SMB Community Podcast: Business Advice for Small MSP Owners

Topic 1: Neuro Diversity - a different approach to thinking about thinking.

We're always looking for people who think differently. But we also put some serious limits on how different we are willing to accept. In this article, TechCrunch looks at the idea of inviting a wider variety of people into the world of cybersecurity hiring.

Link: https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/22/addressing-the-cybersecurity-skills-gap-through-neurodiversity/ 

Topic 2: Are robo cops actually doing anything to reduce crime?

It doesn't look like it. Maybe Robots AREN’T the answer. Calls to 911 have gone down. But crime hasn't.

Is there still some good to tease out of this story?

Link: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/security-robots-expand-across-u-s-few-tangible-results-n1272421 

Topic 3: Tech Giant Battles - Lots of updates this week!

Case dropped against Facebook over Instagram and What’s App.

Somewhat unrelated: “Non-Agression Pact” between Google and Microsoft means they’ll each help the government go after the other.

Also somewhat unrelated: Amazon asks FTB Chair to sit this one out.

Links:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-30/google-microsoft-truce-crumbles-amid-feud-over-cloud-ad-tech 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-seeks-recusal-of-ftc-chairwoman-lina-khan-in-antitrust-investigations-of-company-11625067962 

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Vendor Memo:

Are you still using on-prem file servers and VPNs to share files with remote workers? Egnyte is a business class cloud sharing solution that works more like your on-prem server than other solutions. With a security first approach to file sharing and collaboration, Egnyte offers multiple options for sharing files and collecting files from outside sources. And do it all addressing data governance and compliance. Want to learn more? Check out https://Egnyte.com/msp, and when you do, tell them we sent you.

:-)

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Colin Knox, founder of Passportal, has launched a new venture called Gradient MSP. Gradient MSP is launching the first module of their data intelligence platform, focused on data hygiene and cleaning up all the dirty data that has accumulated in MSPs PSA solution.

Colin has spent the past 20 years deeply embedded in the technology field. Founding both XCEL Professional Services (MSP) and Passportal, Colin led both organizations as the top executive through several consecutive years of triple-digit growth from $0 to millions in annual recurring revenue until their acquisitions by F12.net and SolarWinds respectively taking both businesses from founding to successful exit in just 10 years. He is now the Founder & CEO of Gradient MSP, focused on giving vision and voice to MSPs both small and large. Colin is a technology innovator, passionate leader, and professional speaker focused on advising entrepreneurs how to grow, expand, and mature their businesses.

Links: www.meetgradient.com @meetgradient @realityknox

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Vendor Memo:

This podcast is sponsored by the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community. Check us out at www.SmallBizThoughts.org.

Forms, templates, and checklists are just the start. Our Community includes ALL of the best-selling books on managed services in all available formats, plus free training, members-only programs, and the best business training available to managed service providers anywhere.

Plus, we have weekly live members-only Zoom calls. The average member saves more than 200% of their membership cost each year. We are totally dedicated to YOUR success.

Just because you're in business for yourself doesn't mean you have to go it alone. Join us today at www.SmallBizThoughts.org.

:-)

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.

Topic 1: Apple Healthcare. Are you onboard?

Apple is considering direct health care. So, they're testing out a service with their own employees. Of course it all started with data. Now they're connecting devices and data to actual hands-on clinical care.

Are you comfortable with this care from an IT company? If so, is Apple the company?

Link: - https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/16/22536623/apple-primary-care-project-data-watch-app 

Topic 2: Do we need a Federal Agency for Data Privacy?

Proposed legislation would create a data privacy agency for the United States. Good? Bad? Or just ugly? We discuss.

Once again, we note that legislation and compliance are the wave of the future.

Link: - https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/17/22536907/gillibrand-data-protection-act-privacy 

Topic 3: Can AI Measure Joy?

Talkwalker is a company that uses AI to help find information across the Internet using artificial intelligence. Now they've applied their technology to evaluate how much users love specific brands. We list the big results, but also focus on a fun result: Choosing a much-loved brewery.

Quote: “The brewery scored more than 15 points in the category defined by artificial intelligence-identified expressions of joy. Average Joy Score for the top 50 most loved brands was 4.”

