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How to be a Remarkable MSP – TubbTalk17

In a special episode, Craig Sharp delivers a presentation on “How to be a Remarkable MSP” at the Continuum Partner Event in London.

Craig Sharp on How to be a Remarkable MSP

Craig Sharp spoke at the Continuum Partner Event in London on “How to be a Remarkable MSP”. He talked about how IT businesses need to be different in order to grow and provided real-life examples to inspire his audience.

Niche Down

Jonathan Fox ran Flying Fox, a company with the strapline of: “We do IT support for SMEs in East Sussex.” It had been successful, but had also seen bad times and got smaller, so Jonathan decided he wanted to make a fundamental business change.

He decided to identify a niche market.

By chance, he met someone who was a big fan of Xero, the online accountancy software, who invited him to XeroCon, the company’s annual conference. He went along with limited expectations but found he was the only IT company in a room of 400 people and the only person who could implement the things the delegates learned about.

He left the event with 21 new opportunities, all worth four or five-figure sums. By deciding to niche down, and move away from the more traditional services provided by Managed Service Providers (MSPs), he found a market which was not serviced by existing IT companies.

Jonathan was willing to be open to opportunities, to explore new markets and do something different. By doing something new, that he hadn’t done before, Flying Fox was able to niche down and update their strapline to – IT support for Xero-certified accountants, bookkeepers and their clients.

Think Big

Michael Freeman was the CEO of Southern IT Networks and found himself in a position that many MSP business owners do – working long hours, not taking holidays and being too integrated into the business.

Michael realised he needed to make a personal change for the sake of his health and his family life. He decided he should develop new skills and move away from the day to day business activities by not monitoring everything that was going on.

He was then able to empower and delegate to staff many of the tasks that he had done in the past. It brought about a cultural change within the business, as Michael led from the front and demonstrated that he didn’t need to be so involved.

He started thinking about the business in a different way and started to bring about changes. He moved out of the modest offices they’d previously had, viewing them as a physical manifestation of the modest ambitions he’d had for the business, which no longer served it or the staff.

He was able to make a 1007% profit increase, landed a client worth £135,000, and his technical director authored a book on Office 365. He had become a leader rather than a manager.

Be More than “The IT Guy”

Craig used his own business, Abussi, as the final example. He wanted Abussi to be seen more as consultants than ‘the IT guy’, someone who just came out to fix something when it broke.

To provide value to customers in many different ways, Craig realised he needed to educate them. To make a cultural change, the company had to look closely at how they projected themselves to potential and existing customers.

Craig decided to stop selling, and to be less ‘techy’, because he saw that customers didn’t understand what the company did, and more importantly, they didn’t care. What they wanted was a service which was reliable and reasonably priced, and solved their problems.

He identified people within the business with excellent interpersonal and technical skills but weren’t being used in the right way. By utilising them better, clients valued the company more, which led to more conversations with them.

By being more consultative and less technical, you talk to your customers more and build stronger relationships. You become integrated with their business, and they realise exactly how you can help them

Doing nothing is not an option. You have to realise that change is required, embrace the difference and move forward to grow your business.

Mentioned in this episode

Craig Sharp gave his presentation on “How to be a Remarkable MSP” at the Continuum Partner Event, held at the Churchill War Rooms in London.

Abussi is Craig Sharp’s business and you can find them on Twitter and Facebook and you can see Craig’s blog, Tales of an IT Professional.

Jonathan Fox’s company, Flying Fox IT was acquired by Ocius Digital, which is now known as We are Waypoint and you can find them on Twitter.  

You can find out more about Southern IT Networks, also mentioned in Craig’s presentation and find Southern IT on Twitter.  

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Who are CompTIA and how can they help your IT business? TubbTalk16

An interview with guests at the CompTIA EMEA Conference

CompTIA (Computing Technology Industry Association) are a not-for-profit trade association and a peer community. At their EMEA (European, Middle Eastern and Asian) Conference in London, the biggest event outside of the USA, I spoke to four attendees to find out why they think CompTIA membership is a must for IT companies and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who want to grow their businesses.

