Now Available - Perfect Profitable Projects

Earlier this year, Matt Makowicz and I did some seminars on selling and running Perfect Profitable Projects. What makes them perfect? That's easy: You don't lose money! One of the biggest problems with projects in the SMB space is that they tend not to be very profitable. That's partly because the sales people sell the wrong thing, or sell something your company doesn't deliver.

And it's partly because technicians are easily hijacked by the client. "As long as you're onsite all day installing a server, I have other work you can do for free . . .."

NOT!

Matt and I are proud to announce that we recorded those seminars, had them edited a bit for prime time, and we've created a great bundle:

- Two audio CDs -- one great seminar!

Disc One: Running Perfect Profitable Projects

Disc Two: Selling Perfect Profitable Projects

- Bonus data CD with all the PowerPoint slides, plus additional handouts

The regular price for the live seminar (recorded in 2008) was $399 per person.

When these audio programs are sold separately, the cost is $99 each.

Now, in this special bundle, you get two audio CDs, plus a third CD with all of the slides and handouts . . . for only

$149.95 for the set!

But Wait

The early bird price (through October 31st) is only $129.95!

Order now at SMB Books.


How much do you have to save on your project costs to pay for that? One hour? Two hours?

- - - - -

Here's the official sales blurb:

Growing your business is fun -- but it's also difficult.

One of the biggest challenges is maintaining profitability. That's particularly true with projects.

One- and Two-person shops have enough challenges with projects. As you grow, you have three more:

First, the sales people have to be in sync with the tech team. You need to make sure you're selling the right services and the right projects. That means you need a sales process. We'll show you how to get started.

Second, your sales people need to manage the project handoff to the tech team. All the promises need to be written down, measured, and delivered. Once again, a great process guarantees a perfect project!

Third, tech team members need to be able to work together without creating rework or dropping anything. And again, you're back to having the right process.

Matt Makowicz and Karl Palachuk have each sold and delivered millions of dollars worth to technical services and recurring revenue-based services.

Now they're teaming up for a great seminar to bring you the most important information you need to stop losing money, start executing more profitable projects, increase the recurring revenue coming into your business, and increase the value of your company.

This is NOT just another seminar. You'll walk away with proven processes and procedures to make your company more profitable as you grow!

You are GUARANTEED to learn secrets in this seminar that will save you at least $1,000 on your next server installation project.

Add that to your bottom line!

How? It's easy. Sell the right project in the first place. Deliver the right project and services after the sale.

And get paid for all the "unknown elements" that come up during the project and maximize your profits!

It's true!

- - - - -

Official Release Date: October 15th

Special Early Bird Price $129.95

Through October 31st

Order now at SMB Books.

:-)

Rejecting the Recession

Technically, we haven't had a recession. In fact, growth was larger than expected last quarter.

So the economy is growing, has been growing, and is expected to keep growing. All this despite the fact that we're dealing with the largest bailout of irresponsible homeowners, irresponsible realtors, irresponsible loan officers, irresponsible bank officials, and irresponsible government hacks in the history of the world.

That's a resilient economy!

Slower growth is not fun, but it's not a recession.

One of my favorite Infopreneurs is Stephanie Chandler. She wrote From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur.

Anyway, I was preparing to interview Stephanie for the Promotion Monkey Newsletter, so I visited one of her web sites:

www.thebusinessgrowthconnection.com/. Up pops this cool graphic.



As you may know, Erick Simpson is brilliant. He knows how to market. One of the ways he's been marketing himself is to go around the country taking advantage of people who believe the empty suits in the media. Recession, Recession, recession.

Even though Erick knows there's no recession, he gets himself in front of a crowd so he can talk about making money in an economic downturn.

I've posted several times that my companies are sitting out the recession. We reject the recession.

So I was very happy to see that Stephanie Chandler is singing the same tune. See Stephanie's Blog. Five great ideas for fending off the recession. I don't want to steal her thunder, but her first point is 100% on target: "Businesses that continue to market through a recession come out ahead when the economy begins to turn."

