My 2013 New Year’s Resolution

My New Year’s Resolution, start writing my blog again.

Happy New Year 2013

I have been on hiatus while I moved across country and started my new job. While on my break, I discovered a couple of things. First, I missed writing. Second, I need to write. When I write I am able to empty some of the thoughts that bounce around my head before they cause serious damage.

We have all read time management books, listened to experts, even tried different “things”. The one thing I have learned, is some things are more important than others, and what makes them important is they keep me sane. Well more sane anyway. So no matter how full my plate is, I have to make room for the sanity savers.

Manage Time

I have settled into my new position and have a whole bunch of new fodder for my technical sales blogs. I look forward to getting them on pixels soon.

I hope you all have a great New Year and are able to fit the important things into it. 2013 is shaping up to be an exciting, productive and profitable year. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Unified Communication

There were a couple of communication related stories today. Hotmail got a reboot, and looks very clean. It is now called Outlook.com and I logged in for the first time in 7+years. Yahoo email and messenger had some outages today, welcome Marissa Mayer. Twitter reinstated Guy Adams Twitter account. What do these three stories have in common? They show us what is good, bad, and ugly in communications.

Hotmail is now Outlook.com

First Outlook.com. Hotmail may have been my 2^nd or third email service and if I recall correctly I created it to log into Microsoft support sites… It was a mess. Typical email client where no thought was given to how the interface would be used by people. I remember how excited I was to get my early invite to Gmail and how clean the page looked. How…usable it was. Now, so is Hotmail umm, ah, Outlook.com. This is the good. Taking something less usable and making it better.

Yahoo Email and Messenger

The bad. Yahoo. One of my friends posted today he didn’t know which was worse, not getting email from Yahoo, or admitting you still use Yahoo for email. It is showing the problem of the company as a whole. Something that doesn’t work that well, even if you wanted to you it. They have a lot of work to do to raise themselves to the level of a bad provider.

Twitter Killing themselves

The ugly. Twitter has again shown ways it can’t be trusted. Due to its business relationship with NBC, tweets were being monitored and when a Twitter user included an email of an NBC executive, the Twitter staff alerted NBC and suggested they file a complaint, which they did, causing the Twitter users account to be suspended. The problem? The email address is on NBC’s website, it is public. Another problem? Monitoring tweets for content. Enough of an issue was raised that Twitter reinstated the account and apologized, but not for why or how they disabled the account. They continue to state the post was a violation. This will be great the next time people start tweeting about the next uprising in the Middle East and Twitter shuts them down for the content of their tweets. Ugly.

We all learn every day and especially in the always on global social media pool. But whatever your platform, it has to be on, it has to be usable, and it has to be open or you might as well open a telegraph office.

Samuel Morse Telegraph

Go West young Man, Go West.

Horace Greeley is believed to have given this advice to the men of America in an editorial written in 1865, you can read more about it here. Greeley favored westward expansion. He saw the fertile farmland of the west as an ideal place for people willing to work hard for the opportunity to succeed. So do I.

Go West Young Man, Go West!

Those of you who know me, know how important it is for me to be a passionate advocate for the company and product I work for. I have been fortunate to have been in this position over the many years I have worked in the SMB space. The great news is I get to be in that position again.


I am pleased to announce that I have accepted a position with Axcient. For those of you who do not know them, Axcient is one of the leading providers of Data Backup, Business Continuity, and Disaster Recovery hardware and software. In my role there I will be assisting Axcient and their partners grow their businesses.

Axcient

My position with Axcient may not be a big surprise to those of you who saw I was supporting them at the Autotask Community Live event this June in Orlando. One of the great things about being with the Axcient team in Orlando was getting to see so many people who were my partners with Autotask, are now my partners with Axcient. I expect those relationships to just continue to get better and better.


I am honored and excited to be working with Agent Less and the rest of the team at Axcient, and I’m looking forward to seeing and talking to all of you about them soon. So if you are a current Axcient Partner, please contact me and let me know why you love Axcient. Or if you are someone who should be an Axcient Partner because you need a Backup/ Business Continuity/ Disaster Recovery solution for your clients, please contact me and let me help you understand how Axcient can meet both your, and your client’s needs. 

The Old Dutch Open

We have an event in my family started by my uncle Jim 32 years ago called the Old Dutch Open. The Old Dutch is a Frisbee Golf tournament that is held every spring on my Great Grandparents farm in Southern Ohio. Every spring around 20 participants gather, along with many additional family and extended family members, to celebrate life.

