SMB Community Podcast

I interviewed with Dave Seibert from SMB TechFest about the Fall show. This event is held four times per year in Anaheim, CA.

This is always a good event. And this year, I'm pairing it up with my 12th Annual Fall Seminar. More about that on a future podcast.

Audio Listen to the Podcast.

Links mentioned in this podcast:

The Need to Know Podcast (Robert Crane) http://blog.ciaops.com/

How to Manage Your Daily Workflow (LogicNow blog) https://www.logicnow.com/blog/how-manage-your-daily-workflow

3 Magic Questions a Sales Manager Must Know (Ken Thoreson) http://yoursalesmanagementguru.com/2016/08/3-magic-questions-a-sales-manager-must-know/

Attend SMB TechFest for free at … http://www.SMBTechFest.com/karl

Karl's Fall Seminar http://www.smbpreday.com

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

We're kicking off a whole new podcast series here at SMB Community Podcast. So subscribe today so you don't miss a thing.

We're going to be doing a series of "video call" podcasts of about 30 minutes each. These will be recorded as both a Video and as an Audio download. So you can decide whether you want to watch or just listen.

To kick off the new series, I talked with Amy Babinchak from Third Tier and Sell My MSP. Amy is very well known in the SMB IT community. Recently, she's noticed that there are a lot more buyers looking for MSPs than there are sellers listed to sell their business.

One reason for this, she believes, is that there's a myth in the community that a small MSP has no value. I'm not sure where that myth originated, but it's one of the things people keep telling each other over and over again.

Amy has a very different perspective: If you've been making money in your business for 10-20 years, it has value and it can be sold. You just need to find the people who are looking to buy. A lot of buyers want to be anonymous, though, so their competition doesn't find out that they're in expansion mode.

That's where Sell My MSP comes in. It's like a dating service for your business . . . except you can't use a ten year old picture. The site includes a tool you can use to get some idea of what your business is worth.

Get all the details – and more – in the interview:

Video

Audio Listen to the Podcast.

Links mentioned in this podcast:

– Lisa Hendricks' Call That Girl Office 365 Podcast

Blogs – The Three Biggest Mistakes Non-IT People Make When They Plug Things In

– New Ransomware Kit Materials Released

– Blog series on Documenting New Server Install

Amy Links – Third Tier Consulting

– Sell My MSP

– Infographic Maker

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

I had a great conversation with Alistair Forbes, the new Managing Director of SolarWinds MSP (formerly the General Manager at LogicNow).

In case you missed the news yesterday, SolarWinds MSP bought LogicNow. LogicNow CEO Walter Scott now becomes the Executive Vice President of Solarwinds MSP. And Dave Sobel retains his title as Senior Director of Partner Community and Field Marketing. I exchanged a few emails with Dave as he's traveling in Portugal right now. He is very excited and positive about the changes ahead.

Change brings uncertainty, and I've received lots of emails and requests for information about this merger. So I asked Alistair to join me for a quick conversation to answer the big questions. This interview is about 15 minutes.

More details about this interview are on my blog at http://blog.smallbizthoughts.com.

As always, I am impressed with the LogicNow team's openness and willingness to directly answer the major questions being asked online and in the forums. It's a period major change, so there's some natural "fear uncertainty and doubt." But it looks like a great move in the right direction for LogicNow partners.

More information about SolarWinds MSP is here: http://www.solarwindsmsp.com/

More information about LogicNow is here: https://www.logicnow.com/

Listen Now:

Listen to the Podcast.

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

Final report from SMB Nation 2015.

My guests here are Patrick Houston from Biz Tech Xperts and Rich Maddalena from LogicTree IT.

Patrick Houston

Patrick Houston is the co-founder and editor at Biz Tech Xperts (see www.biztechxperts.com) – Note: Not experts – xperts.

BizTechXperts.com is a site for end user clients to come and ask questions. The site pairs you up with people looking for answers. You can then answer their questions and begin to build a relationship. The match-up gives you a warm lead because you are helping them answer a question. Now you're "known" expert who can help them at a deeper level.

Patrick talks about using the system to position yourself as an expert and for focusing on a niche market. There is no cost to you as the expert.

Finally, I talked to Rich Maddalena from LogicTreeIT.com about their Two Vie Hub product. Two Vie Hub is a mobile app platform that gives users the ability to customize the look, feel, and content of applications very easily.

