Richard Tubb's Blog, page 61

October 20, 2019

Compliance As Service for MSPs – TubbTalk #56

In this week’s interview I’m speaking with a good friend, and CEO of Keepabl, Robert Baugh. Keepabl is an award winning service solution that solves GDPR headaches for organisations. For MSPs, it really helps them to accelerate their revenue and reduce data risk.

An Interview with Robert Baugh

Robert was previously General Counsel and Director of VC backed growth SaaS companies, when he decided he wanted to start an MSP in compliance. We met when he was scouting Totally MSP and other events to see what launching an MSP involved, what the state of the market was and what issue MSPs were facing. After completing an Engineering Economics and Management Masters degree and then cross qualifying as a lawyer, he naturally gravitated towards technology law. This lead to joining a start-up called LoopUp, before being head hunted to another company. In his roles, Robert recruited MSP providers to help out with the aspects of technology that they needed done quickly. And he wanted to run one.

There is this great article about your start-up superpower. And Robert felt that that was missing in the industry. He wasn’t feeling any real synergy or electricity with MSPs. It wasn’t until an event in 2017, when everyone was talking about GDPR. All the MSPs customers were asking them about GDPR. They knew the processes, the data and the security. But they were scared of it. There were SaaS providers out there, but they were just too complicated, they were created for specialists. Robert knew he could create something that turned the complex into the simple. Not because MSPs couldn’t understand the complex. But because they already had so much on their plate. That is the superpower of Keepabl. At that is the point Robert switched from wanting to be an MSP, to a vendor for MSPs.

What is Keepabl?

So, what is Keepabl and what does it do?

Robert explains, that the ‘why’ of Keepabl is to joyfully use technology to solve people’s problems and make them feel happier. That’s what’s at the core of Keepabl. Their aim is to build out the salesforce.com or compliance effectively.

Full disclosure I’m an advisor to Keepabl and the reason is that it’s a beautiful product. It’s sophisticated and simple to use and those are words I never thought I’d say in relation to GDPR. But it is, and it absolutely fill the need that MSPs have with GDPR. And I can see so much opportunity going forward. The dislike that people feel towards GDPR, is the exact opportunity that makes Keepabl great. It makes people excited about GDPR.

Keepabl & GDPR Compliance

So, let’s look at those two things in tandem. We started by understanding that GDPR was a complex issue, something that scared most MSPs. Robert put a global company, LoopUp, though ISO 2710, and had felt like he was banging his head against a wall. But once it was done, it all clicked into place. The problem with compliance was that there is so much to understand and people just don’t have the time to take it on and learn it. They need someone else to take care of it for them.

Keepabl joins these two things. It joyfully uses tech to help solve the complexity of GDPR. MSPs know they need to deal with it, they know they’re going to be asked about it. They know they have warranties within their current contracts surrounding compliance. And they knew their customers were going to want help with it to. But it’s such a big and ambiguous topic. And this is where Keepabl comes in. The Keepabl system is incredibly comprehensive, and yet really, really simple. It does a lot of the heavy lifting in the background without you having to do any of the work. You just need to fill in a few things and it creates all of your reports. One of the great Keepabl features is the is the breach model. If you have a breach, you can enter them into Keepabl to keep a record, which is then sent to the MSP so that they can rapidly contain it.

What is GDPR?

Let’s rewind a little. We’ve mentioned GDPR quite a lot. And it’s been a few years now since GDPR has become a buzzword. And most people will have heard of it. But what is GDPR in layman’s terms?

GDPR is the ‘General Data Protection Regulation’ from the EU. It’s general as it applies to every single business, no matter what you do and no matter what you are doing with personal data. It’s not like, for example, HIPPA, which only applies to health information.

The data protection is not technical in the way that MSPs are used for making sure there is no leakage of data on email or, encryption and security, although this security is fundamental. But, the data protection is with regard to protecting the rights of individuals and their personal data. It’s the general law for everybody, covering everybody, whenever you’re touching personal data about people, using any information that could identify that person. And it’s directly applicable law in every single member state of the EU.

GDPR has overhauled the data protection laws which have been in place for over 20 years, and it put the individual and their rights front and centre. They have rights to access and erase their data. And the ‘right to be forgotten’ by any company that holds their data.

The fines that go along with GDPR have the potential to be huge. And so regulating the data and ensuring the risks are mitigated are highly important.

Even though it applies to all EU member states, it has already been decided that if (when) the UK leaves the EU we will still maintain the GDPR law. It will just change from an EU to a UK law. This means that in future, there will potentially be the need to comply with two lasts (the UK and EU) if you need to transfer data from the EU to the UK or vice versa in your MSP.

Requirements for GDPR in MSPs

MSPs need information security policies. And they need data protection policies. GDPR is a live thing for MSPs. Particularly if they deal with regulated industries such as health or finance sector. But it works both ways. Not only do they need to have both good GDPR practices themselves, but they also need to be able to provide the same thing to their customers.

Cisco did a study in Jan 2018 and February 2019. Both figures showed that 87% of businesses have a sales delay due to privacy concerns. That delay can be reduced by up to 40% if the MSP is GDPR compliant. On average, the sales delay is 5 and a half weeks. So if you can reduce a five and a half week sales delay by 40% just by easily showing compliance, what kind of impact would that have on your business? Being compliant, and being able to prove it, also reduces your risk of data breach and the same Cisco study showed that there is a 42% reduction in the chance of you having a data breach that costs you over half a million dollars in 12 months if you are GDPR compliant. Not only is the risk of breach reduced, but because you’ve complied with GDPR and reviewed your data practices the cost of the number of data records breached are reduced, the downtime is significantly reduced and therefore the cost is reduced. So GDPR is very much about managing that risk, ensuring business continuity and managing not just the financial part, but the PR aspects and the contractual impacts on customer wins.

There is a crossover here between GDPR compliance in general and cyber security. Although they are not the same thing. They go hand in hand. So for MSPs, when trying to describe to them their requirements with GDPR and what their customers are going to expect of them, data security, cyber security and the wider information security arena is often mentioned. Their clients are going to turn to them for advice on all of this. This is where Keepabl comes in.

How Does Keepabl Help MSPs to Keep Their Clients Safe?

GDPR is not a technology law. It’s a data protection law. Security is fundamental to GDPR. But it’s about 15% of GDPR.

There is a whole load of other stuff about GDPR that need to be there apart from security. They are like siblings, they go very well together. Two thirds of breaches reported to the UK ICO are not about security. It’s more about cultural stuff such as disclosure of data, and people sending the wrong email. Not about failure of technology.

So security itself is not purely a technology job. It’s a consulting job and MSPs are starting to offer more and more. There is a responsibility to advise your customer to implement and to understand that security is fundamental to everything. And it’s the same with data protection. By providing both security by design and privacy by design MSPs can look after customers more holistically, build on the trusted advisor relationship and not only get more of the customers purse, but also by offering this, they are securing the customers relationship.

What is Privacy as a Service?

Robert coined (or at least popularised) the term ‘compliance as a service’. The most progressive MSPs jump upon compliance or privacy as a service for all the reasons that you’ve mentioned. And whether or not MSPs clients ask for this, they are going to need it. So many MSPs are offering higher revenue based packages to look after compliance for them. We are seeing MSPs that are using Keepabl going down that route, they are offering the essential compliance services as well as lowering the overall cost of support.

How Can Keepabl Help an MSP Do This?

Keepabl is the app that they’ve been looking for to simplify GDPR. Not only does it allow them to take control of their own GDPR, but it also helps them manage relationships with customers. They can offer training, and policy packs, plus procedures and templates. The software can be used as a service that give you real visualisation and gamification of your KPIs, shows you where you are, where your gaps are and when we get you to 100% you can use it to show people that, but more importantly we can use it to drive ongoing compliance. So the MSP can offer the managed service role in compliance as a service on a nice recurring revenue basis, using Keepabl as the platform. MSPs can actually start selling and pushing the services that often clients pushed back on before.

