Smb Community Podcast By Karl W. Palachuk

This article was originally posted June 15, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Len DiCostanzo Reports on Autotask Community Live 2012   June 2012 – Orlando, FL – A buncha people gathered in Orlando for the Autotask Community Live conference. This is, of course, a very product-specific conference. Many of the panels were run by users. The coolest thing about that is that 83% of the attendees were first-time attendees, so they were eager to find out how others are using the tool.   We had a great time learning about what’s new with Autotask and what’s planned for the year ahead. I interviewed Len DiCostanzo, Senior Vice President, Community and Business Development for Autotask. Obviously, Len was super-busy. So we were lucky to grab a few minutes. Len gave me some great information, including that 83% stat above. Over 90 sessions, more than 70 run by customers. You can tell from this interview that he is very jazzed about the entire event and enjoyed it like the rest of us. For more information on Autotask,

This article was originally posted June 15, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Mark Moreno Gives a Mid-Market Perspective on some SMB Events   One of my favorite people in the SMB/MSP space is Mark Moreno from C & M Support Services. I think I first met Mark at the IT Pro Conference in New Orleans five years ago. But I also see him at SMB Nation and several other events. In the last ten days I ran into Mark at two separate conferences: the 2012 IT Pro Conference and Autotask Community Live.   Both Mark and I flew straight from New Orleans (the IT Pro Conference – see this blog post) to Orlando. So no time off for good behavior. Um . . . I guess that’s appropriate. Anyway, we had a great time learning about challenges and opportunities in consulting today. It’s actually pretty nice to jump in with both feet and totally immerse yourself in the business side of your business for a week or so. Mark is known as “Christ’s IT Guy.” He specializes in helping large churches with their technology needs. He often

This article was originally posted June 15, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Six Podcast Reports from New Orleans IT Pro Conference   June 2012 – New Orleans – Jeff Middleton’s IT Pro Conference was a great success last week. Two days of panels and discussions on the theme “Trusted Identity: Faith in a Technology World” were very well received. About 150 attendees spent the time in a conversation that wound around through discussions of – Trusted Advisor roles  – Identity Theft  – Social Media Privacy Breaches  – Hosted Environments  – Government Oversight  – Unintended Electronic Disclosures  – Branding Realities in a Business or Technology without Trust  – Partnership and Service Provider Failures  – Identity Federation (Facebook, Gmail, Passport, service aggregators) – Social Media and more!   Naturally, I decided to catch up with some folks and get their impressions of the whole event. I started with Andy Goodman, a long-time community member and leader. Andy has been working for/with SBSMigration.co

This article was originally posted May 18, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Reports from the SMB 150 Banquet 2012   May 16th – Los Angeles – SMB Nation put on a nice banquet to celebrate the 2nd Annual SMB 150 Influencers. This was a great event. To be honest, this event started for me about lunchtime as I met with a series of great people that I don’t get to see very often.   Download the SMB 150 report now On Friday I asked Harry Brelsford from SMB Nationto give us a brief report on the event. That’s included here. In fact, Harry kicks off the podcast. While I was in Los Angeles, I interviewed a few folks. So those very short interviews are here as well. Interviewees include Denis Wilson, Terry VanWinkel, and Jerry Koutavas. I do have to say that I was really impressed that people came all the way from the eastern side of the U.S. But I was more impressed with people who came from Canada, Brazil, the UK, and Australia. I’m not sure how Harry does this, but he really knows how to put on a community even

This article was originally posted May 18, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Freeday Friday May Podcast Posted – US / UK Edition   This program was recorded and is posted here.   How to Convert 700 Clients to Managed Services Without Dropping Any The US/UK Edition of Freeday Friday featured a kickoff question of whether it’s possible to covert a traditionally break/fix business into managed services. The question came from a partner with three employees and 700 customers. That told me something about his business and his customers. I talked about what we did in the transition to managed services and gave him some advice. We also had a few questions about the hiring process, specifically about filtering candidates. I talked about our process and how well it works . . . as long as I don’t break the rules and just hire someone. Boy, can that go wrong! If you would like your question to be the start-off question, just send an email tokarlp@greatlittlebook.com. Please put Freeday Friday in the subject line. Fr

