NSITSP Elections - Voting Ends Monday!

National Society of IT Service Providers elections are under way!

All paid members: Please Vote!

As a member-focused organization, YOU get to choose who will serve on your board of directors, and all of the committees. 

Log in at www.nsitsp.org and click on the big yellow Elections button.

Everyone standing for election this year will run for a full two-year term. (We elect about half of each committee each year.)

Not a member? Today's a good day to join!

Not sure who to vote for? Check out the candidate profiles. Just click on Meet the Candidate and read their profiles. 

AND you can discuss candidates and campaigns in our election forum. To access the forum, click on "Get Involved" on the top menu and click Forums. You can subscribe to a discuss so you'll be updated whenever there's a new post.

Voting closes Monday, October 23rd. But don't delay. Take 60 seconds and vote now!

Thank you!

:-)

Five Week Course: Managed Services in a Month - Starts Sept. 10th

One of our most popular courses. LIVE

Managed Services in a Month - Applying the Book

You’re guaranteed to learn something that will make or save you the price of admission!

Taught By: Karl Palachuk, author and coach

- Five Tuesdays - Sept. 10 - Oct. 8

- All classes start a 9:00 AM Pacific

Register Now - Only $399*

Managed Services in a Month is the best-selling guide to turning your “computer consulting” business into a recurring revenue machine!

This course is designed to walk you through the process outlined in the book. AND your registration includes a free copy of the book in e-format.

Updated Information on Tools, Cloud Services, Per-User Pricing, Creating Bundles, and MORE!

For more information on the book, see www.managedservicesinamonth.com.

It’s not too late! YOU can get into Managed Services — in a month.

Even if you decide not to become an MSP (managed service provider), this course will help you establish some great best practices when it comes to running your IT business.

Whether you’re a new “Computer Consultant” or an experienced Managed Service Provider, you need to create successful processes that will propel your company forward. Nothing is more critical to making profit than having the right processes and procedures in place!

Descriptive Video:

You will learn:

• Computer Consulting in the 21st Century
• What’s Different About Technology Consulting Today?
• Cloud Computing in the Small Business Space
• The Managed Service Model
• New Consulting Business vs. Existing Business
• Managed Services in a Month
• Integrating Cloud Services
• Making A Plan
• Starting Fresh with No Clients to Convert
• Create A Three-Tiered Pricing Structure
• Bundling Services
• Per-User vs. Per-Device Pricing Models
• Putting Your (New) Business Together
• Weed Your Client Garden and Finish the Plan
• Write a Service Agreement; Have It Reviewed
• Overcoming Objections
• Desktops and Managed Service
• Executing the Plan
• Client Sit-Downs
• After The Sale
• Key Points to Remember for Profit
• Running Your New MSP Business
• The Right Tools for the Job
• Your Standard Offerings (Your Catalog of Services)
• Building an Action Plan that works
• and MORE!

ITSP University Certification:

MEETS ELECTIVE REQUIREMENT:

Management

Front Office

Technician

Service Manager

This class will be recorded. Each unit is generally posted within 24 hours of the live class. These recorded units will become the On-Demand class and you’ll have lifetime access to it.

Class Content

Unit 1 The Managed Service Business Model

Unit 2 Defining Your Business from Every Angle

Unit 3 Define Your Plans

Unit 4 Executing the Plan

Unit 5 Running Profitably with Managed Service

Register Now - Only $399*

Delivered by Karl Palachuk, author of Managed Services in a Month and many other books for MSPs – managed service providers.

Note: * Members of the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community attend at no additional charge. See details in the Community

:-)

Consider Selling Your Goods on Amazon - Really

Follow this a bit. It does relate to every IT consultant . . .

This opportunity might take a bit of work.

If you have a book for sale on Amazon, you have the ability to create an Author's Page. Mine is here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Karl-W.-Palachuk/author/B002V6UP56

If your book is available on Kindle, you can purchase Kindle ads. The cool thing about that is that Amazon doesn't just display the Kindle format. So, for example, Managed Services in a Month is available as a paperback, Kindle, or Audible book. Therefore, the Kind ad points to the combined page, offering up all three formats.

All of that has been going on for some time. Recently, Amazon greatly expanded their ad program. You still can't advertise "anything" on the platform. But if you have an Amazon Store, you can advertise any item, all items, or the entire store itself.

You may have noticed that almost anything you want is available on Amazon. And, if you pay attention, you might notice that many things are not shipped by and from Amazon. They are shipped from specific stores.

For example, you might create a store that includes all the hardware and software you sell. Hardware is probably easier. Consider selling whatever brands you are authorized to sell of:

• Desktop PCs
• Laptops
• Monitors
• Web cameras
• Cables - (power, network, HDMI, USB, etc.)
• Printers - (laser or inkjet)
• Lights for videos
• Speakers
• Microphones
• Battery backups
• Firewalls
• Wifi routers
• Network repeaters
• Consumables - (printer paper, toner, ink, office equipment, shelving, and whatever else is available through your distributors)

. . . and so forth and so on.

You are (probably) already authorized to sell all these things. And many of them can be drop-shipped, which is awesome. It means you can take orders via an Amazon store and then simply have them drop shipped anywhere you need to. This is a great opportunity to take advantage of a modern, fully-functional platform that gives your business access to an audience far beyond the city where you live.

Amazon makes you easy to find. You can actually send your clients to your store, and give them special discount codes. Yes, Amazon takes more than you might like. But they can also bring you a massive audience you would never be able to build on your own.

Advertising Costs - and Reach

Here's the very good news. As of the end of August 2024, Amazon ads are both cheap and effective. AND you can generate reports of which ads led to specific sales on the platform. So you can literally see how much you sold as well as how much you spent on a specific ad. I don't know of any other platform that makes this so easy and obvious.

Another great feature is that you can use basic graphics or short videos. I've posted the video ads I'm using on my YouTube channel in case you want to take a look:

• 22 seconds - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5rEOWCWVtQ
• 25 seconds - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fi6UdoExi0
• 44 seconds - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKfw3f9RrgY (attempt at humor)
• 14 seconds - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MRPLrCvK30
• 20 seconds - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmJeWnDN4X4

Note that these show up without sound on Amazon by default, so it doesn't make sense to write a script. If someone enables the sound, you should have something instrumental there. 

The final thing to consider is the power of Amazon's search engine. They make money when people find what they're looking for. No one goes to Amazon to find out how to build a table, change a tire, build a computer network. They are looking to acquire something. So, if you're selling that thing, there is some probability that those folks will find you.

Note that you can use your store to post videos, educational material, and the equivalent of blogs to educate possible future buyers. Yes, it involves work. But you can do. 

I'm not suggesting that you change your business model. I am suggesting that you expand your business in a way that allows you to increase sales, sell deeper into existing clients, and attract new clients who are not limited to your local geographic area.