Rich Maddalena

As Rich mentions, it only took about four hours to take the customizable app and generate the SMB Nation conference-specific app. You can check it out by going to your app store and searching for SMB Nation.

Vertical markets, including cities, restaurants, schools, and of course conferences. Home owners associations is a very strong vertical market for them already.

At this event, Rich is looking for channel partners who are interested in making money by selling customized apps. Rich has some great tips on how to make apps usable and valuable so that people actually open them. If you're interested in a free trial – as well as advice on designing and selling apps – contact Rich.

You can sign up as a reseller by calling Rich at 916-676-7335.

Listen Now:

Listen to the Podcast.

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

The first person I grabbed at SMB Nation was Robert Crane from CIA Ops – CIAOPS.com. Robert presented a great demonstration on using live data to create meaningful information for clients.

Robert Crane

Microsoft's PowerBI is a business intelligence. Robert showed how to analyze data from a variety of sources. Once you have an Office 365 login, you can add this product and it will be just another app on your portal.

In this interview, Robert covers a lot of territory about getting started with data analysis, including some notes about mashing up client data with public databases. The really good news is that these tools are readily available to your clients for no additional cost. He also talks about the huge public databases you can access. And of course everyone has web data. Some clients have data on sales trends and other internal processes.

The one thing that's very clear from this interview: Technology is not enough! You need to help your client with their business.

Find out more and follow Robert at CIAOPS.com and on his blog at Blog.ciaops.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at @directorcia.

Chip Reeves

Chip Reeves from Bigger Brains had a table to promote online training.

In addition to providing training that you can resell to your clients, Chip announced "Bigger Brains Tech" in association with SMB Nation. For $99, you can give your technicians access to a series of training specifically for IT Pros. The first training is on network basics. A training on HIPAA will be released later this month, and troubleshooting course after that.

Now you can get great training yourself, in addition to raising money selling training to your clients!

More information at BiggerBrains.com.

Joel Zaidspiner

Finally I chatted with Joel Zaidspiner from ChannelPro Network.

He covered what's in the ChannelPro magazine and how to subscribe for free.

We also talked about the big ChannelPro SMB Forum coming up November 3rd in Neward, NJ. (Details at http://events.channelpronetwork.com/). As always, that event will feature great content that you can take home and use right away. I am honored to be a speaker there.

If you register for the big ChannelPro SMB Forum in New York, mention me and you will receive 100% of your registration fee back when you attend the event.

Of course you can find out more about ChannelPro magazine at www.channelpronetwork.com.

Listen Now:

Listen to the Podcast.

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

Report One from SMB Nation 2015.

Featuring Nick East from Zynstra and Dave Seibert from SMB TechFest.

Nick East

Last year Zynstra (www.zynstra.com) pretty much dominated SMB Nation with demos.

This year Nick East announced that Zynstra is now distributed both through Ingram's cloud program and through D&H. In fact, they were at the show with D&H (www.dandh.com). If you're interested in finding out more, there's a TCO (total cost of ownership) tool on the Zynstra site.

Research shows that the number one thing you can do to increase your company's value is to increase Recurring Revenue, followed by Professional Services. At the bottom are hardware and software. Zynstra's goal is to turn all of these into recurring revenue.

Nick also noted that Zynstra has a new acceleration program that gives you a huge boost in margin for your first three deals.

Dave Seibert and Karl Palachuk

Next I talked to Dave Seibert from SMB TechFest (www.smbtechfest.com) about the big event they have coming up October 15-16.

I will be joining Dave on the stage on the 16th. I fly in from Australia that morning. I'm renting a car and driving down to Orange County just in time to climb on stage. Join me.

. . .

In this interview, Dave talks about technology trends and some of the things we're going to cover in our talk at SMB TechFest. I'm sorry I won't see all the great speakers, including Gil Cargill, James Kernan, and Mike Semel.

I'd love to see you there!

Listen Now:

Listen to the Podcast.

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

At the Business Solutions Channel Transitions event in Chicago (two weeks ago), I caught up with Randy Clark from Mercury. Mercury is a payment processor. Think credit cards.

Pretty much everyone takes credit cards. Everyone who has clients that trust them has the potential to sell credit card processing.

Randy Clark – Mercury Pay

In this interview, Randy talks about getting started as well as the opportunity options for credit card processing. Some people sell directly to their clients. Others create a complete side business selling credit card processing.

In addition to working with Consultants and VARs, Mercury works with software developers. As you know, there's at least one live of business application for every business out there.

