SMB Community Podcast

Earlier this year I spoke at the Retail IT VAR of the Future Conference, sponsored by Business Solutions Magazine. In this interview, I talk to Jim Roddy, President of BSM, about the upcoming conferences called Channel Transitions. The conferences will be: Chicago – Sept. 24th and Orlando – Nov. 5th You can find out more at www.channeltransitions.com or www. BSMInfo.com . Jim Roddy The conferences...

Sell My MSP! What a great idea! I love the new project from Managed Service rock stars Amy Babinchak and Rayanne Buchianico for a number of reasons. Their new project is called Sell My MSP and the web site is www. SellMyMSP.com . It's a new clearinghouse for people looking to buy or sell an I.T. business. Sell My MSP The first reason I love this project is that it's very educational. You can reque...

While I was down under at the MAXfocus partner conference in Melbourne, Australia, I talked to a couple of the sponsors in the back of the room. Mark Winter Mark Winter from Rapid Fire Tools was promoting their Network Detective product. Rapid Fire Tools ( www.rapidfiretools.com ) already has a presence in Australia. Mark was here to meet partners as well as sign up some new partners. In this inte...

While I was in Australia for the MAXfocus Partner Conference, I was quite impressed with their plans to data mine their own tools. Dave Sobel I caught up with Dave Sobel, Director of Partner Community for LogicNow (MAXfocus). Dave's team is responsible for the MAX partner conferences and they did a great job with this one. I asked Dave about the whole "Big Data" initiative at MAX. He was very exci...

Todd Billiar Yesterday I talked with a couple of pros about the hiring environment for small IT shops. The good news: According to Todd Billiar from VAR Staffing, there's about a 1-2% unemployment rate for I.T. Consultants. The bad news: Everyone wants more money – even if they're not qualified. This podcast includes interviews with Todd as well as Josh Peterson, one of the great coaches in the IT...

Dave Seibert joins me for a look at tapping into Community Knowledge. Dave Seibert This conversation flows from a presentation I saw Dave give in Anaheim last year at the SMB Techfest ( www.smbtechfest.com ). In fact, I liked the presentation so much that I asked Dave to create a new version for the SMB Online Conference. There are people "talk" community and there are people who "do" community. D...

I had a great catch-up chat with Harry Brelsford from SMB Nation. He's busy with a couple of things going on at once. I know: Shocker! First up, SMB Nation is putting on the first "Behind the Curtains" training on Windows 10, in association with Microsoft. This is a vendor-free event. It is also sold out – but Harry has a waiting list. So be sure to register because that will guarantee you're on t...

Last week we had a report from Robin Robins' Big Seminar – www.robinsbigseminar.com . This is the second report on that event – featuring an interview with Robin herself on why this event is different from other events in the community. In this podcast, I interview four folks: Nadia Karatsoreos from MAXfocus, Stephen Swavley from Documentation Toolkit, Rob Rae from Datto, and Robin Robins from Tec...

We had a great time in Nashville for Robin Robins' Big Seminar – www.robinsbigseminar.com . I love this event because it's crowded with great partners who are totally dedicated to working ON their business (see my Small Biz Thoughts Blog post on this). In this podcast, I interview four folks: Jan Spring from eFolder, Jeff Dryall from Plan27, Nathan Brebner from Sandler Partners, and Bab Farkas fro...

This is the first report of two I'm doing on the Channel Partners Conference in Vegas last week. The primary reason I attended is that many, many, people at the Channel Pro SMB event in Baltimore kept asking me if I was going. I went a little early and connected with some folks. Then I stayed a little late and caught up with some others. I always recommend that strategy, as opposed to rushing in a...

I am fundamentally lazy. Or busy. Or both. As a result, I sometimes captures interviews while I'm out and about and then don't post them up right away. I'm going to be doing some catch-up here. I've got three quick interviews for you here. They are: Steve Noel, MSP Evangelist for Axcient Jeff Dryall, Directory of Business Development with Plan 27 and Kevin Jones, Sales Engineer, RapidFire Tools We...

Just in case you haven't heard of Third Tier . . . Third Tier ( www.thirdtier.net ) provides services for technology consultants. They provide education and assistance on a wide variety of topics. I caught up with Amy Babinchak a few days ago to find out what new and cool. It turns out there's LOTS of great news from Third Tier. Their SMB Kitchen project is going strong – with a new program coming...