This article was originally posted May 18, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Freeday Friday May Podcast Posted – Oceanic Edition   This program was recorded and is posted here.   Customizing Cloud Services for Medical and Other Verticals The “Down Under” edition of Freeday Friday featured a kickoff question about building a cloud package for the medical industry. In particular, how do we deal with a combination of cloud services and one or more servers that remain onsite. We actually have clients with this scenario, so I talk about what we do. We also had a question about getting started in our business today. Is it a good idea? What would I do differently? So went spent time on that. Then we covered a few misc. questions. If you would like your question to be the start-off question, just send an email tokarlp@greatlittlebook.com. Please put Freeday Friday in the subject line. Freeday Friday is a program to give you access to some coaching advice in a totally new format. See details at www.FreedayFriday.c

This article was originally posted April 20, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Freeday Friday April Podcast Posted – US / UK Edition   This program was recorded and is posted here.   Do I Really Need to Try to Sell SBS Essentials into My Client Base? We had a good show today (45 minutes). Four people posted questions live and we had a good email question to kick us off. The kickoff question was, “Do I really need to sell SBS Essentials?” We talked about when it is and is not the right product to sell to specific clients. Caller Ken asked a follow-up question: When to sell SBS Essentials and when to sell Foundation Server since they have so many features in common. . . . And lots more! If you would like your question to be the start-off question, just send an email tokarlp@greatlittlebook.com. Please put Freeday Friday in the subject line. Freeday Friday is a new program to give you access to some coaching advice in a totally new format. See details at www.FreedayFriday.com. Basically, I am offering free c

This article was originally posted April 19, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Freeday Friday Podcast Posted – Oceanic Edition   This program was recorded and is posted here.   How Do I sell if I’m Not a Salesman? We had a quick show today (35 minutes). Just a few questions. The kickoff question was, “How do I upsell clients when I don’t want to be the salesman?” I give a little advice and encouragement. and we answer a question from a live listener as well. If you would like your question to be the start-off question, just send an email tokarlp@greatlittlebook.com. Please put Freeday Friday in the subject line. Freeday Friday is a new program to give you access to some coaching advice in a totally new format. See details at www.FreedayFriday.com. Basically, I am offering free coaching advice to a very few people – live and free. The “price” for free advice is that other people get to listen in. The idea is that we all share some common challenges, so we might be able to learn from each other and address

This article was originally posted March 19, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. This program was recorded and is posted here.   Robin Talks About What’s Next, Cloud and BDR Promotions, Perennial Campaigns, and More I had a nice chat with Robin Robins this morning. For those of you unfamiliar with Robin, she’s the genius behind the Managed Services Blueprint, as well as marketing programs geared toward cloud integration, managed services, and BDRs. I always like catching up with Robin because she’s full of energy and ideas – but totally focused on the big picture. She just finished a roadshow with Axcient and HP, hitting five major cities. She talks about some of the discussions and lessons learned there. We also touched on Robin’s annual Bootcamp in Nashville, which is totally sold out. Finally, we talked a little about marketing strategies that will work going forward. I asked her about the effectiveness of Facebook and LinkedIn for most MSPs. She gave some nice insights about that, and also about long-te

This article was originally posted March 16, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. First Freeday Friday March Podcast Posted – US/UK Edition   This program was recorded and is posted here.   UK Partner Challenged with Time Management. US Partner Wondering About Hiring Techs. The first UK/US show went off pretty well. Lots of questions. Totally different topics from the Oceanic edition yesterday. We start out with a partner who desperately needs a PSA system. It’s actually pretty amazing how many problems are solved with the right PSA tool. Plus he got a little tough love. On hiring, we talked about Craigslist, Monster, Career Builder, temp agencies, and strategies for direct hire of part-time technicians. I am so grateful to the community for their participation here. It really is exactly what I was looking for. I get tons of email and I sometimes end up answering questions six months later. I feel bad, but I can only do so much. This allows me to answer more questions in a shorter time frame. What I was ho