GDPR as a Sales Tool

In my opinion, GDPR is the best sales tool that has come along for MSPs in forever.

Backup and disaster recovery is a classic. Beforehand customers weren’t sure of the legal obligation. Did they need it? Was it necessary? Or was it just good practice. But now, with GDPR there is an obligation to have appropriate security measures in place to make sure you protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the information. If you don’t have good backup and disaster recover you are not meeting GDPR obligations.

GDPR gives those conversations that urgency. This is why Keepabl is such a powerful platform. And why it’s so important to the future of managed services as I believe that is along the lines of MSPS helping companies with their business processes and that includes compliance.

The Future of Managed Services and the Role of Compliance

Margins are being squeezed for small, local MSPs who’s customers are going direct to the cloud to get the services from there instead of via an MSP. The MSPs ability to show value to the customer is difficult, as a lot of what they have done is invisible. So, how can MSPs move away from the traditional model? With the move to the cloud, MSPs are moving into security services and compliance as it has a higher margin. GDPR is the next aspect of that. People will pay for the security aspect, plus they want things to be ‘taken care of’ for them. When customers question GDPR policies, MSPs using Keepabl can ensure the customer continually has really great answers to give those customers and those auditors.

So What’s Next for Keepabl?

Keepabl is allowing MSPs to sell compliance as a service, which allows them to take really high value recurring revenue. I’ll just finish up by saying, if you’re not having those conversations with your clients, with your prospects, your competitors, it will be something that you cannot ignore. Whatever you reaction to GDPR, it is an opportunity as an MSP. We certainly have a lot of uncertainty as a country with Brexit, but with Keepabl it’s a very exciting time for managed service providers.

Want to get in touch with Robert? You’ll find all of his contact details in the show notes below.

Mentioned in this episode

Keepabl

Totally MSP

LoopUp

FinTech Power 50

Beachhead Solutions

Wiggan Law Firm

Datto

Tresorit

Techspaiens

ZedSphere

DattoCon

Reply

Contact Robert

Twitter: @RJBaugh

LinkedIn: Rober Baugh

Email: hello@Keepabl.com

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Published on October 20, 2019 23:30

7 Awesome Apps For An Easier Life

How can you use apps for an easier life?

I love technology. I think gadgets, personal tech and apps can help us do things more effectively and efficiently.

That’s why I publish my Friday Favourites blog post every week, where I shine a light on a website, tool or an app that has impressed me.

So when my friend David Withington, who runs the Tech It Easy workshop (you can read David’s story of how Tech It Easy began) contacted me to ask my recommendations for awesome apps the can make life easier, I was only too happy to help!

With that in mind, here are 7 awesome apps for an easier life.

1. Productivity App

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity tells us that “the mind is made for having ideas, not holding them”.

With that in mind, I use the app ToDoist as a to-do list app & task manager.

Todoist works on every device. Therefore, if I add a to-do on my PC, it’ll show up on my smartphone, and visa-Versa.

2. Travel App

Have you ever arranged to meet up with friends in a City Centre or other crowded location?

“Where are you?”, “Where?!” and “I can’t see that!” are just three sentences you can expect to hear in the subsequent conversation!

That’s why I’m a fan of using Glympse – A Simple Way to Share Your Location in Real-Time.

Send a Glympse to your friend and you can both use the app to find each other’s current location in real-time.

Trust me, using Glympse can get you to the pub a lot faster!

3. Health App

In business, I’m a big believer in the old adage “What can be measured, can be managed”.

So when I applied this adage to my own health, the results were equally effective!

Welltory is an app that allows you to measure your stress and energy levels.

It uses your smartphone’s camera to measure your heart-rate variable (HRV) with your fingertip.

Welltory has enabled me to pinpoint the activities and foods that drain my energy and focus on more of the things that make me healthier.

Curve - Combine all your Credit Cards into one card

4. Personal Finance App

Does your wallet or purse bulge… and not with cash!

If you find you’re carrying around too many credit and debits cards, then I’d recommend getting a Curve card.

Curve combines all your debit and credit cards into a single (physical) card.

Using the Curve app, you can then select which card you want your Curve card to work as.

I use my curve card to keep all my family, personal and business transactions on separate credit card accounts — without ever having to carry lots of cards!

5. Shopping App

The Curve app helps me leave the house with only one credit card, but what about all of those store loyalty cards?

Stocard is a loyalty card app that allows you to store all of your loyalty cards on your smartphone.

No more carrying around dozens of loyalty cards, and then forgetting the important loyalty card you actually need at the checkout!

With Stocard, you load up all of your cards onto your smartphone and then scan the appropriate barcode when you need a specific loyalty card.

Read more about Stocard – The Loyalty Card App.

6. Cybersecurity App

If you’re out and about and using the free wi-fi at a library, cafe, pub, hotel or even an Airbnb, then you should be aware that your personal data is at risk.

That’s why I recommend everyone use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) app like TunnelBear.

TunnelBear keeps your personal data safe by encrypting any traffic that you send over an untrusted Wi-Fi connection.

The TunnelBear VPN is super simple to set up and use on any device. When you’re using free Wi-Fi, just hit the bear icon and you’ll be protected.

October 17, 2019

TextExpander – Use Text Snippets to Improve Your Productivity

Every Friday I share one of my favourite finds of the week — a website, tool or an app that has impressed me.

My Friday Favourite this week is TextExpander – Use Text Snippets to Improve Your Productivity.

What is it?

TextExpander is an app that allows you to create frequently used snippets of text that you can quickly insert into emails and other documents.

How can it help me?

If you’re anything like me, you spend a *lot* of time at the keyboard. This time is spent typing responses to emails. Writing sales proposals. Creating articles for social media.

If you think about it, there are probably a lot of things — phrases or statements — that you type multiple times in any given day or week. Things such as your home or office address. Your telephone number. Frequently asked questions from customers.

This is where TextExpander can help.

TextExpander is an app for Windows, Mac and the Chrome web browser that allows you to create a library of text snippets.

These snippets can then be accessed via a keyboard shortcut, quickly inserting them on screen and enabling you to cut down on the time you spend typing.

For instance, if I type the shortcut word !Address in, TextExpander will automatically insert my entire home address and save me having to type it every time.

I have other snippets such as !VAT (to insert my business VAT tax number) and !Podcast (to insert the URL to TubbTalk – The Podcast for IT Consultants) to save me having to look up hard to remember numbers or web addresses.

I’ve written before about The Dangers of Human Error in manual processes, and TextExpander can help cut down on mistyped numbers, codes or addresses.

TextExpander stores all of your snippets in the cloud, so they are backed-up and immediately accessible from any device you use.

You can store snippets in folders to help organise them.

I have snippet folders such as “Blogs” (to store the URL’s for articles I frequently share with others), “Books” (with links to books I frequently recommend) and even “Emoji’s” — where I can quickly insert some fun into my text.

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Published on October 17, 2019 23:45

October 14, 2019

How to Implement a PSA Tool in Your MSP – TubbTalk #54

In this episode, I speak with Chris Timm, the go-to expert for all things PSA (Professional Services Automation) from Sondela Consulting on How to Implement a PSA Tool.

Chris helps MSPs align their business processes with their PSA tool and he’s here to tell us how to avoid the biggest mistakes MSPs typically make when using a PSA tool.

An Interview with Chris Timm

Chris ran a managed service provider (MSP) business in London until he was headhunted by one of the major MSP vendors – Autotask – to help them establish what is now a thriving and successful UK office. In 2006 he branched out on his own as Sondela Consulting and offers training and consulting services to MSPs to help them to get the best out of their PSA tools.

