up with. The club you have in your hand should determine where you have the ball in your stance. Typically with a driver you should put the ball in the front of your stance. (I am right handed so that would be straight out from my left foot.) Move the ball to the back of your stance with your higher irons. 

The Swing.
When you swing the club, keep a firm grip but not too hard. It should be just enough so the club does not move. You want to come back slow with your swing and then accelerate as you come forward through the ball, making sure when you are done swinging your club head is aiming at your target.  You need to make sure you keep your wrists straight — breaking them will cause your club face to turn, causing your ball to go in unwanted directions.  When you come back with your swing, keep your arms as straight as possible. When you are at a full back swing, your club head should be pointing at your target again.  You also need to make sure you are turning your hips as you come back and go forward with your swing. This is where a lot of your power will come from. 

Try these couple tips and see if it improves your game. I know when my Dad starts giving me tips it can either be good or really, really bad!

Bryan Turanski

The Season to Grow

Growing up in Wisconsin, even at a young age I knew how to determine whether the corn farmers were on track for a good growing season or not. You probably know it too… the corn should be “knee high by the Fourth of July.” As you can see from my photo, the stalks are already above my knees which means they are on track for a good season.

Understanding how your business is performing at all times is critical to running lean and staying profitable. For you it might not be as easy as standing in a cornfield, but there is a good chance that some of the technology that you already own can help you measure how you’re performing. Getting data out your systems can be easy if just you take a few minutes to learn about a couple of tools.

Pivot Table in Excel

Excel pivot tables and charts are great.  Whether you have a SQL database, Access database, file dump from Unix system, or another spreadsheet, you can create a simple report or chart that can give you very valuable data about your business. 

Here are a couple of tutorials I found helpful in helping me get my BI reporting started.

Excel Pivot Tables for Dummies

Create an Excel Pivot Table from SQL Server

This is just a start.  There are many tools that can take your Excel queries and use them in very powerful and automated ways. 

• Reporting Services is great for automated reports.  If you are using SQL Server 2008, the tool is included.
• Power Gadgets gives you gauges and charts that sit on your desktop and warn you about thresh holds in your data. 
• SharePoint Server gives you the framework to give visibility to your reports and charts to all of your staff.

At Synergy, we are in the process of using some of these same tools to better measure our perfomance. Send me an email if this is a topic you want to know more about. I hope you found this helpful. In the next few blogs I will be focusing on other ways to use your current technology to help you move forward with your business goals. After all, it’s always a good season to grow!

P.S. Watch for your invitation to an event we are hosting this fall that will focus on improving business insight. You won’t want to miss it!

Sincerely,

Benjamin Moyer

Keeping the Bugs Off (you and your computer)

Over Memorial Day weekend I went camping with my wife Tracy and our dog Brody in Northern Wisconsin. We started in Grantsburg and travelled by canoe for 45 miles, sleeping in our tent along the way. If any of you were up that way, you know how bad the woodticks are this year. I managed to only get bitten by a couple of ticks by using some great products and a little common sense.

One of those products is a Permethrin pump spray (click here to see it) that was originally developed for soldiers overseas. I just sprayed it on my clothing and it’s good for quite a while – even through several washings. I also had a gadget called a ThermaCell (click here to see it). It’s like a lantern that blocks out mosquitos and ticks in a 15’ x 15’ area. You could see how thick the bugs were right outside of our campsite, but we were protected. We also avoided areas that ticks are known to hang in. Our dog Brody, however, didn’t have as much common sense and ran freely through the tall grass. Sure enough – we picked several ticks off of him at the end of each day.

The point of my story is this — by using the best tools available and a little common sense, I saved myself from annoying bites, rashes and maybe even Lyme Disease. But even with the latest and greatest tools, a couple of determined ticks still won. We encounter this almost every day in the world of technology, but instead of woodticks and mosquitos we see viruses and spyware. The same preventative measures apply — whether you want to be a happy camper or have a happy computer.

First, you need to protect your computer with virus and malware protection, and you need to run it at all times. If you were to disable all virus protection on your computer and go on the internet, there’s a good chance your PC will be completely infected within the hour. Just like the ThermaCell lantern, it can’t work if it’s not on. And installing the software once isn’t enough. Like the spray that I used on my clothing, it will eventually lose its effectiveness over time. New viruses are constantly being spread and you have to update your software often. If you are a Synergy client, you are protected with Sophos, the leading anti-virus, anti-malware solution on the market. It’s running on all of our machines, all of the time, and our engineers are responsible for doing updates so you don’t have to worry about it.

Next, you should never open pop up windows that you don’t trust completely. Clicking on these windows is like running full speed into tall grass. You’ll be covered with bugs in no time. Closing these windows in the same way that you normally close windows isn’t a good idea either. Don’t click on anything. Use the “end task” function in your task manager to force the application to quit, which will get rid of the pop-up window without you having to touch it.

Finally, it’s important to know what to do if you take precautions but still get bitten. First and foremost, don’t panic. Contrary to popular belief, a virus can’t destroy your hard drive or burn it out. Just like the woodtick, it’s usually just annoying and probably won’t result in long term damage. Run a program that removes viruses and keep running it until your system is clean. If you have any questions about this, send me an email and I’ll see if I can help.

