SMB Community Podcast

After a 20 year career as a commercial general contractor and 25 years as a small business consultant and IT provider, Bob Nitrio made two major decisions. The first was to move from California to Arizona for family purposes. The second was to move way from managed services and concentrate on his partnership with a software developer who had some amazing ideas for how mobile phones could be used b...

I caught up with Terry Hedden from Marketopia for this podcast. Normally, I see Terry on the road, but we're going to miss each other for the next few months. AND he's got a big sales coaching event coming up while I'm down in Australia. So, it was good to catch up on the podcast. Terry started out as an IT service provider. He built and sold a 49 person MSP in 6 years. Now he runs Marketopia, the...

Jay McBain is Forrester's Principal Analyst, Channels, Partnership, and Alliances. He's always fun to talk to. And get ready to listen to this one two or three times. Jay drops numbers all the time. So go get a pencil before you hit "play." You can connect with Jay at: https://go.forrester.com/blogs/author/jay_mcbain/ Jay is one of the most visible thought leaders in the global technology channel....

I caught up with Rayanne Buchianico from Sell My MSP ( http://www.sellmymsp.com ). She gave us the big update on their 2019 Refresh. It's more than a web site update. They've got a new valuation tool and more. Rayanne Buchianico Rayanne owns ABC Solutions in Clearwater, FL. She help MSPs get their finances straightened in order to run their company most efficiently. As you can imagine, this includ...

I always see Mr. Tim Conkle on the road - as places like ChannelPro. Luckily, I got to catch up with him on the SMB Community Podcast. Tim Conkle - The 20 Tim holds over 30 years of entrepreneurial success in the Information Technology and Services sector. As a leading voice in the Managed IT Service Provider space, Tim is dedicated to developing simple, solid IT solutions for SMB clients and MSPs...

Dominica DeGrandis is Director of Digital Transformation at Tasktop, where she helps customers improve the flow of work across value streams. Responsible for introducing customers to flow-based aspects of digital transformation, she guides IT teams and business teams to learn and adopt new ways of working to improve performance. Dominica is the author of "Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft t...

I think I met Jamison about 2006 at SMB Nation. Since then, he has bought a few companies, built a few companies, and sold a few companies. Even today he owns a few companies. He calls himself a serial entrepreneur, but I consider that a parallel entrepreneur. Personally, I think all small business owners should have at least two companies. But that's another story. Here we chat a bit about TimeZe...

I met Allen Edwards all the way back in April of this year. I've already seem him at events in two states. We even shared a beer (or two) in Albuquerque. Allen help IT Professionals create great processes. Allen Edwards began his I.T. career in 1994. He founded his first I.T. company in 2002, and in ten short years led his firm through a transition from break/fix to MSP, from custom ticketing to A...

In 2008, Brooke Ferguson, MBA packed up her business consulting practice and moved it online. Her objective was simple: keep growing her business while she saw the world. Brooke spent a number of years traveling, while keeping Thailand as her "home base." Eventually, she realized that she wanted to make beautiful Krabi, Thailand her home. She has since set up her business beachside, and helps othe...

I caught up with my brother Manuel after he returned from a triumphant tour of Europe and the UK. He's got some cool things going on the second half of the year, including a big Coaches Mastermind event at CompTIA's ChannelCon . We talked about Manuel's coaching and consulting, and then did a deep dive into a few topics. First up: Culture! How do you create culture on purpose? And what happens if...

I always love catching up with Jeff Ponts from DataTel Solutions. If you attend a few conferences a year, you are likely to have seen Jeff somewhere. Jeffery Ponts is COO/Executive Vice President and founder of Datatel Solutions Inc. Datatel Solutions is an Integrated Communications Provider (ICP), and systems integrator focusing on marketing, delivering, and managing best-of-breed data and teleco...

I caught up with my good friend Joshua Liberman for this SMB Community Podcast. Josh is a great community leader and the owner of Net Sciences in Albuquerque, NM. Joshua Liberman In this podcast, Josh walks us through the various elements they offer (and bundle) for their clients. I asked Josh to talk about this because it's the basis for a presentation I've seen him make. Josh has worked on this...

I interviewed Mas Malik from Virtiant.com for this SMB Community Podcast. Mas is the VP of Sales and Marketing. Mas Malik Virtiant provides "Disaster Recovery as a Service" – without the onsite BDR hardware. It is VMWare-centric and able to recreate your environment in the cloud, so "failover" to the cloud can happen without users needing to repoint IP addresses or make other changes. As they desc...