What are PSA tools?

In IT, we tech folks do love an acronym, and for anyone who isn’t familiar with this one, it stands for professional services automation and it’s really a business management platform or business management tool. Think about it like a mini ERP (enterprise resource planning — yet another acronym!), something that you’re going to manage your entire business through, not just your service desk. If you’re wondering if your MSP needs a PSA Tool at all, read Professional Services Automation. Does my MSP need a PSA?

“You’re going to manage your CRM (customer relationship management), your sales, your project management, and the entire business through it, right the way through from cradle to grave. Once you get that customer as a lead, you’ll manage all of those opportunities and create the service desk tickets, manage the lifecycle of the customer all the way through to billing. It’s a complete platform for your business.”

How to Implement a PSA Tool – The big mistakes people make!
Not Having the Right People in Charge

So with your PSA tool playing such a pivotal role in the running of your business, it’s vital that you learn how to get the most from it. However, there are certain mistakes that Chris sees MSPs making all the time with their PSA tools.

The biggest mistake, Chris explains, happens during the implementation process, typically due to a lack of understanding of the tool and what it can actually do for the business.

Of course, time, or a lack of it, is a factor too. Business owners don’t have the time or the resources to focus on implementing their new PSA tool so they often pass the task on to the Service Delivery Manager or someone on the service desk.

The problem then is that while the Service Desk Manager does a great job of implementing the service desk elements of the tool, he then falters because he doesn’t have visibility of the business as a whole.

Buying a PSA tool can be a significant financial investment so Chris advises investing the time needed to implement it properly, which starts with assigning the task to the right person; “it really needs to be somebody that that has that visibility and knows and understands the business as a whole, not just the particular area or the department that they’re working in.”

Neglecting Staff Training

Another PSA pitfall, according to Chris, is businesses failing to get their staff on board.

He says, “they don’t tell their story, what it’s used for and a lot of the time, especially when it comes to entering time on tickets, the service desk guys might think that the business owner is using a ‘big brother’ approach to track what they’re doing during the day”.

There can be a real lack of buy-in — people don’t really understand what it’s for and so they don’t engage with it. And of course, the lack of engagement means that the business doesn’t reap the full range of the tool’s benefits.

Not Asking the Right Questions When Choosing a PSA Tool

Given that your PSA tool is effectively the business operating system, the hub that everything else connects in to, it would make sense for people to consider how their chosen tool might integrate with the other tools they’re using in their business (for example, finance and invoicing tools), but Chris finds that this isn’t often the case. In fact, they might even be resisting a PSA tool precisely because they have various other tools they’re already using to run their business.

Chris says, “very often, they are doing a lot with those tools, and I think having to then learn a whole PSA tool and a whole new way of doing things is really confusing for a lot of companies.”

Often, the PSA tool is the last purchase. They perhaps start with an RRM tool, and then, of course, bring on an accounts package, documentation platforms and so on. And then they get a PSA tool in an attempt to make everything more efficient. But suddenly they struggle to integrate everything.

For Chris, the ideal scenario would be to choose the PSA tool first, taking into consideration every function you might need your chosen tool to perform and making a purchase based on that. And if he were to start an MSP business from scratch again, that’s exactly the approach he’d take.

However, if you’re reading this too late and you’ve already invested in a PSA tool, there’s no need to panic. Chris is keen to point out that most of the big tools, such as IT Glue and all the RMM tools, already have built-in integration for most PSA tools. And for those that aren’t integrated, you can use a tool such as Zapier to complete the integration and have everything working with a couple of clicks of a button.

He adds, “if you do have these other tools such as IT Glue or an RMM, it’s really important at that point to make sure that you understand what information needs to come in from both of them. What do you want to push from IT Glue into AutoTask, and what do you want to push from AutoTask into IT Glue? Then, just make sure that you map your accounts correctly in each one of those tools”.

Should MSPs Stick With the Same Vendor for Their PSA Tool and RMM Tool?

Most of the MSP vendors seem to be getting to a stage now where they’re not only producing a PSA tool, but they’re also producing their own RMM tool. For example, Autotask bought CentraStage, for their endpoint management and ConnectWise bought LabTech. So should you go with the same vendor for your PSA and RMM tools?

Chris is in two minds. On the one hand, he says, having both tools from one vendor can be a great idea, but he does wonder whether PSA vendors should focus on what they’re good at.

Either way, he’s convinced that vendors “should talk a lot more together and make the integrations better and the PSA tool should allow third-party vendors to integrate better into their product”.

He continues, “we’ve mentioned AutoTask and ConnectWise and I know that they both have RMM tools. And actually, both of those tools integrate with each other’s products really well.

There really isn’t a need for anybody to buy Lab Tech from ConnectWise or buy the tool from the same vendor. There’s no reason why you couldn’t use ConnectWise, Harmony or any of those other tools and use Datto RMM as well.

The integration works on all of those platforms, and even if it isn’t quite what you wanted it to be, a lot of them have APIs (application programming interface), so you can absolutely develop that integration yourself. There are also tools that I mentioned earlier on, for instance, something like Zapier, that allows you to do a lot of those integrations yourself.”

The Future of PSA Tools

Chris is a big fan of Harmony as an example of a PSA company that doesn’t have an RMM tool but that integrates well with other tools such as Continuum, Ninja RMM and so on.

“I really think they’re gaining a lot of ground in this industry with that tool, certainly from what I’ve seen, and from working them quite extensively. I’ve seen a lot of people liking what they do, and they are very, very different. They’re built very differently to the other PSA tools from the big players out there.”

And while Harmony was once aimed at bigger MSPs, they’re now being used by a lot of smaller MSPs quite effectively.

Another great PSA tool for smaller MSPs — maybe one or two-man companies — is Atera which Chris says is the perfect example of a PSA tool that’s actually an RMM tool as well; “they’ve kind of built both of them; they haven’t acquired somebody and integrated in, they’ve actually built a tool specifically to be a PSA and RMM tool all in one”.

How to Implement a PSA Tool – The Right Time to Bring in a PSA Tool

Some of you will be wondering whether you need a full-blown PSA tool right now, or whether products such as Avast’s RMM tool with a built-in service desk element will do the job just as well.

Chris isn’t sitting on the fence with this one. He says these PSA-lite tools are “great at the service desk if you want to do that service delivery for your customer and you want to be able to create tickets, they’re great tools for that. But when it comes to using it as that business operating system that we were mentioning earlier on and to achieve efficiencies for your business, then I would say that those aren’t really the right tools to use in that particular instance.”

So when is the right time to move on from a system like that to a full-blown PSA tool?

Chris reckons that’s down to the growth of the company, and it’ll be of huge benefit as you scale up.

“What it’s going to give you is that visibility across the board in your business, so anyone from sales is going to be able to see what service desk is doing, they have that visibility where they can see all of that. And then it makes you much more efficient when it comes to billing as well. You can start to create those tickets at that time, then just click a few buttons and it generates an invoice.”

However, he sees the benefit for smaller businesses too and says that even one or two-person operations can increase their efficiency with a PSA tool.

“I remember the days when I used to sit down and enter time in a standalone service desk product on its own, then I’d come to the office and have to enter all of these invoices.

I’d spend hours trying to figure out what was going on, but as soon as I put a PSA tool in it just saved me so much time. It went from me using my entire weekend to do the billing to literally half an hour because everything was captured properly. That made me so much more effective and so much more efficient as a company.”

How to Implement a PSA Tool – Getting the Most From Your PSA Tool

If the biggest issues people have with their PSA tools are linked to understanding the functionality, difficulties with implementation and finding time to do it all properly, is bringing in a third party expert the best way to solve the problem?