You don't have to buy billboard space and time on TV, but don't cut your marketing budget just because things slow down!

This is more important for small businesses than for bigger businesses. Remember, small businesses tend to market to small businesses. There's always some "churn" and turnover. Businesses come and go. That speeds up a bit during downturns. And when the sun comes out, it means something when your business has survived a dip in the economy.

Hang in there. Work hard. Focus on the basics. Get the job done.

And when things turn around, you'll be ready and primed to win the next round!

:-)

SMB Conference Call Line-Up

We've got quite a list of calls lined up.

And the registration links are all set . . .

Please check them out and tune in . . .

September 17, 2008 9:00 AM Pacific	Stuart Crawford Author: Connecting the Dots - Topic: Finding Success in the last months of 2008 - Stuart's Book: Do You Have IT? - Stuart's Blog: http://blog.itsuccessmentor.com Register Now
September 24, 2008 2:00 PM Pacific	Robert Crane Author: Windows SharePoint Operations Guide - Topic: Maximizing Success with Windows SharePoint Register Now
October 1, 2008 9:00 AM Pacific	George Sierchio Author: BYOB - Build Your Own Business, Don't Be Your Own Boss - Topic: Your Self Imposed Business Glass Ceiling - George's Coaching Kit: Consulting & Service Business Success System - George's Blog: http://georgesierchio.blogspot.com/ Register Now
October 15, 2008 9:00 AM Pacific	Jim Locke CEO, SMBTN - Topic: Lots and Lots of Great News for SMB Consultants! - SMBTN Web Site: http://www.smbtn.org/ - Blog coming soon Register Now
November 5, 2008 9:00 AM Pacific	Dave Sobel CEO, Evolvetech - Topic: Virtualization in the SMB Space - Dave's Book: Virtualization Defined (coming very very soon) - Dave's Blog: Dave's Blog Register Now
November 19th, 2008 9:00 AM Pacific	Robin Robins Technology Marketing Toolkit - Topic: Marketing, of course. Specific topic to be determined. - Web Site: Technology Marketing Toolkit - Special Offer Right Now: Red Ticket Register Now
December 3th, 2008 9:00 AM Pacific	Erick Simpson Managed Services Provider University - Topic: Building an Awesome Help Desk - Forthcoming Book: The Best I.T. Service Delivery Book Ever! - Web Site: http://www.mspu.us/ - Erick's Blog: http://www.mspu.us/Blog.htm Register Now
December 17th, 2008 9:00 AM Pacific	Eriq Neale Author, Windows Small Business Server 2008 Unleashed - Topic: Windows Small Business Server 2008 (duh) - Forthcoming Book: Windows Small Business Server 2008 - Eriq's Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/onq Register Now

More coming, of course.

Hoping to get two more super stars on in December. Negotiations are under way.


Why Should You Listen to the SMB Conference Call?

- Find out the latest and greatest information in the SMB Space

- Discuss topics not being covered in the rest of the space

- Hear new ideas and approaches to improve your business

- Learn about technology AND business

- Get an Attitude Adjustment

- Have fun

- Make money

Join us!

- - - - -

Unless otherwise noted, all SMB Conference Calls are scheduled for 9:00 AM Pacific on the first and third Wednesday of the month.

:-)

Webinar: Service Agreements for SMB Consultants

Stuart over at Secure My Company asked me to be on his webinar Thursday September 11th at 9:00 AM Pacific Time.

What could I say except YES!

Join us by clicking here:

Clickety Click Click. Click Click Click.

Luckily for me, I've written a book about Service Agreements for SMB Consultants!

So, here's your game plan.

1) Read all about the book, but don't buy before Sept. 11, 2008.

2) Register for the webinar (above).

3) Tune in to the webinar on Thursday, Sept. 11th at 9:00 AM Pacific.

4) Listen for the special code that will get you $10 off the book Service Agreements for SMB Consultants (or anything else at SMB Books). That's $10 off the already-discounted price at SMBBooks.com!

