SMB Community Podcast

Brian Sharp

Brian Sharp is a great motivational speaker/trainer. He runs a company that helps small business owners learn to use speaking and presenting as a means to expand their company and make sales. His company is called Go Big – http://www.gobigcompany.com/. As you'll hear in this interview, Brian does not like the "pitch fest" approach to motivational training, which is very popular these days.

We did a press release recently on Brian Sharp's appearance. See the press release here: SMB Online Conference Press Room.

Brian helps businesses understand where their business and how it can grow. Very much inline with our "IT Business Reboot" theme, Brian will be talking about How to Take Back and Turn Around Your Small Business. As you will hear on the audio, Brian is very excited to be presenting this material.

A few sites mentioned by Brian: PresenterBox.com and BrianSharpOnline.com.

The theme of this year's SMB Online Conference is IT Business Reboot – We'll cover a variety of topics related to re-building your business as if you were starting over today.

Here are the topics for Day Three – June 28th:

9:00 AM Karl's Keynote (Karl W. Palachuk) / Absolute Rules of Success

10:00 AM Brian Sharp – How To Take Back & Turn Around Your Small Business

11:00 AM John Armato – Thinking Inside The Box

1:00 PM Rayanne Buchianico – Understanding Your Financials – Use Data To Make Decisions

(all times are Pacific)

For more information on the conference, visit www.SMBOnlineConference.com.

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Strategies for a Post-SBS World

"June 30th isn't that far away."

Kevin Beares is the Community Lead for the Windows Server and System Group at Microsoft. Kevin is in charge of driving community interaction for the SMB space.

I caught up with Kevin at SMB Nation Spring at the Microsoft Conference Center. Kevin gets props for putting himself on stage and letting the entire crowd put their toughest questions against him. It was supposed to be an hour, but Kevin stayed more than two hours and was accompanied by Microsoft MVPs Steven Banks and Cliff Galiher, who did a good job of representing both the Microsoft perspective and the partner perspective.

One of the first things Kevin pointed out to me is that there IS a product team that is still focused on the SMB space. The Home Server and Small Business Server products have been re-jiggered and the current SKU is Server Essentials. But the team still exists.

He did not say this, but the comment "Read into that what you want" allows me to read into it that there will be a new product or perhaps product line.

It's kind of funny. Just a couple days ago I reported on the Small Biz Thoughts Blog that Frank Shaw from Microsoft was irritated by the negative feedback they've received over Windows 8. He basically said that feedback is good, but not too much.

I have always found that Microsoft is very willing to take feedback. Sometimes they sound a bit defensive and really just want to explain their position. But they do listen and they do take the message back to the development team.

Kevin Beares is doing a great job listening to the community and gathering their feedback. He is fully engaged on the Facebook Group that is discussing changes in SBS. See https://www.facebook.com/groups/131473643614130/. And rather than simply defending past decisions, Kevin did a great job on stage echoing back to the community: "I understand your concerns about pricing …." He also offered up a configuration strategy for putting Server Essentials and Exchange on the same box.

Listen to the interview and engage Kevin here:

https://www.facebook.com/kevin.beares

or

[email protected]

– Download the Interview with Kevin Beares from Microsoft here.

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Better Sales Through Better Education

Chip Reaves from Bigger Brains is going to be one of the featured speakers at the 2013 SMB Online Conference.

We did a press release recently on Chip's appearance. See the press release here: SMB Online Conference Press Room.

In this podcast Chip talks about some research he'll be presenting in his June presentation. Here's a very good tidbit: When asked what they need in a consultant, the Number One requirement is knowledge. Clients want to have someone they can trust to give them advice . . . and that person needs to speak business as much as technology.

Chip's talk will address several ways you can improve your sales and bottom line by adding internal and external education to your business. Download the interview to read more.

The theme of this year's SMB Online Conference is IT Business Reboot – We'll cover a variety of topics related to re-building your business as if you were starting over today.