Absolutely! As Chris says, a third party “can have that objective view on your business, and look at every single department and really understand how they work and are going to use it, and where the handoff comes from one department to the other”.

And while some PSA vendors can send people out to help MSPs, many of them don’t have experience of running an MSP business. To get the most from your PSA tool, you really need someone like Chris who understands the tool and how to implement it AND knows how an MSP business works.

Which is one of the reasons that Chris is still running a small MSP alongside Sondela Consulting. He says “it’s about being able to say to customers, ‘Look, I am you, I’m doing this every day, I’m running an MSP business and I really understand what your pain points are, so I can come in and help you and work with every department. I’m looking at the entire business from start to finish. I’m going to sit down and spend some time with every single one of those departments.”

While vendors are excellent, there’s no substitute for having that concrete experience of running an MSP — which is exactly why Chris does what he does, and how he does it so successfully!

Want to get in touch with Chris? You’ll find all of his contact details in the show notes.

Mentioned in This Episode

Sondela Consulting

Chris on Twitter: @Tegwin or @sondelaconsult

Chris on Facebook

Chris on LinkedIn

Atera

AutoTask

Avast

Continuum

ConnectWise

Datto

Ninja RMM

SolarWinds

Zapier

Connect with Me

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You Might Also Be Interested In:

How to make MSP billing and project management easier.
I’ve bought professional services automation software. What next?
Professional Services Automation. Does my MSP need a PSA?

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Published on October 14, 2019 23:45

Leveraging LinkedIn for MSPs – TubbTalk #53

In this episode, I speak with John Espirian, technical copywriter and LinkedIn expert about leveraging LinkedIn for MSPs.

What should you post? How often? Should you accept those random generic connection requests? Let’s find out.

An Interview with John Espirian

John’s been working as a technical copywriter for close to a decade now but it’s only in the last few years that he’s really discovered content marketing and the power it has to drive his business forward — and LinkedIn is becoming a huge part of that.

Before Microsoft’s takeover, LinkedIn for MSPs was really only seen as a place to hang out when you were actively looking for a new job but it’s fast becoming the world’s best professional networking site. Not only is it one of John’s main vehicles for finding new clients (second only to his Google search rankings), but it’s instrumental in helping him develop his personal brand and get his content out to even more people.

In fact, John has spent so much time on LinkedIn that he’s become the go-to guy for lots of people who’re trying to get to grips with the site. He says, ‘I’m just naturally the kind of person who can’t see a button and not click it. If there’s a menu and a button I’m going to go investigate, and I like sharing the results of those little experiments.’

So when it comes to leveraging LinkedIn for MSPs, what is John’s advice on current best practice?

LinkedIn for MSPs – The Art of Connecting

If you’re in the habit of clicking the ‘connect’ button and sending out a generic message, John reckons it’s time for a rethink.

Too many people assume that you don’t need to send a personal message but imagine you’re receiving 50, 60, or even 100 connection requests a week — it takes a lot of time to go through the profiles to find out which of those connections are relevant and which are just clicking ‘connect’ on every person they see in the hopes of growing their network. Personal messages can be the difference between having your connection requested accepted or deleted, Here’s the real reason I’ve deleted your LinkedIn request.

So John’s first LinkedIn for MSPs tip is to be careful about the way you approach others and the way that you accept connection requests. ‘When I look to connect with others, I don’t try to use the connect feature straight away.’ A far more effective strategy is to look at their feed and use the ‘follow’ button. If they’re posting things that you find relevant you can eventually make the move to connecting with them. And because by this point you’ve been following them for a while, you can send a personalised connection request, saying something like, ‘I really liked what you said about x’ or ‘I noticed this in your profile’. This way you can start building a real connection more effectively than if you just send the usual generic direct message with a ‘please buy my stuff’ tacked on at the end.

Choosing your Connections Wisely

People often fall into the trap of thinking that you need to grow your network really quickly — it’s a mad dash to connect with as many people as possible. But as John points out, there’s a flaw in this approach as you end up with a lot of irrelevant content in your feed.

For him, the secret is organic growth. It’s about slowing down and building a more relevant network of people who’re actually interested in what you have to say, and hopefully what you have to sell.

He says, ‘It’s only when you start taking the time to learn about the other person, be genuinely interested in what they’ve got to say, offer them something without any expectation of return, that you start being you start being memorable and start being trusted by them.’

I often say to new connections that the best way that I can be memorable to you is to help you get work. If I can do that with a connection, they’re going to remember me for a long, long time.’ And you can’t do that if you’re sending 100 connection requests a day!

It’s also worth being choosy about which connections you accept. Some people will connect with you for completely the wrong reasons. For example, some spammers will want to connect with you, because showing that you’re connected to each other, lets them target other people and increases their perceived trustworthiness.

They can say, ‘Well I’ve got a connection in common.’ You’re not really their target, someone else is, and you’re just the stepping stone.

That’s how LinkedIn for MSPs works well.

Advice for LIONS

If you’re reading this and thinking, ‘oh dear, too late!’ you might just be a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) — someone who connected with EVERYONE back in the day. So now you’re connected with thousands of people, most of whom you can’t remember, and your feed is full of stuff you’re just not interested in.

If that sounds like you, John recommends a LinkedIn audit. To do this, take a look at your ‘following’ list, which you can access through your profile. It gives you a grid view of the people you’re actively following and you can quickly go through the list and ‘unfollow’ anyone whose content you’re no longer interested in reading. It’s a great way of making sure your feed stays relevant. And it feels far less heavy-handed than unconnecting or blocking people!

Leveraging LinkedIn for MSPs – How Often Should you Post?

This is probably one of the most common queries from new LinkedIn users or folks who’ve been away from the site for a while. John’s says that one to two posts per week should be enough for you to start building enough content to get you noticed.

Because LinkedIn posts have a longer half-life than other social media platforms (Twitter, for example), it’s not a good idea to post too often; ‘it’s like planting two seeds close to each other – the sunlight isn’t going to reach them both.

They have a chance of affecting each other’s growth’. He recommends posting once a day at most but if you do want to post more frequently he suggests leaving a gap of at least a few hours.

And always remember that getting involved with other people’s posts is just as important.

Tips on how to Dominate the LinkedIn for MSPs Feed

John’s number one tip on what makes a good post? Avoid sales! ‘If it’s too much, ‘me, me, me,’ or if it’s too much ‘click here and sign up for so and so’ or ‘buy so and so,’ I think that will just turn people off. You need to have this ‘help first’ attitude and that’s what I recommend to everyone.’

‘It’s long been a trope in marketing that helping beats selling and I truly believe that that is the case.’

Instead of sales, think about what’s interesting, relevant, and helpful in your industry and post about that.

It’s also important to be very clear with the posts you put out. Remember that for most LinkedIn posts, you only see a little snippet of what the post is about so you have to entice people to click the ‘see more’ link to get the whole thing. Only be sure to avoid creating ‘clickbait’ headlines — readers are wise to it and will soon tune out.

Don’t neglect to format when creating your posts. John recommends writing no more than two sentences per paragraph. Don’t be afraid of white space! In fact, there’s nothing worse than being hit with a wall of text so think about ways to improve readability throughout; subheadings, all caps, or even emojis can help the scanability of your content.

Custom hashtags are also worth thinking about. They can enhance your personal brand and help your content become more searchable.

Don’t get caught up on the visuals either. LinkedIn for MSPs is the one social media platform that seems to favour text-only posts because — John reckons —it’s all about keeping people on the platform for as long as possible.

Sharing Links on LinkedIn for MSPs — What you Need to Know

John has often said that external links are like kryptonite to LinkedIn posts so how can those of you who want to drive people to your own blogs, podcasts, or other content use LinkedIn to boost your traffic and engage with people?

