Have a Disciplinary Process

Chris Smith smartPRENEUR Blog Series

We hire well, have a documented process, onboard employees to that process, and regularly (usually weekly) manage our teams with dedicated time and intention… Wait, you aren’t doing all those things??? Separate article and discussion… but still, not everyone will make the cut. When employees are falling short of what is needed we have to take action. Having a clearly ...

Does your business need an operating system?

Tom Coffin smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Like the CI business, in your business change is the only constant. Companies must continuously evolve and adapt to stay competitive. To succeed in this ever-shifting landscape, having a well-defined business operating system and efficient workflow processes is nothing short of essential. In my experience working with thousands of companies the last 20 years, process and an effective business operating ...

3 Guiding Principles for Anyone in Sales

Jason Sayen smartPRENEUR Blog Series

I’ve spent 27 years in Sales selling high-end Consumer Electronics and have attended countless “sales training” and “seminars”.  While I learned a lot of tips and tricks at those events, the core of my success can be boiled down to these three principles People buy from people - Relationships matter more than most salespeople realize.   One of the most fundamental ...

Are You Set Up To Service?

Tom Coffin smartPRENEUR Blog Series

The Aging Smart Home As the smart home market matures, more and more homeowners are looking for help with maintenance, service, and troubleshooting of their smart home systems. This presents an opportunity for Systems Integrators to expand their services and offer profitable smart home services to their clients. However, putting in place a profitable service department for the smart home ...

Is This My Client?

Chris Smith smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Decisions, Decisions You can’t be all things to all people. Selecting the right client(s) and right project(s) will result in a profitable business. The opposite is also true – painfully true!  Consuming your time with the wrong client(s) prevents you from being able to take the right client(s) and project(s). This is known as “Opportunity Cost”.  Ask These Questions Does ...

Increase Retention with New Employees During Onboarding

Jason Sayen smartPRENEUR Blog Series

How to increase retention with new employees during onboarding utilizing the 4 adult learning styles? What does your onboarding process look like this? Sit in the conference room with HR and review documents  Sit with the manager to review their job description Job shadowing with a coworker in a similar role Complete an online tutorial The above process utilizes the ...

Service Pre-Authorization

Chris Smith smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Is Your Service Profitable? As I meet with integrators it is usually a struggle for most to make money on their projects. For those that have actually cleared that first profit hurdle it is almost always countered by a severe lack of profitability on their service offering. In nearly all cases integrators are literally bleeding profitability on the service side ...

Kaizen – the pursuit for progress not perfection

Jason Sayen smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Continuous improvement is a culture and a mindset. In the organizations that I’ve worked for that embraced this mindset, we had quarterly meetings designed to discuss how we can become better at a specific goal that we set for the session.  These meetings are the polar opposite of what takes place in a quarterly sales meeting and are not a ...

Are you managing time or is time managing you?

Tom Coffin smartPRENEUR Blog Series

“Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves” Lord Chesterfield British statesman, diplomat, a man of letters, and an acclaimed wit of his time PRODUCT The systems integration business is unique in many ways. However it has commonality with virtually every other business that sells products that need to be installed. You as the business ...