SMB Community Podcast

I always see Mr. Tim Conkle on the road - as places like ChannelPro. Luckily, I got to catch up with him on the SMB Community Podcast.

Tim Conkle - The 20

Tim holds over 30 years of entrepreneurial success in the Information Technology and Services sector. As a leading voice in the Managed IT Service Provider space, Tim is dedicated to developing simple, solid IT solutions for SMB clients and MSPs (Managed Service Providers) across the nation. His notoriously energetic nature, along with his deep-rooted passion for technology, has helped him forge solid customer relationships built on trust, dependability, and service. Tim currently serves as President & CEO of Roland Technology, President of the Board of Directors for Cytracom, and is a member of the Forbes Technology Council and Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO).

As CEO of The 20, Conkle is the driving force behind a business revolutionizing the IT industry. By utilizing a proven multi-million dollar sales model and an execution framework that he developed, Tim helps MSPs attain profitability and success. Through The 20's business model, Tim has advised more than 175 MSPs in sales and operations, resulting in catastrophic revenue generation and millions of dollars in savings from process improvements and single-funnel vendor access.

If you're interested in attending The 20's Vision conference, you can Save $100 off your ticket with the code PALACHUK. See www.the20vision.com.

Contact Info:

Web - https:/www.the20.com

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/The20MSP/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-20/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/the20msp

https://youtu.be/FyrMjEnfoxI

:-)

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Dominica DeGrandis is Director of Digital Transformation at Tasktop, where she helps customers improve the flow of work across value streams. Responsible for introducing customers to flow-based aspects of digital transformation, she guides IT teams and business teams to learn and adopt new ways of working to improve performance.

Dominica is the author of "Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Work & Flow." She is a huge fan of using visual cues to reveal mutually critical information across organizations to inspire change and spur alignment. Dominica lives in Seattle, WA with her husband and extended family.

Dominica DeGrandis

Here we talk about metrics, work flow, and the great benefits of minimizing WIP – work in progress. We also talked about engaging managers in the discussion of work flow and metrics.

DeGrandis is excellent at seeing how processes work and finding ways to help participants literally see how work flows through the system. She advocates using Kanban boards to create a view of what's going on at various levels in an organization. This can also help individuals see how their specific metrics affect the larger business goals.

We also discussed the topic of "Priority vs. Calendar." DeGrandis has a talk on this subject. She talks about The 30 Minute Jam, the All Day Cram, and the Triple-Book Wham. Many people – especially creative people – need large blocks of time on the calendar in order to reach and maintain "flow" and get quality work done.

I love her assertion that most people have more control over their calendar than they believe.

Lots of good stuff here. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk_9ZRIGQP8

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Dominica DeGrandis is Director of Digital Transformation at Tasktop, where she helps
customers improve the flow of work across value streams. Responsible for introducing
customers to flow-based aspects of digital transformation, she guides IT teams and
business teams to learn and adopt new ways of working to improve performance.

Dominica is the author of “Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Work
& Flow.” She is a huge fan of using visual cues to reveal mutually critical information
across organizations to inspire change and spur alignment. Dominica lives in Seattle,
WA with her husband and extended family.

Dominica DeGrandis

Here we talk about metrics, work flow, and the great benefits of minimizing WIP - work in progress. We also talked about engaging managers in the discussion of work flow and metrics.

DeGrandis is excellent at seeing how processes work and finding ways to help participants literally see how work flows through the system. She advocates using Kanban boards to create a view of what's going on at various levels in an organization. This can also help individuals see how their specific metrics affect the larger business goals.

We also discussed the topic of "Priority vs. Calendar." DeGrandis has a talk on this subject. She talks about The 30 Minute Jam, the All Day Cram, and the Triple-Book Wham. Many people - especially creative people - need large blocks of time on the calendar in order to reach and maintain "flow" and get quality work done.

I love her assertion that most people have more control over their calendar than they believe.

Lots of good stuff here. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk_9ZRIGQP8

:-)

I think I met Jamison about 2006 at SMB Nation. Since then, he has bought a few companies, built a few companies, and sold a few companies. Even today he owns a few companies.

He calls himself a serial entrepreneur, but I consider that a parallel entrepreneur. Personally, I think all small business owners should have at least two companies. But that's another story.

Here we chat a bit about TimeZest, a calendaring add-on for ConnectWise. Then we move to EOS - the Entrepreneurial Operating System - as described by Gino Wickman in his book Traction.

There are many, many books filled with advice for business owners. Jamison likes the EOS model because it is most easily applied to small business. In fact, as he says, it can be self-applied without a coach.

But there are some obvious advantages to having a coach who can help you have those difficult meetings and keep things moving when you get stuck in the weeds.

Jamison has been a "serial entrepreneur" for over 20 years. He has a wealth of experience in several areas include: Founding and operating companies in the SaaS and IT Services space; participating in and moderating professional peer groups (HTG & EO); advising organizations in the SaaS and IT Services verticals; speaking on a range of topics from Cloud to M&A to People, and implementing EOS®.