John has a couple of tricks up his sleeve.

First of all, he says, you could take the opinion that you just want to build authority and therefore you could post on LinkedIn text-only, using snippets of your existing content from your blog. Pull a quote out, and then expand on that in the 1300 characters or so that you’ve got, and you can do that without any links. You’re showing that you know what you’re talking about, and you’re sharing helpful information.

Secondly, you could use a crafty little workaround for sharing external links, which is to write your content without any links and publish, and then to almost immediately go and edit the content and add the link back in. This workaround this is something John calls the ‘right post edit method’. It seems to be a loophole, but one that hasn’t been plugged yet. Some tests suggest that an edited post with a link added to it might still get anywhere between 90 and 95% of the reach of a completely unedited text post. The penalty, if you like, is so minimal that it’s still worth doing.

Your third option is to republish your blog post content as a LinkedIn article. Google has changed the way that it’s indexing works so that it no longer penalises what would typically be thought of as duplicate content.

Here’s how John does it:

‘I publish on my blog first. That is always my primary source, at the end of the day, that’s the space that I control on the internet, and who can guarantee whether you can really control your social media profiles in the future?

Then, I use the Google Search Console, which is a free tool that lets you index any given page that you want, so I will immediately, upon publication, send my blog post URL through Google Search Console to say, ‘Please index this page.’

Usually, within a matter of a few hours, that blog post page then appears in the real Google index. Once that happens, you are free to republish that content on any other third-party platform.

Then you finish that LinkedIn article at the bottom with a standard bit of text that says ‘This article was first published on Tubblog or wherever, at this URL. And all of a sudden you kind of doubled your content footprint by doing very little.’

The whole idea behind this is again about building that content footprint, being the authority in your space, being the memorable person who, whenever you think of a question, has always got an answer ready and waiting to go. If you can get to that point, then you’ve got a much better chance of being the person of preference when the time comes for people to put their hand in their pocket.

Should you Use Scheduling Tools for your LinkedIn Posts?

When it comes to LinkedIn for MSPs, John isn’t a huge fan of post scheduling. One of the biggest problems with scheduling is that the first hour after publication is vital — it’s a good indicator of the overall success of a post. And if you’re not around to foster that early engagement you might lose out on the long-term success of that post.

Posting manually might not be the most convenient method for people, but depending on what your goals are, if you really want to build a proper presence on LinkedIn, it’s probably worth the effort of posting less overall but doing more manually.

Think Engagement, not Broadcasting

When it comes to establishing your authority on LinkedIn for MSPs though, there’s a lot more to it than posting your own content. Engaging with others is equally, if not more, important.

John says,

‘If you want to succeed with your own content, you’ve got to stop thinking in broadcast terms and start thinking in engagement terms. And I normally recommend for every, let’s say, one post of yours that you do, think about for commenting on four or five, even 10 other people’s posts.’

But be warned that a quick ‘like’ isn’t enough. Really you need to leave a fairly meaty comment with multiple lines, adding something that’s relevant to the debate. Of course, you’re giving value to the post you’re contributing to but you’re also benefiting from the way the algorithm works. By posting a substantial, relevant comment you may end up getting the top comment on the post so lots of people will discover you and — hopefully — decide to follow you. It’s a great way of expanding your authority, your knowledge, and your network.

As an added bonus, by commenting on things that interest you, LinkedIn will pick up on your preferences and begin showing you more relevant content.

A Quick Word About Tagging

John advises using tagging sparingly, and only when it’s highly relevant to the person you’re tagging. And never tag someone in a shameless quest for engagement.

As John says, ‘Be careful, be mindful and don’t be chasing short-term engagement because you might be damaging long-term relationships. There’s a sound bite!’

Creating a stand-out profile — advice for unicorn wranglers

LinkedIn profiles are all about snap judgements; you only have a few seconds for people to decide whether or not they want to connect with you, and potentially do business with you. So you need to get it right.

John suggests focussing first on the things that everyone is going to see whenever they look at anything you’ve done on LinkedIn, which is your headline, your summary, your banner and so forth.

‘How clear are those things? What are the calls to action? Is it clear who you’re serving and what service you’re offering? So many people try to go for a clever headline, and then you end up scratching your head and thinking, ‘what does a unicorn wrangler really do?!’ No idea! Let’s move on.’

But at the same time, you don’t want to be too boring and just put ‘manager’, which is a basic job title, because that’s not going to be memorable either. So it’s a mix between trying to dig out what your true brand personality is and clarity.

You want a profile to be proud of — it’s your professional presence. Even if you have a great-looking website, chances are people you meet when you’re out networking will look you up on social media and if you work in B2B, they’ll likely start with your LinkedIn profile. If it’s clear that you haven’t updated it in years or it’s really out of date, you do lose a bit of credibility.

It’s worthwhile spending a little bit of money or at least a little bit of time brushing up your own content so that your profile represents the professional business that you own.

If this has you thinking that your own LinkedIn profile could do with a little TLC, don’t forget that John has a huge amount of free content to help you out. Check out his Starter Guide and LinkedIn Engagement guide. Or if you fancy some one-to-one advice, he also offers profile review services — you’ll find all of John’s contact details below.

Feel free to check out his own LinkedIn profile and connect with him there to talk LinkedIn for MSPs. Just remember to write him a personalised message when you do!

Mentioned in This Episode:

John’s LinkedIn profile

John’s website

John’s LinkedIn starter Guide

John’s How to Improve LinkedIn Engagement guide

LinkedIn Elevate

Google Search Console

Connect with Me

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You Might Also Be Interested In:

Why MSPs should embrace marketing
How IT companies can sell themselves better
Effective MSP marketing

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Published on October 14, 2019 23:45

How to Do MSP Acquisitions Well – TubbTalk #52

In this episode, I speak with Mitesh Patel, Managing Director of Fifosys about MSP acquisitions.

Fifosys, the London-based IT services firm, is renowned for being right on the cutting edge when it comes to the managed services model. I ask Mitesh about how he’s grown the business over the last 18 years, and where he’s going next.

An Interview with Mitesh Patel

Mitesh launched Fifosys back in 2001 and says it’s been an interesting journey. To begin with, he focused on organic growth, knocking on doors and giving people an alternative to using the Yellow Pages or a friend of a friend to provide IT support.

The company soon grew to include maintenance services, and along the way, they’ve added licensing management, procurement, and now managed security.

They’re currently employing around 50 staff and while most of their clients are based in London, they also serve internationally.

Mitesh on the Learning Curve of His First MSP Acquisition

Many IT business owners believe that acquisitions are a great way for them to grow their business but we’ve all seen people fail quite spectacularly when they start to go down that route. This clearly hasn’t been the case for Mitesh who made his first acquisition back in 2010.

So what motivated him to take that leap? And how has he made acquisitions work for his company? Mitesh reveals that he was prompted by a single question asked by a business growth lecturer:

“What does your business look like if your largest client left tomorrow?”

He says, “I immediately started sweating, because we had one particular client that represented 72% of our annual revenue, and the question being asked is what gave me that wake-up call.”

Within a month he had approached an MSP who was on his radar and who had a good recurring revenue stream. They made them an offer that allowed Fifosys to reduce their largest client down to about 17%.

Mitesh admits that it was a steep learning curve. As well as losing a significant number of staff (due to a culture clash, an increased commute and other factors), Mitesh experienced around a 30% drop in the acquired company’s client base within the first two years as they were forced to raise the rates beyond the £6 per hour some clients had been used to paying.

He explains, “There were lots and lots of learnings from the first acquisition. We ended up wasting a lot of time, energy and effort going down certain routes rather than just focusing on delivering a better service to the existing client base.”

