SMB Community Podcast: Business Advice for Small MSP Owners

We follow Karl Palachuk as he makes his way through Channel Partners Expo 2024!

Thank you to our guests (in order):

Dave Seibert of SMBTechFest

https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveseibert99

https://www.smbtechfest.com/index.asp

Michelle Ragusa McBain of Sonicwall

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelleragusamcbain

https://www.sonicwall.com/leadership/michelle-ragusa-mcbain/

Mikey Pruitt of DNSFilter

https://www.linkedin.com/in/roadtociso

https://www.dnsfilter.com/

Kathleen Martin of Advancing Leadership Network (ALN)

https://www.linkedin.com/company/advancing-leadership-network/

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Our upcoming events:

AUSTIN TX – MASTERMIND LIVE (March 28-29th)

http://bit.ly/kernanmastermind

https://kernanconsulting-mastermind.mykajabi.com/mastermind-event

Our Social Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-kernan-varcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/james.kernan

https://www.facebook.com/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybabinchak/

https://www.facebook.com/amy.babinchak/

Sponsor Memo: Huntress

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To start a trial today, visit https://huntress.com/karl

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Karl interviewed Stephen Thomas from Asigra. Thomas oversees global revenue and shapes the sales and customer success strategy. He is an accomplished executive With over 25 years of experience in building and guiding sales and customer success teams within the rapidly expanding sectors of Enterprise SaaS.

With over 25 years of experience in building and guiding sales and customer success teams within the rapidly expanding sectors of Enterprise SaaS (Cybersecurity and Data Protection), Stephen Thomas is an accomplished executive.

Prior to taking on his current role at Asigra, where he oversees global revenue and shapes the sales and customer success strategy, he was the Chief Revenue Officer at RiskOptics (formerly Reciprocity). Stephen's leadership experience extends to companies like Arcserve, Armor, Cyberbit, and Symantec.

A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, he has further honed his skills as a Certified LEANSTACK Coach, CIPP, and CISSP.

Asigra is launching a new SaaS management tool in April, but partners can join their beta program now and receive a $2,500 service credit to work with. The product site is https://saasassured.com. Look for the Insider Circle link to join their Beta program. You can join now, so you'll be set for the April 1st launch.

Many partners are missing out on revenue by not offering their clients the ability to back up all their SAAS applications (Hubspot, QuickBooks, etc.). Clients know they need to do this. they might even assume you're doing it. And if you're not, someone else might be. That means another vendor is already approved to be paid by them for IT services. That mean's there's another IT consultant in your client's office!

Transparency note: Asigra was a sponsor for the 2023 SMB Online Conference.

—

Our upcoming events:

AUSTIN TX – MASTERMIND LIVE (March 28-29th)

http://bit.ly/kernanmastermind

https://kernanconsulting-mastermind.mykajabi.com/mastermind-event

Our Social Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-kernan-varcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/james.kernan

https://www.facebook.com/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybabinchak/

https://www.facebook.com/amy.babinchak/

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Host James sits down with Christophe Reglate of SXIPHER.

Look out for the PROMO for 20% off in the month of March!

https://www.sxipher.ai/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophe-reglat-7360b0141/

Call: (386) 479-4074

Email: [email protected]

—

Our upcoming events:

AUSTIN TX – MASTERMIND LIVE (March 28-29th)

http://bit.ly/kernanmastermind

https://kernanconsulting-mastermind.mykajabi.com/mastermind-event

Our Social Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-kernan-varcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/james.kernan

https://www.facebook.com/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybabinchak/

https://www.facebook.com/amy.babinchak/

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Yes, another opener about the weather. ;)

1.) The MSP Question of The Week

How can small MSPs compete with larger firms in the same market?

https://www.msptoday.com/topics/msp-today/articles/458682-msps-must-focus-strengths-not-be-afraid-partner.htm

---

2.) Notes on The News

The AT&T outage results in $5 credit to all affected users.

...And the Media Industry suffers in the face of social media newsbreaks.

---

Our upcoming events:

AUSTIN TX – MASTERMIND LIVE (March 28-29th)

http://bit.ly/kernanmastermind

https://kernanconsulting-mastermind.mykajabi.com/mastermind-event

Our Social Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-kernan-varcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/james.kernan

https://www.facebook.com/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybabinchak/

https://www.facebook.com/amy.babinchak/

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We are back after the long weekend with great hair...

1.) MSP Question of the week:

How do you qualify an opportunity so you don't waste your time?

Check out Amy's whitepaper:

https://www.thirdtier.net/product/whitepaper-how-to-build-a-valuable-local-linkedin-network/

---

2.) Notes on the News and Our Favorite Social Media

Apple Vision Pro is out: 1st new product in 7 yrs – VR headset $3499

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/02/tech/apple-vision-pro-what-you-need-to-know/index.html

Markets are way up except for Snapchat – down 30% reported a 248m loss in their most recent qtr announcement.

AND

We dive into our favorite social media for business use and why...

