Salute to Harry Brelsford, Founder of the SMB IT Community!

Salute to Harry Brelsford, SMB Nation, and the SMB IT Community 

- Lessons Learned, Episode 35

Around 2000-2004, I was having success in my IT consulting business. We were growing slowly but steadily. I had figured out contracts, regularly monthly maintenance, and even flat-fee pricing. We weren't quite what you would call managed services, but we were pretty close.

Along the way, I'd read a lot of books to help me figure out how to be successful. Most were completely unrelated to technology. But in the world of tech, one book really stood out: SMB Consulting Best Practices by Harry Brelsford. This book is still a great read, and a great management book.

Then I got an invitation to Harry Brelsford's SMB Nation conference in Seattle. This was the second SMB Nation conference, and the first in Seattle. It was truly amazing, and I met dozens of people at that event that I am still connected with today. Most importantly, I met Harry Brelsford and Nancy Williams, his right-hand person and primary sales person at the time.

If you're not familiar with Harry and his awesome contributions to this industry, see the blog post I wrote in 2010: #1 Best Decision I've Made In My Business: Working With Harry Brelsford and SMB Nation. See https://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/2010/08/1-best-decision-ive-made-in-my-business.html

Harry is one of the primary reasons that our industry is based on a core collection of local leaders all over the globe. He started, or asked others to start, dozens and dozens of small, local IT "user groups" based on technicians' love of the Small Business Server product line. Everything we think of as the modern SMB IT channel owes a word to thanks to Harry and his globe trotting efforts.

In 2004, I had written the Network Documentation Workbook. With the help of Nancy Williams, who was his marketing pro at the time, Harry looked at that book and agreed to help me sell it. He was our primary distributor and we put that book in the hands of thousands of IT consultants in the years 2005-2007. 

After that, Harry engaged me to write a book for hire - The SAN Primer for SMB. We traveled around promoting that book. And then I released Service Agreements for SMB Consultants, Relax Focus Succeed, and ... away I went writing, speaking, and training IT consultants all over the world.

Lessons Learned

First, there are key people who help push an industry or a movement forward. The SMB IT channel would have come into existence without Harry. In fact, would would have thrived without him. But Harry helped our community to recognize itself and to build self-awareness much faster than it would have without him. He also built the industry around community.

Industries can grow around products and roles like technician or programmer. Communities are built around people. Communities are like extended families. Sometimes they fight, but mostly they work toward the common good. Harry's SMB Nation events - large and small - both built and maintained the SMB IT community for many years.

As the industry grew, many groups self-identified around specific interests or individuals. One group became HTG - the Hartland Technology Group. Another went to Robin Robins' events. Yet another went to the ASCII events. But all those groups, and more, started at SMB Nation and spun off from there. 

A second lesson is that things change fast. Harry once ran the only show dedicated to the SMB side of our industry. Now there are hundreds of shows and events every year. Some are as small as ten people. Others have five thousand or more attendees. Harry no longer runs major events. But he keeps pivoting to the next opportunity, and he's still in the game.

As I said was back in 2010, SMB Nation was the watering hole for our industry. It was our Mecca. Today, we are too fragmented to have a single meeting place. Ultimately, that's a good thing. But we still need the community spirit to keep us focus on the human beings that make up this industry. We cannot hold each other accountable if we don't talk to each other and share values around professionalism and ethics.

Ultimately, my commitment to the community side of the IT community is because of the world built by Harry Brelsford twenty years ago.

All comments welcome.

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Episode 35

This Episode is part of the ongoing Lessons Learned series. For all the information, and an index of Lessons Learned episodes, go to the Lessons Learned Page. 

Leave comments and questions below. And join me next week, right here.

Subscribe to the blog so you don't miss a thing.

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The ASCII Group Unveils New Website and Member Portal to Support the Evolving MSP Community

 From my friends at ASCII ... 

The ASCII Group Unveils New Website and Member Portal to Support the Evolving MSP Community

Washington, D.C. – July 17, 2025 – The ASCII Group, North America’s original vendor-neutral community for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), has launched a redesigned corporate website and a new member portal, delivering a more connected and engaging experience for today’s MSPs.

These updates reflect a broader initiative to elevate the ASCII experience—streamlining access to programs, enhancing peer collaboration, and building on the vision of ASCII’s late founder, Alan Weinberger, who championed the power of community in the IT channel.