Here are the topics for Day One – June 25th:

9:00 AM Karl's Keynote (Karl W. Palachuk)

10:00 AM Chip Reaves – Better Sales Through Better Education

11:00 AM Rayanne Buchianico – Understanding Your Financials: Three Mandatory Monthly Reports and What They Are Telling You

1:00 PM Manuel Palachuk – Five Tools That Could Transform Your Company Overnight

(all times are Pacific)

For more information on the conference, visit www.SMBOnlineConference.com.

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At the SMB Nation Spring Conference, I talked to Laura Shafer, Director or Product Marketing at StorageCraft. StorageCraft and their ShadowProtect product are very well known.

Now StorageCraft has a new cloud-based disaster recovery program called StorageCraft Cloud Services. This product was in beta during "Super Storm Sandy" and performed admirably. Now it is in general release.

For more information, visit www.StorageCraft.com – There's a Partner link on the right side of the page.

Contact Laura at [email protected] or ping the partner program at [email protected].

– Download the Interview with Laura Shafer of StorageCraft here.

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This week Chip Reaves from Bigger Brains announced a great new offering for managed service providers. I talked to him about Bigger Brains and the new offering – Computer College.

Chip is the founder of Computer Troubleshooters in the U.S. (It was originally an Australian company.) Computer Troubleshooters grew to 480 locations in 33 countries. After selling off his interest in that franchise, Chip still owns a Computer Troubleshooters business in South Carolina.

Bigger Brains was created to provide e-learning systems to Chip's clients. Training is a natural addition to what we do for a living. In fact, many of us offer some kind of O.S. or software training in our managed services offerings already.

Bigger Brains now has two levels of offerings.

First, the "Bigger Brains" brand is a training service that you can resell. It has lots of courses and sells for about $17 per user per month. That's end user pricing. You can make a very healthy profit on that (details in the audio).

Cources include Excel, Word, PowerPoint, online marketing, sales, productivity, and many more. Right now there are fourteen courses but more are in production. This service can be billed to the MSP or to the end user, depending on what you want.

For more information, visit www.Bigger-Brains.com – There's a Reseller link at the bottom. Second, Chip has just announced Computer College – a new service that is a lower cost version of Bigger Brains – specifically designed for MSPs to include in packages.

Computer College includes Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and QuickBooks.

Your cost is only $30 per client per year. That's not per user: $30 for the entire company! You can resell individually or include in your managed service packages.

The new service is billed 100% through the channel. Only available to MSPs. Bigger Brains (Computer College) bills you and you then bill the client or simply include in your offerings.

The client-facing portal is at www.ComputerCollege.biz. Notice that there is no reseller information there.

Reseller info is at www.biggermsp.com.

Best way to get started: Sign up at Bigger-Brains.com and sign up as a reseller. That will start your interaction with Chip.

[email protected] – Download the Interview with Chip Reaves of Bigger Brains here.

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I had a great talk with Michael Siggins, Publisher of ChannelProSMB.

Among other things, he brought me up to speed on their big live event scheduled for April 10th: Channel Pro SMB Forum. This day-long educational event will be in beautiful Long Beach, CA. The weather is expected to be perfect!

Channel Pro Forum will be a jam-packed, one-day affair with great content, great food and great networking opportunities. Sessions include: o Adapting Your Business to the Cloud o Winning Sales and Marketing Strategies for MSPs o Where the Money Is in Mobility o Today's Hottest Trends in Hardware o CompTIA Training: MSP Partners Trustmark

And of course you, I will be there on a panel.

The event is FREE.

For more info and to register, please go to www.ChannelProForum.com.

Michael also mentioned that ChannelPro magazine is holding its Reader Choice Award voting.

This is a program designed to identify the most SMB-specific products, solutions and services for ChannelPro readers and their customers. They are accepting votes at least through the end of February and will announce the results in the springtime.

You can cast your vote for our Reader Choice Awards at www.VoteChannelPro.com.

And of course you can alwasy check out ChannelPro SMB magazine at www.Channelprosmb.com.

– Download the Interview with Michael Siggins from ChannelPro here.

