here’s a sweet valentine’s treat for our clients and …€™s a sweet valentine’s treat for...

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Here’s A Sweet Valentine’s Treat For Our Clients And Friends

Who says Valentine’s Day is just for lovers? Around here, we LOVE our clients and subscribers and want to spread the adoration around. That’s why we’ve decided to come up with the following “sweet deals” for everyone who receives this newsletter:

For Our Clients: We want to give you a “Get Out Of Computer Trouble Free” service coupon for any HOME computer that is not already covered under CMIT Marathon. Just call us when you’re having any problem with a home PC and we’ll fix it for FREE. Not yet enrolled in our CMIT Marathon plan? Then sign up this month and we’ll not only waive the setup fee, but we’ll also include one month of services for FREE! Are we so love struck that we’ve lost our good sense? Not at all; we simply want to show you how much we appreciate you.

For Your Friends: Refer any of your friends or colleagues to us and we’ll give them a FREE 2-hour service call to diagnose and repair any technical or computer problem that’s troubling them with their business computer! If repairs require more than a 2-hour visit (and if they choose to have us complete the repair), we’ll give them 20% off our services AND guarantee we’ll fix it fast and fix it right or they won’t pay a dime.

For Those “Soon-To-Be” Clients: Not a client yet? Then we want to entice you to “fall in love” with our services by also giving you a FREE 2-hour service call. Just contact us when you have an issue and we’ll either come to your office or connect remotely to your office computer using our secure, “on-call” software. We’ll diagnose the problem and start working on resolving the issue. If we cannot fix it within the 2-hour window, we’ll give you a fixed quote in writing on what we believe it will take to get it working again. If you choose to have us continue, in most cases we can start working right away. And, of course, ALL our services are covered by our “Fix It Right Or It’s FREE” guarantee so you never have to worry about being burned by an incompetent technician.

To contact us for any of these amazing offers, call 303-756-2648 or send an e-mail to [email protected]. You can also visit us online at www.cmitsolutions.com/denver.

“As a business owner, I know you don’t have time to waste on technical and operational issues. That’s where we shine! Call us and put an end to your IT problems finally and forever!” - Debi Bush, CMIT Solutions of Denver

Volume V, Issue II

February, 2011 Denver, Colorado

Inside This Issue… Here’s A Sweet Valentine’s Treat For Our Clients And Friends.............. 3 Anti-Virus Myths Exposed …………………………Page 2 Meet Our Client Of The Month: The Arrangers…………………. Page 2 I’m No Longer The IT Guy… I Actually Get Paid To Be The Transportation Manager…….…Page 3 Would You Pay $1 To Get $3.25 In Change…………………Page 4 CMIT Presents: 2011 Small Business Webinar Series....…..…...............Page 4 How To Raise Your Profits By Raising Your Profile …...……....Page 5 6 Quick Tips To Finally Organize Your Out-Of-Control Inbox…………………………….Page 6 Top 5 Strategies For Keeping Your Data Secure……………….Page 6 Relationships And Teamwork: Always A Work In Progress……Page 7


3 Anti-Virus Myths Exposed

A lot of people still harbor some misconceptions about anti-virus

software. Sometimes it’s just hard to convince people that they need it at all —

especially when the only evidence that the software works is that nothing has

happened to your machine! Here are three (3) common — but completely false

— beliefs about anti-virus software:

• “If I’ve got anti-virus on my server, I don’t need it on any of my computers.” WRONG. Most viruses spread through email and internet activity.

• “My ISP (internet service provider) protects me from viruses.”Your ISP gives you access to the Internet. It’s not responsible for protecting you from the bad stuff.

• “I heard that anti-virus companies are the ones creating these viruses in the first place.”

With computer security, you need multiple layers of protection. A threat

can get into a system in so many ways -- by email, Web, download,

detachable device, infected file, you name it -- that no one security product

can provide 100% protection against them all. That’s why you need a firewall

and good anti-virus software, at the very least.