The new website features improved navigation, refreshed content, and a clearer representation of ASCII’s vendor-neutral position in the market. It also provides easier access to information on member benefits, industry events, and peer programs.

“The new site is a true reflection of the community we serve,” said Jerry Koutavas, CEO of The ASCII Group. “It reinforces our commitment to helping MSPs grow and stay competitive, while better showcasing the breadth and depth of what ASCII offers.”

Earlier this year, ASCII also introduced its member benefit portal—a centralized platform for real-time community engagement. Built to support meaningful peer interaction, the portal enables members to submit subcontracting requests, exchange vendor recommendations, explore acquisition opportunities, and offer or receive support during service disruptions or emergencies.

“The member portal brings to light what has always existed within our community—MSPs supporting each other in practical, business-focused ways,” added Koutavas. “By formalizing that collaboration, we’ve made it easier for members to connect, share, and solve challenges together.”

Both the website and portal were developed with direct input from ASCII members and are part of the organization’s ongoing effort to remain the most accessible, trusted, and community-driven resource for MSPs in the channel.

About The ASCII Group, Inc.

Founded in 1984, The ASCII Group is the original IT community of the channel, uniting Managed Service Providers (MSPs) across North America. As a vendor-neutral organization, ASCII provides unbiased resources and a collaborative environment to support business growth. Members span the U.S. and Canada, ranging from SMB-focused MSPs to international solution providers. ASCII offers leveraged purchasing programs, education, marketing support, peer networking, and more, complemented by a vibrant ecosystem of technology vendors. Learn more at www.ascii.com.

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Absolutely Nothing is More Important than Testing Backups

Absolutely Nothing is More Important than Testing Backups

- Lessons Learned, Episode 34

Everyone in IT loves to give lip service to backups. We back up everything. We have backups of backups. And yet, MOST MSPs do a horrible job of taking care of the single most important thing you ever have to do with a client: Test the Backups!

If you've followed the series, you know that I have a long history of backing up a large variety of systems. One of my chores as an outsourced manager for HP's Roseville, CA plant was to manage the backup of all servers. This was a full backup every night - and the tapes went offsite for a year before they were used again. So, five days a week, that's 250 full backups per year.

Too much? Well, what do you think the cost of lost data would be at a plant with 5,000 technical people? If you said, "immeasurable," that's a good start.

As I moved into consulting with individual businesses, one rule has remained true for more than three decades: fifty per cent of all installed backups are not working. This is true today. This is true across all backup systems. This is true everywhere, all the time.

Why do backups fail? Well, because of three primary reasons.

1) Technicians set them up wrong

2) No one tests them

3) Stuff breaks

Let's start with "stuff breaks." You can't stop the fact that hardware fails, components fail, electricity goes out at the wrong time, Windows updates break scheduled programs, the employee who's supposed to swap media doesn't always do it, etc. Stuff happens. What you CAN do is to test the backups to see if they're working. 

You can do something about #1 by being very well trained on the most important technology you deploy. And #2 is inexcusable. Testing backups should be the first thing - the highest priority job - at every client, every month. 

Looking at a dashboard to see if the BDR self-reports a green light is NOT testing the backup. Looking at screenshots of successful automated self-tests is not testing the backups. 

A human being person who works for you needs to access a client's system, mount an image, and restore some data. If you use tape (as do Amazon, Google, and Microsoft), someone needs to restore from tape. If you backup to hard drives, someone needs to restore from hard drive. In all cases, someone needs to restore individual emails to an alternate location and verify success.

Every month.

Every client.

No exceptions.

And if you have technicians, I highly recommend that every technician be rotated through each client so that every technician has some experience restoring data from every client (or at least several clients). That way, no one is seeing something for the first time in an emergency.

I won't repeat the story here, but in the last real job I had before I became a consultant, we had a system failure that cost about $20 million for one day's downtime. See my blog post here: https://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/2024/07/one-piece-of-your-security-strategy-is.html. Given the hardware and backup systems of the day, this was the smallest possible outage. That's why companies have insurance.

Today, some clients can afford downtime of less than a day. For some, they can afford to be up within an hour. But everyone can afford to totally rebuild, because the backup systems are so much better.