Bruce Penson – Managing Director at Pro Drive IT (CompTIA Member)

Bruce’s business works in quite an interesting niche – supporting companies in regulated industries, such as oil and gas, financial advisers and commodity traders, as well as businesses who support clients in regulated industries.

Regulated industries set the bar quite high for their IT support providers, and they have challenges around compliance, which can be due to trade body regulations, corporate governance or client need.

Bruce says clients usually get in touch when they have a problem, and he works with them to identify pain points and find technology solutions for that. Once the problem is solved, he provides ongoing support to look at other ways to help the business.

Pro Drive IT have been CompTIA members for a while, and Bruce says the highlight for him is networking – being able to learn from other IT companies about their successes and challenges and being able to do better business.

Craig Sharp of Abussi (CompTIA Conference Speaker and Member)

Craig presented at the CompTIA EMEA Conference on “What do people think of Managed Service providers, so I asked him to share his thoughts on that.

He said that for businesses like his, working with smaller companies, they really don’t understand the term ‘MSP’, leaving the provider with two options: Explain it to the client or accept that ‘the IT support team’ is the name that you’ll be given to explain what it is you do”.

Once customers start to understand what the MSP can do, they see them as a way to offload more of the tech stuff, moving from just hardware support to helping with infrastructure, internet and more.

The shift to cloud-based computing hasn’t changed the clients’ attitudes to MSPs, because they still need support, just for less equipment. It’s important to explain that this still requires staff!

Craig has three simple pieces of advice for IT companies working with small businesses: Build good relationships with clients, standardise and simplify your services, and give them solutions that work for them.

Mark Williams – Pensar (Outgoing Chair of the CompTIA Channel Community)

Mark explains: “The Channel Community is a mixed group of solution providers, vendors and distributors, predominantly based in the UK. It’s a networking opportunity and also allows us to give best practise advice, deliver workshops and generally improve the quality of service delivery in the UK.”

Mark says that his time as Chair was very rewarding, giving him the opportunity to network with people and meet new vendors he might not have otherwise met, and found out about new products and services.

He is a firm believer in collaboration rather than competition, and building relationships to outsource services you need to offer a full range of options. Don’t view people as competitors, but realise there are some things that you’re really good at – focus on them and do them well.

For the areas where you’re weaker, outsource. If you want be a one-stop resource for clients, you’ll need to partner with people to give people what they need, rather than just your own specialisms.

Mark says that: “The benefit of procuring through the CompTIA Community is that they want to build their business and follow best practises, so they’ll deliver good service.”

Todd Thibodeaux (President and CEO of CompTIA Worldwide)

Todd explains that CompTIA is: “a global non-profit and helps IT to be better businesses, to grow, meet other people, learn best practises, and provide research and learning opportunities. People probably know us best for our IT certification programmes – A+ is probably the best known one”.

The certification programmes are a revenue source to allow CompTIA to do other things. They have 2,200 members globally and about 360 in the UK, and range from really small companies with one or two employees, all the way up to the big businesses such as Cisco, Intel and Microsoft.

CompTIA provide tools to help businesses overcome challenges, carry out global research into best practises and trends, and lobby governments around the world on behalf of the industry.

Todd says they’re particularly proud of their philanthropic work and charitable activities, such as the UK programme TeenTech, which helps kids get into tech and IT. Membership is kept at a low cost and they have a range of educational tools and resources for people to use.

As Mentioned in this episode

CompTIA

If you’d like to learn more about CompTIA and how they can support your IT or Managed Service Provider (MSP) business, visit CompTIA or on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Todd talked about the A+ certification programme and the TeenTech scheme and also mentioned Nest, a home automation provider.