One very important point: If you want to increase the resale value of your company, recurring revenue from payment processing can increase the value dramatically. The key is that you get a small faction of every sale made by the merchants you set up.

Find out more about Mercury and how how can create a stream of recurring revenue at www.mercurypay.com.

The next Business Solutions Channel Transitions conference will be in Orlando in November 5th. Details and registration are at http://www.channeltransitions.com/.

Listen Now:

Listen to the Podcast.

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

Mike Monocello

Mike Monocello

Mike Monocello is the editor-in-chief of Business Solutions magazine, a monthly publication dedicated to helping IT solutions providers grow their businesses by selling complementary technologies and moving into thriving markets. We talked about building recurring revenue models, technology, and business.

Mike has to come up with new articles for a variety of readers every month (retail VARs, managed service providers, etc.). As you can imagine, it's hard to figure out which content to focus on. They spend a lot of time listening to their readers in order to get feedback about where their audience is and where they're going.

We talked about the Business Solutions Channel Transitions conference in Chicago last month. We also looked ahead to the conferences Business Solutions had coming up later this year and next.

The next Business Solutions Channel Transitions conference will be in Orlando in November 5th. Details and registration are at http://www.channeltransitions.com/.

You can find out more at www.BSMInfo.com.

Listen Now:

Listen to the Podcast.

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

One of the coolest things I've ever seen at a conference is a "Visual Practitioner" summarizing the event via large scale drawings. I talked to Jackie Forbes at the recent MAX 2015 conference. She is with Drawn to Learn (www.drawntolearn.co.uk). Her background is in meeting facilitation, so she has good skills around picking out the important points of the day.

Here's a picture of the drawings she did for two days of the conference. Click to enlarge.

Drawn to Learn

I didn't realize that this is now an official profession with meetings and titles. Even while we were talking, someone came up to ask Jackie about illustrations like this for video projects. She specializes in meeting artwork like this, but she gave him a referral to someone who specializes in the video side of the business.

If you were not at the conference, a lot of the components here won't make sense. But to those who sat through presentations, these are great reminders of what we saw and heard from the screen. (Did you know the unicorn is the official animal of Scotland?)

Jackie Forbes, Drawn to Learn

Jackie says you don't have to have a lot of artistic skill to be a Visual Practitioner, but I'm not sure I buy that. My unicorn would look like a blob with a stick. Clearly, you need t understand what's going on at the meeting and be able to pick out the juicy good information that's important to the attendees. That I can do. Scribbling it into a picture . . . that's out of my skill set.

Check out Jackie's web site. Obviously, she's from the UK, so you probably won't have her at one of your events in the U.S., but you'll get a sense of what the industry is about. And she's very friendly, so if you need a referral, I'm sure she can help.

Listen Now:

Listen to the Podcast.

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

Back at the vendor hall . . . I talked to four folks about taking your business to the next level. Two of them are directly in sales and marketing (helping you with S&M), one who helps you generate reports to make more sales, and an industry organization you should absolutely be involved with.

Ken Goldstein is with Choice Technologies. They are an MSP with a successful sales process – and they're willing to help you increase your sales. They have developed an assessment system to help you analyze prospect networks and develop a sales proposal based on the findings. Find out more at www.choicetech.com.

Matthew Koenig is with RapidFire Tools. RapidFire Tools provides network auditing reports that are both big and beautiful. Here Matthew talks about the compliance assessments you can run with RapidFire Tools. This includes PCI, HIPAA, and general security. More info at www.rapidfiretools.com.

Karl and Raj

Raj Khera is with Presstacular. They help you automate getting out a newsletter every week, or month. They provide articles that are "news" as well as just good advice.

Most small MSPs don't have a marketing department. Presstacular provides professionally written technology articles that you can add to your newsletters, blog posts, etc. Best of all, you can edit and customize these articles to fit your needs.

More info at www.presstacular.com.

Susan Kostbar is a Senior Manager at CompTIA. You probably know CompTIA from the A+ and other certifications.

The CompTIA Lounge

One of the fun things CompTIA did is to set up a lounge in the vendor hall so that attendees could relax and recharge. In fact, they had a recharge station where folks could plug in their phones, tablets, etc. to literally recharge them.

I talked to Susan about the training programs at CompTIA as well as their community and advocacy efforts on behalf of the computer industry. More info can be found at www.comptia.org.

Listen Now:

Listen to the Podcast.

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