Since 1999 cyberManor has based our business strategy on distributing the entertainment and informational content of the internet into our client's homes. The AV, control, and data infrastructure that we design and implement focuses on maximizing cloud based services and pushing them throughout the home to as many devices as possible - computing, TV's, receivers, even alarm clocks and pianos.
As 2011 approaches we recognize that the internet cloud has also benefitted our own business operations in a number of profound ways. At one time or another in your life you may have been told to get your head out of the cloud. My recommendation - for the health of your business - is to get it back into the cloud, the Internet cloud. As you plan on ways to improve your custom installation business there may be no better way to increase your profitability in terms of top line revenue and decreasing operational expenses than utilizing cloud based services for your business. In this column I will review a few of the valuable sites that we use to benefit cyberManor.
Intuit's Quickbase
This invaluable online service has become an indispensible tool for scheduling, recording, and the billing of all of our service based work. This easy to setup database provides a customized service record for each of our accounts. Whether our technicians are in the office, on the road, or at home - having this information online allows them to review the scope of service work and to record their completed labor hours and materials used on a specific job. With mobile computing products like the Apple iPAD with 3G internet services they can remain connected to this informational database wherever they happen to be - in a home under construction with no internet service or one in the mountains that may have only satellite based internet access. (Our plan for next year is to incorporate an online change order based form that our technicians can show our client in the field to gain their signed approval for work they have asked us to complete.)
Google Docs
Similar to Quickbase this online spreadsheet also allows us to record our service based work. However we use this spreadsheet more for recordkeeping of ongoing, long term projects. At a glance it allows us to easily review all of our work on a given job over a long period of time. It is instrumental in helping us compare the actual hours that we spend on a job to the original budgeted hours - a critical component for enhancing our overall profitability.
Box.net
This is one of many different file transfer sites that are available on the Internet. Over time we have used this site to store more and more of our company files. It has become very useful for the storage of large files that we need to share with our partners, consultants, and clients. It is also very useful for our technicians in the field that need access to sales or technical information to complete their work accurately. Again, with a product like the Apple iPAD and 3G internet access they can be on a job site and download a document such as a schematic wiring drawing to the tablet to give them instant access to the specific information they need.
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Blogging (see cyberManor's "connect with us" social links)
All of these websites in combination represent a new effort on the part of our company that allow us to better connect with our clients. This is a new strategy for cyberManor but it is already paying dividends. We recently completed a Sunset showcase open house using Control4 products controlled by an Apple iPAD and we leveraged that work by making a video of our solutions and posting them on You Tube (over 200 views in the first 3 days!), tweeting the Sunset Open House information link, and writing about our efforts on the cyberManor company page in Facebook. One of the results of those social marketing efforts was a wonderful blog post that was written by a nationally recognized blogger about the work that we completed at the home. See what Techmamas had to say about our work.
The keys to the success of these marketing efforts are that we leverage all of these sites in combination to reach the widest audience and that we maintain communication with these audiences on an ongoing basis. cyberManor has recently retained the services of a social marketing consultant to help us learn how to maximize these cloud services for our ongoing benefit.
The internet based services described in this column are just the tip of the iceberg of a wide range of cloud based services that are available to help businesses like ours succeed. For those of you planning to go to CEDIA's National Expo in Atlanta this year I would suggest that you not only learn from the exhibitors and the classes that you attend but from what your peers are doing with cloud based services to improve their business. Implementing just a few of these ideas for 2011 may be the difference between surviving profitably or just staying afloat in this challenging economic climate.
(Reprinted from Residential Systems Magazine, September 2010 Issue)