You will get a ten dollar discount at SMB Books AND ten free 30-day Kaseya licenses to try in your business.

How's THAT for Webinar Deal?

Thank you for your support!

- - - - -

UPDATE:The webinar is not posted here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/443326157

Thanks, Stuart.

:-)

SMB Consulting 3.0

I can't reveal details yet, but I got an email yesterday that makes clear how much the world of SMB Consulting is changing in the next year.

We are truly entering the stage of SMB Consulting 3.0.

SMB Consulting 1.0 had a long history. SMB Consulting 1.0 consists of:
- Doing all work manually
- Doing all work in person
- Little or no reporting of details to client ("fixed exchange")
- All tools and software sold and managed independent of all else
- Trading dollars for hours: Limited capacity per person
- Specific jobs might be flat fee, but the basic model is hourly labor
- Growth comes from hiring more people, allocating work between levels of technicians
- Break/fix because that's all there is
- Tiny (microscopic) communities online and offline

SMB Consulting 2.0 has a shorter history. For most people, it has been adapted over the past 3-5 years:
- Client systems monitored 24x7
- Patching and updates done "automatically" (or at least in bulk)
- Some work done by scripts
- A significant amount of work done remotely with remote control software
- Reports to clients can be rich and useful. Range from one-page summaries to dozens of pages per month.
- Many tools now combined, including hardware and software (e.g., spam and virus filtering built into firewall)
- Flat fee pricing is becoming the norm, filled in by hourly project labor.
- Specific work outsourced to NOC (MSPSN, Zenith, etc.).
- First level of growth comes from assigning more and more work to NOC, allowing smaller MSP to take on more clients.
- Second level of growth includes hiring staff, knowing that you have the NOC behind them.
- Third level of growth comes from bidding on much larger jobs because you have automated support and capacity-on-demand.
- Monitoring, managing, and maintaining systems is the core requirement. Break/fix is much reduced.
- Communities are flourishing. SMBTN, MSPSN, HTG, MSPU, SBS user groups, Yahoo Groups, ASCII, Comptia, etc. Exploding. Each with a unique contribution to the mix.

But now I've seen the future.

Here are a few secrets whose details will emerge in the next 4-6 weeks:

- Books and products you didn't see coming. Great stuff. Prices are NOT in the $599 / $999 range. More like $150, $100, even $60.

- Alliances between organizations that give preferred pricing and benefits will continue to evolve.

- One of the current first-tier conferences will eclipse SMB Nation within six months of today.

- Deeper channel involvement with the SMB consultant community will mean faster tech support, better free training, and deeper discounts.

- Group involvement in purchasing power for next-generation technology will put participants way ahead of those who do not participate.

I know these are vague, but very specific announcements are planned soon. Add all that to the amazing, over-the-top training and best practices from MSPU and the awesome growing communities at MSPSN and SMBTN, and the future is HERE!

SMB Consulting 3.0 is still evolving. Many businesses (all sizes) have not moved to 2.0 yet.

And what will be so next-generation in the next year?

- Standardization. And Standards.
- Client requirements for managed services.
- True professionalism of organizations. Again, standardized roles, training, certifications that aren't from vendors.
- Dramatic reduction in tool prices. Perhaps even consolidation of the industry.
- A clear change of who the most important players are in the space. In conferences, in training, in tools, and in online resources.

What a great, exciting time to be in the business.

- - - - -

These changes are taking place at three levels: The clients, the MSPs (VARs), and the support communities for the VARs.

The support communities have really matured. We might last another 15 months before consolidation begins, but I don't think so. There are too many spectacular organizations, and they all want to provide everything.

The VARs or MSPs are embracing the tools. Anyone who is completely break/fix on January 1, 2009 had better start polishing the resume. You don't have to call it managed service and you don't have to offer flat-fee pricing. But you better have a ticketing system (e.g., Autotask), a delivery system (e.g., Zenith or Kaseya), and a back-end NOC arrangement (e.g., MSPSN or Zenith).