. . . and you won't be the first to do this.

:-)

Is Your Business Customer Centric? Here's An Easy Test

I get a laugh when I say, "The best indicator of whether you have bad customer service is that you need a customer service department." But this is not a joke. For most businesses, the entire is business is built as needed. Products and services are defined. Delivery systems are put in place. Maintenance programs, sales programs, and financial management are all built up.

And then one day, when service failures are large enough, companies quietly admit failure in service delivery by bolting on a department dedicated to address the failures of the organization. This after-thought department is normally called Customer Service. 

For company owners that have drunk too much of their own marketing Kool-Aid, the department might be called Customer Success. The irony is overwhelming.

It's a long, winding path from building a company that works to bolting on a department to deal with your failures. If your company is headed in the wrong direction, there is a simple test to determine whether you have taken your eyes off your customers. Answer one question.

If you deliver less service, will you make less money?

For most people reading this, service IS your business. It's the primary thing you deliver. Service is your product. Service is everything in your business. And, therefore, service is the profit center of your business.

That’s not true for many businesses, or any big businesses. For Apple or Microsoft (and every other large corporation on earth), customer service is a cost center for them. And when they need to cut costs, they might cut customer service from time to time.

Don’t gloss over this point. Large companies often have bad service because service is a cost center. When they cut service, they increase profits (at least in the short-term). 

If you cut service, you cut revenue. In fact, when you increase the level of service you deliver, you can charge more money. Many (many) IT consultants I talk to describe their service with terms such as "white glove." They are proud of the service they deliver. In fact, they use it as a primary selling point for new clients.

Truly service-focused and customer-centric companies will always reduce their revenue (and generally their profit) when they cut service. Conversely, companies that are profit-centric have to view customer service as a cost center. And, therefore, it is as likely to be chopped as any other department when the company needs to increase profit.

Think about your suppliers, partners, and vendors. Many of them brag about service in their marketing. But when the time comes to make cuts, they cut the service (or customer service) department. They make more money when they give less service. 

Service Does Cost Something

It does cost money to deliver services. And it generally costs more to deliver better service. It's never free to hire good people, train them, and provide them with the tools they need to deliver your services. And you might save some money here and there with tools and training. 

But cutting service delivery is always a red flag, because it's always a short-term savings. Cutting service delivery will always result in lower customer satisfaction in the long run, and to lower profit in the long run. Large companies address this by increasing sales without regard to capacity or service delivery.

Perhaps the greatest example of the last fifty years is companies that sell connectivity and internet services. AT&T and Xfinity, for example, are famous for horrible customer service. They "make up" for this by simply hiring enough sales people to provide a never-ending flow of more customers to piss off and disappoint.

And it's a never ending story when these companies have a bad quarter: They start laying off workers. This gives them an immediate increase in profit. And please note: It's not just the customer service department that gets cut. ALL of the people who deliver services are cut, across all departments.

This is also why companies purchased by private equity investors cut services almost immediately. It saves them money - almost immediately. Some of them wait a while to cut services, but this is only so they can make other cuts first.

For example, the immediate reduction of development and investing in the future is an easy place to cut. That long list of new features on the development map? That gets frozen right away. New (especially expensive) initiatives? Gone. Anything that would make clients happy? LOL.

This Is Real - Even in Small Business

Don't think your company is immune because you run a small, customer-centric business today. The shift away from a customer-first attitude is slow and gradual. You grow, and make excuses about being behind. You take on more clients than you can serve with the historic levels of attention. You might train folks faster. You might outsource one too many things.

Gradually, over time, companies morph from customer-first to focusing on saving and squeezing pennies. And then one day, the idea is floated that you need to hire a customer service rep. 

This move FEELS like an attempt to increase customer service. It is not. It is an attempt to increase customer satisfaction. Those are not the same thing! 

Increasing customer service will always increase customer happiness with your company and the service you deliver. By definition, you have increased the service they can expect.

Customer satisfaction is a reaction, an after-the-fact attempt to make someone happy after you have failed to deliver the service they expected. This is one reason that customer satisfaction scores are generally useless and lead down an entire path of focusing on the wrong things. 

In manufacturing, you cannot fix the design after the product comes off the assembly line. You have to redesign it and build a new product the right way from the start. When you do this, there is no need for bolting on a fix after the manufacture is complete.

Service is the same way. Building service in from the start - and maintaining it at a high level - will always produce better service than bolting on a department at the end and calling is "customer service."

Action Step: Take time every quarter to example the service you deliver by design. Is it where it should be? Is it what you imagined when you designed your service? If not, fix the service. Don't gather CSAT scores, admit defeat, and bolt on a customer service department.

:-)

Tech Tribe Teams Up with MSP Camp at ScaleCon 2024 in Vegas

Mark your calendar for October 2-4 in Vegas, Baby! A brand new event - ScaleCon - will focus 100% on helping you grow you business.

Nigel over at the Tech Tribe has offered my readers a $50 discount on the price of registration. See the details at www.scalecon24.com.

The Tech Tribe has joined forces with MSP Camp to create a new MSP Industry Conference called ScaleCon. ScaleCon is solely focused on helping MSPs grow their MSP, focusing only on Sales, Marketing, and Account Management. 

From their marketing info, it looks like you should attend IF ...

• You are tired of spinning your wheels trying to get leads for your MSP

• You have great success closing referrals leads, but a lot less success when you generate leads 

• You have thousands of dollars of potential recurring revenue hiding in your current client base, but you’re not sure exactly how to unlock it

This event event is NOT about "all things MSP," but focused entirely on Marketing, Sales, and Account Management. These are key elements for growing you managed service business.

Check it out today - and save $50 at checkout with code

PARTNER50

... and tell them Karl sent you.

:-)

Now is the Time to Step Up! - Run for NSITSP Offices

It's election time over at the National Society of IT Service Providers.

We founded this organization three years ago to serve this industry. But, in return, we need the people who make up this industry to serve the non-profit membership organization. 

Here's a quick video I made, encouraging you to run:

(Or learn more at https://www.nsitsp.org/elections)

WHO can run? You can!

Anyone in the IT industry can run. You must be a paid member of the NSITSP. Memberships start at $125 per year for an individual and $150 for a company. That's pretty affordable in our industry. 

Please Note: It is not a small thing that you can choose to join today and run for office. This is 100% a member-run organization. We do not give you a slate of candidates and then ask you to vote yest or no. YOU get to choose who runs and YOU get to choose who to vote for.

WHY should you run? Because a professional industry is in your best interest.

Our industry has problems. All too often, we don't discuss them publicly. But we are all challenged on many fronts:

- Bad actors - including folks who make ransomware AND so-called MSPs who sign contracts and do not delivery managed services to their clients. One groups makes your job difficult and annoying. The other give you a bad reputation because clients don't know how to tell good MSPs from bad MSPs!