Phil’s

In The

Corner

This month CMIT Denver is focusing on a few topics: relationships and teamwork and on the technical side, we are focusing on security. I will let Debi speak to the relationships topic in her article (why does she get more square inches than I do?) and the articles do the rest.

So, a week ago I attended the quarterly meeting in Salt Lake City of my CMIT Pacesetters mastermind group. Do you know where the idea of a mastermind group came from? Napoleon Hill, famed author of Think and Grow Rich, had this concept as a key tool for success of an entrepre-neur. It’s really cool that this Mr. Hill is mentioned all the time by successful businesspeople and authors and it’s 70 years or more after he wrote his book.

My mastermind peers are making sure that Debi and I (with a lot of help from our talented team) are moving forward with our business and doing the activities that must be done at our stage in the life cycle of our business. Some activities are strategic and others tactical. Without measurement and accountability, my business would not have grown in 2010 like it did and 2011 has already started off with a bang! Hope your year is off to a great start too!

Client Spotlight:

The Arrangers (www.arrangers.com) is Colorado's Award-Winning DMC and Event Planning Company providing the full spectrum of Destination Management, Event Production and Meeting & Conference Services. Our goal is to make you look great! Whether you need assistance with a segment of your program, full coordination of a custom event or multi-day meeting, The Arrangers provides professional, creative attention to every detail.

Nicole Marsh, President and CEO of The Arrangers, understands the importance of having her business technology working for her team and therefore, on behalf of her clients. There are a lot of details we have that the team at The Arrangers has to keep track of and knowing that their network is fast, reliable and secure is important to getting the job done at their high level of performance.

Would you like your company highlighted here in our “Client Spotlight?” Then give us a call today at 303-756-2648.


“I’m no longer the IT guy. I actually get paid to be the transportation manager

now.”

Ennis Flowers was overwhelmed. As the transportation manager for Unified Consultants Group (UCG), a logistics company that also handles physical security for a large government agency, he was supposed to be helping his department to find new business. Instead, as the de facto “IT guy” for a company of about 320 people, he was spending all of his time dealing with computer problems and outages.

“We had a real bird’s nest on our communications side,” he says. “The server would go regularly fail for 3 to 4 hours at a time, leaving two dozen people in the office unable to work and about 300 people in the field unable to communicate with the office.”

Constant outages kept everyone from being productive, and they were keeping Ennis Flowers from managing the transportation department.

Since CMIT Solutions of Fayette/Coweta came on board, “we haven’t had but one outage,” and that was in the middle of the night and caused by a Microsoft server update. CMIT quickly installed a patch and made sure the problem wouldn’t happen again. “They called me to let me know when the server went out,” Ennis says, but “none of our information ever got lost. We switched over to another server and we were able to keep working. We never noticed that it happened.”

With CMIT Solutions taking care of Unified Consultants Group’s IT infrastructure, Ennis is finally free to do the job he’s paid to do — and the results have been impressive. “Since I’ve been able to get back into the position of transportation manager and run our department and provide direction for our personnel effectively now, we’ve picked up an additional six contracts in the past six months, just on the transportation side alone,” he says.

“Those six contracts are probably [worth] somewhere between one to one and a half million dollars.”

Before CMIT, “we were in a fog of just trying to survive the day,” he says. “It’s almost as if CMIT put a bubble around us to protect us and help us be more effective as a company.”