Links: - https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2021/06/great-lakes-brewing-co-lands-on-list-of-worlds-most-beloved-brands.html  - https://www.talkwalker.com/resource/report/love-brand-report-eng-2021-final.pdf 

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Vendor Memo:

This podcast is sponsored by the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community. Check us out at www.SmallBizThoughts.org. 

Forms, templates, and checklists are just the start. Our Community includes ALL of the best-selling books on managed services in all available formats, plus free training, members-only programs, and the best business training available to managed service providers anywhere.

Plus, we have weekly live members-only Zoom calls. The average member saves more than 200% of their membership cost each year. We are totally dedicated to YOUR success.

Just because you're in business for yourself doesn't mean you have to go it alone. Join us today at www.SmallBizThoughts.org. 

:-)

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

Host Karl talks with Alan Rihm from CoreDial - www.coredial.com.

CoreDial is a leading provider of high-quality and scalable cloud communications, contact center, and video collaboration to more than 32,000 businesses. The company's solutions are quickly and easily auto-provisioned through its CoreNexa™ platform, which seamlessly integrates with other essential business applications. For small- to medium-size businesses and larger enterprises, CoreDial offers comprehensive, cost-effective, and future-proof communications solutions customers demand. Backed by an industry-leading 99.999% SLA and supported locally by 850+ trained partners, CoreNexa is uniquely positioned to help businesses unleash the power of the modern workforce.

CoreDial's newly-enhanced CoreNexa 7.0 platform lets partners scale their relationships with existing customers and capture new opportunities while providing modern, reliable, and feature-rich unified communications solutions, including the addition of richly-featured video and pervasive chat capabilities. CoreNexa 7.0 is a next-gen voice, video, messaging, and collaboration solution. These fully integrated, all-in-one capabilities are designed to unleash the power of modern and remote workforces and provide CoreDial's channel partners with a highly competitive, high-value way to satisfy increasing needs for reliable and comprehensive communication and collaboration tools.

As opposed to point-solution alternatives that only provide a place to conduct meetings, CoreNexa 7.0 was built as a collaboration-first platform for businesses of all sizes. The solution combines a built-in softphone for making and taking calls, HD video, messaging with chat & SMS, meetings, "always-on" virtual rooms, contacts w/ presence, contacts and calendar integration with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, Single Sign On and more. CoreNexa 7.0 can satisfy a multitude of remote and hybrid cloud deployments, replacing, supplementing, or enhancing an office environment. Channel partners can now compete more aggressively offering high-quality, reliable, all-in-one cloud communications while protecting their customers from over-the-top video competitors.

Alan Rihm is founder and chief executive officer for CoreDial, responsible for the company's strategic direction regarding sales, marketing, product management, and operational initiatives. He's been instrumental in establishing the company as a leading channel-focused provider of business communications services such as unified communications, contact center, workforce management, SD-WAN, hosted PBX, and SIP trunking.

CoreDial offers private-label cloud communications solutions exclusively through more than 850 channel partners. Under Rihm's direction, CoreDial has developed a laser-like focus for enabling channel partners to succeed with cloud communications through a "sell, deliver, manage, and invoice" initiative that results in industry-leading profit margins, plus a private label business model that lets partners build their own brands.

Links: - www.coredial.com - @coredial on Twitter - https://www.linkedin.com/company/coredial-llc/

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Vendor Memo:

This podcast is sponsored by the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community. Check us out at www.SmallBizThoughts.org.

Forms, templates, and checklists are just the start. Our Community includes ALL of the best-selling books on managed services in all available formats, plus free training, members-only programs, and the best business training available to managed service providers anywhere.

Plus, we have weekly live members-only Zoom calls. The average member saves more than 200% of their membership cost each year. We are totally dedicated to YOUR success.

Just because you're in business for yourself doesn't mean you have to go it alone. Join us today at www.SmallBizThoughts.org.

:-)

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.

Topic 1: Is "Patch and Zero Trust" Even Possible?

What does doing something different look like? How much do we need to rethink all this? Or, perhaps, is it possible to provide appropriate security at the small end of the market but impossible at the enterprise level?

With the explosion of IOT, security may in fact be impossible. If that's true, what else can we do?

Link: https://doublepulsar.com/the-hard-truth-about-ransomware-we-arent-prepared-it-s-a-battle-with-new-rules-and-it-hasn-t-a93ad3030a54 

Topic 2: Status update on getting back to the Office

This is still an evolving story. Workers would like to stay home more; managers would like them to be in the office more. This might be the biggest change to come out of the pandemic/recession of 2020-2021.