- The government - in fact, lots of governments. Regulation is everywhere. Not just laws like HIPAA and regulations on privacy. We see all kinds of guidelines and standards are emerging. And whether you like it or not, YOU are the implementation office for your clients.

- The media - They don't really know more about what you do for a living than your mother does. But they are happy to report on ransomware attacks and cybersecurity as if they understand it. With bad intentions, they sometimes casually blame you or your vendors for no reason other than the fact that they have an extra ten seconds of airtime to fill.

- Insurance Companies - While they have morphed into real friends of our industry (by making your clients take security seriously), they have also become very expensive. And, of course, it's their job to take care of their business, not yours.

All in all, we have a lot of challenges that come with moving from an industry made up of amateurs to a profession made up of people who are proud to brag about the industry they've built.

The NSITSP was founded to promote professionalism in the IT industry - and become the voice of this industry. You can find all the history, details, mission statement, and more at https://www.nsitsp.org. 

Join today, if you haven't already. And then sign up to run for an office NOW. Filing closes August 31st.

:-)

Take the Super-Quick Poll: What Do You Call Yourself?

In my newsletter, I started down a bit of a rabbit hole. 

Action Item: 

Please Take Our Poll - What do you call yourself?

and 

What should we call the industry?

https://www.smallbizthoughts.org/what-do-you-call-yourself/

• No name or email required

I have always been interested in the question: What should (do) we call our industry? What do you call yourself? As long as I can remember, I've referred to us as SMB IT consultants. Or sometimes SMB Consultants.

SMB = Small and Medium Business. In the UK, they prefer SME - Small and Medium Enterprise.

About twenty years ago, I loved the new moniker MSP - Managed Service Provider. I've become less happy with that every year since then. The primary reason for this is that so many people call themselves MSPs but only do break/fix. At the same time, we have a growing contingent of "MSPs" who only exist to rip off their clients and do the whole industry a disservice.

Ever since Dave Sobel, Ryan Morris, and I created the Killing IT Podcast, I've really like the term ITSP - IT Service Provider. I used this when I named IT Service Provider University and when I founded the National Society of IT Service Providers.

This term hasn't take the world by storm. I'll give it another twenty years before I pass judgement. Other terms I hear folks use with their clients or among themselves include Small Business Consultant, IT Consultant, or simply Consultant.

So I'm polling the universe: What do YOU call yourself? I am primarily interested in how you define yourself and your team internally. That is: Inside your company, what term(s) do you use?

The questionnaire is very simple. Boiling down this question might be difficult, so I've created a VERY straight forward questionnaire. It only has these questions:

1. How do you refer to yourself and your business?

2. Which one name would you like our industry to be known as?

There's also an open field to say anything else you wish on this topic (optional). If you want to get results, you can also drop your email address. Also optional. We will report the results here, obviously.

Please fill out this form: 

https://www.smallbizthoughts.org/what-do-you-call-yourself/

You are NOT required to give your name or email, but you may if you wish. 

And please go on forums, etc. and encourage others in our industry to fill out the form. 

Note: This poll closes Saturday, the 10th. So don't delay.

Thank you.

:-)

Deep Dive into Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn - Class starts August 6th

Class Revised for 2024

Deep Dive Into Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn – 5W24

Taught By: Karl W. Palachuk

Five Tuesdays

• August 6 - September 3 
• Register Now
• All classes start a 9:00 AM Pacific

Part of the "Social Media Super-Charge" Series for Small Business

This course covers three of the largest and most important social media in great detail. In all cases, we present a thorough training on getting the most of these applications. And, for each, we talk about how that specific medium fits into your overall sales and marketing strategy.

This course takes each of the platforms in turn, but constantly reminds you to create an overall approach to branding and social media. Each platform has "secrets" and best practices that most casual users never see. We provide these secrets and best practices as a series of checklists. Some are specific to individual postings; some are based on a weekly or monthly schedule; and some have a larger, strategic approach.

Most small businesses "use" social media, but don't really have a strategy for using social media effectively. That strategy starts with understanding the strengths and weaknesses of various platforms. And it culminates with a unified approach to branding and how your company presents itself across a variety of platforms.

This course is taught by Karl W. Palachuk, a social media influencer who "touches" over one million people per month. Karl has been using these social media for more than ten years, and has demonstrated mastery across all of the major social media that small businesses need to be successful.

Here are the specifics of what you'll learn, week by week:

Unit 1: YouTube - Setup and Optimizing for Marketing

• “Google Properties” And Webmaster Tools
• Planning Your YouTube Strategy
• One Email; Multiple Brands
• Graphics and Branding
• Creator Studio
• Channel Settings
• Next-Level Branding
• Social Media Link
• Custom URLs
• Paid Membership Channel?
• Monetizing

Unit 2: YouTube - Video Upload and Tagging

• Video Uploading Checklist
• End Screens and iCards
• Thumbnails
• Tags/Keywords
• Scheduling, Captions, and Chapter Headings
• Longer Videos
• Link to Adwords Account
• Analytics and Reports
• YouTube in the Big Strategy

Unit 3: Facebook - Setup and Maximizing Results

• Facebook Personal and Business
• Graphics Revisited
• Pages and Groups
• Rules for Group Management
• Successful Posting / Cross-Posting
• YouTube in the Big Strategy

Unit 4: LinkedIn - Setup and Effective Use

• LinkedIn Basics
• Three Levels of Connections
• The Greatest Profile Opportunity in Social Media
• Details and Options
• Overwhelm, Minimalist, or Super Niche?
• Sharing
• Fake Profiles Can Teach You a Lot
• Graphics and Branding
• Custom URL
• Premium Options

Unit 5: LinkedIn - Optimizing for Sales

• Email Marketing – and Abuse
• Recommendations – Giving and Getting
• Posts, Articles, “Blogging” and Syndicating
• Groups
• Activities and Notifications
• All-Star Status
• Super Search
• LinkedIn in the Big Strategy

-- -- --

Delivered by Karl W. Palachuk, blogger and author of the very popular Relax Focus Succeed blog at www.relaxfocussucceed.com.

Includes five weeks of webinars with related handouts, assignments, and "office hours" with the instructor. All classes are recorded for download. All classes include suggested "homework" that is totally action-focused and intended to move your company's marketing forward.

This course is intended for business owners and managers. It is particularly useful for Sales Managers and Marketing Managers.

Only $399

Register Now

A Few Details . . .

• Each course will be five one-hour webinars
• There will be handouts and "homework" assignments
• If you wish to receive feedback on your assignments, there will be instructor office hours
• Class webinars will be recorded and made available to paid attendees only.
• All calls start at 9:00 AM Pacific Time

:-)

It's Okay to be a Very Small small Business - In Fact, It's GREAT!

Do you describe your company as a "small" business? How does that sit with you?