MSP acquisitions – Second Time Lucky…

By the time Mitesh made his second MSP acquisition, things ran more smoothly, thanks to the lessons learned the first time around. He explains that by that time, they already had their toolset in place and knew to ask the key question: “How easy is it going to be to migrate them into our culture and into our processes — and how swiftly can we achieve that?”

And because they were ready to absorb the existing cost base swiftly, they were able to deliver added value to their clients. “The MSP that we acquired didn’t offer 24/7 manned support and NOC (network operations centre) services. That’s something that we did, so we went to see those clients and said, ‘Great, your rates are going to stay the same, but we’re now going to offer you something more.’”

Future Growth for Fifosys: MSP Acquisition vs. Traditional Sales and Marketing Techniques

While MSP acquisition as a growth strategy has been working well for Fifosys (they’re on the verge of confirming their third), Mitesh’s preference is to use a combination of both.

He admits that in the past they haven’t been consistent in their marketing efforts, investing in tranches and giving lead gen companies a few months and then dropping it for another few months before starting again. It was a stop/start approach that didn’t really work for the business.

However, Mitesh explains that he’s now taking a very different approach, having invested consistently in sales and marketing over the last 18 months. They’re focusing on educating their market, without necessarily asking for a sale at the end of each blog or using a call to action and he’s found it a much less intrusive way to get prospects and clients to engage with the company.

He says, “by giving them free training, they get to learn about us and what we do. Then when they’re ready and the time is right, then they will come to us. We’re having huge success by changing the approach in that way.”

Mitesh on His Current Tech Stack — and Consolidating Vendors

As Mitesh says, your modern-day business starts in the cloud, so Fifosys has an infrastructure in Azure, AWS and G-Suite, having consolidated their private cloud down to around 20%.

Mitesh says, “although we do have clients who are still in our private cloud or have taken rack space within data centres, I believe it comes down to a compliance and auditing requirement – if your auditors are required to turn up to your data centres and plug their laptops in to evidence what you have, then you need to go into a private cloud.

If you don’t, then a public cloud offering should certainly be considered. More and more, I’d probably say about 80% of our clients have a hybrid infrastructure, with a dual degree of infrastructure on-premise and the rest in the relevant cloud solution that’s available to them.”

For security, Mitesh explains that rather than stick with multiple vendors, around 90% of their data backup, business continuity and disaster recovery is actually now with Datto, which is what they’re also using as a point solution. Not only does consolidating vendors offer greater transparency for clients, but it’s also preferable from a staff training point of view, and can provide financial gains as vendors are more motivated to negotiate a deal.

Mitesh’s Philosophy on Leadership: Keep it Simple

Clearly, to have grown Fifosys from nothing more than an idea to the successful business it is today, Mitesh must have learned a thing or two about leadership over the last 18 years — so what does leadership mean to him?

He says it’s about practising what you preach and keeping it very simple. And he says it’s about understanding that they’re a technology company first and foremost.

“With some of the MSP acquisitions that we’ve made, we’ve found that they forgot that they’re actually a technology company. They thought they’re just a customer service company. There was a period of time when I moved away and went, ‘No, this is all about the number of tickets, number of instances, the response times and so forth’”.

Mitesh has seen a change in the MSP market though. About 10 years ago he noticed product vendors telling MSPs, “You’re a customer service company” but over the last few years, they’ve changed their tune.

Now, he says, companies are realising they’re a technology company first and a customer service company on top of that.

“From my point of view, the leadership around the actual technology stack is absolutely important. As is understanding why you need to do these things and what messages you need to give to the market. We’re lucky that there’s so much evidence around the market, especially around security and all the threats that are actually there.”

A final thought on leadership for MSPs? Take care of your team; make sure they’re constantly growing and developing:

“If we’re not learning we’re not developing, and if that’s the case, neither are we giving ourselves the opportunity to educate our clients on how to increase the use of technology to deliver the operations of their business.”

Ultimately, we’ve always wanted to get beyond the basics. It’s not, ‘Is my internet working? Is my phone working? Am I receiving an email?’ It’s wanting to elevate the conversation beyond that, in terms of how you can use technology to help you make more money.”

The Future of Fifosys

What do the next 12 to 18 months hold for Fifosys? For Mitesh, it’s a focus on the security side of the business and opening doors to a larger client base in terms of size of business.

He sees larger, outsourced organisations struggling to cope with the level of support required in today’s market and the opportunities that might bring. “It is always about increasing the annual recurring revenue, but how can you do that with a point solution rather than calling and saying ‘Give me everything’?”

“This whole ‘give me everything and I will be the best in every single area of your operational IT’ is a challenge for MSPs, or for many of them. It requires you to get to a certain size to be able to make that commitment, so if you’re not at a certain size where you can make that commitment, then you’re already compromising.

We are fortunate that we have managed to hit a certain size where we don’t need to compromise.”

The Rise of PropTech

We’re all familiar with FinTech, but we’re now seeing the rise of PropTech, and Mitesh is blazing the trail with his latest entrepreneurial role as CEO of Engage Property Technology, a company that has come up with a way of automating interactions between tenants and landlords.

It’s an enterprise that has actually highlighted an interesting point for fellow MSPs, about SEO.

“We work with an SEO company, and we put all of our search terms for Fifosys into Google to see how many times a month they searched. This is for ‘data backup’, ‘IT support London’, ‘IT support,’ ‘cloud computing’, ‘Office 365’ – you name it, all those search terms,

All those search terms are put into Google 1.4 million times a month in the UK. On Engage’s side, our related search terms are put into Google 4,300 times a month.

So it tells you about the levels of maturity within the market. I was like, ‘Oh my God! That’s why it’s been so difficult.’”

How is Fifosys making a difference?

Thanks to Mitesh for sharing his journey. And in return for his words of wisdom, he has a question for you.

With Engage, he says, it’s easy to answer the “how are you making a difference to people’s lives” question: “it’s a single product in a single sector which makes a difference to people’s lives who rent.” With Fifosys, however, he stumbles.

So over to you, how do you, as MSP business owners, answer the question “how do we make a difference to people’s lives?”

I’d love to know too, so stick your answer in the comments and let’s keep this conversation going.

Mentioned in This Episode

Mitesh’s LinkedIn profile

Fifosys website

Engage Property Technology

Datto

Azure

AWS

G-Suite

Connect with Me

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You Might Also Be Interested In:

Acquisitions and Building an Open MSP Platform
Why the Fastest-Growing MSPs are Using the Master MSP Model – TubbTalk #31
Why Discipline and Planning are Vital to Success in Business and Life – TubbTalk #29

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Published on October 14, 2019 22:00

October 13, 2019

Building The Tech Tribe for MSPs – TubbTalk #51

In this episode, I speak with Australian Nigel Moore of The Tech Tribe for MSPs.

The Tech Tribe is an online community for IT Solution Providers and Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

Nigel always seems to have a fresh perspective and a knack for making teachings sound like something completely new so he’s made a huge impact on the wider MSP community in recent years.

His knowledge and his confidence, however, have been hard-won.

Around 12-13 years ago he found himself the proud owner of a ‘half-baked’ (his words!) MSP. It was a real baptism by fire and Nigel had to very quickly find his feet in the business world if he wanted his MSP to grow.

And like so many of us, he says he made a ‘bajillion’ mistakes along the way.

An Interview with Nigel Moore
On realising that loneliness is actually freedom

One of the things that Nigel struggled with most in those early days was the feeling that he was going it alone, that no one around him was on a similar path.

He says, “being around people of a similar mindset, whether they’re in front of you, behind you, alongside you… I think for me, the hardest part was finding those people and being able to get into space where I could get rid of my ego and learn from them.”

It wasn’t an easy process and Nigel would constantly question whether running a business was the right thing for him.