I talked to Zack Rosenberg about his custom video program – Catapult. As Zack points out, by 2021 more than 82% of internet traffic will be against video, a number that will accelerate once everyone has 5G internet speeds. Video is pricey and difficult to do, especially when SMB's spend around 2 hours a week on marketing. Basically, Catapult creates interesting and entertaining videos that you can...

I was happy to interview Harry on the official announcement of his new book – How to Be An MSP . It is now officially released. In this interview, Harry also announces another new adventure: A serious focus on the cannabis industry as the largest new vertical opportunity for the next ten years. Harry is also launching a new site, effective immediately: http://420msp.com/ I have read the new book a...

This interview with Ken Dwight covers a lot of territory. Ken Dwight Ken train IT Pros on cutting-edge virus fighting and virus remediation. He show folks how to dig into the guts of machines to do much more than "remove" viruses. Rather than "Nuking and Paving," Ken teaches how to dig in and remove all the remnants of viruses – even those left over after AV software has removed the virus. As Ken...

Had a great interview with Lori Tisinai from the IT Owners Compass conference – www. ITOCompass.com . Lori Tisinai ITO Compass is April 27-28 in downtown Chicago, with a reception the night before. Plan to join me there! I am proud to be the keynote speaker for this conference. And there will be many other speakers as well. Please see the web site for details. In this interview, Lori walks through...

I caught up with one of my favorite coaches, James Kernan, a few days ago. James Kernan He was eager to talk about the Ten Best Practices for a Successful Sales Organization. James runs the Millionaire Mastermind Group – Meeting in Orlando March 28-29. For more information, visit KernanConsulting.com . You can also catch up with James at the SMB TechFest show in Anaheim April 18th. Here's a quick...

I interviewed Alex Hoff from Auvik from my hotel room in Chicago. Topic: Managed Network Services: Your Next Critical Opportunity. Best comment is that entrepreneurs always go where the white space is. Love that. Whenever you create an offering, you need to go where very few people (or no one) are hanging around. Auvik allows you to monitor complex client networks – with a specific focus on more c...

I interviewed Amy yesterday on three topics. Two (Third Tier and the SBT Community meeting) were quick. We spent most of our time on the topic of mergers, acquisitions, and "Sell My MSP." Amy Babinchak Best comment is a quote from Will Smith. What do I have to do today to keep this going? Where do I have BE to keep this going? Unlike the massive MSP merger/acquisition stories you see on Channele2e...

I always love to catch up with Chip Reaves from Bigger Brains. This interview is no exception. Bigger Brains is an educational service that you can resell to your clients. They have more than one hundred e-learning modules for everything from Office 365 to Microsoft Teams, QuickBooks, and more. The way their service works is that MSPs buy end user licenses in bulk and then sell them to their clien...

I interviewed Pete Langas from Nerdio – GetNerdio.com . Pete is the Sr. Director of Strategic Partnership and Distribution at Nerdio. Nerdio empowers managed service providers to build and/or rapidly grow their cloud IT practices through what Pete calls a "ridiculously simple IT management platform" for public and private cloud. Nerdio for Azure is the first IT automation technology that delivers...

Many people know Len DiCostanzo from his years at Autotask and Datto. Now he's out on his own, helping IT consultants under the moniker MSP Toolkit. Len is a huge fan of ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) and best practices. He's also dedicated to models that focus on recurring revenue. I ran into Len at the NexGen Conference and Expo in December. We sat in on each others' sessio...

Erick Simpson is my long-time friend and fellow coach. My good friend Erick Simpson, formerly the Co-Founder, Senior Vice President, and CIO of SPC International, is now out doing consulting on his own. This is his first interview in his new role as an IT Business Transformation and Channel Growth Expert. Erick is an author and consultant, a former MSP, a great coach, and one of the pioneers of th...

This SMB Community Podcast is the sixth in a six-part series entitled Go To Market with Remote Support Service, with Dave Sobel, Senior Director of MSP Evangelism at SolarWinds MSP. Dave starts out this episode focusing on using the Take Control tool as a way to differentiate yourself from other service providers. More specifically, he has a great analogy about the place of Take Control in your of...