The Lighter Side…

Science That Makes You Laugh… Or Wonder? Nobel Prizes are awarded for only the most serious scientific achievements; the “Ig Nobel” Prizes, on the other hand, are awarded for the most unusual, although sometimes still legitimate, scientific achievements. The awards are the brainchild of editor and co-founder Marc Abrahams, whose magazine is called “The Annals of Improbable Research,” and whose web site is www.improb.com. Past awards have gone to researchers who:

o Gave hamsters Viagra and discovered it prevented them from suffering jet lag

o Looked at sword swallowing and its side effects on the human body

o Created a “bottomless” bowl of soup which proved Americans eat as long as there is food in front of them, not just until they are full

o Found that wrinkles in sheets are replicated in human and animal skin

o Created a device which dropped a net over bank robbers

o Explored why woodpeckers don’t get headaches

o Looked into what would happen to clams that were fed Prozac

o Asked why spaghetti breaks into more than two pieces

o Queried why birds were not pooping on a statue

UCG brought in six contracts worth $1-1.5

million since CMIT came


Would You Pay $1 To Get $3.25 In Change?

Who wouldn’t want to shop at a store that can deliver that! Is this some Nigerian business opportunity? Not at all…

A review of the services we deliver for our CMIT Marathon (technology wellness) program clients showed that our clients receive an average of $3.25 in services for every $1.00 they spend with us. This is based on a cost comparison between hiring a full-time, beginner technician or outsourcing to us. And that’s not taking into consideration the combined experience our team brings to your organization that you WOULDN’T get by hiring a single person. Of course you don’t see a lot of the work that goes into our services because they are done behind the scenes or after hours so that we don’t disturb you while you’re working. But in a time where saving money is more important than ever, it IS worth noting that you made a smart decision to outsource your services to us!

CMIT Presents: 2011 Small Business Webinars

Do you remember the great webinar series that CMIT hosted last summer with Lisa Earle McLeod? Well, we have put together a very full slate of educational webinars to run all year long and once again targeted to small businesses. Here are the ones coming your way in the near future: February 24: Selling for Small Business Owners - From sales calls to sales management to CRM March 31: Going Green - How your small business can become more environmentally friendly without breaking the bank April 28: Five Mindsets of Super Successful People - What the top 2% do differently and how you can become one of them Check out the entire webinar schedule at www.cmitsolutions.com/denver/webinars and check out recorded ones.

Shiny New Gadget

Of The Month:

Digital Pet Cam

Attention all pet lovers! Have you ever wondered what your pet sees and does when you're away? Does he nap or get into all sorts of mischief? Clip on Uncle Milton’s Pet’s Eye View camera and find out! You can choose between 1, 5, or 15-minute intervals for your pictures. The photos are taken automatically and can be uploaded to your PC or Mac via the included USB cable for easy viewing. It's lightweight, compact and simply clips right onto your pet's collar!

Auto-interval photo settings

Internal memory stores up to 40 photos

640 x 480 resolution for 4" x 6" prints

PC and Mac compatible Includes USB cable for

uploading photos Includes rechargeable

Lithium-ion 100 mAh battery.

Collar and the subsequent dog training you might discover you need are not included.


How To Raise Your Profits By Raising Your Profile

I recently listened to an interview with David Avrin, author of the book, “It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You.” His message is pretty simple but powerful: the more your marketplace KNOWS your brand, the more sales and profits you’ll generate. I highly recommend his book since it contains a lot of good, common sense strategies for small business owners. Here are a few of the tips from David that I wanted to pass on to you and my other readers: You Can’t Control Your Brand: You can only INFLUENCE it. I actually thought this insight was very powerful. If you think about it, your ‘brand’ is formulated in the mind of your customer. It’s the feeling they get when they think of your company, product or service; but since the CUSTOMER generates the feeling, only they get to decide what that association is. To that end, your brand is the sum total of everything you do. For example, you eat at a restaurant where the food is outstanding but the bathrooms are dirty, the waiter is rude and they get your drink order wrong…twice. Unfortunately, the food may not be enough to get you to come back again. An Important Question You Should Know The Answer To: As business owners we spend YEARS perfecting our services, working on our operations and building our business – yet most of us only spend minutes thinking about what message we want to portray to the marketplace. During this interview, David posed the following idea: “What question do you want to be the answer to?” For us at CMIT Denver, it is the “business that takes away our IT headaches and helps make us money.” Marketing Is Not A Department: Most people think marketing is just about web sites, brochures and postcards. Not so. Marketing should infiltrate every aspect of your business. To that end, make a list of every touch point you have with your customers and prospects and ask yourself, “Am I being INTENTIONAL about how we interact with our clients to make sure we are fulfilling our brand promise?” That would include often overlooked areas like how you answer the phone, or what you print on the invoices you send out. Being “Good” Is Not Good Enough…Anymore: With SO many choices, being “good” at what you do is no longer an advantage in the marketplace – it’s the entry point to doing business. Think of how many “good” restaurants you go to, or how many “good” stores you frequent. Chances are they deliver a satisfactory product or service, but not one that blows you away. In order to truly win the hearts (and wallets!) of our clients, we have to work on being outstanding.