For more than ten years, I have been shocked and amazed that any business ever pays for a ransomware incident. In my opinion, this is never necessary because they should have a complete backup at all times, and that system should be tested.

If you cannot restore a client from last night's backup, either you sold them the wrong thing, they failed to buy what your recommended, or you are failing to do your job. Your job does not end when the backup is installed. It does not end when the client pays their bill. The job ends when you have finished testing that backup by restoring data. And that has to be repeated every month.

Period.

The single most important thing you do as a technician is to test backups. If you're not doing this, you're not doing your job. You certainly are not providing managed services, and you should not call yourself a managed service provider.

Ultimately, backups don't fail; technicians fail.

Sales tip: Ask a prospect for a copy of the report they got this month showing that their backup was tested and is working. I have never met a small business owner who could show this to me. And it has opened many doors that led to full network assessments and new clients.

Fifty percent of all backups are failing right now. How are your clients doing? Prove it.

Feedback Welcome.

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All comments welcome.

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Episode 34

This Episode is part of the ongoing Lessons Learned series. For all the information, and an index of Lessons Learned episodes, go to the Lessons Learned Page. 

Leave comments and questions below. And join me next week, right here.

Subscribe to the blog so you don't miss a thing.

:-)

Giant MSPs will Never Dominate Our Industry. Here's Why.

How will YOU thrive in a world of Giant MSPs?

Technology consulting is a fragmented industry. As such, it will never be dominated by a small handful of major players. In that sense, we're much closer to accountants than rental car companies. Why is it so fragmented, and why will it never be consolidated? There are three primary reasons.

First, the barriers to entry are very low. In fact, if you can spell IT, you can call yourself a computer consultant. Our industry needs higher barriers, better standards, and even some licensing. But even when that's achieved, the barriers to entry will be as low as barbers and restaurants. 

Second (following from the first), tens of thousands of people enter this business every year. They "try their hand" at computer consulting, and many stay. And with five or ten clients, they can make money, but the growing mega-MSPs have no interest in buying them out. So they stay and grow.

Third, as a service business, high quality service can only excel in smaller shops. Larger companies can't help themselves. They tend to centralize control, centralize customer "service" lines, centralize buying, and are incapable of understanding individual clients or the needs of individual local business environments.

Large MSPs, ironically, are also financially less profitable and less stable. We'll come back to this point.

Fragmentation in our industry cannot be overcome. Consider the strengths of the very small IT businesses and the weaknesses of very large businesses, especially in light of what we're seeing right now in the IT consulting space.

The "promises" of large, consolidated businesses is that they'll bring efficiency of scale. The reality is that the generic building blocks of centralization create a kind of false efficiency that demoralizes the workers, alienates the growing middle-management, and dramatically reduces service delivery to clients.

Small(ish) local businesses excel at personal service, the ability to build a strong local reputation, close control of internal operations, and controlling costs when needed. Plus, they literally live in the local market and know how to react to it.

Small businesses, especially owner-operated consulting businesses, are subject to far fewer regulations. There's a somewhat magic line that gets crossed when a company exceeds fifty employees. Massive amounts of employment law and other regulations kick in. There are some barriers at twenty-five employees, but fifty is a major transition point.

When small companies are closely managed by the owner, it's easy to improve response time or address other specific strategies that need improvement. In fact, it's easier to see these areas for improvement - without fancy KPIs that measure all kinds of meaningless variables that are not "key" and are rarely related to performance.

As companies grow, it's easy to say that they'll add efficiency by centralizing billing, for example. This virtually guarantees more client unhappiness with bills that no one can explain. Why? Well, the alienated workers get paid whether they do a mediocre job or a great job. So ticket notes are sloppy. 

The person creating the invoices has no idea whether they're accurate. The person in customer service knows nothing about the client, the technician, or the work that's being doing. All they have is the notes in front of them. Long cycles of arguing about invoices simply do not exist in small companies.

Another promise of centralized control that can never come true - especially when the company is funded by private equity - is that larger companies will lower prices due to economies of scale. But service-based businesses are not at all like manufacturing businesses. We're not making bester, faster, cheaper cell phones with more features than last year.