This article was originally posted March 16, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. First Freeday Friday Podcast Posted – Oceanic Edition   This program was recorded and is posted here.   Well, the Aussies Kicked Off Freeday Friday with a Great Show When it’s Thursday afternoon here, it’s Friday morning over there. So at 3PM Pacific time today, I launched the Aussie/New Zealand/Oceanic edition of Freeday Friday. We got a good recording, and it is available free to Cloud Services Roundtable Members. Freeday Friday is a new program to give you access to some coaching advice in a totally new format. See details at www.FreedayFriday.com. Basically, I am offering free coaching advice to a very few people – live and free. The “price” for free advice is that other people get to listen in. The idea is that we all share some common challenges, so we might be able to learn from each other and address those challenges in similar ways. I’m not really a “coach” with a program to sell. I will sell some hours. But this one-t

This article was originally posted March 5, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Interviews with Chris Bangs from SMB Nation and Dal Gemmell from Symantec   As MVP Nation was winding down in Redmond, I was able to grab Chris Bangs and Dal Gemmell. Chris does a variety of things at SMB Nation, and plays a big role in getting vendors on board. Dal Gemmell is a Principle Product Manager at Symantec.   1) Download the Chris Bangs interview on “What’s Up” with SMB Nation. Chris gives us great info on the re-designed SMB Nation website, the Fall Conference in Vegas, the SMB 150 awards, and a lot more.   – – – – –   2) Download the Dal Gemmell Interview on one “Vendor’s” view of MVP Nation. Dal is responsible for Endpoint Protection on desktops and servers for the small business market. He gives us some insight on why anti-virus is not enough, and how you might discuss that with you clients. He also gives some info on the integration of Backup Exec and other products with our standard SMB Tools.  

This article was originally posted March 4, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Greg Starks from HP Gives a Great Intro to iQuote   What do you need from HP? What have you always needed from HP? A “Configuration” Quoting Tool! Well, in this member podcast, Greg Starks from HP shows us the great stuff you can do with HP’s new iQuote tool. There are three ways to use the tool . . . including using their API to integrate it right into your company web site.   Member Download: Interview with Greg Starks, March 2012 Links Mentioned in, or related to this podcast: – HPiquote.net – HP’s press release was in June when the first US distributor turned on iQuote:http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/110628a.html?mtxs=rss-corp-news – Here is the blog announcement Greg did Feb 13 to introduce HP iQuote Universal:http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Coffee-Coaching-HP-and-Microsoft/Announcing-HP-iQuote-Universal/ba-p/107019  (Note: There are now 16 countries using iQuote.) – The general info/landing page for iQuote is: ht

This article was originally posted March 4, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Interviews with Jeff Middleton on IT Pro Conference and Tom Poole on SMB Nation   I caught up with a few more folks at MVP Nation in Redmond. After two days on content, content, content, I managed to talk to a few community members about what’s next. Then I nabbed Jeff Middleton again to give us the low-down on his June conference. So here’s the line up of new down-loads: 1) Download the Jeff Middleton interview on the IT Pro Conference 2012. Jeff gives us the information and a great introduction to the theme of this year’s IT Pro 2012 conference in New Orleans. Once I heard New Orleans, I agreed to go! Join me. Details: 2-Day French Quarter Weekend Conference  New Orleans June 8 & 9, 2012 With a pre-day “brain explosion” event by Third Tier on June 7th. I’ll be at Jeff’s conference . . . and THEN wander off to Orlando for the Autotask Community Live conference on June 10-12. That whole trip will be 75% brain overload and 25

This article was originally posted March 3, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Member Podcasts from MVP Nation – Part 1 I ran into Arnie Mondloch and Dave Sobel in Redmond this week. I was there for the MVP Nation show. Arnie’s in charge of Windows Evangelization program worldwide and has some great information on how partners can get involved in the development of Apps, Apps, Apps for the new Windows 8 and Windows 8 Metro platform. The official title of his group is the Worldwide Platform Evangelism Group. Two products Arnie mentions in this interview are: – Microsoft Platform Ready –http://www.microsoftplatformready.com Microsoft Action Pack for Development & Design – https://partner.microsoft.com/US/40171463 Note: Arnie is also a Gonzaga University grad! Go Bulldogs! Member Download:   Interview with Arnie Mondloch March 2, 2012     – – – – – Dave Sobel is the new Partner interface for Level Platforms. He has some very cool things going on, including an offer to engage with the existing SMB and SBS

