SMB Community Podcast

Last week we had a report from Robin Robins' Big Seminar – www.robinsbigseminar.com. This is the second report on that event – featuring an interview with Robin herself on why this event is different from other events in the community.

In this podcast, I interview four folks: Nadia Karatsoreos from MAXfocus, Stephen Swavley from Documentation Toolkit, Rob Rae from Datto, and Robin Robins from Technology Marketing Toolkit. The first three are vendors. As you know, I love vendors because the pay the bills at these events. They literally make it possible for us to have channel-related events.

Nadia Karatsoreos – MAXfocus

Nadia Karatsoreos – http://conferences.maxfocus.com – www.maxfocus.com – http://youtube.com/maxfocus

Stephen Swavley – Documentation Toolkit

Stephen Swavley – www.doctoolkit.com

Rob Rae and Robin Robins

Rob Rae from Datto with Robin

www.Datto.com – [email protected]

Special Musical note . . . Music for this episode courtesy of Holland Marie . . . www.hollandmarie.com

Holland Marie

Used with permission of the artist.

Listen to all four interviews and my commentary here:

Listen to the Podcast.

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We had a great time in Nashville for Robin Robins' Big Seminar – www.robinsbigseminar.com.

I love this event because it's crowded with great partners who are totally dedicated to working ON their business (see my Small Biz Thoughts Blog post on this).

In this podcast, I interview four folks: Jan Spring from eFolder, Jeff Dryall from Plan27, Nathan Brebner from Sandler Partners, and Bab Farkas from Computerama in Freeport, NY. The first three are vendors. One of the reasons I like to interview vendors is that they are in business to make money for us. Those who do a good job making money for us become partners for life. The vendors also help to make possible the events we attend!

Jan Spring efolder

Jan Spring – [email protected] – www.efolder.com

Jeff Dryall and Karl Palachuk

Jeff Dryall – www.plan27.ca

Nathan Brebner

Nathan Brebner – www.sandlerpartners.com

Bob is an I.T. Provider from Freeport, NY. I wanted to interview him because he has such a unique vertical. If you've ever thought about focusing on a specific vertical, give this a listen!

Listen to all three interviews and my commentary here:

Listen to the Podcast.

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This is the first report of two I'm doing on the Channel Partners Conference in Vegas last week.

The primary reason I attended is that many, many, people at the Channel Pro SMB event in Baltimore kept asking me if I was going.

I went a little early and connected with some folks. Then I stayed a little late and caught up with some others. I always recommend that strategy, as opposed to rushing in and rushing out. A lot of the "good stuff" at any conference takes place around the edges.

Zynstra and CloudMSP team (and Karl)

I was lucky enough to connect up with the whole Zynstra Hybrid Cloud team. They were in town for an HP Global Partner conference. Here we are at the MGM.

Pictured here are Daniel Langton (CloudMSP), me, James Tuff (Zynstra), Andrew Morlidge (Zynstra), Nick East (Zynstra), Rhett Ryder (Zynstra), and Jeff Ponts (CloudMSP).

Learn more at www.zynstra.com or www.mycloudmsp.com.

– – – – –

I interviewed several people. On this podcast, you'll hear interviews with the following folks:

– Dave McGirr – Advocates for Business

Dave McGirr

– Dave is from Annapolis MD. He literally stopped me in the hallway to tell me how excited he is about the Zynstra Hybrid Cloud solution I had mentioned some time ago on a podcast.

– Paula Wong – Hayward Networks

Paula Wong

– Based in the SF Bay Area. Paula is a security specialist looking for IT partners. See www.haywardnetworks.com.

– Sam Ciaccia – Datto Networks

Sam Ciaccia

– Datto has offices in the U.S., Canada, London, and Australia. – Learn about the cool news for founder Austin McCord – and find out about the Datto Partner Conference in New Orleans! – www.dattopartnerconference.com and www.datto.com

Listen to all three interviews and my commentary here:

Listen to the Podcast.

Enjoy the recordings . . . I've got more coming soon from the Channel Partners event that just finished in Vegas.

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I am fundamentally lazy. Or busy. Or both.

As a result, I sometimes captures interviews while I'm out and about and then don't post them up right away. I'm going to be doing some catch-up here.

I've got three quick interviews for you here. They are:

Steve Noel, MSP Evangelist for Axcient

Jeff Dryall, Directory of Business Development with Plan 27

and

Kevin Jones, Sales Engineer, RapidFire Tools

We'll start with Steve Noel. Steve helped out one of my clients at the end of last year and we chat about that a bit.

I ran into Steve at SMB Techfest (www.smbtechfest.com) awhile back.

Axcient recently released a Granular Exchange Recovery tool – and they have lots of other cool things planned for 2015.

In this podcast, Steve also gives details on the "freeware" version of the Axcient product so you can learn the product – and maybe even use it in an emergency.

For more info, see www.axcient.com.

Listen to our Interview Here.

Next up is Kevin Jones from RapidFire Tools, discussing their flagship product – Network Detective.

Kevin tells us a bit about the new "Inspector" product. It's a great tool for doing assessments and creating a vulnerability report for clients and prospects.

Last year, RapidFire released a new HIPAA Compliance Module that has become very popular. Network Detective was named by CRN as the #1 income generating tool for 2014, largely due to the success of the HIPAA Compliance Module.

Coming in 2015: a new PCI compliance module.

For more info, see www.rapidfiretools.com.

Listen to our Interview Here.

Last but not least, I talked to Jeff Dryall from Plan27.