So how did he turn it around and push past the doubts?

His moment of clarity came wrapped up in a job offer. Nigel’s mentor at the time, a woman who’d helped him kick start his business, was running a large hospitality business.

“She could see that I was going through struggles and trying to figure out where the hell I was and trying to figure out what was going on in my world.” So she offered him the position of IT manager in her business and offered a salary 5 times larger than his business was bringing in at that point.

“When you’re earning a small amount of money for a lot of work and then you get thrown this thing on the table, it kind of forces you to dig really deep into your whys and your reasons for doing what you want to do.

That was the point where I then had to sit down and think “Okay, well, I’ve got this awesome opportunity here and five times what I’ve ever earned before and go back to just having a job and only working 40 or 50 hours a week instead of the 80 hours a week that I’m working at the moment. But I will report to somebody, and I will not be the master of my own destiny and I will not be able to make every decision and is that something that I am happy with?

For me, when I put on my personal thought hat, it wasn’t. I wanted to be the master of my own destiny.”

Nigel realised that for him that meant leading and running a business; he knew that it meant tapping into his skillset and unrealised potential to lead a tribe. It was the desire to leave a legacy and go all-in on something that he knew could have a huge impact.

The Tech Tribe for MSPs

And that is exactly what Nigel is doing with The Tech Tribe for MSPs.

In describing his inspiration, he says, “what drives me is when I know that I have been on the floor, caught up in the foetal position crying because I have no idea what the heck I’m doing. I know there is a pile of other people around the world right now this very instant that is in that exact same position. There are a lot of them out there in our space, I now know that I can help them get through that faster than I got through because I didn’t have those support structures around me.”

Not only did he discover that he loved teaching, he realised that the people he was helping were getting great results.

Before long Nigel decided to sell his MSP and throw himself into the development of a simple forum-based community that would later become The Tech Tribe.

Nigel describes The Tech Tribe for MSPs as “the community and programme that I wish I had access to when I first started my journey…we want it to be the best resource for nimble MSPs”. (Nigel likes to call MSPs who do typically under 5-10 million as nimble rather than small!). It offers loads of resources and access to experts to help MSPs with everything from the sales process to trusted contractor agreements.

It’s good to share

Nigel has often been questioned about his willingness to teach people who would have, at one point, been his competition, but he has no qualms about sharing his knowledge.

He says, “I remember this one guy going to one of my first ever user groups, and, funnily enough, this gentleman now is a Tech Tribe member and an awesome guy. But back then I met him at an industry event in the Microsoft building, and I was talking about managed service agreements. He goes “I’ll just send your mine”. My jaw dropped to the floor. This is a competitor that’s going to give me some of his stuff and that then opened this whole world of these people that are freely willing to give and not receive anything in return.”

I find in the MSP space it doesn’t matter whether you’re next door or you’re on the other side of the world, people share so incredibly freely. I love that about the MSP space. Absolutely love it.

I think one of the biggest reasons is that most of us come into this space because of that want of helping other people and that we’re tech geeks at heart. We’re not business people by nature, we didn’t start off as business people, we started off as technicians and wanting to help people. So whether that person is a client of ours or a competitor of ours, we still want to help them and that’s what I love about it.”

Tribal Elders

With an industry that places so much value on service and sharing, it’s little wonder that Nigel has managed to convince so many MSP experts to join The Tech Tribe as tribal elders.

Tribal elders act as leadership stewards in the community and they all have a certain level of experience of growing, running, selling or acquiring an MSP. They’ve been in the trenches for a long time.

You’ll find people like James Stackhouse, who is an MSP marketing wizard, Todd Kane, an operations guru, Craig Sharp, Jamie Warner and of course Richard himself (If you’re interested in how I ended up joining the Tech Tribe, read my article on The Tech Tribe – An Awesome Community for MSPs).

And Nigel promises more still to come. He says he’s looking forward to supporting growing MSPs and removing all of the sharks from the industry: “as they say, a rising tide floats all boats and the people that are going to be around our legendary elders, and all of the other people that give their advice freely, are in for a fun ride!”

Why a paid group?

Of course, with this emphasis on the desire to serve, some of you may be wondering why The Tech Tribe for MSPs is a paid group. Then again, with access to so many experts, you might equally be questioning why it’s so inexpensive!

Nigel isn’t a fan of free groups (Reddit and Facebook, he’s looking at you!); he thinks they’re little more than a distraction for most business owners.

Nigel says, “when you start charging people access to something, the quality of the interaction goes up, and magic starts to happen.”

In one fell swoop, you lose the freeloaders, the trolls and the circulation of bad advice. The Tribe has had over 18,000 posts to date and they haven’t had to moderate a single one.

But while he feels it’s important to charge for entry to the group, he has no plans to start charging a fortune.

He wants the community to be accessible to as many MSPs as possible, especially the small, nimble businesses he talked about earlier.

Nigel knows that a $1,000 a month price tag would exclude the very people he most wants to help: “the people that are back in the shoes I was once in”, the people with the unrealised potential.

His overarching philosophy?

“The more we can help out those behind us, the more we can create this awesome space. This awesome industry.”

Want to find out more about Nigel and The Tech Tribe? You’ll find all of the contact details you need in the show notes.

Mentioned in This Episode:

The Tech Tribe (click this link to get a free copy of my latest book when you join!)

Nigel on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nigelgmoore

Nigel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelgmoore/

Auvik

Frankly MSP Live

Mentori Live Event

Office 365

G Suite

Book – The Alter Ego Effect

Book – The Gift

Connect with Me

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A List of User Groups for UK Managed Service Providers

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Published on October 13, 2019 23:45

Running a Membership for MSPs – TubbTalk #51

In this episode, I speak with Australian Nigel Moore of The Tech Tribe.

The Tech Tribe is an online community for IT Solution Providers and Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

Nigel always seems to have a fresh perspective and a knack for making teachings sound like something completely new so he’s made a huge impact on the wider MSP community in recent years.

His knowledge and his confidence, however, have been hard won. Around 12-13 years ago he found himself the proud owner of a ‘half-baked’ (his words!) MSP. It was a real baptism by fire and Nigel had to very quickly find his feet in the business world if he wanted his MSP to grow. And like so many of us, he says he made a ‘bajillion’ mistakes along the way.

An Interview with Nigel Moore
On realising that loneliness is actually freedom

One of the things that Nigel struggled with most in those early days was the feeling that he was going it alone, that no one around him was on a similar path.

He says, “being around people of similar mindset, whether they’re in front of you, behind you, alongside you… I think for me, the hardest part was finding those people and being able to get into a space where I could get rid of my ego and learn from them.”

It wasn’t an easy process and Nigel would constantly question whether running a business was the right thing for him.

So how did he turn it around and push past the doubts?

His moment of clarity came wrapped up in a job offer. Nigel’s mentor at the time, a woman who’d helped him kick start his business, was running a large hospitality business. “She could see that I was going through struggles and trying to figure out where the hell I was, and trying to figure out what was going on in my world.” So she offered him the position of IT manager in her business, and offered a salary 5 times larger than his business was bringing in at that point.

For me, when I put on my personal thought hat, it wasn’t. I wanted to be the master of my own destiny.”

Nigel realised that, for him that meant leading and running a business; he knew that it meant tapping into his skill set and unrealised potential to lead a tribe. It was the desire to leave a legacy and go all in on something that he knew could have a huge impact.

The Tech Tribe

And that is exactly what Nigel is doing with The Tech Tribe.

In describing his inspiration, he says, “what drives me is when I know that I have been on the floor, caught up in the foetal position crying because I have no idea what the heck I’m doing. I know there is a pile of other people around the world right now this very instant that are in that exact same position. There are a lot of them out there in our space, I now know that I can help them get through that faster than I got through because I didn’t have those support structures around me.”