As companies grow and centralize operations, all the pressures are to increase costs due to internal pressures and operational realities. The largest internal pressure is simply that investors want their money back. In some cases, they've actually been promised a specific return on their investment. The easiest way to increase revenue is to charge more. The easiest way to cut costs is to fire the people who deliver service.

The investors don't care about a shortage of talent. They don't care about inflationary pressures, tariffs, or local conditions. Last year they squeezed 20% profit from the bottom line. So this year it's 21%. Next year it will be 22%. How? No one cares. The number has to be the number. Sell more, cut costs, fire people. No one cares as long as you get that extra 1%.

“If management sets quantitative goals and makes people’s work dependent on achieving them, they will probably do so – even if they have to destroy the company to do it.” – W. Edwards Deming

Operational realities increase expenses because local control is directly related to client satisfaction, employee satisfaction, client relationships, culture, and responsiveness. When these things become centralized, there are no pressures that keep prices low except an arbitrary command-and-control top-down edict that limits prices. But that can't happen when the stronger internal force is to get one more percent of profit.

Larger operations also introduce waste because the time lag between local actions and centralized response is greater. If billing is wrong, or you're being charged for the wrong number of licenses or widgets, that is very visible in a company with fewer than fifty clients under contract. 

It's nearly invisible in a centralized organization with a thousand clients under contract - especially when no one from the technician to manager to central billing has an incentive to care about how many widgets are being reported to the big, nameless, faceless corporate overlords in another state. Waste is the order of the day in large companies.

Wait. Stop! Michael Porter says that Strategic Discipline might be able to combat the forces of industry fragmentation. (See Competitive Strategy, chapter 9. https://amzn.to/43Uvr6f)

Strategic Discipline simply means focusing the organization's attention and efforts on specific areas of the business. Again, this sounds great in theory, and it does work in manufacturing. But what does it look like in the real world of service delivery?

Strategic discipline in IT service delivery means that you can get everyone on the team to agree to fix problems on the first attempt. You can get them to put in quality notes. You can get everyone to learn some soft skills and make clients feel like they're getting personalized attention. And if you have great culture, you can do all of these at once.

In other words, strategic discipline in service delivery looks exactly like what small companies do really well and large companies do very poorly.

Here's the good news/bad news of being one of the 500,000 small IT companies in a market where all the money seems to be flowing to ever-growing mega-MSPs. The bad news is that they will go after many of your clients. And, primarily, they want your larger clients.

The good news is that they love to revel in their bigness. Because of this hubris, you will win the market for clients who value excellent service in the long run. It won't be easy, and probably won't be much fun. You'll have to lure back clients who were promised better service at a lower price and got neither. 

You will need to build a strategy to compete in a world where mega-MSPs have all the marketing money but deliver substandard tech support and just plain bad customer service. 

The really, really bad news is that, if you don't like competing in that market, you need to get out now. The good news is that, if you stay and fight, you will win. You won't take all their clients and kick them out of town. But you will have all the clients who appreciate you, appreciate your level of service, and provide you with a very comfortable living. And you can make a nice profit doing that.

Comments welcome.

:-)

The ASCII Group Announces the Passing of Founder and Chairman Alan Weinberger

The ASCII Group Announces the Passing of Founder and Chairman Alan Weinberger

Washington, D.C. – July 7, 2025 – The ASCII Group is deeply saddened to announce the passing of its Founder and Chairman, Alan D. Weinberger, who died on June 29, after a courageous battle with cancer.

Alan was more than a leader—he was a visionary, a legal scholar, and a fierce advocate for the IT channel. In 1984, he founded The ASCII Group with 40 independent computer dealers and a bold idea: that the IT industry could thrive through community, collaboration, and shared purpose. Over the next four decades, he led ASCII to become the preeminent independent IT community in North America, serving thousands of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and solution providers.

A sharp and inquisitive legal mind, Alan earned his J.D. from NYU, where he was a Law Review Editor and Order of the Coif honoree, followed by an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. He was a founding professor at Vermont Law School and brought thoughtful leadership and strategic vision to every stage of ASCII’s growth.

Alan was widely respected as a thought leader in the IT industry. His editorials appeared in major publications including The Wall Street Journal, and he was named one of the Top 25 Most Influential Executives in the Computer Industry by CRN. His most recent book—The Doctor’s In: Treating America’s Greatest Cyber Security Threat—spotlights the essential role MSPs play in safeguarding organizations in today’s evolving cyber landscape. Written for the general public, the book reflects Alan’s lifelong mission to elevate IT professionals and the work they do.