Part of the consolidation is going to come from the fact that you can now buy world-class tools on a one-by-one basis (e.g., Secure my Company or MSPSN). So the smallest VAR has no excuses not to participate.

The Biggest Change that's coming is Client Sophistication.

If you haven't already run up against it, you will start finding clients who expect remote monitoring, patch management, regular reporting, flat fee pricing, remote desktop support, monthly maintenance, and vendor management.

Think about it: If you are buying a firewall or a laptop, what do you do? You make a little checklist and compare three or four options.
- LAN speed
- Accepts SSL certificate
- VPN built in or extra cost?
- Maximum VPN connections
- Spam filtering built in?
- Virus scanning built in?
- Three year warranty?
- Remote management

and so forth.

Skip ahead.

Your prospect is looking for a new service provider to manage their network. The last one was a mid-sized VAR with 20 technicians who promised managed service but really only did remote monitoring and remote desktop support. They had a ticketing system but zero understanding of true managed services.

The tools do not make the consultant.

Now the client is looking for a new consultant. Checklist time:
-- Remote Monitoring
-- Patch Management
-- Reporting - how much and when?
-- Flat fee pricing?
-- Ticketing system with the following features . . .
-- Remote desktop support
-- Monthly maintenance included
-- Vendor management (ISP, live of business, etc.)
-- Outsourced CIO: included or extra fee?
-- Includes Spam Filtering service?
-- Includes Anti-Virus service?
-- Offers Hardware as a Service?

How many of those boxes can you check?

:-)

Viva la Revolucion

The first ever MSP Revolution is over.

The Revolution was successful.

Your new Glorious Exalted Leader is Amy Luby, with her Minions for Life, Chad and Steve.

The Revolution began after SMB Nation 2005. The September Revolution was led by Amy Luby and Chad Gross, then of MobiTech. By 2006 They had gathered a following of disgruntled workers who were unhappy trading dollars for hours. They saw that the current VAR structure couldn't last.

They saw that a few were doing well, while the masses were starved for information on running a successful service practice.

Amy created and managed the Managed Services Yahoo Group.

The Revolution gathered followers very quickly.

After years of blood, sweat, toil, and tears, the MSP Revolution event was announced. Followers gathered in Chicago with promises that this would not be just another gathering of nerds. By all accounts, the Pre-Day Events were good, and certainly above the category of "entry-level" content.

But on the first full day of the conference, the Revolution was declared a success. The old regime of same-old-same-old conferences was vanquished. The only question was: Would Amy assume the leadership role or leave a vacuum to be filled?

On Saturday and Sunday it was clear that Amy Luby, Spiritual Leader of the Revolution, would be declared dictator for life.

(Just as in every other revolution, "life" means as long as she can stave off all who wish to compete.)

The first-ever MSP revolution was fresh. It was inspiring. It was a great combination of new content, new speakers, and some of the best familiar faces in the industry.

And here's the key to this revolution: They did not present the 100,000th discussion about why you need to do managed services. Or why you need to market. Or why you need a service agreement.

The assumption was that everyone knew about each of these, and all presentations were designed to take the attendees to the next level.

Think about a different analogy: The community of MSP-focused events has been offering 101 and 102 classes for almost three years.

Now the first class of 80 people has completed the first-ever 200-level classes. And they snuck in one intensive senior-course. Of course they snuck it into a eight-hour time slot.

For the first time ever, long-time attendees of the various conferences had the same eager enthusiasm when they left as people have with their first-ever conference.

A handful of people (The most obvious example is Erick Simpson/MSPU) have been delivering higher-end content to individuals and organizations. Now, someone finally figured out how to deliver the next level of content for Managed Service Providers in a conference format.

All hail The Revolution.

Now we pray that Amy will continue to be a benevolent dictator.

Congratulations to Amy, Chad, Steve, Nancy, and everyone who contributed to this event. You've really done something good here.

:-)

MSP Revolution Provides New and Spectacular Content

Hats off. Kudos. Deep and Humble Bows.

Amy Luby and MSP Revolution have created an event that is truly powerful, new, different, and amazing.