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3.) Five Minutes with A Smart Person – Christophe Reglat of SXIPHER

A preview of James's interview with Christophe Reglat of SXIPHER on Penetretation Testing with AI.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophe-reglat-7360b0141/

https://www.sxipher.com/

---

Our upcoming events:

AUSTIN TX – MASTERMIND LIVE (March 28-29th)

http://bit.ly/kernanmastermind

https://kernanconsulting-mastermind.mykajabi.com/mastermind-event

Our Social Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-kernan-varcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/james.kernan

https://www.facebook.com/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybabinchak/

https://www.facebook.com/amy.babinchak/

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Host James sits down with Val King.

Val is the CEO of Whitehat Virtual Technologies and responsible for day-to-day-operations, as well as leading the company's product development and technology strategy. Val has 20 years of experience in technology, compliance, and security in regulated industries, particularly in financial services and healthcare. Currently Val serves in a dual role as CIO for a regional healthcare system.

"The last 18 inches between the screen and the end-user is the Point of Execution, where end user experience matters, where technology either improves productivity, and thus the business, or hinders it.

"Every business needs IT. Every business buys IT, but not every business is able to confidently cross that divide from IT being just a cost of doing business to a tool delivering outcomes that makes business measurably better." Val is focused on making this a core competency of Whitehat Virtual Technologies, benefiting every customer we serve.

https://www.whitehatvirtual.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/valking/

—

Our upcoming events:

AUSTIN TX – MASTERMIND LIVE (March 28-29th)

http://bit.ly/kernanmastermind

https://kernanconsulting-mastermind.mykajabi.com/mastermind-event

Our Social Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-kernan-varcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/james.kernan

https://www.facebook.com/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybabinchak/

https://www.facebook.com/amy.babinchak/

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

1.) MSP Question of The Week

How important is work culture as it relates to acquisition or merger?

and

Why everything boils down to customer experience...

See: https://www.channele2e.com/native/customer-experience-is-everything

2.) Five minutes with a Smart Person - Val King of Whitehat Technologies

Val is the CEO of Whitehat Virtual Technologies and responsible for day-to-day-operations, as well as leading the company's product development and technology strategy. Val has 20 years of experience in technology, compliance, and security in regulated industries, particularly in financial services and healthcare. Currently Val serves in a dual role as CIO for a regional healthcare system. "The last 18 inches between the screen and the end-user is the Point of Execution, where end user experience matters, where technology either improves productivity, and thus the business, or hinders it. "Every business needs IT. Every business buys IT, but not every business is able to confidently cross that divide from IT being just a cost of doing business to a tool delivering outcomes that makes business measurably better." Val is focused on making this a core competency of Whitehat Virtual Technologies, benefiting every customer we serve.

https://www.whitehatvirtual.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/valking/

---

Our upcoming events:

AUSTIN TX – MASTERMIND LIVE (March 28-29th)

http://bit.ly/kernanmastermind

https://kernanconsulting-mastermind.mykajabi.com/mastermind-event

Use "EARLYBIRD" as the coupon code to save $200!

Irvine CA – SMB Techfest (Feb 8th-9th)

Make sure you catch Amy at SMB Techfest!

https://www.smbtechfest.com/events.asp

Our Social Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-kernan-varcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/james.kernan

https://www.facebook.com/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybabinchak/

https://www.facebook.com/amy.babinchak/

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

1.) MSP Question of The Week How do busy MSP business owners deal with stress? Host Amy and Host James discuss their strategies. --- 2.) Five Minutes with A Smart Person - Eric Anthony Host James sits down with Channel Vet, podcaster, and Director of Community at EGNYTE Eric Anthony. Learn more about Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esanthony/ Eric's Customer Experience video: https://youtube.com/live/WHQWGhrg7FY Eric's Book "CX That Sings": https://www.amazon.com/CX-That-Sings-introduction-Customer/dp/B085RTL8NT/ref=sr_1_2? --- 3.) Notes on The News "Microsoft set for AI-powered revenue surge as stock pulls ahead... Microsoft is expected to report a 15.8% jump in quarterly revenue, its best growth in nearly two years, as rising adoption of its products infused with generative AI fuels demand for its cloud services." https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-teams-down-thousands-users-downdetector-2024-01-26/ Microsoft's (MSFT.O), opens new tab Teams services were restored on Saturday after a disruption blocked access to the messaging platform. Several users had flagged issues with the messaging platform on Friday. Complaints peaked in the afternoon with more than 14,000 incidents, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. All incidents appeared to be resolved on Saturday. ---

Our upcoming events:

AUSTIN TX – MASTERMIND LIVE (March 28-29th)

http://bit.ly/kernanmastermind

https://kernanconsulting-mastermind.mykajabi.com/mastermind-event

Use "EARLYBIRD" as the coupon code to save $200!