“Alan was deeply committed to community and to raising the visibility of the MSP to the world. He recognized their importance long before others did and dedicated his life to championing their value,” said Jerry Koutavas, CEO of The ASCII Group. “His vision created a powerful community that changed the lives of thousands of IT professionals. We will carry his legacy forward with the same passion and purpose that he instilled in all of us.”

Alan’s unmistakable voice, sharp curiosity, and ability to form lasting connections left a profound impact on the IT channel. For more than four decades, he was a true champion of the industry—a trusted advocate, mentor, and driving force behind positive change in the IT world.

For those who wish to share condolences or memories, a memorial page has been created by Alan’s family and can be found here: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/alan-weinberger-obituary?id=58760497

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In Memory of Alan Weinberger, founder of The ASCII Group

In Memory of Alan Weinberger, founder of The ASCII Group

I was sad to see that Alan Weinberger, the founder of The ASCII Group, lost his battle with cancer. Friends can leave notes of remembrance at https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/alan-weinberger-obituary?id=58760497.

I met Alan about twenty years ago. He was a very smart attorney and a powerful firebrand and advocate for our industry. As the founder of ASCII, he built one of the absolute pillar organizations for our industry. I joined ASCII when it was time to buy an RMM tool and membership saved me enough money to keep my membership going for years.

Alan will be remembered for always doing whatever is in the best interest of our industry and the IT consultants that make it go. In many ways, our industry has been taken over by larger and larger interests that continue to want to squeeze out the players who are actually at the center of what makes it great. Alan was an advocate for the true IT consultant - whether they were called VARs, resellers, solution providers, managed service providers, ITSPs, or whatever else.

My fondest memories of Alan are meeting at events and talking with him and his wife, Lauren, for an hour or more on every topic under the sun. When people met him for the first time, they were always taken by his friendly, low-key manner, his vast knowledge, and the fact that he took time for them. So many "dignitaries" flit around trying to give thirty seconds to every person in the room. 

The ASCII Group is a great organization and Alan will always be remembered as the one who built one of the first and greatest organizations to serve our industry. I salute him personally. And I will miss him at the shows.

My heart goes out to the folks at ASCII who worked with Alan day after day and year after year. I know they will miss him and I know they will continue his work and make him proud.

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Time to Stop Rolling Your Own

Time to Stop Rolling Your Own - - Lessons Learned, Episode 33

Long ago, most people either didn't keep track of service requests in any meaningful way, or they used something like Excel spreadsheets to track what needed to be done. Many used Outlook or another email system, along with its calendar function.

More sophisticated folks (like us) either used a customized database built in MS Access or maybe even SQL, or they built their own ticket tracking system on their web site. Having been in the HTML business literally since it was invented, I built my own on our web site. 

The "front end" was surprisingly easy. Web forms with drop-downs for technician names, client names, priorities, etc. made everything super easy. And we hosted it ourselves, so it was easy to update. This was before WordPress, so you had to actually know something about HTML. 

The front end was password protected, but allowed technicians to log in from any client desktop or server and enter tickets or work tickets. Even back then, we required technicians to put all their time and notes into the system before they closed the ticket.

It didn't have all the bells and whistles of a "real" PSA, but it got the job done. 

For onsite monitoring, we used the alerts built into the Windows Server or SBS operating system, supplemented by alerts from Servers Alive. It was particularly easy to tell if any service went down, as SA allowed us to generate alerts if it couldn't access the network, a web site, an email system, and so forth. Servers Alive is still around (https://www.woodstone.nu/salive/), but I haven't used it in years.

But all of that took a bit of maintenance. Microsoft products needed constant attention and updates, so we were doing regular maintenance on our own systems as well as our clients.

And then, along came ConnectWise. It was crazy expensive, but it took about one minute to realize all the functionality it would bring to our operation. Not just the service board, but tracking time and billing as well. 

We also adopted the original Kaseya RMM product shortly after we adopted ConnectWise. We tried other RMMs, but none was really ready for primetime. Kaseya was also absurdly expensive, but provided great features. 