You can also send me an email if you’re planning a camping trip this summer. I’ll tell you about some other great products I’ve discovered that made my trip more enjoyable. Until next time, happy camping!

Ben

Camping Trip Photos

Keeping the bugs off
June Newsletter 2011 (continued)

Our trusty canoe.

Brody the canoeing dog.

Brody the swimming dog.

Our campsite

Sunny day (for 10 minutes)

Caught a bass.

Beautiful evening

Sitting around the campfire with Brody. We didn’t lose Tracy, she’s taking the pictures!

Fishing on the river.

Slim Down (your budget) for Summer

I had lunch the other day with my brother Sam. We talked about the fact that we both want to drop around 20 pounds before summer. We decided to help each other out and make it interesting with a competition to see who could lose 20 lbs. first. I’ve lost weight in the past, and it always is just a couple of simple changes that (when I actually do them) drop the pounds.

I’ve also noticed through the years of helping Synergy clients save money (and managing my own business expenses) that the same principle applies when slimming down a business budget. A couple of simple changes can make BIG differences.

One simple change involves how you handle in-house printing.

The math is really pretty simple. Let’s assume you’re printing 5,000 pages per month. If your inkjet printer costs around 15 cents per page to print, your monthly cost is around $750. If you used a laser or solid ink printer that costs around 5 cents per page to print, your monthly cost is now around $250. Although laser printers are more expensive to purchase than inkjet printers, it doesn’t take long for that printer to pay for itself and begin saving money.

We have seen some significant savings in taking the time to analyze your printing.  If you are printing more than 5,000 pages a month, it will be worth your time to look into this.

Another way that I’ve seen clients reduce costs is by rethinking their phone and data services.

Over the past 12-18 months, I’ve seen significant changes in the area of phone and data services and pricing. There’s been an increase in speed and a decrease in cost – sometimes as much as 50%. If you haven’t talked to your phone service provider in the last 6-9 months about whether or not you have the right service for your needs, it’s probably time to do that. I’ve seen businesses lower their monthly costs and get a better service by simply making the phone call. If your phone company doesn’t help you save money, then it’s probably time to do some comparison shopping.

I hope these simple budget slimming ideas were helpful. Now I’m off to grab a light lunch!  If you need help with either of these ideas or anything else for that matter, feel free to email me at bmoyer@synergyservices.com.

Spring Cleaning For your Business

It’s that time of year in Minnesota. The weather hits 50 and we’re sporting our shorts and t-shirts. We’re cleaning out the cobwebs and scrubbing the grills in anticipation for a great summer. Applying the same vigor to your business could help you run more efficiently and even save you some money. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

First, clean up your desk space. If your space is looking like an episode of “Hoarders: Buried Alive,” it’s time to clean things up. Donate those books and magazines that you meant to read but will never get around to. File old paperwork away or shred it. Eliminate the vendor giveaways that have been piling up (golf balls, pens, mouse pads…). Show no mercy!  We did it, now it’s your turn! Click here to see.

Clean up your PC. Organize your files into logical folders that make sense to you but also to those who might need to find what you’ve worked on. I’ve been notorious for creating folders on my desktop called “New Folder” and just dragging everything into it when I can’t see my desktop anymore. There’s another folder called “New Folder 2″ when it gets full again. This is not recommended! Take the extra minute to file your documents and assets together now and save yourself the headache later.

Back up your data. Now that you’re more organized, make sure your data is being backed up. If Synergy is handling your backups, then you don’t have to worry about it. If not, make sure your files are being saved on a separate device and that device is not located in the same place as your computer.  There are some great services that provide this as well.  Carbonite is a great one for home users.

Clean up your emails. Do a search for emails for emails greater than 1MB and sort by size.   Delete all those emails you don’t need anymore. (that 10MB video that your friend sent you – it’s a little inappropriate anyway!) Empty your Deleted Items!  This is no place for important mail, so if you need it, file it somewhere else. Now, empty it!   Unsubscribe to emails that you don’t really need to get anymore (unless it comes from us, of course). Be ruthless!

Consider refreshing your brand. Spring is also a great time to take a critical look at your business brand and image. Does it still reflect your vision and appeal to your target customer? Having a brand image that is freshened up doesn’t always mean a complete re-do. In fact if you have steady business and happy customers, completely redoing your brand image might be a bad idea. But giving it a little makeover shows that you are paying attention and you care. The result of a brand refresher will trickle down to your collateral, website, marketing, and even your office environment! If done properly, it will create a new excitement for both your staff and your customers.

We did this last year and it has been a huge success! In fact, we are so happy with the results, we hired Jenny to help Synergy go even further.

For a short time as she fills into her role as Marketing Director, we are offering some of her creative services at a significant discount.  If you feel like your brand, brochure, website, or even office paint color could use a freshening up, don’t hesitate to contact her at jnelson@synergyservices.com.

Most importantly, take advantage of the new energy that comes with Spring. Taxes are almost behind us, the snow is melting fast, and the birds are starting to chirp. Before you know it you’ll be complaining about the heat!  Ah yes…. gotta love Minnesota.

The Great Synergy Spring Clean-Up

Because I like to practice what I preach (see my post, “Spring Cleaning for Your Business”), I challenged my staff to a “clean off.” The person who did the best job of cleaning up received a gift certificate. Was it a success? Here are some before and after photos — you be the judge!