Sound like too much superlative? It's not.

Yesterday Amy and MSPSN presented one of the greatest events I've every experienced in the SMB space at any conference. It really, honestly took content to a new level.

As you may know, I attend several events over the course of a year. I've seen the conferences and dog-and-pony shows for years. I've presented a few myself, from Prague to Seattle and a lotta places in between.

So after awhile you begin to wonder when you'll see something new and refreshing. Jeff Middleton did it two years ago by introducing a new conference format at SBS Migration. SMBTN did it this year with a long conference format this Spring.

But even though those events were spectacular, they both grew out of a format with a context that is familiar to all of us. What Amy and MSPSN did Friday was outside the context of anything that's been done before in the SMB space.

Amy worked with Andromeda Training, Inc. (www.income-outcome.com) to develop an eight-hour business simulation game that teaches business owners and managers how to understand the flow of money into, inside, and out of their organizations.

The game was very "mature" in the sense that it was very thoroughly developed and the content was completely customized for the SMB VAR and Managed Service Provider. It is very clear that many, many hours went into training the instructors about how the technology business and sales process works.

Like many people I talked to, I was dreading the day a little before it started. Role playing isn't my thing. I had visions of practicing sales speeches on each other. Instead, I found myself in the middle of a fantastic, engaging game somewhere between Risk and Monopoly, built entirely around financial education for the SMB Consultant.

While competing in teams of 6-7 people, we learned about cash flow, balance sheets, and the moving of assets. Sounds boring, but it wasn't. People were spying on each other, scheming, speculating, and even gambling on different strategies.

Each "round" of play represented a calendar month. In that month, resources could do specific work: sales, admin, tech support. You could buy licenses to provide managed services. You could bid on jobs with recurring revenue, break/fix work, or some combination of these.

In order to succeed, teams needed to take risks, allocate resources effectively, make sales, deliver work (monitoring and break/fix), pay the bills, expand capacity, and not waste money.

The game was surprisingly elaborate and 100% engaging. More than 70 people played, and no one was bored.

Eight hours.

At the end, participants had a much clearer understanding of how finances work within a company.

Most of us spend 99.9% of our time in QuickBooks looking at the Profit and Loss report or income statement. We might run a Balance Sheet once a quarter, and that's because the accountant asks us to.

This game demonstrated how assets and liabilities move around and are related to each other within the balance sheet. It also showed how actions that look good on the Profit and Loss report can kill your cash flow and therefore you business.

I believe every person in the game gained a better understanding of their own finances by playing the game. I know I did, and I've been running balance sheets and P&L's for fifteen years.

You've heard many times that the best thing about professional conferences is the interaction with your peers to talk about your business and strategy. This was eight hours of that, wrapped around a great educational game.

A+

100%

Amazing job, Amy and MSPSN.

So, the preday went well. Day One was over the top.

Now I'm ready for Day Two.

Zero Downtime Q and A

Hey, we had a pretty good turnout for the SMB Conference Call on ZDTM - Zero Downtime Migrations.

This was our first call with the new system. We had 106 people pre-register and 70 showed up for the call. I'm told some people showed up on the old conference system.

I'll have to figure out how to re-train everyone.

Anyway, one of the advantages of GoToWebinar is that folks can "chat" questions onscreen during the call. I'll perfect this as well.

Thank you for your patience. And thanks to Erick Simpson for smacking me in the head and reminding me that I've already got this resource so why ALSO pay for a conference bridge.

- - - - -

Please keep an eye on this page for info on Zero Downtime Migrations: http://greatlittlebook.com/Products/ZDTM/index.htm.

A few questions came up during the call. I'll give a brief answer to some here, but encourage you to access the recorded call for more details. If you read this, listen to that, and still have questions, please post them in the comments.

Note: I had to hang up from the SMB Conference Call and jump on a plane, so the recording will be a little while. Stay tuned.

I'm travelling this week, but I'll get to your questions as soon as I can.

Question:
Moving email with ZDT makes sense. How do you migrate databases and LOBs with zero downtime?