Official Sponsor of The ODO

I have learned many life lessons at this event, and as I often do, I’ll share some of them with you here and explain how they make sense to me.

The first lesson I learned was give everyone a chance to join. There are a lot of different kinds of people who play, and that makes it more enjoyable. Some of them are family that I have known all my life. Some, friends of the family that I’ve know my whole life as well. Some went to college with my Uncle, I have known them since the start of the tournament 32 years ago and are now like family. Then there is everyone else, friends of friends, one time players, school friends of the children of the players, work friends, it goes on and on.

Why was this important? When I started working with salespeople, I found them like players at the Old Dutch. Some I were closer to, some not so much, but I had to play with all of them. Not only play with them, but compete at a high level. Learning coping skills for different personalities helps a lot. Everyone in your organization needs to be given the chance to join in and win.

17th Green

The second lesson is truly a life lesson. Sometimes you are leading, sometimes in last. Some days things come easy, some days not. Luck may be with you, or playing against you. Guess what? You still have to play. Grip your Frisbee, look where you want to throw it, wind up and let it go, watch it fly, keeping your eyes on it because it rarely lands exactly where you aimed. Walk to the Frisbee and do it all over again. Sometimes you don’t have a good throw, or a good option to make the next throw so you have to make the best shot you can, because you do have to throw.

Just like life. Make a decision, see the results, make the next decision based on your options. After the game is over you can look back at the bad decisions or missed opportunities, while you are playing you have to think about the next shot. I have seen salespeople struggle with this as well. You have to do what you can with what you have in the sales process. You can visualize the perfect sales process, but you have to sell in the one you have.

The third lesson I’ll share today is have fun, it is a game. This doesn’t mean don’t try, or don’t care, it means if trying and caring make you forget you are playing you need to reverse the order. I have been playing when I was near the top of the leader board and all of the sudden I get ultra-serious. The first thing that tends to happen when I do this is my game goes to hell. My shots get erratic. I then get even more serious and frustrated. I also stop having fun. If the game isn’t fun why are you playing?

Same with work. If it isn’t fun, why not? Why do it? Money is always the answer, but few of us have a position that pays so well we can’t get close to it doing something we like to do. Life should equal fun, if not, look at your life.

So close...

So I’ll be throwing a Frisbee over the hills of Southern Ohio this week, having fun, with my extended family, hoping everyone else in the world gets to experience happiness like this.

Business Travel Demo

Let’s say you are packing for a business trip and you can only take a carry-on. I can see the guys nodding yes and the girls wondering what they are going to do about shoes. Right away we can see a difference in how people pack. What you think is essential, I see as optional at best, and frivolous at worse. So what are the essentials? Well, it depends…

 What kind of meeting is it? Formal? Casual? Business casual? Where is it? In the South? North? West Coast? Winter? Summer? Every one of these items may effect what you pack. It is the same with your demos.

For every demo, there is a perfect combination of things we should show and things we shouldn’t. In 25 years of demoing, I’ve had that happen maybe a dozen times. These were the times the demo was packed just right. Most of the time I forget to pack something, or drag out that old sweater I never seem to need but can’t leave at home. Just because the demo isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, or even great.

What makes the difference between a demo that is perfect, great and good? Thinking about the demo and packing correctly. As I said before, packing perfectly is hard, but there is a trick you can use. When I pack for a business trip I always do two things. One, I travel in business attire, I have had airlines lose carry-on luggage before. When you land at midnight and have a seven o’clock presentation, I can tell you there are no stores open, and wearing a Black Sabbath tee shirt, shorts and flip flops will give you less credibility than you would think… Two, I pack an emergency kit. It is a little bag that has a little bit of everything in it. Safety pins, duct tape, eye glass screwdriver, couple of wire ties… lots of stuff… It has saved my trip, let it save your demo too.

Now maybe a wire tie will fix your demo, but what I have in my demo emergency kit are workflows. Smooth, slick, logical workflows. These workflows are generic enough to cover a lot of bases if your “custom” demo script missed the mark for some reason. You may have packed for San Fran and ended up going to San Antonio.

Plan your trip, check the weather, pack your bag and plan on something to go wrong and your trip will always be successful. 