Who Wants To Buy My $8 MILLION Dollar iPhone? No, that’s not a typo! Stuart Hughes, the British jeweler known for his expensive remakes of popular gadgets, is at it again, this time with a diamond-clad iPhone 4 with a price tag of 5 million pounds, or roughly $8 million U.S. dollars. The handmade bezel contains approximately 500 individual flawless diamonds that total more than 100 carats. There are 53 additional diamonds in the back and the main navigation button is made of platinum, holding a single cut 7.4 carat pink diamond. Only two of these will ever be made, so don’t worry: if you buy one, the chances of bumping into someone at a party who has the exact same phone are quite slim. However, you might want to invest in a bullet-proof case to protect it!

Women Sleep Better Alone According to a University of Vienna study, women do NOT sleep as soundly when they sleep with a romantic partner. The complete opposite is true for men, however, who sleep more soundly when they slumbered next to a loved one. So this Valentine’s Day, maybe you need to give your spouse or partner the gift of a good night’s sleep by sleeping with them…or not.


6 Quick Tips To Finally Organize Your Out-Of-Control Inbox

Much like laundry and bills, no matter how much you try to keep up, e-mails just keep piling up in your Inbox. E-mail is a critical part of your day-to-day work, so how do you keep it from becoming a distraction while balancing the things you really need to address? Here are 6 tips…

1. Zero your Inbox. Do you remember the last time your Inbox was empty? Probably never; that’s because it costs nothing to keep an e-mail and therefore you don’t delete items “just in case” you need them at some point. This really causes messages to pile up FAST. Truth be told, you really DON’T need all those e-mails. Make it a goal to “zero” your Inbox every week, particularly on a Friday before you leave for home. If you can’t “zero” it, at least get the number down to fewer than a dozen critical messages you absolutely need to work on within the next 2-3 days.

2. Use folders sparingly. Only set up key, strategic folders or you’ll end up with dozens of folders filled with messages in addition to a massive number of messages in your Inbox. You might keep one labeled as “storage” for any non-urgent messages that may need to be referenced at a later date. This keeps your Inbox free of clutter and helps you more easily find something in an old message when it is needed.

3. Delete first, read the surviving messages later. Many of the e-mails you get probably aren’t even worth reading. Start your day by immediately deleting these emails before you even start to open and read the important ones.

4. Take action immediately. Probably the most helpful way to keep your Inbox uncluttered is to take action right away on all messages instead of reading them and then going back to them later when you have time to process the message properly. By taking action right away you avoid wasting time re-reading messages. If it does require a follow up that you don’t have time for, file the message and mark a reminder to follow up. Otherwise forward it, delete it or file it into a folder.

5. Slow your roll. Your e-mail can be a constant distraction through your workday, IF you let it! Take control and set aside “e-mail free” time periods throughout the day so you can truly concentrate on projects without interruption. The world won’t stop if you don’t check your email every few minutes, I promise.

6. Install a GOOD spam filter. The vast majority of messages are unwanted spam, some of which contain viruses. But not all spam filters are created equal! We recommend our CMIT Anti-Spam solution which is proven to save businesses time and money. If you do not yet have an anti-spam solution in place, ask us about our 30 day, no obligation, free trial.