Answer:
First, a sidetrack on equipment.

We stay successful and profitable by having a hard, fast rule on equipment. We do not migrate clients to old equipment. That means we won't install SBS 2008 on anything more than a few months old right now. We won't install Server 2008 on a machine older than January 2008. We won't install SBS R2 on a machine older than Q3 2007.

It's a synch issue: The hardware can't be older than the operating system. So we're never stuck with poor-performing (or impossible) configurations.

As a rule, re-installing SBS onto the same hardware is just a reinstall or rebuild after a disaster (and almost never occurs). We don't "upgrade" from SBS 2003 circa January 2003 to SBS 2003 R2 on the same machine because that machine is not new enough.

The point of all this is: A migration is virtually always from old hardware to new hardware.

Having said that . . .

Second:
The answer to migrating LOBs, SQL, and other databases is
- Go Slow
- Know your product
- Rely on LOB tech support if necessary
- Go slow some more

The basic process is that you'll build the new server, install the LOB, and populate it with real data. This might be from last night's backup, for example. Then you'll make sure you test, test, test.

One thing we did not cover in the SMB Conference Call: Most migrations for small business take two days. Sometimes three or four. But normally two. You'll put the new server in place on Day One. That night (4:59pm) you'll stop the database on the old server and the new server. Then copy over the database while everyone sleeps.

You might have to check in once or twice during the evening to nurse it along.

When the sun comes up, you fire up the LOB on the NEW server and point all the desktops to that.

Poof. Zero downtime during normal business hours.

Tell people that you'll be around all day on Day Two in case some little piece didn't come across or there's a critical flat file no one had documented. At any rate, you'll be there to tweak and assist. The old server is still there, but not being accessed for this application.


Question:
What's the go-back strategy? That is, when something goes wrong and you need to abandon the migration, how do you go back to the old configuration?

Answer

That's the most perfect part of this migration technique. As Manuel says on the call, you just retrace your steps. You do everything in the reverse order. Stop services on both machines. If data has changed on the new machine, you backup the old machine and restore the database to the old machine. etc.

Because 98% of the time we're moving from old hardware to new hardware, both machines are in place side by side every minute of this. In some many cases, we leave the old machine sitting there, turned off, as a spare. Until something dramatic changes on the new machine (SQL upgrade, Server service pack, etc.), we can just fire up the old machine and start using it again.

We love the 21st Century!

:-)

Countdown to Zero Downtime

Register Now!

At 9:00 AM Pacific Time on Wed. September 3rd the SMB Conference Call will be all about Network Migrations.

- Zero Downtime is one topic. But not the only. And to be honest, it's only a piece of the puzzle.

- Migrating from SBS 2003 to 2008

- From Server 2003 to SBS 2003 or 2008

- From Server 2000 to SBS 2003. Or 2008.

- From anything to anything.

Well, not quite. Not from a stapler to a Proliant ML 350. But almost!


Our guest is Manuel Palachuk, President of KPEnterprises (Sacramento's Premier Microsoft Small Business Specialist). We have developed a massive "universal" migration system.

It just happens to feature zero downtime for the client's major systems.

Zero downtime for email, SQL, LOBs, logons, etc.

We have over 100 people signed up already, and we hope you'll join us.

Go to the SMB Conference Call page to register.

- - - - -

Questions

If you have questions you would like answered, email them to karlp@kpenterprises.com

Please keep 'em short so I can read them while on the air.

See ya then.
:-)

Promotion Monkey Lives!

It's finally here. The Promotion Monkey newsletter -- Monkey Business -- is finally here. Please sign up today.

Signing Bonus

When you sign up today, you will receive our super-bonus inaugural mailing. This includes

• A 12-page Promotion Monkey Newsletter


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So, even if you cancel after one month, the Promotion Monkey subscription will easily pay for itself!

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Author, Guerrilla Marketing for Writers
and many other books

- - - - -

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Please give it a shot. The price isn't very high, and I think you'll find a lot of useful information in it.

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