One important lesson we learned from evaluating, adopting, and implementing these tools has survived for the last twenty years. We configured the tools to do business our way. We did not reconfigure our business to fit the default configuration and functionality of the tools.

A secondary lesson, which we had suspected, was that our "roll your own" version of PSA and RMM functionality had been taking a great deal of overhead labor. People frequently kid themselves about the work involved in avoiding bigger, more expensive paid solutions. But when you track all your time, it becomes more difficult to hide this overhead labor from yourself.

Conclusions: 

1) There is always room for rolling your own solutions for running and managing your business, and delivering your services.

2) It's important to know when it's time to move to a more professional, paid toolset.

3) You need to develop and document your processes and procedures, and configure the tools to do things your way. Ultimately, your system is your brand and your unique selling proposition. If you view your system as a system, you can fix any problem and address any challenge.

4) As time goes on, you will waste more of your time and resources continuing to roll your own that you would have spent buying a system that already has more functionality than you will ever build in-house.

Feedback Welcome.

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All comments welcome.

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Episode 33

This Episode is part of the ongoing Lessons Learned series. For all the information, and an index of Lessons Learned episodes, go to the Lessons Learned Page. https://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/p/lessons-learned-blog-series.html

Leave comments and questions below. And join me next week, right here.

Subscribe to the blog so you don't miss a thing.

:-)

Interested in coaching with me?

Build your own Summer School - for Your IT Business and Staff

Summer's here - it's time to ...

Build your own Summer School!

Please check out IT Service Provider University at https://www.itspu.com.

ITSPU is 100% committed to your success as an IT Consultant

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• Managed Services in a Month – Applying the Book with Karl W. Palachuk
• Managing Your Service Board with Karl W. Palachuk
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• Position Your IT Firm for Growth or Sale with Rayanne Buchianico
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This coupon may not be applied with any other offers.

:-)

Should You Put Your MSP Pricing on Your Web Site?

(Hint: Yes)

I got a great question from one of my SBT Community members, Armando, based on something he saw in an email from Paul Green: Should you put your MSP pricing on your web site?

My answer is a solid yes. But it's not a simple answer. First, you need to accept the reality of the world we live in, in 2025. If you ask Google a question about "MSP Pricing" or "MSP Pricing in MyHometown," you're going to see a discussion from AI (Gemini), which may or may not be representative of the real world. But it's what prospects will see!

Then, to the right, you'll see references to specific sites. When I tried this, the third site was a defunct, abandoned company in my area. Why was it on the list? Because they have a very clear, very transparent discussion of MSP pricing in Northern California with "real" numbers and a list of services. In other words, even though it's completely out of date, it's very specific information that answered the question.

So, run three of four different queries for your city and see what prospects might find. That's the context in which they might wander to your web site.

You have three primary kinds of things you sell: Products, managed services, and custom projects/project labor. Let's look at each. 

1) I absolutely think it would be good to have a "store" where you post up your recommended desktop/laptop setups. You could offer up a a fully loaded desktop with your preferred hardware and software, including setup on their network. Price it fairly ... and take a credit card right there for those willing to buy.

And then say that you offer a side variety of all systems, so folks can contact you to discuss their needs. The actual goal here is not to sell hardware off the web site, but if someone buys, you should take the opportunity to meet a new prospect. The actual point is to gather a few leads and get folks to engage you in a conversation.

2) Managed Services. I think you *should* list your core services, and probably the basic components of your 3-tiered offering or cloud bundle offering. Many MSPs just post up their complete 3-tiered offering, with pricing.

As for specific pricing, you should give some idea of the range that will be charged. You might even list actual pricing per person or device, but be sure to make clear that you say it's a ballpark and the visitor probably needs a customized solution.

I think it's better to give a range, but a realistic one. Write up a simple 1-2 sentences about how people are normally charged, and that this varies depending on the complexity of their network and support demands.

You might even give some common ranges of prices that people can expect. For example, an office with 1-10 employees ranges from about $X to $Y.

3) Project labor. I think you should clearly list your standard and after-hours rates. If you think you need to justify it, you can say something about your years of experience with a wide variety technologies and challenging circumstances. And brag about the fact that clients don't have to pay for your on-the-job training. 

I don't think you need to justify your hourly rate. We used to simply say something along the lines of, "Would you rather trust your business to an $80 technician or a $150 technician?"