Irvine CA – SMB Techfest (Feb 8th-9th)

Make sure you catch Amy at SMB Techfest!

https://www.smbtechfest.com/events.asp

Our Social Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-kernan-varcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/james.kernan

https://www.facebook.com/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybabinchak/

https://www.facebook.com/amy.babinchak/

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Host Amy and Host James catch up and catch a tan. 1.) MSP Question of The Week What is the best business structure for new MSPs? See: https://www.toptal.com/finance/interim-cfos/c-corp-vs-s-corp#:~:text=Compared%20to%20traditional%20S%20or,it's%20taxed%20as%20a%20corporation --- 2.) More Tech Layoffs? EY Announces Layoffs in Response to Economic Struggles See: https://www.channele2e.com/news/ey-announces-layoffs-in-response-to-economic-struggles "Less than a week after Broadcom finalized its $61 billion acquisition of VMware, layoffs began. This is a familiar pattern for the company, which followed a similar playbook with its acquisition of CA Technologies in 2018. Overall, it's estimated Broadcom will cut about 2,000 employees post-acquisition. Google, Amazon, Snap, Splunk, LinkedIn, Cisco, MariaDB and SecureWorks all recently announced layoffs. Other mass layoffs recently included Intel, Wish and LinkedIn in the San Francisco Bay area. At the beginning of September, Rapid7 announced a restructuring plan following disappointing second-quarter results, resulting in the layoffs of about 18% of the company's workforce. Similarly, AppSec firm Snyk laid off 128 people in April. Cloud security vendor Zscaler announced layoffs after what it called a rough fiscal second quarter. Software tools giant Atlassian laid off 5% of its workforce as it "shifted priorities." ----

Our upcoming events:

AUSTIN TX – MASTERMIND LIVE (March 28-29th)

http://bit.ly/kernanmastermind

https://kernanconsulting-mastermind.mykajabi.com/mastermind-event

Use "EARLYBIRD" as the coupon code to save $200!

Irvine CA – SMB Techfest (Feb 8th-9th)

Make sure you catch Amy at SMB Techfest!

https://www.smbtechfest.com/events.asp

Our Social Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-kernan-varcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/james.kernan

https://www.facebook.com/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybabinchak/

https://www.facebook.com/amy.babinchak/

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

*Due to a small error, we are re-releasing this episode that was originally set for January 19th, 2024. Thanks for understanding. :-)

1.) Should you update your GOALS and OBJECTIVES every year?

The short answer? Yes.

Email James ([email protected]) for his one page business plan exercise.

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3.) Notes on The News

Is Connectwise a sinking ship?

https://www.msptechnews.com/business-news/is-connectwise-a-sinking-ship/

The best click-bait of the year....so far!

And MAJOR CONSUMERS SEVER RELATIONS WITH HACKED BRANDS?

Ransomware attacks in 2023 surged by 95% year-over-year, with 1,278 victims identified on leak sites - already surpassing both 2021 and 2022 totals...

https://www.msptoday.com/topics/msp-today/articles/458119-majority-consumers-sever-ties-with-hacked-brands.htm

2.) Five Minutes with a Smart Person: Erick Simpson

Erick Simpson is an MSP Business and Channel Growth Expert, MSP Influencer and MSP Thought Leader

A pioneer and leader in the managed services industry, Erick Simpson built and sold one of the very first MSPs in the industry and grew and coached a channel of 30,000 IT Solution Providers through their MSP transformation with his MSP Mastered® Methodology for managed services business performance improvement.

Erick is an MSP business & channel growth expert, influencer, thought leader, speaker and author with 4 best-selling books and 50 white papers to his credit, and his strategies and programs help MSPs overcome business challenges to realize consistent, profitable managed services recurring revenue growth. His M&A expertise has helped dozens of MSPs sell their businesses at the highest valuation or expand through acquisition.

He delivers strategic MSP market analysis services and builds and improves channel programs for IT vendors and distributors, and helps recruit and enable their channel partners through his thought leadership podcasts, webinars, workshops and event keynotes and breakouts.

Erick's industry recognition includes Channel Futures' 7 Thought Leaders Defining the MSP Market, Jay McBain's 100 Most Visible Channel Leaders, 2 Time ChannelPro 20/20 Visionaries, 2 Time MSP Mentor 250 and SMB Nation's SMB 150 award recipient.

Check out Erick's new community:

https://mspmastered.com/

https://ericksimpson.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericksimpson/

—

Check out Amy's Intune class:

https://www.thirdtier.net/2023/11/29/learning-intune-a-six-month-course/

Our upcoming events:

AUSTIN TX – MASTERMIND LIVE (March 28-29th)

http://bit.ly/kernanmastermind

https://kernanconsulting-mastermind.mykajabi.com/mastermind-event

Use "EARLYBIRD" as the coupon code to save $200!

Irvine CA - SMB Techfest (Feb 8th-9th)

Make sure you catch Amy at SMB Techfest!

https://www.smbtechfest.com/events.asp

Our Social Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-kernan-varcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/james.kernan

https://www.facebook.com/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlpalachuk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybabinchak/

https://www.facebook.com/amy.babinchak/

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.