Business trends ebb and flow. Every once in a while, a big enterprise business realizes that they are ignoring eighty or ninety percent of the market, and they make a big push for "small business." Microsoft did this for about ten years and had spectacular success with their partner program small-business-focused products. Amex and Visa still have small business programs, though much reduced from their peak a dozen years ago.

Today the trend is all about bigger and bigger. After all, a vendor who has hundreds of millions in revenue and is looking for 20-40% growth per year will have great difficulty reaching those targets 1,000 licenses (or endpoints) at a time. There's a quick-win with going after larger MSPs. And when your entire future is measures by the next three months, that's good enough!

But the reality is - It's okay if you're not the focus of the enterprise companies and enterprise-wanna-bes. I'll get into that a bit more in the next blog post. For now, let's look at . . .

The Power of Small Business 

Forbes does a great annual roundup on Small Business stats.[1] Here are some important take-aways.

You are not alone! Quite the contrary. Small business runs the world! Let's look at recent US stats.

• The U.S. Small Business Administration reports that there 33.3 million businesses in the United States qualify as small businesses. That's roughly 99.9% of all U.S. businesses![2] As you can imagine, all other countries have a higher percentage of small businesses compared to enterprise businesses.

• Over 80% of businesses operate without any staff. That is: These are one-person shops. Forbes refers to these businesses variably as "solo ventures" or "solo founders." This raises the question we look at next time: What do you call yourself?

• U.S. small businesses employ roughly 62 million people. That's about 46% of the entire U.S. workforce.[2] About 16% of small businesses have between one and nineteen (1-19) employees. That's about 5.4 million businesses. I hope you don't feel alone now. 

• As Forbes reports, "The average salary of a small business owner is just 16% above the annual mean wage in the U.S. Business owners and entrepreneurs may make up some of the wealthiest people in the world." Of course, this does not include the financial and non-financial benefits of being a business owner. And, of course, the best-run IT consulting businesses are on the high end of these numbers.[3] 

Evolving Demographics

• Millennials own 13% of small businesses in the U.S. Of course, Baby Boomers and Gen X own most businesses, but this is largely due to the fact that the average age for starting a business is 35 years old. This gives us great clarity on who will be starting the new businesses in the next ten years. Welcome them. Engage with them. After all, they're about to take over the world. [4]

• Males have always owned most businesses. But women are certainly starting more and more companies. Currently, 43% of businesses are woman-owned. And this number is growing. Again, take a look at your future and welcome it.[1]

• The U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy reports that just over twenty percent of small businesses owned by racial minorities (non-whites). And, as you might expect, this number is growing as well. Look at your future and welcome it.[1]

Business Failures

Two key facts here. 

I hope every one of you has read The Emyth Revisiteed by Michael Gerber. If not, today is a great day to start that. For decades, his numbers have been correct. Today we have a bit more detail, but the fundamental truth remains: One in five businesses fail within the first year.

Key Fact #1 - About half of all new businesses fail within the first five years. That breaks down as follows.  [5]

• 20% of businesses fail in the first year
• 30% fail in the second year 
• and a total of 50% by the end of year five.

This highlights a fact that "everyone knows" but few people do anything about. Watching your finances and managing your cash is absolutely critical, especially as a new business. The need never goes away, but we learn by experience what we could be learning from training, books, and self-education. Do not put off this education, no matter where you are in your business.

Key Fact #2 - The most common cause of overall business failure is running out of cash. About 38% of businesses fail due to bad cash flow (or failure to get a loan they can pay off). Again, the sooner you pay attention to finances and financial management the better!

Note that I said overall business failure. For those that fail in the first five years, 42% fail because they did not find or engage a target market.[6] Either they think "everyone" is the target market, or they did not effectively identify and sell an actual target market. Again, everyone hears the advice to focus your attention. But many pay the ultimate price for ignoring this advice.

Note: It is critically important that you understand what we mean by cash flow. This is not the same as profit. You can be profitable and simply not have the cash on hand when you need it. Education can come from training or painful personal experience. You get to decide.

- - -

I know that's a lot of stats. Take is as a starting place. The most important thing you should know is that you're not alone - and there's nothing wrong with being a small small business! You're in great company!

In the next blog post, I want to talk about what you call yourself. Forbes uses two terms above. They're not common phrases I hear among small business owners. So I'd love to have your feedback. How to you describe yourself or your business - in or or two words?

All comments welcome.

- - -

Forbes Advisor has a lot of great collections of statistics here: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/statistics/. Other sources cited:

[1] See https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/small-business-statistics/. And Forbes Advisor has a lot of great collections of statistics here: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/statistics/.

[2] U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy 

[3] Guidant Financial

[4] Bloomberg

[5] Fundera  

[6] CBInsights

:-) 

NSITSP Elections - File for Office in August

The National Society of IT Service Providers is going strong - and we'll be stronger with YOU.

We are pleased to announce the 2024 NSITSP elections for all positions. This is our THIRD year of holding elections. We have one totally new committee this year – Professional Development. Plus, we have openings on the Board of Directors and all other committees.

It is truly amazing how far the NSITSP has come in just three years. We were founded in 2021 and spent a lot of time putting together our structure and committees. Our first elections were held in 2022, and we continue electing officers each year. Our system is designed so about half of all posts are up for election each year. That means that we have elections for the Board and all committees in September! See details below.

Our By-Laws provide that all vacancies are filled by appointment. Appointees serve until the next election. And that is now. Everyone standing for election this year will run for a full two-year term.

This blog post describes our election calendar and what you can expect. Please feel free to contact me or the admin staff at NSITSP.org.

Who can run for office? All paid members.
Not a member? Today's a good day to join!

Who can vote for officers? All paid members.
Not a member? Today's a good day to join!

Election Timeline:

Here’s the basic timeline for our election “season.”

NOW: Announce elections. Educate membership.

August 2024: Filing period. Paid members can submit forms to file for office. This will create a customized campaign profile page. Filing closes August 31st.

September 1-13: Campaign for office. Use our forums to answer questions and promote your candidacy.

September 13-21: Voting online!

September 22: Results announced.

Note – You can start preparing now by writing your candidate statement and collecting a list of your associations, social media links, etc. Basically, we’re looking for the kind of stuff you probably have on your LinkedIn profile. We recommend you compile your information in a Word or text document and then copy/paste into the application.

Please post any questions here or in our forums.

---

You can view the results of last year’s election in this blog post:
https://nsitsp.org/elections/nsitsp-2023-election-results/

Here’s a summary of the open positions. PLEASE consider running – and encourage others to do so as well.

Board of Directors: 4 slots open

Finance Committee: 6 slots open

Governance Committee: 4 slots open

Legislative Committee: 4 slots open

Marketing Committee: 5 slots open

New Professional Development Committee: 7 slots open

Thank you to everyone who has served and to everyone who runs for office. Your participation means everything to this organization!