Links: - www.jamisonwest.com - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamisonwest/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxLTHiFo3UE

Listen here:

:-)

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I met Allen Edwards all the way back in April of this year. I've already seem him at events in two states. We even shared a beer (or two) in Albuquerque. Allen help IT Professionals create great processes.

Allen Edwards began his I.T. career in 1994. He founded his first I.T. company in 2002, and in ten short years led his firm through a transition from break/fix to MSP, from custom ticketing to AutoTask before moving to ConnectWise Manage, and a final sale of the business.

A sought-after MSP and Process expert, Allen helps Business Leaders and their teams while building meaningful, growth-centered relationships that support next level performance.

Link: https://EurekaProcess.com

Enjoy the video interview:

Download Audio:

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In 2008, Brooke Ferguson, MBA packed up her business consulting practice and moved it online. Her objective was simple: keep growing her business while she saw the world.

Brooke spent a number of years traveling, while keeping Thailand as her "home base." Eventually, she realized that she wanted to make beautiful Krabi, Thailand her home. She has since set up her business beachside, and helps others from around the world discover their own personal and business alignment.

I don't normally post photos this grand, but look at that landscape!

Here we talk about Brooke's newest book – The Levels. This is, basically, her approach to using the laws of the universe to understand our personal universe AND how we can use this understanding to influence our success. She uses the language of physics to describe our relationships, our business, and our general activities.

Then she connects this to the world of self-awareness and even meditation.

Best quote: "No one's going to argue with the person who's angry and wants to take a few minutes."

Follow along with Brooke's journey at https://www.businessbackpacker.com and get on her mailing list for upcoming deals and discounts for her new book, The Levels

Sign Up

Enjoy the video interview:

Download Audio:

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I caught up with my brother Manuel after he returned from a triumphant tour of Europe and the UK. He's got some cool things going on the second half of the year, including a big Coaches Mastermind event at CompTIA's ChannelCon.

We talked about Manuel's coaching and consulting, and then did a deep dive into a few topics.

First up: Culture!

How do you create culture on purpose? And what happens if you let it grow by itself? I love Manuel's assessment that it has to grow from the top down . . . or else it will grow from the bottom up.

Second: Manuel is organizing a "Coaches Mastermind" opportunity at ChannelCon – Free to attendees. This is a limited event due to the size of the room. First come, first served. To make sure you don't miss it, sign up for Manuel's newsletter here: https://manuelpalachuk.com/

Enjoy the video interview:

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I always love catching up with Jeff Ponts from DataTel Solutions. If you attend a few conferences a year, you are likely to have seen Jeff somewhere.

Jeffery Ponts is COO/Executive Vice President and founder of Datatel Solutions Inc. Datatel Solutions is an Integrated Communications Provider (ICP), and systems integrator focusing on marketing, delivering, and managing best-of-breed data and telecommunication products, services, and applications through the independent sales channel for small to medium size enterprises (SME).

As Jeff says, his company does the "heavy lifting" for IT companies that want to resell telecom services. Datatel works with more than 500 agents and 4,700 end customers.

In this podcast, we cover a bit about the past and a lot about the future of the telecom industry. Jeff gives some great information about the reality of 5G connectivity and SD-WAN. He makes an interesting point that 4G will be around for a LONG time because it's impractical to have millions of 5G antennae all across the sparsely-populated areas of the country/world.

Lots of great information here!

You can find Jeff at

www.datatelsolutions.com

or www.concordusapps.com

https://youtu.be/HOsP6-pcXsk

Download MP3

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I caught up with my good friend Joshua Liberman for this SMB Community Podcast.

Josh is a great community leader and the owner of Net Sciences in Albuquerque, NM.

Joshua Liberman

In this podcast, Josh walks us through the various elements they offer (and bundle) for their clients.

I asked Josh to talk about this because it's the basis for a presentation I've seen him make. Josh has worked on this offering for a long time – and sold a lot of these services over the last several years.

Note, Josh relies on SonicWall and Datto for their key services. Since Josh brought this up, I asked him why brand names and vendors matter to him.

The handout Josh mentions can be downloaded here: How We Secure Your Network.

You can catch up with Josh at www.netsciences.com.

Watch the interview:

Listen to the Interview (mp3)

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I interviewed Mas Malik from Virtiant.com for this SMB Community Podcast.

Mas is the VP of Sales and Marketing.

Mas Malik

Virtiant provides "Disaster Recovery as a Service" – without the onsite BDR hardware. It is VMWare-centric and able to recreate your environment in the cloud, so "failover" to the cloud can happen without users needing to repoint IP addresses or make other changes.

As they describe themselves, Virtiant is "An all-in-one software-defined platform built on a scalable architecture that resides on commodity hardware. Virtiant is the only on-premise solution available today that can replicate a company's virtual environment and enable normal IT operations to run while the primary production environment suffers an outage and is being brought back online."

Find out more at: www.virtiant.com

Watch the interview:

Listen to the Interview (mp3)

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