Bruce Penson

Find out about Bruce Penson’s company, Pro Drive IT, see Pro Drive IT on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and find Bruce on LinkedIn.

Richard and Bruce discussed SharePoint, ‘a web-based, collaborative platform that integrates with Microsoft Office’ and IT documentation software provider IT Glue,

Craig Sharp

Abussi is Craig Sharp’s business and you can find them on Twitter and Facebook and you can see Craig’s blog, Tales of an IT Professional.

Mark Williams

Mark Williams’ company is Pensar and you can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Managed Service Retailers, Home Automation and The Internet of Things – TubbTalk15

An Interview with Phylip Morgan

Phylip Morgan runs The Network Group, a UK-wide support community for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), retailers and select vendors to share best practice, give advice and support and to find out about the latest industry developments.

The Network Group hosts five events each year, which gives members the opportunity to network, learn new things and discuss ways to grow their businesses – their focus is always on ‘thinking, talking, growing’ and not seeing the other members as competition.

The Network Group seek to give their members the most helpful information they can and listen to their feedback to make sure they get the right support. They also work with members to grow their businesses and have a number of ways they do this.

One initiative is to help retailers to become Managed Service Retailer (MSR), modelled on the MSP approach of bringing several different client systems together under one support package, to give a more streamlined support service.

Phylip explained why he believes there’s a need for MSRs for general consumers as well as MSPs for businesses: “In all industries, services provided need to be managed, and bigger organisations are already moving to a subscription-based service.”

For example, customers are no longer able to purchase antivirus or Microsoft Office in a box in a computer shop – Microsoft has moved to 365, an online version of their office software which customers pay for annually.

That means lost revenue for most UK retailers, but fortunately, not for the members of The Network Group. Phylip says they have a phrase, almost an ethos, of “turning footfall into fans”, which means changing an in-store experience from informational to relational.

The retailers are encouraged to discuss the customer’s needs with them, to offer them a subscription service which provides them with ongoing support beyond their initial purchase, tailored to their specific needs.

This idea of remote management, to ensure that the customer’s antivirus and Office subscriptions are up to date is common in the MSP space, but not in the consumer space, but Phylip thinks that this will change.

The MSRs offer several different packages, such as the Home Addition package to cover laptops and software. A Smart Home package would cover a family’s devices, including laptops and the TV, any subscriptions and hardware and software.

Retailers are facing increasing challenges from online sellers who can offer lower prices, and there’s a lot of talk about the death of the high street, but Phylip believes that MSRs can offer a different, more specialised customer experience to that of retail giants such as Amazon.

Technological developments are moving us towards the Internet of Things and people being able to do a lot more with the devices in their own homes. Employees and business owners are increasingly starting to use their personal devices for work-related tasks, which creates an opportunity for MSPs to work with the MSRs to provide support wherever the customer uses their gadgets.

This has already happened in the MSP world, where they’ve diversified into telephony, voice data solutions or managed print, and others have gone into CCTV and security.

Convergence has already happened with some things so it can happen a bit more: an MSP can partner with an MSR in the same way some do now, to offer the services they don’t do themselves.

The customer benefits from an MSR agreement that looks after their subscriptions, hardware, software and includes in-store discounts, and can work out cheaper than purchasing these separately.

For MSPs and MSRs worried that a flat fee option would be abused, they simply need to have a reasonable use policy that explains to the customer what is and isn’t included.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Network Group – www.nbg.co.uk
Nest – https://nest.com/uk/
The Internet of Things – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_things
Network Group on Twitter – https://twitter.com/nbgltd
Network Group on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/NetworkGroupUK/
Network Group on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/959383/)
Phylip Morgan on Twitter – https://twitter.com/phylipm
Mostyn Thomas – Managing Director of Astrix Integrated Systems Ltd
Chris Ducker

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You Might Also Be Interested In

TubbTalk03 – The Evolution of Buying Groups
TubbTalk13 – The Opportunities for MSPs in Cloud Accounting
TubbTalk01 – Tim Brewer on Being a Successful IT Entrepreneur

The post Managed Service Retailers, Home Automation and The Internet of Things – TubbTalk15 appeared first on Tubblog.