2012 SMB 150

The SMB 150 is produced by SMB Technology Network (SMBTN) and SMB Nation and brought to you by BlackBerry. The SMB 150 honors individuals who have made a significant impact on the worldwide small and medium business (SMB) channel.  A three-part process determined this year's list of SMB 150 influencers. The competition began with an open nominating process, followed by the SMB IT community voting on the nominees at www.smb150.com. In addition to the community vote, a panel of industry experts judged each nominee based on a variety of relevant areas. The community vote accounted for 40% of each nominee's overall rating, with the expert panel's decision contributing the remaining 60%.

I am excited to tell you that I have been selected for this honor this year. You can find the entire list here. As you look through the list, you can see why I am so excited to be included on any list with these superstars, but really excited to be considered one of the 150 most influential people in the SMB channel worldwide with them.

What does this mean? To me it means my peers think I make a difference by helping people run their businesses in the SMB space. That is huge. Gaining the trust of vendors, partners, and users in an industry is humbling, and empowering. I hope I am able to reach and assist more people in adding to their business with my inclusion with this elite group.

A big Thank You to all who nominated and voted for me, as well as the panel for their endorsement. And no, I’m not moving to Hollywood now. I’ll still be here, writing my blog, helping the SMB community.

Monitor Yourself

For many years I have helped IT companies understand and grow their businesses. There are many people and companies out there telling you how to do this. A lot of their advice focuses on adding products or services to grow your business. What if you could measure yourself?


That is what Corelytics helps you do. Measure your own business. The exciting news is they are having a roadshow. So if you have ever wanted to check them out, they are come to you, or close anyway.

They’re hosting the 12-City Small Business Tour with Intuit, Microsoft, Constant Contact, Concur, Cisco and T-Mobile.  First city is Seattle April 12. Complete dates and venues will be published on the Tour website. Here is their official press release.


Seattle/Bellevue, April 12 
San Francisco, May 17
Los Angeles, May 24
Houston, June 14
Raleigh/Durham, TBA
Dallas, TBA
Denver, TBA
Atlanta, TBA
Boston, TBA
Philadelphia, TBA
New York, TBA
Chicago, TBA


You cannot grow your business if you don’t know your business. You need software like this to help understand your business.


I can help you go, I have some discounts and a couple of free passes.

Commodity Trader

Let me start with a definition. Commodity: “In economics, a commodity is the generic term for any marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs.” This is from Wikipedia, I hyperlinked if you want to know more about them. In addition the description goes on the state: “…the market treats it as equivalent or nearly so no matter who produces it.” If you are reading this, you may be a commodity.

Don’t feel bad, but it is something you need to know. Unless you produce something or provide services than no one else or a small number of people provide, you and your products are commodities.  

Many of the people I talk to are in the IT Services market. There was a time when computers equaled magic. No longer. It is really hard to charge more for servicing a product than it is worth. Think home appliances. When was the last time you took a toaster to the Mr. FixIt shop downtown? Even your big screen TV? Not worth the cost. We don’t spend the money when we can put it towards newer, better, faster, even if it has only been a year or two.

What makes a TV different from a computer? Data. Your customer’s data is not a commodity. So while the hardware, software, network, or provider that is used to access the data may be a commodity, but the data never is.

So if you want to be “less” of a commodity, tie yourself to the data.

Miner 49er…

Two really interesting stories that are more connected that you might think.

The first was Google admitting to circumventing the security of the Safari browser when it was set to prohibit websites from using tracking cookies. You can find that story here.

The second was in Forbes talking about how retailer Target was able to identify that a teenage girl was pregnant before her father was able to know. That story is here.

Both stories have one common theme. Data Mining. Whether it is mining the data from store purchases and using that data to generate more sales, or mining the data from internet searches to generate better searches and ad revenue, it is still data mining.

So this data mining doesn’t have to be evil or even a breach of privacy. If you want to see who Google thinks you are, go here. This is some of the data they use to provide suggestions and ads to you. I can tell you I think this is much more helpful that the old way ads used to be put on search portals or in the results.

We all want great customer support. We all want our computers and websites to read our minds. We all want this to happen without sharing any data. We are all dreaming, and Google can tell us about what with about an 80% accuracy…

Managing for Success 2012

I hope my blog helps people. I write my blog with the hope that my words will make people think, and help them in their business. So while this isn't a typical blob post for me to make, it does what I want my blog to do, help you. I can think of no better way to do this than to tell you about a good friend of mine and an even he is holding. 

