How BrooksNetworks has Grown
Anyone who has started a small business and was originally tasked with wearing every hat in the company, either failed or has begun down the path to success and in doing so had to learn how to delegate and trust in the knowhow of others or the empire he or she began to build would crumble.
We cannot do it alone, and in order to succeed a business owner needs to surround himself with trustworthy resources and has to know which elements of the business are better served by paying others to manage. Network infrastructure is only second to letting go of the financial reigns when it comes to trusting someone other than one's self to call the shots. This is simply because our companies exist on networks. We are nothing without our ability to communicate and share information. Care for the network resources in your company must be treated as the most important asset you have. This is the world we live in. This is not the place to cut corners. Doing so is a recipe for disaster. If you want reality to match your growth plans, you have to have the infrastructure. The world of computer networking simply changes too fast to try to keep up with everything you need to know to maximize assets while still paying attention to the core business you are running. An IT manager who knows what he or she is doing is normally much too expensive to bring on as a full time employee. This is a consultative task if there ever was one.
Much like the evolution of automobiles, what was once a simple do it yourself oil change has become something most of us would much rather pay someone to perform this recurring ordeal.
To my point, most large computer service companies have a charter that emulates the business model of the mechanic we would rather avoid. Although repeat business is much better for both parties, somehow that lecture was ignored by many service professionals. We focus on one thing; solving the problems you asked us to solve, and helping you avoid the issue in the future. We have been able to generate and keep a strong client base for almost fourteen years and have done so in an honest and informational way, without compromising our principals.
Focused on Servicing Small Businesses in Orange County with customers in San Diego and Los Angeles as well.
Most small businesses which have successfully turned an idea into a profitable endeavor quickly realize that sustained growth depends on attending to the business we are expected to be able to provide information immediately. When a customer or the boss asks for the information, he may have meant tomorrow morning a few years ago, but chances are he is checking every few seconds for your response. This layer of complexity is a reality we brought onto ourselves and there is no turning back.
When WE want info at our finger tips, we get it, so this is not all bad, but the stress caused by the pace of the information age can often be a bit much to tolerate. So when we cannot get that information as requested, that stress can turn to sheer anxiety and this is why having reliable well maintained systems are so important. UP-time is expected, 24/7. Excuses and technical excuses are not well received when you have a deadline to meet. We know this, we understand this and your deadline is our deadline.
We pride ourselves on maintaining uptime for our customers well over 99.97%.
Even when everything is maintained as well as possible and we have our ear to the heartbeat of a customer's network, things like human errors or forces we have no control over can cause inconsistencies. This is something we must tolerate but pro-actively address with contingencies. After all, the show must go on. We treat our customer base as a family of companies who can rely on our IT services and spend a fraction of the cost of hiring a skilled in house engineer. If a customer has an emergency and it happens to occur during a time when our staff happens to be attending to a customer with an issue that is clearly not urgent, we will treat the situation in a triage manner, and deal with the emergency first and get back on schedule just as quick.
The key to managing multiple networks is to limit this downtime of course. And that is accomplished by working to keep your network healthy when you are not at your desk. To take care of the maintenance issues that keep us out of harms way, but to do it with little or no impact on your work flow. It can make some days a bit long, but our years of experience have allowed us to be proactive accomplish the tasks needed to support the uptime your company demands.
We understand that the deadlines and quick turn a rounds are expected from you. We know you rely on your network to be there when you need it and we treat your network as if it was our own.
This "ownership" mentality has kept us growing for over a decade and has put us in a position to carefully select who we do business with. Our company's ability to survive depends on the quality of our customers and when you are a BrooksNetworks customer, you can be sure that the organizations you share IT resources with have been vetted and are like-minded forward thinking companies. You may never meet them, but they are very much like you.
Next time you upgrade your smart phone and after a half hour in the store, you realize that the phone is smart but the kind young man trying to connect your device to Exchange is not going to be able to do so, and there is a looming question as to where all your contacts went, think about our little journey through DIY hell. Even when you take the phone back to your office, open up Google and finally find the proper steps, to get that mail flowing, after the "runners high" wear off and you are finished patting yourself on your well deserved back, the four hours of work you have to make up are a dose of reality that brings our little story full circle. Your time is money. In fact, the only thing that really matters is time and how you "SPEND" it. Ironic how all of these gadgets designed to save us time have created a world where "free" time can cost an arm and a leg.
The choices are confusing by design, the contracts terms are long because without them your provider knows you will eventually become informed and leave. They know what the future holds and unless you work in the IT Industry you are not informed. IT in a practical sense is not a challenge. It can be tedious and quite boring boring, a round of golf or catching up on your latest guilty pleasure on Netflix, priceless! For a seasoned IT professional the work is methodical regimented and once in a while interesting. But your time, used to decompress or close the next deal will benefit your business and your bottom line looks better in the black. We want to get you there or keep you there by allowing you to focus on your core competency, inform you about the goods and services you are paying for and point you down the right path for success through control of your own destiny.