I insult him, then he insults me. Then we get down to the interview.

Plan27 is a web-based lead generation service. They provide search engine marketing specifically for the channel – as a managed service.

My question is: Isn't SEO such a moving target that no one can stay on top for more than twenty minutes? Jeff's got a great answer for that question. Plan27's Google analytics team keeps your Google campaign fine tuned hour by hour. Find out more by listening to the interview.

For more info, visit www.plan27.ca.

Listen to our Interview Here.

Enjoy the recordings . . . I've got more coming soon from the Channel Partners event that just finished in Vegas.

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Just in case you haven't heard of Third Tier . . .

Third Tier (www.thirdtier.net) provides services for technology consultants. They provide education and assistance on a wide variety of topics.

I caught up with Amy Babinchak a few days ago to find out what new and cool. It turns out there's LOTS of great news from Third Tier. Their SMB Kitchen project is going strong – with a new program coming soon.

One of their cool new programs is call Look, a Whale. The program is designed to help you with major problems, major projects, and taking on new Whale-Size clients. My brother Manuel is the new whale tamer at Third Tier. (I wish I had that on my resume.)

Another cool program features our long-time friend Rayanne Buchianico, helping people get their finances set up properly for running an efficient technology consulting business. That program is called Tech Your Books. I've worked with Rayanne personally for a long time and think she provides an amazing service. Check it out.

The original reason I asked Amy for an interview was her new Micro-Staffing program. Third Tier is ramping up to provide top-level technicians for your "team" on an ongoing basis with very little commitment. Think about that: A genius-level technician at your disposal. You get their cell phone and can have them do a variety of tasks as members of your company's tech support department. Very cool.

Check out the podcast to hear all the details.

Note: After we recorded this podcast, but before I could post it, I had an urgent need for assistance. I called on Third Tier and Mr. Philip Elder came to the rescue. It was a great experience, and I posted some details about it on my Small Biz Thoughts blog.

Related Links:

Here's the recorded webinar Amy refers to in the podcast: http://www.thirdtier.net/2014/12/third-tier-2015-sneak-preview/

SMB Kitchen: http://www.thirdtier.net/smbkitchen-asp/

Look, A Whale: http://www.thirdtier.net/look-a-whale/

Tech Your Books: http://www.thirdtier.net/tech-your-books/

MicroStaff: http://www.thirdtier.net/my-third-tier/

Blog: http://www.thirdtier.net/blog/

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Catch our Dec 16th Odd Tuesdays episode!

Karl speaks with ChannelEyes' Jay McBain about their mobile app platform for connecting Vendors and channel partners.

Rayanne Buchianico also joins the show in our Oddballs segment. Rayanne talks about her MSP course – the Financial Processes That Make All the Difference. The course is geared for MSPs and covers such topics as: separation of accounting and financial duties, entities and tax considerations, cash flow forecasting, and more over a five-week online teaching structure.

You can find the Dec 16th's Odd Tuesdays episode here.

*~*

And don't forget to listen for the show coupon that will give you discounts on the 2015 MSP Courses Lineup over at Great Little Seminar!

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Check out Nov 4th's Odd Tuesdays episode where Karl talks with Results Software's Mike Honig about their expanded CRM system.

And our Oddballs segment in this episode features Small Business MVP Amy Babinchak discussing the importance of MSPs building and developing vendor relationships.

You can find the Nov 4th's episode here.

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I just got back from the big ChannelPro SMB Forum in Philadelphia. For more information on next year's events, visit http://events.channelpronetwork.com/.

At the event, I talked to a number of vendors. Here is present some quick shout-outs from Datto, Buffalo Tech, Excel Micro, Lenovo, and StorageCraft.

Most importantly, I had a chance to hang out with Dave Seibert and sit on a cloud panel with him.

Dave is the mastermind behind the big SMB TechFest that happens about four times a year in Anaheim, CA. Here I talk to Dave about the next event – November 21-22, 2014.

For more info, visit www.smbtechfest.com.

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I had a good visit with Rob T. Rae from Datto at the GFI Max 2014 conference this week. Later in the day, Datto was awarded both Best in Show and Best Exhibitor Interaction awards.

Datto is a backup and disaster recovery company with about 400 employees worldwide. They're big in Canada, Europe, as well as the U.S.

One big point for Rob was that they're focusing on a lot more than continuity. How does the MSP make money without talking disasters? Most restores are from people – not natural disasters. So they talk about robust and speedy recovery from human mistakes.

Datto is strictly a hybrid solution – both onsite and in the cloud. The local device is as important as the cloud. The local is a quick, easy way to restore. The cloud provides additional continuity security when there is a local disaster.

How is cloud storage affected by the U.S. Patriot Act, as well as laws in other countries? More importantly, can you get documentation of the chain of custody for your data?

For more info, visit Dattobackup.com. Register and get access to all the tools and products.

Rob T. Rae

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In the July 1st episode of Odd Tuesdays, Karl talks to Phil Elder and Susan Bradley from the SMBKitchen Project. The pair talk about the managed services educational programs they are involved in and offer the chance for a lucky Odd Tuesdays' listener to win a year-long membership to the SMBKitchen ASP Project.

The episode also features Third Tier's Amy Babinchak in the show's reoccurring Oddballs segment. Amy talks about when to hire and how to train administrative and tech staff for your managed services business.

The episode also updates listeners on Karl's recently announced Roadshow Down Undertour, covers some Tech News, and gives a highlight of upcoming technology events around the country.

You can find the July 1st Odd Tuesdays episode here.

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