Help us transform the industry into a profession.

:-)

The Great Managed Service Triple Play

Do you need the ultimate Managed Services Starter Kit? Well, we happen to have it. We call it the Managed Service Triple Play:

Managed Services + Cloud Services + Service Agreements

We've bundled these three great books together at one low price. Retail value is $119.85. This includes:

– Managed Services in a Month

– Cloud Services in a Month

– Service Agreements for SMB Consultants

Check out the bundle in our store at https://store.smallbizthoughts.com/product/managed-services-cloud-services-triple-play/.

Why is this such a great resource? That's easy - these books each have a massive amount of great information and advice.  

Over 880 pages of content. Plus hundreds of pages of downloads, checklists, sample documents, and more and more!

Available in paperback or ebook. Now only $89.99 for the bundle! That ALL these resources for less than one hour’s paid labor! This might just be the best deal you’ll find for your business this year.

Here's a bit of information on each of these resources.

Managed Services in a Month, 3rd ed., is the best selling book ever on managed services! This is literally the book used by thousands of companies to move from break/fix to managed services. It's also a great primer and introduction to our industry for total newbies.

• 270 pages
• Dozens of downloads, including calculators, forms, checklists, and spreadsheets

Table of Contents, list of downloads, and more information on the dedicated page at

https://managedservicesinamonth.com/

Cloud Services in a Month, has been a best seller since the day it was released! It digs deep into creating bundles that sell - and are easy to sell. Includes hundreds of pages of downloads, including some great "best practice" forms and checklists for analyzing client environments and use "Zero Downtime" strategies to move those clients to hosted services. 

• 390 pages
• Dozens of downloads, including calculators, forms, checklists, and spreadsheets

Table of Contents, list of downloads, and more information on the dedicated page at

https://cloudservicesinamonth.com/

Service Agreements for SMB Consultants, revised edition, holds the distinction as the first book ever with "Managed Services" in the title. The subtitle of this book is A Quick-Start Guide to Managed Services. Of course it's been updated since then. 

Of course, everyone needs a contract. But you should never just grab someone else's contract and start using it. This book walks you through model contracts one paragraph at a time so you understand what they really mean for YOUR business and the way you run your business. Remember: Service agreements are not about the services you provide. Service agreements are about the relationship between you and the client!

• 220 pages
• Dozens of downloads, including calculators, forms, checklists, and spreadsheets

Table of Contents, list of downloads, and more information on the dedicated page at

https://serviceagreementscomputer.com/

If you're ready to get started in managed services - or ready to do a major tune-up of your existing business - then this might be the best investment you can make today. Check it out!

:-)

One Piece of Your Security Strategy is Different - and More Important - Than All the Rest!

In the "before time" - way back before my MSP days - I learned the absolute requirement to have one piece in place before anything else. And even today, 30+ years later, it's still true. That piece: Testing backups.

If you're not testing backups,

You are not doing your job!

Nothing is ever more important than testing backups. Why? Because backups fail. And if you test backups, you know at least three things:

1. You have a backup system

2. The backup is working

3. You know how to get data from the backup to live usage (database, storage, etc.)

And here's where people get it wrong: They set it and forget it. You can set it, but you can never forget it.

In my last "real job," we had a hard drive fail on an HP-3000 mini (some folks would call it a mainframe). The backup was on tape, and the restore took nine hours. There was a bit of data loss, but it was less than one day's worth of data entry.

As I recall, the company lost just over $20 million in that incident (which lasted roughly ten hours in total). But the system worked as well as it could at the time. It was a bad day for me, and a bad week for the folks in the customer service department. But the business was back in business when everyone showed up for work at 8:00 AM.

Everyone learned: 1) We have a backup that works; and 2) the corporate overlords suddenly had a budget to improve the backup, if it could shorten the downtime if there's another incident like this.

Things fail. Your backup will fail. On average, a daily full backup will be "less than perfect" about once per month - no matter what system you have. Three times per month is quite normal for the best systems available today. Stuff happens. Updates. Hardware. Human error. Software. Electrical problems. Configuration changes. Unknown. Stuff happens. Wrong media. Bad media. etc.

If you don't believe those numbers, you are not checking your backups often enough. Period.

Having an imperfect backup happens. That's why you can never set it and forget it. 

Here are two facts you should take with you on your sales calls:

• If you have a good, working backup, you can avoid data loss from any crypto virus, human error, or anything in between. (This obviously does not include phishing attacks, but it does cover a lot  of other stupidity.)

• It IS possible to have such a backup in a small business. The larger a business grows, the less likely it is to have a good, working backup.

What does this mean to the business owner? It means that you can secure their business more reliably than the large businesses they read about in the news. Large businesses cannot even keep track of all the devices on their networks. Some think they can. Some are quite adamant about it. But they cannot.

The larger a business is, the more complicated, sophisticated, and less successful their backup is. This seems intuitively wrong, but it's true. Complexity changes the nature of backups.

And that's why, conversely, small networks CAN be completely documented and can be backed up reliably. And best of all, small networks can be backed up reliably at a reasonable price.

Backup is the Center of Your Security

Your "big picture" of you security is made up of a lot of puzzle pieces. But one piece is always at the center, and it's more important that all the others put together. Your backup is, ultimately, the only guarantee you have that you can get a client back into business when catastrophe strikes. The event might be ransomware. But it might also be a hazmat spill, a fire, a failed storage array, sabotage, or many other things. 

Similarly, the backup might be a BDR. Or it might be disc-to-disc-to-cloud strategy. It might even be tape. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon (among many others) still use tape for archiving, which provides their ultimate air-gapped backup.

If you do nothing else in your managed service business, you should test every backup at every client at least once per month. "Test" does not mean to look at a monitor. It does not mean to read a report or count the green lights on a dashboard. Testing a backup means mounting the media (BDR, disc, or whatever) and restoring data from all key components (email, databases, file store, etc.).

This is literally the single most important thing you do. If you cannot restore a client's systems after a catastrophe, you are not a managed IT company. Clients may be more worried about their internet speed, the transaction costs, viruses, or even whether the monitors are bright enough. But on the after the "stuff" hits the fan, they should be able to rely on you to get them back in business. And if you can't do that, you have failed the most important thing you should be doing for that client.

Sadly, almost no MSPs that I talk to even attempt to verify backups once per month. This is a major failing of our industry. Lots of companies are paying lots of money to turn over their technology management and trust that it's being taken care. But if you're not taking care of the single most important thing, then you are not giving them what they are paying for.

The Never-Changing Statistic:

Fifty percent of all prospects do not have a working backup, whether they know it or not. This was true thirty years ago, and it's true today.

If you make examining the backup part of your sales strategy, you'll see this immediately. The saddest part is, there were no MSPs thirty years ago. Now, almost all prospects have someone who calls themselves an MSP. And yet, fifty percent of the clients they serve do not have a working backup.