Karl is an author, speaker, and trainer who focuses on helping computer consultants and I.T. Professionals improve their business practices. He is widely regarded as someone who provides click-by-click instructions on how to be a successful technology consultant. He is the author of nine books (available at SMBBooks.com). His blog - SmallBizThoughts.com - has more than 40,000 visitors a month and is considered a training resource for many I.T. consultants. The blog has experienced an audience growth rate of almost 600% over the last year.

Karl is hosting a 3-day online conference for computer consultants in June 2012. The conference will focus on building successful business processes and will feature some of the best business and technology speakers in the U.S.

Have you ever wanted to attend an IT conference on running your business? Have you ever wanted to go to a conference without the travel? Now you can.

Speakers include . . .

Karl W. Palachuk - Author, Blogger, Managed Service Provider

Patrick Schwerdtfeger - International Speaker, Author, Social Media Expert

Stephanie Chandler - Author, Online Marketing Expert

Bob Godgart - Industry Pioneer, Entrepreneur

Arlin Sorensen - Community Leader, Super-Successful MSP

Matt Makowicz - Author, Coach, Trainer

Ken Thoreson - Sales Trainer, Sales Management Expert

Josh Peterson - Professional Coach and Business Consultant

Stuart Selbst - Professional Coach

Bob Nitrio - Managed Service Provider, I.T. Pro Leader

Dave Sobel - Author, Trainer, Virtualization MVP

George Sierchio - Author, Coach, M&A Specialist

. . . and others we can't name yet. Stay Tuned

Go here for more information.

http://www.smbonlineconference.com/

I hope you get the chance to meet and know Karl as well as I know him. As well as these other speakers that I am proud to call Partners, vendors, and friends. 

Phil’s Shadow

Groundhog Day. It is a perfect holiday. Made up and everyone knows it, knows it doesn’t matter, but needs to know anyway. Do you have any Groundhog days in your business?

You know those things that you worry about, think about, obsess about, but really mean nothing? Maybe you have a “thing” about employee time off, or personal internet use, or whatever, is this really what makes your business special or unique?

In your mind right now, list the top 5 things that take you to the next level. Is your Groundhog Day on that list? I bet not. Top 10 or 20 list even? I would say no. So maybe if you took the effort you spent looking for shadows and applied it to items 1 through 5 you would be better off.

Don’t let Phil’s shadow distract you from heading to the light.

There Is Still Time…Brother

I just re-watched the 1959 adaptation of the book, “On the Beach”. You can follow the hyperlink to more about the story. Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, end of the world, how can you go wrong? What really struck me was how different people deal with the end.

The end of the day, the end of work, the end of a job, relationship, friendship, life. Whatever is ending, everyone deals with it differently. So how do you deal with endings?

There are several “groups” of reactions. Denial, just act like everything is fine. Overreaction, the sky is falling the sky is falling. Adult, deal with the issues and move on. I’m sure I could make smaller sub-groups, but these will do.

The key part is, there is still time. If you see an end and you are proactive, there is still time. Time to plan. Don’t deny what you see and know, use that information. Don’t overreact, all things end. Do be an adult and develop a separation plan.

No one wants to start a partnership with an exit plan, but when will you be more reasonable or fair. Once emotion kicks in? No, make sure you have thought about the end, it is thinking about you.

All things do end, but there is still time…brother.

Fish Tank Sales Timer

I have a fish tank in my office, I have for years. I love the way the sound of the bubbles and water can help be de-stress my day. It is a great sales tool reminder too.

How is that you say? Well, it gets dirty. What do you have to do when a tank gets dirty? Clean it, right. Every time I clean my tank, I also clean my sales pipeline.

Having something that has to be done on a regular schedule that is right in front of my face every day, helps me. So think of my fish tank as a giant sales timer that helps me clean my deals on a regular basis.

Your fish tank might be golf, or bowling, or emptying the trash, or paying bills, but tying need to do tasks to want to do tasks makes sure everything gets done.

Time to feed my timers…

Big Extended Dysfunctional Family

Or I could have called this blog, connectors in your life. Or don't F people, karma works. Because I have seen an overwhelming response from the channel.

Most of you who read my blog know I lost my latest gig recently. I did what I do, I talked about it, in my blog, on Facebook, on Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, text, hell I may have even spoken to someone about it. And the response from everyone has been amazing.

As most of you know I am a positive person. I believe things happen for reasons and you are more likely to see your next greatest thing with your chin up. I have talked to people who told me they heard from multiple people that they should speak to me. This type of story is helping carry me through.