Top 5 Strategies for Keeping Your Data Secure 1. Track down EVERY

DEVICE your data lives on. (Workstations, servers, external hard drives, thumb drives, PCs and paper files)

2. Check the entrances and exits. How does sensitive data come into your com-pany and how does it go out?

3. Follow the trail. Talk with your IT support team about how information moves through your company.

4. Identify the players. Find out who has access to what types of information. This includes outside vendors or contractors.

5. Classify the information. Determine who at your company should have access to different parts of your business data and then set up permissions with the help of your IT staff.

This all takes time (sometimes a lot) and footwork. But it’s worth the time to protect your data and set up solid security practices.


Relationships & Teamwork: Always Working On Them My favorite part of working in the corporate and now SMB space [as well as in my personal life] has been the oppor-tunity to create, develop and maintain relationships. These relationships are with my clients, strategic alliances, team members, peers and mentors. It takes work and I am always working on this to take it to a higher and rewarding level.

Just the other week I created a “Getting To Know You” (think The King and I) document for each CMIT Denver team member to complete so Phil and I can get to know things about them that may not come up in normal work conversation. To build on that, I presented my CMIT

Pacesetters mastermind group with a similar document. What is the purpose of going through this “exercise?” The more I know about the people with whom I work and interact from a personal (not too personal) standpoint, the more proactive and efficient I can be and there is trust and the intangible benefit of having yet another person to make you smile. Recently I had lunch with a client at our favorite Italian restaurant and we chatted mostly about our lives outside of work. We are able to talk about kids, life and having a regular exercise regimen and our relationship overall is enhanced.

Using the “Getting To Know You” document is providing me with insights about rewarding our team members or treating a client or colleague to something he or she enjoys. I found out that our newest team member, Dave, likes to shop at hardware stores. I seriously doubt that I would have found out this tidbit had I not gone through my exercise. Having that level of

comfort with colleagues (team, clients, peers) creates an environment of teamwork and an attitude to reach goals. Hooray! I just got around to tying in relationships with teamwork.

(continued on back page)

Quotes for the Month on Relationships and Teamwork “None of us is as smart as all of us.” ‐ Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager

"Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success.” ‐ Author Unknown

"Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” ‐ Virginia Burden

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” ‐ Walt Disney

Disneyland - A Dream Coming True

"Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.” ‐ Walt Disney


Another exciting accomplishment was revisiting my firm’s Mission Statement. The old version had a lot of fluffy verbiage and sounded cool and lofty. BUT, I never really paid attention to it nor had it memorized. So, I followed the suggestions of experts and created a short and easy to memorize Mission Statement that is easy to repeat and embrace in all that the CMIT Denver team does. Regularly reviewing our Mission, Beliefs/Values and Standards will only heighten the level of our client relationships, teamwork and differentiate us from our competition. Simple and elegant, that does it!

“To Provide Superior Levels Of Client Care Without Exception.”

Have a magnificent February and celebrate all the holidays and each and every day of this unique month. Warm Regards,

P.S. In case you are not receiving my monthly e-newsletter and would like to, please email me at [email protected] to request that your name be added. The e-newsletters have different content than this newsletter so you can gain even more insights.

925 S. Niagara St., Suite 220 Denver, CO 80224 Phone: 303-756-2648 Fax: 303-484-7314 Web: www.cmitsolutions.com/denver Blog: cmitdenver.wordpress.com Email: [email protected] E-Newsletter Articles: cmitdenvernews.wordpress.com

Call us now at 303-756-2648 to request your copy

of our book!

Personal Picks from My Shelves and Kindle

• Broken Windows, Broken Business by Michael Levine

• The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews [I also highly recommend his DVD on The Seven Decisions]

here’s a sweet valentine’s treat for our clients and …€™s a sweet valentine’s treat for...

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