Link: https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/16/your-boss-might-tell-you-the-office-is-more-secure-but-it-isnt/ 

Topic 3: Amazon "burning through" employees

What does this tell us about Amazon? And since they are a massive employer, does this massive turnover affect the larger employment market?

Employee churn is so high that some Amazon execs are reportedly worried about running out of people.

Links: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-turnover-worker-shortage-2021-6 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-workers.html 

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Vendor Memo:

Did you know that the average MSP spends 10 hours manually inputting accounting data each week? That time is 120 prospect calls, a month’s worth of the Business of Tech, or building an entire lego death star. Gozynta Mobius can make your life easier through accounting automation. Automatic sync of invoices, expenses and inventory from ConnectWise Manage into QuickBooks Online in just a single click of a button.

With onboarding, direct support, and regular feature releases, Gozynta is a family owned company dedicated to making software suck a little less each day. Visit us at Gozynta.com

:-)

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Host Karl caught up with Jason Bystrak from D&H Distributing. Jason is D&H's VP of Cloud and Services

Cloud and XaaS is positioned to grow as more companies have been compelled to embrace digital transformation throughout the pandemic, moving greater amounts of their infrastructures and services to the cloud. Small to mid-size businesses have shown themselves to be especially agile in light of the shift to remote and hybrid technology solutions, making this sector a notable opportunity for channel partners to profit from cloud services bundled with hardware and services. All-in-all, XaaS is becoming the new standard for technology consumption in the emerging digital economy.

The XaaS consumption model employs a combination of solutions including hardware, software, cloud-based solutions, and a roster of technology services. The challenge is to deliver this range of products and services through a streamlined conduit, reducing complexity while still capitalizing on the many benefits of XaaS. MSPs and VARs can more easily monetize per-seat services across multiple customers through use of a consolidated transactional platform, one that provides an array of cloud offerings and ideally allowing the partner to incorporate services of their own.

While the XaaS model can support any technology solution – including data center and network infrastructure – they are typically built around end-point devices. Software and SaaS solutions such as productivity, collaboration, unified communication and business applications are added along with infrastructure options such as enhanced security, data protection, remote access and virtual desktop. These are combined with services such as migration, integration, management and support for the term of the agreement. While some XaaS solutions are capitalized in the project-style upfront payment, most are financed in a monthly subscription model, posing additional challenges for the traditional channel model.

Jason Bystrak began his tenure at the company in 2019 to oversee what is now the distributor's Cloud Solutions offering, responsible for lines of business including cloud, XaaS ("Everything as a Service"), services, security, and unified communications. He has more than 25 years of experience in channel and cloud services, and is driving the D&H vision to be the "XaaS Distributor" for VARs and MSPs serving the SMB market, executing programs and leveraging the company's next generation Cloud Marketplace platform to help channel partners deliver total solutions in a subscription model.

Links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbystrak/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/dandhdistributing/
• https://www.facebook.com/DandHDistributing
• https://twitter.com/dandh

Sponsor Memo:

Did you know that the average MSP spends 10 hours manually inputting accounting data each week? That time is 120 prospect calls, a month's worth of the Business of Tech, or building an entire lego death star. Gozynta Mobius can make your life easier through accounting automation. Automatic sync of invoices, expenses and inventory from ConnectWise Manage into QuickBooks Online in just a single click of a button. With onboarding, direct support, and regular feature releases, Gozynta is a family owned company dedicated to making software suck a little less each day.

Visit them at https://gozynta.com

:-)

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.

Topic 1: FBI Creates Their own App to Snag Hundreds of Bad Guys Around the World

Yes - we use the word “Badass.”

We know you've heard about this one by now. But it's the biggest cyber story of the year, so we have to cover it. Great article/press release from the FBI.

A few summary notes: 800 arrests; 8 tons of cocaine; 22 tons of marijuana; 2 tons of methamphetamine/amphetamine; 6 tons of precursor chemicals; 250 firearms; and more than $48 million in various worldwide currencies. On top of that, the FBI has initiated dozens of public corruption cases.

. . . and MORE!