What's your standard operating procedure for testing backups?

:-)

The Challenges of Improving Your Team: Time and Money

Here's a challenge many larger MSPs have. Let me see if it rings true for you.

• 
  
  You want your entire team to understand the managed service business model.

• You want to do some team building.

• You want them to grow as a group, but also grow their understanding of their specific job, where it fits in the big picture, etc.

You want some training, but that requires requires two really big things. 1) It requires time off task. In other words, they have to take time away from their job  so they can get better at their job. That's a standard challenge everybody faces.

And, 2) It takes money. There are a lot of programs that seem to think that just because you have the "MSP" name, that you have essentially all the money in the world and you're willing to give it to them!

At Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community, we understand what it actually takes to build a managed service business.

It starts with building a great team. 

Today, I want to talk to you about the benefits of a team membership with the Small Biz Thoughts technology community. (If you want to view the video version of this, go here.)

Time - The biggest thing is we have a program that allows you to work at your pace. It's like coaching light without the big expense. Trust me, if you want to do coaching and you want to pay a bunch of money, I will be happy to help you out.

Money - But if what you need is to spend a reasonable amount of money and you want to be able to take your time. A one-year team membership right now is only $3,599. And that gets you up to 10 memberships in the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community.

It gives you lots of access to free classes over at IT Service Provider University. And it allows you to work at your own pace. 

One of the real benefits of a team membership is that you get a little extra of my time. Several companies have gone through a program that we have where they sign up six eight or sometimes ten members of their staff to go through an entire class together at ITSPU.

And so they'll go through the class and then meet with me for an hour, have some deep dive discussion about how the class material fits within their specific job title. This is great because you have different levels of technicians, you have service managers, you have front office people, sales people. They all need to understand what's going on inside your managed service business, but they look at it from different angles, obviously.

So this allows your entire team to sit together, go through these classes together, talk to each other about it, go through that experience together.  

Best of all, you do all of this at a pace that doesn't take them out of their job for a week, or take them out of their job for three days in a row. 

This is a great price for improving your entire each. 

If you have a member who wants to go wild and take all the classes, they can do that. We had somebody do that last year. The boss bought a team membership, and one guy just said, "I'm taking everything." I think he took twenty of the twenty-five courses we offer. And he got certified in them, so he's got specialist certifications left and right.

Every once in a while, you get somebody who's super ambitious and has the time to do that, but not everybody does. So quite realistically, if you don't have time or you can't afford to have somebody out of the office for three or four days to go to a big conference in another part of the country, this is a great way to give them the education that they need and to do it together as a team, if you choose to.

You certainly don't have to do that.

It great to know that this small investment allows:

• The salesperson can go take three or four classes on sales
• The front office people can take three or four classes on front office (on finance and QuickBooks and so forth)
• The technical people can take about twenty classes regarding their job
• And the managers can take classes that are about leadership and strategy and running the service board

Everybody in your team can benefit from a team membership!

All it takes is a one-time commitment. And if you choose to renew in a year, the price is locked in for life. With this program, YOU get to manage the team memberships. For example, let's say you have twenty people in your business.

You pick the ten who you want to have access to the community and you manage that. You add people and remove them whenever you want. Six months, three months in, whatever, you can take these people out, add other people in. Then,  send the salespeople off to get training. Then you can switch them out and add in front office people go get training. Then you can focus on managers. Whatever you choose to do, you manage which people have access at any time.

We are not here to dig deep, deep, deep into your wallet, take all the money we can find, and leave you without help. Every single thing we do in the classes and at the community is designed around my motto:

Nothing happens by itself

You have to take action. 

That's why the classes have homework. That's why we are so focused on checklists, worksheets, calculators, and Excel spreadsheets. We want you to have tools that allow you to make changes today to improve your business.

It's great to have a grand scheme and a grand plan, and I want you to have those things. I want you to have a mission, vision, and values. I want you to go through that process, and I'll help you with that if you need it.

But you also need to improve every single process in your business - every day! And if every single thing works one percent better, and then one percent better, and one percent better, you literally can improve every single piece of your business, year after year after year.

I know that's a lot of grand promises, but I'm just telling you: Everybody who goes through this program has loved it. And we have people who are renewing time and again because their team still continues to improve and get value from their team's membership.

I got this note earlier this week from a Community Team member:

"Karl and his team absolutely understand how to run and scale an MSP.  The five-week classes on Service Board management and SOPs established a foundation to transform our service delivery.  Our group of technicians now function as a coherent team with everyone working from the same playbook.  We now talk about consistency of service in a way that simply wasn’t possible before we started working with Karl."

-- Greg Baker, CMA Augusta

And like everything Anything else that's out there, if you buy it and you don't use it, well, that's on you. But if you buy it and you dig in, I will help your team get absolutely amazing value from this.

The Investment - If you just had the classes, that would be 25 classes at $399 each. That's about $10,000 worth of value. Okay, great. Then you add 25 certifications at $200 each. That's almost $5,000 more. Then you add all of the books, all of the training all of the videos, everything inside the community, and the value just goes up and up and up.

I know for a fact is all of that is literally just a fire hose, and you cannot stick it in your mouth and turn it on. That is not going to work. (At least it won't have a good outcome.)

Bottom line: We've designed a program where you can take the time as you need it, as you are able to dedicate the time, and we only require a minimal amount of money because our hope is that you will get so much value out of it that you will renew again and again and again.

If you're ready to take your team to the next level, join my team membership, and I promise you, you will love it.

 If you have any questions, check out all of the Q&A at smallbizthoughts.org, or send us a note on that site. 

 I'm here to help you be as successful as possible in everything you do!

Learn More. Sign Up Today.

:-)

Salvador Dali and the Most Important Thing You Need to Know about Artificial Intelligence

 Not long ago, the Salvador Dali Museum announced a fun AI project. They fed all of Dali's written and recorded words, including audio and video from every source they could find, into a big "large language model" program and created a cool device: A lobster-shaped telephone that allows you to have a conversation with AI Dali.

Visitors to the museum can pick up the phone and ask anything they want. The voice of Dali then answers their question and proceeds to have an AI-generated conversation with them. The voice was trained on recordings of Dali, so the result both sounds like his voice and the content is drawn from his thoughts.

My first reaction is: Very Cool!

But some people get the description of this wrong. And as we see more projects like this with famous dead people, we need to be careful about how we describe it. 

This is not Salvador Dali. The answers one might get are not the answers Dali would give. They are in his "voice" and use phrases he might use. But the answers are not what Dali would say if he were here today. How do we know that? Read on.

You may have seen that the voice of Al Michaels will be used for the AI bot that will be commenting on the Summer Olympics. The NBC network has been very careful to walk the line. They try to be super clear that this is the voice of Al Michaels, but the words of generative AI. Going forward, as artificial intelligence and video/audio generation get better, we will see this kind of thing everywhere.