And don't forget: With managed services, many clients don't buy a lot of extra hours outside the regularly monthly maintenance, so the hourly rate is interesting but not really a good indicator of what a given prospect's cost might be.

Overall, I believe that prospects who want to know the price of what you offer will keep looking until they find some web sites that giving them pricing. And they'll pick one of those. If they don't find it on your site, you will be eliminated. 

These are NOT just bottom-shoppers. I've tried to find pricing on services and been frustrated because I don't know if the cost is $100 or $10,000. I literally don't know where to start. So, I assume that a site is very expensive if they don't give me an idea of what the cost will be.

At that point, I am VERY reluctant to fill out a form and talk to a sales person in order to get pricing. Whenever I have to go through a sales process to get pricing, I'm immediately suspicious. And I assume the price is very high.

Remember: You're a consultant! You are not primarily trading dollars for hours. (If you are, then post your rates and be aware that price will be the only "feature" you have to offer.) As a consultant, you should offer enough honest transparency that people know who they're engaging with. And you should make it clear that every client is different and every engagement is unique. 

Ultimately, all of these options should be presented so that prospects are temped to 1) Fill out your contact form, and 2) Request a meeting or network assessment.

Bonus Tip: Your pricing page(s) should feature a number of client endorsements. Happy clients bragging about how you improved their business are a great way to put your pricing in the right context.

Feedback Welcome.

:-)

Microsoft Used to Love Us

- Lessons Learned, Episode 32

Success is always a combination of preparation, education, skill, luck, and timing. And your can throw into that mix finding the right partners at the right time. 

In the year 2000, I was prepared, moving my consulting business forward, trained, and skilled on the tech. And I enjoyed the lucky coincidence that Microsoft was about to spend ten years loving the SMB market. By 2010, the love had faded and Microsoft was moving away from loving this market and their onetime "Partners." Here's my perspective as an IT consultant.

The "Office" World 2000-2009

Having survived the Y2K rollover, many offices had discovered that investing in technology was a good thing. Everyone was convinced that "this Internet thing" was here to stay. The 1990's introduced so-called personal computers everywhere. And many offices didn't have computers, didn't have networks, and didn't have servers.

The only real options for small office servers were Novell Netware and Microsoft Windows. Novell was in a slow decline, and Microsoft had pumped a lot of money into a strategy that would see them own the SMB market very quickly.

If you were in business at the time, the short-term future was pretty clear. Computers were going into all the offices, they were all going to get networked together, and they were all going to get connected to the Internet.

The "IT Professional" World 2000-2009

If you were in IT consulting at the time, the streets were paved with gold and the streams were flowing with milk and honey.

If you had experience with Novell and networking, you were set. Your only real choice was whether to drink the Microsoft Kool-Aid slowly or quickly. If you were a Microsoft consultant, you needed to learn networking and then dig into the new server offerings.

I can honestly say that the one single, most important training I ever received as an IT consultant was the week-long TCP/IP networking course. Oddly enough, this course did not apply to any specific Microsoft exam. But the knowledge I gained in this course helped me cruise through many exams over the years.

I think I took that course around 2000 or 2001. At that time, I had about eighteen years experience working with a huge variety of networks, protocols, servers, and computer operating systems. I think all that practical experience and self-education helped me understand the material better and faster.

Mastering TCP/IP and all the details of networking hardware and software was critical to my success. And that course was a true turning point for me personally and professionally.

At that time, technicians were learning how to build and work with servers. Everyone was learning networking and how to get things connected to and through the Internet.

Lesson Learned: If you're going to touch IT infrastructure, learn TCP/IP. There have been changes in the last twenty years, but the core training that I received back then is still 99.99% relevant today and made learning everything much easier. If you're in this business, learn TCP/IP at a deep level and it will serve you well.

The "Microsoft" World 2000-2009

Microsoft's big, big picture was simple: Get every business in the world to believe they needed to connect all their computers; make that easier with a server; and do it all with Microsoft licenses. The details of the plan were then divided into enterprise clients, mid-market, and SMB - small and medium business.

On the enterprise side of things, there are a limited number of companies like HP or Intel that could buy 100,000 user licenses at a time. So a whole lot of money went into the small and mid-market offices. This included three components that were clearly visible from my tiny window:

1) Design products and bundles for the SMB market

2) Design marketing programs for the SMB market

3) Engage Microsoft Partner resellers to act as a trained sales force to deliver all that marketing and sell all those servers, desktops, and office licenses.