Catch our Dec 16th Odd Tuesdays episode! Karl speaks with ChannelEyes ' Jay McBain about their mobile app platform for connecting Vendors and channel partners. Rayanne Buchianico also joins the show in our Oddballs segment. Rayanne talks about her MSP course – the Financial Processes That Make All the Difference . The course is geared for MSPs and covers such topics as: separation of accounting an...

Check out Nov 4th's Odd Tuesdays episode where Karl talks with Results Software 's Mike Honig about their expanded CRM system. And our Oddballs segment in this episode features Small Business MVP Amy Babinchak discussing the importance of MSPs building and developing vendor relationships. You can find the Nov 4th's episode here . Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for in...

I just got back from the big ChannelPro SMB Forum in Philadelphia. For more information on next year's events, visit http://events.channelpronetwork.com/ . At the event, I talked to a number of vendors. Here is present some quick shout-outs from Datto , Buffalo Tech , Excel Micro , Lenovo , and StorageCraft . Most importantly, I had a chance to hang out with Dave Seibert and sit on a cloud panel w...

I had a good visit with Rob T. Rae from Datto at the GFI Max 2014 conference this week. Later in the day, Datto was awarded both Best in Show and Best Exhibitor Interaction awards. Datto is a backup and disaster recovery company with about 400 employees worldwide. They're big in Canada, Europe, as well as the U.S. One big point for Rob was that they're focusing on a lot more than continuity. How d...

In the July 1st episode of Odd Tuesdays, Karl talks to Phil Elder and Susan Bradley from the SMBKitchen Project. The pair talk about the managed services educational programs they are involved in and offer the chance for a lucky Odd Tuesdays' listener to win a year-long membership to the SMBKitchen ASP Project . The episode also features Third Tier's Amy Babinchak in the show's reoccurring Oddball...

April 15th's episode of Odd Tuesdays, Ted Hulsy, VP of Marketing at eFolder joins Karl to talk about sync and security for MSPs and VARs. Rayanne Buchianico, from ABC Solutions also features in the episode in our Oddballs segment. Rayanne continues her QuickBooks tips series with today's tips surrounding the variety of preferences you can take advantage of in making QuickBooks much more user frien...

3D Printing – An Interview with Alan Ware Sacramento has a great organization called Hacker Lab – part hacker space, part maker space, and part co-working space. I joined last year and plan to cover a number of subjects related to the things they do there. This includes programming, Arduino, robotics, 3D printing, and more. This is an interview with Alan M. Ware, B.S.M.E. Alan is a 3D design and m...

Odd Tuesdays was launched this week by Host Karl Palachuk and Producer Monica Caraway. The Podcast is geared for I.T. Consultants and features what's new in tech management and best practices for running an I.T. business. The Podcast airs on the first and third Tuesdays of each month and features a variety of Vendor & MSP consultant interviews and advice segments. In the first episode, SMB Nation'...

Posted: Karl's State of the Nation Address for IT Consultants In case you couldn't listen live, we recorded the "State of the Nation" address. Recorded January 15, 2014 Notes from Karl Palachuk on the year gone by and the year ahead. Karl Palachuk Announces Odd Tuesdays Karl's Fifth Annual State of the Nation Address for I.T. Consultants 30 minutes. Key contents: – Windows 9 timeline ann...

Online or In Person: Partner Training with Third Tier I ran into Dave Seibert at the recent ChannelPro SMB Forum in New Jersey. He brought me up to speed on the SMB Tech Fest events he produces. The Sixth SMB Tech Fest will be October 19th in Irvine. Details are online at www.smbtechfest.com . The October 19th event will be presented by members of Third Tier, including Amy Babinchak herself! See t...

SaaS Marketplace Allows MSPs to Find Business Cloud Services to Resell Today SaaSMAX Corp. announced the official commercial release of their new SaaSMAX marketplace platform. A few days ago I recorded a short podcast with SaaSMAX Founder and CEO Dina Moskowitz about this announcement and the Saas Marketplace in general. Basically, SaaSMAX brings together channel resellers and app vendors, increas...

Stacey Powell: Take Your Finances to the Gym! Stacey Powell owns two businesses to help companies be more successful by managing their finances more effectively. At Creating Answers ( http://www.creatinganswers.com/ ), Stacey works with business owners to stop once a month and take a closer look at their numbers. Meanwhile, over at The Finance Gym ( http://thefinancegym.com/ ), she works with smal...

Need to Manage Amazon Web Services? ElasticTask Gets The Job Done One of the cool things I noticed about the Autotask Community Live event is that many partners are developing products and services that plug into Autotask. In all cases, these partners solved a problem internally and then turned that program into a product that can be used by others. One of the coolest I saw was ElasticTask. Elasti...