Note: You should never believe that having a conversation with the Dali phone is just like having a conversation with Salvador Dali. And watching "AI Al" Michaels will not be the same as having the real Al Michaels in the broadcast booth. 

The big difference is the human spark of creativity. An AI program might sound exactly like Salvador Dali, but it will always lack the one quality that leads one to talk to Dali: His genius. Dali became famous by using his artwork and commentary to show the world a different way of looking at itself. His artwork was his form of social commentary.

Dali passed away in 1989. Imagine all the commentary he might have about the Internet, smart phones, streaming media, digital artworks, pandemics, politics, . . . and generative AI creating artwork inspired by his creations. The best guess you can make about his commentary should be, "I have no idea what he'd say." He might love or hate where society has gone. He might approve or disapprove. But his actual response will be new, original, and unpredictable. 

The one area where AI excels is being predictable. So, you might be able to work hard enough to get an AI model to figure out how Dali might have reacted in the 1970's or 1950's. But it could never create the unique, inciteful, and unpredictable commentary that only the human Salvador Dali could come up with!

Keep this in mind when people are tempted to say, "It's just like talking to the real . . .."

-- -- -- 

For more information on the project, see this articles:

1. https://www.npr.org/2024/04/21/1246117954/salvador-dali-artificial-intelligence-lobster-telephone-museum

2. https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/ai-tech-to-replicate-al-michaels-voice-for-summer-olympics/476282

:-)

Core SOPs for Small IT Providers - Five Week Class starts July 2nd

Core Standard Operating Procedures for Small IT Providers – W501

Taught By: Karl W. Palachuk

- Five Tuesdays

- July 2 - July 30

- Register Now!

You're guaranteed to learn something that will make or save you the price of admission!

- All classes start a 9:00 AM Pacific

- All classes are recorded

When I take on new coaching clients, they have many of the same issues over and over again. This is true of clients with $50 Million in revenue as well as those under $1 Million. And almost all of them boil down to SOPs – Standard Operating Procedures. Or the lack thereof.

Everyone knows you need SOPs. In fact, you probably know which ones you need. But where do you start?

This course will cover the most important procedures you need to have in place to run an efficient and highly profitable Managed Services Business.

Whether you're a new Computer Consultant or an experienced Managed Service Provider, you need to create successful processes that will propel your company forward. Nothing is more critical to making profit than having the right processes and procedures in place!

When I take on new coaching clients, they have many of the same issues over and over again. And almost all of them boil down to SOPs - Standard Operating Procedures. Or the lack thereof.

Everyone knows you need SOPs. In fact you probably know which ones you need. But where do you start?

You will learn:

• A practical introduction to SOPs
• The relationship matrix of SOPs
• - Clients
• - Employees
• - Vendors
• Internal Organization
• The Ten Most Important SOPs for your IT Consulting Business
• SOPs management, organization, and updates
• Implementation strategies internally
• Implementation strategies for clients
• Service Department SOPs
• - Building
• - Training
• - Deployment
• - Upkeep
• Avoiding the biggest pitfalls with SOP development and deployment
• Building an Action Plan that works
• and more!

Course Outline:

Unit 1 Introduction and Organization of SOPs

Unit 2 Managing Time and Money

Unit 3 Service Delivery and the Service Board

Unit 4 Practical Operating Considerations

Unit 5 Putting It All Together

Delivered by Karl W. Palachuk, blogger and author of the very popular "SOP Friday" posts at http://sopfriday.com.

Includes five weeks of webinars with related handouts, assignments, and "office hours" with the instructor. All classes are recorded for download.

ITSP University Certification:

Meets Certification Requirements for:

• Management
• Service Manager
• Technician

Register Now!

Only $399 

per person

-- -- --

Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community Members: Register for free or at a huge discount. See the Deals and Freebies forum for the code you need.

Members with annual subscription attend for FREE. Email the Community Concierge to get started.

Details at https://www.smallbizthoughts.org.

:-)

The Dual Path to Your Exit Strategy

I've been involved in several discussions of KPIs recently. (And I hope you saw my big webinar on KPIs at https://mspwebinar.com/measuring-success/.)

KPIs have become a big discussion topic in the SMB IT world over the last few years because of the frenzied activity around mergers and acquisitions. This has led to discussions focused specifically on a series of KPIs that are not necessarily related to running a good, solid, profitable company with a long-term view of success. But they are useful to companies with a bunch of money who are trying to find measures of profitability so they can filter the companies they might buy.

Last week, I spoke at a conference where I was asked to give my thoughts about exit strategies. But the intro was not about a variety of exit strategies. The session intro focused on buying an MSP business or selling your MSP business. And that led me to give some thoughts they were not looking for.

Truth: What it takes to run a healthy long-term business is NOT the same as what it takes to maximize the sales value of your business in the 12-24 months before you sell.

For years (decades), I have quoted the following line from George Sierchio: "Run your business as if you're going to sell it."

The theory behind that is that focusing on things like profit, contract renewals, excellent service, and a great culture are good for the long-term health of your business. And that's still true. But today, I would take a two-pronged approach to success.

You need to follow TWO tracks toward your business success. The first is the long-term, good, healthy way to run your business. Focus on that for years and for decades. Focus on that for as long as you need to build a great, well-run business.

The second track only applies to the one or two years before you sell. ONLY then should you explore what companies are looking for to filter through managed service businesses to see which ones they want to buy. There are two big reasons for this. First, many of those measure are useful for big money investors but are totally unrelated to running your business well. Really!!! 

Second, unless you're going to sell your business in the next three years, the chances are excellent that these targets will change. As a rule, the people who are buying businesses want to spend the least amount of money to buy companies that will make the largest amount of money. They will lie to your face and tell you that they have a long-term interest in your company. But they will start changing things and extracting revenue as soon as they can after the sale is complete. So, as time goes on, they will change the filters they are looking for in order to maximize their return.

I know that nobody wants to hear this message, but I promise you that it's true. 

Let's say you're in business for thirty years. For the first twenty-eight years, you need to focus on building a great, sustainable, profitable, reproducible service business with a great culture. That's the only game to play until you're ready to sell.

If you plan to merge with a friend, sell to your service manager, let one partner buy out the rest, sell your client list, or other "friendly" exit strategies, then you never need to change the way you operate. Just keep doing what you do.

Finally, if you plan to sell to strangers or well-funded companies who are gobbling up MSP businesses, then you need to re-focus on the measures that matter to them. For many of these measures, there is ZERO connection to a well-run business. The goal is simply to meet whatever metrics someone came up with to compare a bunch of companies they might buy. And what they're looking for today may not be what they will be looking for next year or the year after.

That's why I say to follow the long-term strategy until you really are ready to switch to your end-game. Run you company well, with a great culture and great profit, for as long as you can. Only spend time measuring things that don't build long-term success when you no longer need to focus on the long term.