This article was originally posted March 3, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. I’m having a great time at MVP Nation in Redmond. We’re on the Microsoft campus and I had a chance to catch up with a number of great people. I recorded six short podcasts yesterday. The first two podcasts are under the category of “SMB Community Podcasts.” That means they’re free and open to the world. First, I talked to Jeff Middleton about the MVP Roadshow that is just finishing. Thanks to the help of dozens of Microsoft MVPs, this show hit more than 50 cities all over the world. Jeff gives us a report on that. Download the Jeff Middleton interview on Microsoft MVP Roadshow Here. Second, I caught up with Dave Seibert from SMB Technology Network. SMBTN is helping to compile the list of the SMB 150 again this year. So nominations are closed and there are about 400 candidates to choose from. Voting has begun and you can go vote now at http://www.smb150.com. Download the Dave Seibert interview on the SMB150 Here. In addition to t

This article was originally posted February 22, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. This program was recorded and is posted here.   Harry Brelsford Announces Webcast of MVP Nation I had a phone call with Harry two days ago while he was in the Bay Area. He gave me a lot of updates: – Cloud Connect Conference – MVP Nation – Windows 8 and the MVPs – Hotel information for MVP Nation   Harry also announced (and asked me to keep under wraps for a couple days), the fact that he has partnered with Zenith’s MSP TV to webcase the MVP Nation Conference. For information on the MVP Nation Conference and the $99 webcasting for two days of solid content, visit http://mvp.smbnation.com/.   I’ll be at MVP Nation . . . so if you’re there, look me up! And I’ll be podcasting from the show. For the full press release on this, see http://blog.smallbizthoughts.com. This program was recorded and is posted here.

This article was originally posted February 22, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. This program was recorded and is posted here.   Jerry Koutavas / ASCII Updates I caught up with Jerry K from The ASCII group to talk about ASCII Success Summits for 2012, the ASCII Cup, and more. Find out how to contact Jerry for a free pass to one of the ASCII Success Summits.   Links mentioned in this podcast: –www.asciievents.com – Follow the ASCII Cup at http://www.tripline.net/trip/Where_is_the_ASCII_Cup_-50552312153010049976FED79C206258   This program was recorded and is posted here.

This article was originally posted January 19, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable This program was recorded and is posted here.   Dave Sobel Joins Level Platforms Podcast posted – A free-flowing discussion with Dave Sobel.   I caught up with Dave this week while he is in London, in a sweet little flat he rents by the week. As you may know, Dave has been a powerful member of the SMB community for some time. He has been a leader in the Microsoft MVP space, in the virtualization and cloud computing world, in HTG, and in the community at large. Dave recently sold his managed service business and accepted a job with Level Platforms   https://www.facebook.com/djdave https://twitter.com/#!/djdaveet http://www.smbbooks.com/products/mssob01.htm   The book is Virtualization Defined – Now only $39.95 The DVD set is Designing, Implementing and Making Money with Virtual Environments – Now only $49.95 . . . Members download the podcast now.  

This article was originally posted January 15, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable This program was recorded and is posted here. Part One of this Interview is posted here. Interview Continued: Joyce Blonskij – Own the Clouds: The First Guide To Investing In Cloud Computing Companies This is Part 2 of my interview with investment advisor and author Joyce Blonskij. Joyce is the author of Own the Clouds – The First Guide To Investing In Cloud Computing Companies. This book will be released on January 31st, 2012. For more information on the big “Virtual Launch Party” and a bunch of free give-aways, see http://owntheclouds.com/. In this follow-up interview, Joyce gives some tips about getting started in Wall Stree investmenting. Joyce als introduced the four Key Cloud Elements – so you can identify cloud companies you want to own. She also introduces a chart called a Bollinger Band – her favorite kind of charting tool The book will be only $24.95, and that prices includes a number of give-aways you can find out abou