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/fbi-s-encrypted-phone-platform-infiltrated-hundreds-criminal-syndicates-result-massive

Topic 2: AI Hall of Shame

Great new resource to help AI stay on the right side of "ethics." The actual artificial intelligence database is at https://incidentdatabase.ai. This is intended to be a resource to remind us all that AI honestly has a potentially evil side that we need to keep track of.

https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-hall-shame/ 

The database: https://incidentdatabase.ai/ 

Topic 3: Supreme Court Rules on Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

The ruling is, basically, that misusing a computer to which you have access is different from using a computer beyond the level of access you are supposed to have. The said that a police officer didn’t “hack” any part of the computer system. He merely used the computer he had access to to do something he shouldn’t have done.

Note two things. First, we have really old laws written before the web existed, and they are being used to regulate today’s behavior. Second, the courts, as a rule, do not understand what we do for a living. WE need to be involved in the way our industry is regulated.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/supreme-court-hacking-cfaa-ruling/ 

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Sponsor Note:

Are you still relying on a frustrating patchwork of legacy solutions? Modernize your cybersecurity and data protection with Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud. It’s a single solution that combines backup, anti-malware, and endpoint protection management. As an MSP, you can easily improve clients’ security posture, eliminate complexity, and generate more recurring revenue. Learn more about Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud at Acronis.com.

:-)

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Host Karl interviewed Tom Watson, Channel Chief Advisor at NinjaRMM. Tom is a former owner of an MSP for 15 years. He's now with Ninja, working to deliver quality information to MSPs to help them grow their businesses and increase profitability.

Tom is also the Co-host of NinjaRMM's MSP Live Chats webinar series, host of the MSP Breakthrough podcast series.

Links:

• https://www.ninjarmm.com/msplivechats/
• https://www.ninjarmm.com/msp-breakthrough/

:-)

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.

Topic 1: Amazon devices will soon automatically share your Internet with neighbors.

Amazon introduces "sidewalk" network sharing.

This feature is ON by default. At this point, Amazon's new mesh network sharing is experimental. How do you feel about that? Is this OK from Apple but not from Amazon?

Read in Ars Technica: https://apple.news/AfIgdLQgQRZyr-N3QGbK69A

Topic 2: The Era of the Digital Leash is well on its way. Now add some AI analysis.

Bosses putting a 'digital leash' on remote workers could be crossing a privacy line. We've reported about watching both students and employees. Now we find this constant monitoring moving into warehouses and more types of employees. We seriously question whether this is a good thing.

Read in CNBC:

https://apple.news/ATt9jvg7uR1ihlKylsRprMA

Topic 3: Emotion-tracking AI.

Even if we can, should we?

Emotion-detection AI meets eye-tracking technology. A major merger claims to be able to tell how you're feeling (when driving).

The really interesting question is, what other applications could use this technology? AI that can recognize emotions has the ability to bring us more-social robots as well as improve customer service chatbots.

The emerging question with AI seems to be: Should we?

Read in ZDNet: https://apple.news/AW3l5FPbjRymvie18rh7V_A

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Sponsor Note:

Think you know PC Matic? Think again.

PC Matic is working with MSPs to deliver true zero trust/default deny endpoint security.

Allowing only trusted applications and blocking all the rest. A light weight, simple to deploy & easy to manage approach to application allowlisting.

Layering a default deny approach provides MSPs of all sizes the ability to again focus on prevention, and PC Matic delivers this without impacting performance or efficiency.

Find out more about by visiting pcmatic.com/MSP

Be sure to ask about PC Matic's exclusive lead sharing program for MSPs backed by a prime time national TV campaign.

:-)

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

Host Karl caught up with Mario Pirolozzi, VP of Sales at Zomentum, to talk about their Sales Acceleration Platform.

Mario is a 10 year industry veteran whose career has been dedicated to assisting thousands of MSPs and IT service providers in their go-to-market plans, sales strategy, and execution. As a former VP of Sales for Datto, and current VP of Sales at Zomentum, Mario is uniquely positioned to help MSPs evaluate their current technology stack and enhance their sales efforts by providing valuable insights and world class solutions.

Zomentum is the channel's only end-to-end sales acceleration platform. Their partners are creating documents 70% faster, they are increasing their deal values by 600%, and converting 100% more often while using Zomentum's full suite of tools.

Web Sites: https://www.zomentum.com/

:-)

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.