Discovering the ASCII Community

- Lessons Learned, Episode 48

As my business grew, I started attending a few events. I mentioned SMB Nation earlier. That's where I learned about the ASCII Group. So I thought I'd check them out.

I attended a few events. I didn't realize at the time that you don't have to be a member to attend. At my first ASCII event, I sat in on some great sessions and met a lot of IT consultants who were open to sharing their tools, tips, tricks, and challenges. 

Education plus community has always been a powerful draw for me. There was a lot of overlap between the SMB Nation crowd and the ASCII crowd: they both consisted of IT consultants who were working to improve their businesses and sharing ideas.

Of course, having attended an event, I was put on their mailing list. I may have been on it before. I don't remember. Anyway, the mailing list and event introduced me to ASCII's member benefits - especially the vendor discounts.

I didn't join right away ... until I decided to invest in my first RMM tool. ASCII members received a very large discount. I signed up just to get the discounts. That year, I save enough on RMM licenses to justify my ASCII dues for the next ten years.

And that's when I started recommending ASCII membership at every opportunity. At this point, I'm sure I've recommended them in at least a dozen books and who knows how many presentations.

Skip ahead a few years. Once I had an office, office rent, employees, employee expenses, and all the unexpected costs of having an office where people show up, I started to feel that we had some waste. By then, Jennifer was my office manager, so I gave her a straight-forward task: Pick one thing every month and find a way to reduce our expenses. She did a great job with that.

As it grew close to when we needed to renew our Worker's Compensation plan, I was desperate to find a lower alternative. California was going through a true crisis in Worker's Comp in the early 2000's. Our costs doubled in a year - and that was before factoring in new hires.

Luckily, Jennifer read the ASCII newsletter and looked into their member insurance plans. She got us a quote on a plan that was so much lower that I asked her to verify that it was valid in California! The savings through ASCII was literally unbelievable. When it came time to sign the check, I stopped and asked, "Are you sure this is for the whole year?" It was.

Since that time, I have come to know and appreciate many great benefits of ASCII membership. I know some people go on and on about their forums but I personally never got into them. But I did fall in love with their events and the opportunities to always learn new things, meet great vendors, and be introduced to great IT consultants.

Another ASCII member benefit that I never had to use is ASCII's ability to go to bat with vendors on behalf of members. Time and again I heard stories of ASCII intervening in a dispute and helping the member to get a fair resolution.

The bottom line: I've been a big fan of ASCII for more that twenty years. And even today, I would recommend membership for anyone in the world of IT consulting. It is literally one of the easiest decisions a consultant can make.

Note: This is NOT a paid sponsorship, nor are any of my endorsements of ASCII in the last two decades.

All comments welcome.

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Episode 48

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. 

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