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For several years now, I have presented my "State of the Nation" address for small business IT consultants.

I never pretend that I'm unbiased. But most of my writing is pretty matter of fact. And most of my interviewing is intended to coax information out of other people.

But once a year I dust off the soapbox and give a 45 minute "State of the Nation" address.

This year, I talked about . . .

• Highlights (lowlights?) from 2012
• The Death of SBS
• Cloud Services
• Economy
• Rebooting Your IT Consulting Business in 2013

– Download Karl's 2013 State of the Nation Address for Small Business I.T. Consultants here.

Here are some of the web sites listed in this broadcast.

• www.SMBBooks.com
• www.smbonlineconference.com
• blog.smallbizthoughts.com

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After months of preparation, Cloud Nation (www.cloudnation.co) was launched last week. I interviewed Tom Poole, President of Cloud Nation about the launch.

First, I dropped in to www.cloudnation.co and signed up for the install-access 30 day trial. So I was logged into the system while interviewing Tom.

The site has two sides. Betty the Business Woman represents small businesses. Folks who enter there will get a test drive, but they will be channeled to resellers if they want to buy.

Carl the Cloud Guy

The other character is Carl the Cloud Guy — the I.T. Pro.

There are two levels of membership. There are partners who wish to offer their cloud services through Cloud Nation. But most of us are going to be exploring how to be a Cloud Nation Certified Professional. Yes, there is a certification program. The training program has a series of ten modules that cover the technology as well as sales and marketing strategies.

As the introductory email states, "Getting the Cloud Nation experience firsthand is a great way to truly understand the power and simplicity of our platform."

And what are you selling? Cloud Nation is currently offering virtual desktops that you can resell to your clients. You decide what the mark-up will be.

Even if you are not a current client, you can get your questions answered via email at [email protected]. – Download the Interview with Tom Poole from Cloud Nation here.

For more information on Cloud Nation, see www.cloudnation.co.

For questions, email [email protected].

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A few people have been talking about the new HIPAA training from Reflexion. In my brain, Reflexion = Spam Filtering. So how do you get from there to HIPAA training and certification? So I called Scott Barlow, VP of Sales and Marketing at Reflexion.

HIPAA Training from Reflexion

Scott ended up giving me a great education on HIPAA requirements, the one important "Business Associate Agreement" you need to have, and how you can get certified and resell certification to your clients. Scott tells stories about very small companies being fined due to HIPAA compliance issues – including a 5-physician that was fined $100,000!

Training is very straight forward and very inexpensive. The course has ten sections with quizzes at the end. Then the course as a whole has a 50-question test at the end. It is 100% online and costs only $299! Best take-away is the template you get for your Business Associate Agreement.

If you're looking for a great additional source of revenue, and you want to work with people in the medical community, please listen to this podcast.

Very informative!

– Download the Interview with Scott Barlow here.

For more information on Reflexion, see www.reflexion.net.

For more information on HIPAA certification, see www.reflexiontraining.net.

For webinar information, email Scott at [email protected].

Scott gives more contact info on the podcast. Check it out today.

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I ran into Arlin in Orlando a few weeks ago, but we never connected for a podcast. So we made a point of connecting my phone a few days ago.

Arlin Sorensen of HTG

Heartland Technology Groups (HTG) have been a major force in the SMB space for many years. HTG programs have traditionally been face to face peer groups. Right now there are about 250 companies in the face to face groups.

But now there are another 70 companies involved with HTG's online program. Arlin gives us some good information about the specialty groups that are evolving. There are specialty groups for managers, smaller companies, and even much larger companies.

HTG's big annual conference will be in Dallas May 6-9, 2013.

In addition, HTG is organizing a "CEO Vision" Summit in Omaha, NE August 15-16, 2013. This will be a special "Ted-Style" format. Arlin gives the details in our podcast.

– Download the Interview with Arlin Sorensen here.

Whether you're interested in the Face to Face peer groups, online peer groups, or specialty programs, you can find out more information at www.htgpeergroups.com.

Check it out today.

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