Microsoft accumulated a mountain of data telling them that small business was the foundation for their future. Virtually every business in the world has 25 or fewer employees. Then and now, that number exceeds 90% of all businesses. 

A business with 1,000 employees might buy a lot of servers. But a thousand businesses connecting to the Internet every week were going to buy a lot more servers!

So, Microsoft committed money and people to develop SMB-focused products like Small Business Server and licensing that allowed partners to make a lot of money. They trained up partners, invested in communities where they could meet, and provided them with training and programs that helped they find businesses that needed "Microsoft Solutions."

My Business World 2000-2009

As we rolled through Y2K, I was seeing and selling more Microsoft servers, and had some exposure to the new Windows 2000 Small Business Server. It was decent but not amazing at the time. My attention was on the 2000 server generally, and getting trained up on Active Directory.

We spent several years fixing up mess-up or abandoned server installations. By abandoned, I mean that consultants would sell a server, set it up, and then walk away. They made no attempt to document or do regular ongoing maintenance. That maintenance had become the mainstay of my business, and I was happy to have the tools and remote resources that came with the 2000 servers.

As Microsoft introduced and rolled out SBS 2003, we jumped in with both feet. My company was growing and would add one or two people per year until 2008.  SBS was the perfect "first server" operating system. And Microsoft was really embracing and supporting the SMB consultants that sold their software to the world.

We got heavily involved with Harry Brelsford's SMB Nation and the SBS user groups worldwide. We became a Microsoft Certified Partner shop, even reaching Gold for a short while. We embraced the training and marketing programs that Microsoft provided. I sat on several product advisory panels/councils and met other partners all over the world.

SBS 2003 was like a license to print money for us. We had a system for selling it, a system for migrating clients to it, and a system for maintaining it. Recurring revenue was the natural result of all of that.

By 2008, it became clear, to those who paid attention, that SBS would not be around forever. I thought the 2008 version would be their last, and was quite surprised to see that 2011 was released at all.  But by then we had begun moving everyone to hosted ("cloud") services. That was so obviously the future, we did not see a reason to wait.

Just as SBS and Microsoft's Small Business Specialist programs served us well in the first part of the decade, cloud services became our bread and butter for 2007-2009. 

As the global economy collapsed, starting in October 2008, almost all of our clients were on hosted services. But not Microsoft. Not Azure. Not Sharepoint. Why? Three reasons: Profitability, flexibility, and friendliness to the SMB market.

Microsoft didn't love us any more. They now saw that they could cut us out of the middle and take all those clients for themselves. Once again, I think this was obvious to those who paid attention. But too many people were still in love with the Microsoft that used to be. 

More and more, Microsoft used the term "disintermediation." In other words, getting rid of the middleman. I was the middleman! The entire SMB IT consulting world was the middleman.

Microsoft marketing tried to pretend this wasn't happening as the SBS development team was gobbled up inside other departments and the pricing was focused completely on larger and larger partners serving much larger clients.

The love was gone. 

I don't know a source for the quote, but I've heard it said: "Most things end badly. Otherwise, they wouldn't end at all." The Microsoft relationship just faded away. They didn't love us anymore. We didn't love them.

In 2010, we took the Microsoft logos off our business cards. By 2011, we stopped maintaining our Certified Partner status. 

Lesson Learned: When you find a vendor who wants to embrace you, embrace them back. Learn what they want you to learn, let them educate you, and pay them back by selling their stuff. BUT always be aware that they have to make decisions that are good for THEIR business, not yours. Don't love them more than they love you.

This is particularly true of giant corporate partners. There might be a new CEO or new business plan tomorrow. The love can disappear in one calendar quarter. And someday it will. 

Sub lessons:

1) Don't let vendors tell you what your business model should be. It will certainly serve them; it might not serve you in the long run.

2) You can't be more loyal to a vendor than they are to you.

All comments welcome.

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Episode 32

This Episode is part of the ongoing Lessons Learned series. For all the information, and an index of Lessons Learned episodes, go to the Lessons Learned Page. https://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/p/lessons-learned-blog-series.html

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