Of course, the decision to found The Tech Tribe wasn’t based on altruism alone; Nigel has found a real passion for coaching. After taking his foot off the gas of his MSP, he began sharing his knowledge of running his own business with other MSPs in his sphere of contacts. Not only did he discover that he loved teaching, he realised that the people he was helping were getting great results.

Before long Nigel decided to sell his MSP and throw himself into the development of a simple forum-based community that would later become The Tech Tribe.

Nigel describes The Tech Tribe as “the community and programme that I wish I had access to when I first started my journey…we want it to be the best resource for nimble MSPs”. (Nigel likes to call MSPs who do typically under 5-10 million as nimble rather than small!). It offers loads of resources and access to experts to help MSPs with everything from the sales process to trusted contractor agreements.

It’s good to share

Nigel has often been questioned about his willingness to teach people who would have, at one point, been his competition, but he has no qualms about sharing his knowledge.

Tribal Elders

With an industry that places so much value on service and sharing, it’s little wonder that Nigel has managed to convince so many MSP experts to join The Tech Tribe as tribal elders. Tribal elders act as leadership stewards in the community and they all have a certain level of experience of growing, running, selling or acquiring an MSP. They’ve been in the trenches for a long time.

You’ll find people like James Stackhouse, who is an MSP marketing wizard, Todd Kane, an operations guru, Craig Sharp, Jamie Warner and of course Richard himself. And Nigel promises more still to come. He says he’s looking forward to supporting growing MSPs and removing all of the sharks from the industry: “as they say, a rising tide floats all boats and the people that are going to be around our legendary elders, and all of the other people that give their advice freely, are in for a fun ride!”

Why a paid group?

Of course with this emphasis on the desire to serve, some of you may be wondering why The Tech Tribe is a paid group. Then again, with access to so many experts, you might equally be questioning why it’s so inexpensive!

Nigel isn’t a fan of free groups (Reddit and Facebook, he’s looking at you!); he thinks they’re little more than a distraction for most business owners. He says, “when you start charging people access to something, the quality of the interaction goes up, and magic starts to happen.” In one fell swoop you lose the freeloaders, the trolls and the circulation of bad advice. The Tribe has had over 18,000 posts to date and they haven’t had to moderate a single one.

But while he feels it’s important to charge for entry to the group, he has no plans to start charging a fortune. He wants the community to be accessible to as many MSPs as possible, especially the small, nimble businesses he talked about earlier. And he knows that a $1,000 a month price tag would exclude the very people he most wants to help: “the people that are back in the shoes I was once in”, the people with the unrealised potential.

His overarching philosophy?

“The more we can help out those behind us, the more we can we can create this awesome space. This awesome industry.”

Want to find out more about Nigel and The Tech Tribe? You’ll find all of the contact details you need in the show notes.

Mentioned in This Episode:

The Tech Tribe

Nigel on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nigelgmoore

Nigel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelgmoore/

Auvik

Frankly MSP Live

Mentori Live Event

Office 365

G Suite

The Alter Ego Effect

The Gift

Who are CompTIA and how can they help your IT business?

How to be a remarkable MSP

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Published on October 13, 2019 23:45

October 10, 2019

Welltory – Manage Your Stress and Energy

Every Friday I share one of my favourite finds of the week — a website, tool or an app that has impressed me.

My Friday Favourite this week is Welltory – Manage Your Stress and Energy.

What is it?

Welltory is an app that measures your stress and energy levels via your Smartphone.

How can it help me?

How would you rate your stress levels?

What about your energy levels? Are you firing on all cylinders or do you feel sluggish?

As human beings, we sometimes ignore stress and dangerously high-levels can creep up on us unaware.

If you often wake up tired, or work too much and don’t rest enough, Welltory can help you highlight where you need to change things.

Peter Drucker famously said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.

Welltory is an app that uses your smartphone camera to measure your heart-rate variability (HRV). This is not your heart rate. HRV is a method of measuring stress and energy levels that has been used in healthcare and professional sports for many decades, now.

I’ve been using Welltory every day (typically a few times every day) for a few months now. It is an early warning indicator to me of when my stress levels are getting too high, or my energy levels too low (or usually, both combined). I can then adjust by easing off the accelerator and taking things easier.

Welltory also allows you to take before and after measurements, so you can see the effects of certain activities on your energy and stress.

I’m a big proponent of meditation. I use the app, Headspace – Meditation and Mindfulness Made Simple. Using Welltory to take a measurement of my stress and energy levels before and after meditation, proves what I suspected was true — meditation is very good for you!

I’ve also used Welltory to measure the effect of certain food types on my physiology. To no surprise, alcohol and sugar do nothing for my energy or stress levels.

Welltory also connects with a host of other wellbeing-focused apps. I have Welltory connected to:-

FitBit — to see how exercise and sleep affect my stress levels
FooBot – to measure how my Home Air Quality impacts me
Dark Sky – to track how the weather affects my energy levels

All of these measurements help you to understand how you can improve your energy levels, and decrease your stress levels.

How much does it cost?

Welltory is free to use.

A Welltory premium service, with lots of additional features, costs $13 per month or $79 annually.

How can I get it?

You can download Welltory for Android or iOS devices from the Welltory web-site.

You can also follow @Welltory on Twitter, or visit the Welltory Facebook page.

Thanks to health and lifestyle coach Aileen Smith for introducing me to Welltory!

You Might Also Be Interested In

Woebot – An AI-based Therapy Chatbot to Help with Depression and Anxiety
What is GTD and how it helps with productivity
Book – The IT Business Owner’s Survival Guide

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Published on October 10, 2019 23:45

October 3, 2019

Antstream – Streaming Retro Games

Every Friday I share one of my favourite finds of the week — a website, tool or an app that has impressed me.

My Friday Favourite this week is Antstream – Streaming Retro Games.

What is it?

Antstream is a streaming retro games simulator.

How can it help me?

I’m a child of the 1980s. I grew up in the home computer revolution and played games on computers such as the Atari 800XL and the Spectrum ZX81. I can still remember my first computer and it was an Atari 600XL — a whopping 16K of memory! What was your first computer? (leave a comment below!).

To this day, I love retro games. I’m a huge supporter of the Retro Computer Museum in Leicestershire. I also have my own retro museum housed in an outbuilding by my house.

But playing those old games doesn’t mean you need to own those old computers. Nor does it mean you have to mess around with fiddly emulator software.

Thanks to Antstream.

Antstream is a retro games stream service. You select the game you want to play, and off you go — it streams to your smartphone, console, PC or tablet!

You can play cross-platform. Devices currently supported include PC, Mac, Android and Xbox One.

The Antstream streaming library is fairly big, with 700+ games, and is growing every week. Each title is officially licensed and plays as you remember it.

Some of my favourite games on Antstream right now include:-

Double Dragon
BurgerTime
Trailblazer
California Games
Horace Goes Skiing
Sensible World of Soccer
Speedball 2 – Brutal Deluxe

You can use controllers, keyboard or touchscreen to play games. The controls for every game have been specifically modified for the device you’re using.

Antstream have also added challenges and leaderboards for games, so you can compete against your friends.

I’ve been using Antstream for a couple of months now and I have been blown away by the quality. There’s no jittering, no emulation issues – you just play the games. It’s great fun!

How much does it cost?

Antstream costs £7.99 per month.

How can I get it?

Visit the Antsream website to create an account and sign-up.

You can also visit the Antstream Arcade Facebook page, or follow @AntstreamArcade on Twitter.

You Might Also Be Interested In

My visit to the Retro Computer Museum Gaming Day
Game of Bombs – A Massively Multiplayer Online Retro Arcade Game!
Human Space Invaders

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Published on October 03, 2019 23:45