Where did all these great people come from? While I’m not sure I deserve them, I think I earned them by being their friend when they needed one. Connecting someone here, an idea there, passing a lead, taking a call, showing someone how, telling what I know, and generally just being one of the big extended dysfunctional family that is the SMB community.

Thank you all and keep it coming, by the way, Mom loves me best.

The State of Your Business

Tonight the President will give the State of the Union Speech. Well, to be accurate he will give the State of the Union as he sees it Speech. Which begs the question, do you do the same with your business?

Objectivity is a hard thing to have when looking at yourself. For most of us, our business is us. So looking at our business is just as hard as looking at ourselves objectively. So hard in fact we spend lots and lots of money to join peer groups or hire consultants to be honest for us.

Believe me, I’m not saying not to do those things, in fact I encourage it. But before you spend a dime to get someone else’s honest opinion, give your own honest opinion.

Do you feel a little sick to your stomach hearing what you said? No? Go back and do it again, more honest. Think like your spouse. There, you got it. Now when you pay someone to give their opinion, you have something honest to compare it too.

Be sure to give the opposition their rebuttal as well.  

Changes

Changes happen everyday. Whether we want them, or cause them, or deny them, they happen. So the best we can hope for is to deal with them.

Change is a good healthy thing. This view is not normally seen until sometime in the future. I bet if you look back at most major changes in your life, they helped you grow.

When we make a change, it is better than when a change happens to us. At least it seems that way to me. It gives us that illusion of control. The biggest defense we have against change is choice.

We get to choose. Sometimes this choice causes change, and sometimes the choice deals with change, but the choice is our control.

Anti-Failure

Generally there are two schools of thought when it comes to winning. You won or you failed, or we are all winners. I’ll offer another option. To not try is to fail, to not achieve is to not win. Anti-failure.

So the phrase Anti-failure has meaning to me. Success is never a given. Even with 100% effort, focus and desire, the plan may not succeed. Is this a failure? I say no, I say it is an Anti-failure.

Failure is giving up. Never trying to better yourself. Never striving for more. Being content with what life hands you, now that is failure. So the opposite of that? Pushing, strengthening, striving, driving, that is all Anti-failure.

So I choose an Anti-Failure life where I may fall short, I may skin my knees, I may not win, but I will not concede.  

Inspecting Belly Buttons

The last couple of days my company has been doing our QBR (Quarterly Business Review). This is a great exercise for a company, and specifically a department to show and tell the good and the bad. The successes and failures and most importantly, lessons learned.

Do you do this in your business? No matter how big or how small your business, this should be a cornerstone of what you do. each member of the team should have individual goals that they should be accountable to to their team. The team should be accountable to the department, and the departments to the company as a whole.

Lessons learned is also a key part. Knowledge share in a company is a key way to grow success. Don’t make every department learn their own lessons. Share Failure to grow success.

Is CES Relevant?

There has been a lot of buzz about the validity of the Computer Electronics Show now that Microsoft is pulling out of this event. This is a couple of years after Apple stopped going to CES and started launching their own products at their own events. So does CES matter?

Of course it does. The main reason it matters is that we are talking about it right now. I think it matters less as a launching pad for the big vendors, but the start-ups and up and comers it give a lot of exposure to the media that they can’t get otherwise.

My Google+ feed has been full of CES news and next big things. The most interesting to me? Waterproof electronics. Really when it comes to personal electronics water is the number one killer. A company Liquipel has developed a nanotechnology-based coating that can make your electronic devices waterproof for around $69.

Want to get noticed? make a phone that you can drop in the pool, or take to the beach without a ziplock. Now that is a magical device.

iPhone Turns 5 Today

“Every once in awhile a revolutionary product come along that changes everything” - Steve Jobs. Steve said this during the Macworld Conference & Expo in 2007. I think he was more right than even he could have guessed at that time.

Keep in mind that the Motorola Q, Palm Treo, Blackberry, and Nokia E62 were the leading “smart” phones at the time. These we a very good blend between a PDA and a phone, very usable. I had an E62 and thought the ability to get email and “search” the Internet was amazing, even though I was getting text based results that reminded me of when I was using my 300 BPS modem and CompuServe.

Once the iPhone was released, nothing in the Mobile phone industry was the same. What was considered acceptable screen resolution, interface design, data access, would never be the same. In addition things like infrastructure updates that would need to be made due to the data requirements of these devices. New products like Google’s Android were created because of it and some products like RIM’s Blackberry is dying.

Love it or hate it, the iPhone has changed everything.