I welcome your feedback.

-- -- -- 

If you haven't seen my webinar on KPIs, today's a good day. I'm not selling you anything. https://mspwebinar.com/measuring-success/

:-)

Avoid the AI Hustle!

One of the phrases that typifies the last few years is "Hustle." 

You know. What's your main hustle? What's you're side hustle? For a real taste of how this term has evolved, head to YouTube and enter the search term Side Hustle. You'll find a million ways to not get rich! Titles include:

• 7 Side Hustles Students Can Start In 2024
• Side Hustles: Ideas to Make $1000 Per Month in 2024
• Best Side Hustle Jobs of 2024 - Make $500 or More This Week
• The New AI Side Hustle That's Making $1,579+/Day
• Top 11 Side Hustles of 2024 
• 6 Realistic Side Hustles You Can Do Remotely in 2024
• The 7 BEST Side Hustles That Make $100+ Per day
• 7 Side Hustles for Beginners
• 3 Side Hustle Ideas To Make $500/Day 
• Most Underrated Side Hustle Of 2024 
• 5 Side Hustles For Anyone Over 40 (Keep Your 9 to 5 Job)
• The BEST Side Hustle For Christian Women

And that's the key to understanding this trend. A "hustle" won't build wealth. While you're promised $1,000 a day doing almost nothing . . . the truth is a lot closer to nothing. In many cases, someone is earning real money. But, as with all hustles, that's one in a million. And they're probably making their money on ad clicks while showing you how to get rich quick.

People have always been tempted to act like sitcom characters - constantly looking for a shortcut to get rich without working hard, or by gaming the system. Today, Artificial Intelligence has become just another excuse for some people to work harder at gaming the system than they would work by simply going to work every day and doing some work!

As I pointed out in my recent webinar on AI, if you use AI as a tool to improve some part of your work, you might be more successful. If you use it to replace yourself so you can work less (or not at all), you will fail. 

One of the few good things to come out of the pandemic was the wide acceptance of remote work and the ability to send much work off to "the cloud" or outsourced services. Many of us in IT have been doing these things for two decades or more. But we could never get our clients to really dig into remote work until they were forced to.

As with all fads, there's a cycle that John P. Sisk labeled "Intoxication and Hangover." Folks who are eagerly seeking low-work and no-work hustles are in the intoxication phase. Stay tuned for the inevitable hangover.

And if you want to make it through this fad successfully, today's a great day to double-down on working on the skills that you know bring success to your job!

:-)

Three Kinds of Knowledge / Three Kinds of Training

Business Training, Technical Training, and . . .

A few weeks ago, I posted a note in my Small Biz Thoughts newsletter that got a huge response. You never know what will hit home for people.

I've been in the "training" business for a long time. Way back at the beginning, I decided to focus on business training rather than technical training. This blog has been 99% business focused from day one (in 2006). 

The training we think about in IT tends to be either focused on specific technologies or on business processes. Technical training often comes from, or is approved by, makers of hardware and software. And, if a product is popular enough, third parties provide training as well.

Business focused training tends to be provided by authors and coaches. I offer these services, as do my friends James Kernan, Rayanne Buchianico, and many others. And while these sometimes focus on getting the most from a tool or program, the focus is mostly on the processes that make businesses successful.

The third kind of training is harder to teach. It's all about the details of HOW you do what you do. It's about the care and attention you bring to a job. Let me give an example.

One time, I had a technician who has to be described as a technical genius. I'll call him Emil because I've never had a tech with that name. He could be sent on any job and he'd figure it out. Hardware, software, and even some coding. He was a fast learner and a fast worker. He saw the heart of a problem faster than anyone. And he fixed things right the first time. When he walked away, everything just worked.

But Emil lacked an important skill that eventually led to him seeking happiness with another company: He did not take a professional approach to his work. He would install a brand new rack of brand new equipment and it would look messy and horrible. No thought was given to the order of items in the rack. The wiring always looked like the "before" picture of a meme.

Emil took no pride in his work product. He took pride in his technical prowess, speed, and accuracy. But if the job looked ugly and amateurish, he did not care. To him, these aesthetic elements were irrelevant.

If Emil was a mechanic, there would be grease on the car seats and greasy fingerprints all over the fenders. If he was an electrician, you'd find gaps between the light switch and the hole in the wall. No attention to detail, no pride in workmanship, and no appreciation for the little things.

I'm not sure what you call the training that results in appreciating the details and doing things well. All professions have this training, but it's rarely separate from other training or offered stand-alone. It's built into the "little tips" you get along the way. It's what professionals do.

One time, Emil went to an important client's office to install a new piece of (expensive) equipment. When he left, we got a call that basically amounted to, "I never want him in my office again." Everything worked perfectly. Technically, it was correct. But it was ugly. He had not put attention on how the job looked when it was done. Obviously, we sent out another tech to clean up after the technical genius.

Aesthetics matter. Pride in work matters. The little things matter.

Some people think I'm a control freak (I really am not) because I have an SOP (standard operating procedure) for everything. But all those little SOPs matter because the little things matter. For example, as soon as I discovered white network cables, that what we put in client offices. Unless they wanted a technical "look" - which few did. Most offices have white and off-white walls. Why should their professional office be messed up with ugly blue or gray cables?

Similarly, I prefer Velcro over zip ties for one important reason: Something's going to change. A wire will be removed. A wire will be added. With zip ties, the result will either be ugly or involve a massive amount of rework.

The point is: YOU have a long list of these "little things" that you train your technicians on. None of them make the network work faster. But they give the technician pride in work while keeping the client from seeing your messiness every day at work.

Your brand is represented in everything you do - including the little things.

When a client invests in your company, they deserve a job that looks professional. When you spend money, you want to take pride in the result. So do your clients. And, as a rule, we expect more-senior technicians to do a better job of this than less-senior technicians.

Where does this third kind of training come from (whatever it's called)? It comes from the apprenticeship process - even when there's no formal apprentice program. It comes from the never-ending commentary of senior techs saying, "Pick up after yourself," or giving tips about how we do things around here.

And it comes from taking pride in your work! Ultimately it comes from a belief that there's a right way and a wrong way to do things . . . and WE do things the right way.

What do you say when you see greasy fingerprints on the fender or misaligned switch covers? You probably say, "Well, that's what I get for hiring an amateur." (Or saving money.) No client should ever have this reaction to work done by your company!

Bottom line: You need to make attention to the "small stuff" part of your company culture. If you do it right, the client may never notice. But if you do it wrong, they definitely will. And, ultimately, doing it right the first time needs to be part of your branding. Let the competition be known for rework and low quality.

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A version of this article was previously published in my Small Biz Thoughts newsletter. If you're not seeing it every week on Mondays, you should. https://smallbizthoughts.com/newsletter/

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