The opportunities for MSPs in Voice-over-IP (VoIP) – TubbTalk14

In this episode, I speak with George Bardissi, CEO of Bardissi Enterprises and BVoIP and discuss the opportunities for MSPs in Voice-over-IP (VoIP).

An Interview with George Bardissi

I’ve written before about Why your MSP should be using a VoIP solution to handle your calls.

In this episode, George Bardissi talks about how his BVoIP solution can make Voice-Over-IP easier for MSPs to manage and sell.

George started his first company, MSP Bardissi Enterprises, while still at school. Starting out as providing break/fix solutions, this evolved into offering service and maintenance plans and today it’s an opt-in service, with a full range of support provided to each customer.

Bardissi Enterprises is based in Philadelphia, with most of its 150 clients within the tri-state area. Their focus is on larger businesses, with between 50 and 100 employees, although George admits:

“We grew the hard way within the industry and needed to come up with a more long-term strategy. We started offering different tiers of our support plans (bronze, silver, gold), but everyone chose the cheapest option. The customers were motivated by price and then complained when the lower package didn’t fix all of their problems.

Finally, we concluded that not every customer is the right customer, and we needed to find the people who understood the value of not simply fire-fighting but actually working to grow their business and were looking for a cost-effective and efficient service.

Four years ago, George created BVoIP, a telephony solutions company which is a separate entity to his MSP. He explains his reasons for setting it up:

“We identified early on (in the MSP) that telephony was a real challenge, and after a few years, we decided to evaluate where we were wasting time on things that weren’t bringing in much revenue.

“We had 38 different phone system solutions or manufacturers that we were managing, and it was hard to keep track of all of these. In one year, we spent around 38% of our time on phone system vendor management, most of which was wasted.”

This led to the introduction of a single, standardised system which they installed everywhere, a move which drastically cut wasted time. BVoIP was developed for MSPs to be profitable, scalable and would eliminate time burn – a better solution than being a reseller.

BVoIP’s focus is entirely on the MSP, designed to provide them with an easily deployable system and management system, and they can choose whichever provider or phone type they like. The idea is that the MSPs are able to standardise the offering themselves and build it out to make good money from it.

George says that many MSPs fail when trying to introduce VoIP services because they’re too quick to choose cheap options from overseas. They also struggle to scale and manage multiple vendors, as well as providing services across a number of sites.

They also think they can do everything themselves, and trying to buy, finance and maintain goods as well as install them and create the service that each customer needs is time-consuming and hard to manage.

George credits the success of BVoIP to being able to employ a global workforce, rather than trying to find people locally – for many MSPs in the Philadelphia area, the bigger companies secure the top people before they’ve even left school.

He also advocates going cloud-based as soon as possible, to have only the minimum on-site. This makes things easier to manage, saves time as you don’t have to transport equipment, and allows companies to grow faster.

He’s honest about the challenges companies like his face. MSPs are at risk of the vendors trying to get into the same space, as competing with well-known brands such as Dell is difficult. It’s also important for staff to be up to date with current changes, especially with cloud competencies, and smaller firms will struggle to be able to lose man-hours while staff are out being trained.

For BVoIP and other VoIP providers, there’s always a new company popping up, and people only need some coding skills and internet access to join the marketplace. He believes that the ability to disrupt the SaaS world is unprecedented, but urges companies to concentrate on what they can control, and not worry about things they can’t.

George hopes to continue to grow BVoIP steadily to make it a global solution for MSPs to offer their customers.

Mentioned in this episode

Bardissi Enterprises – www.bardissi.net
BVoIP – www.bvoip.com
Rackspace – www.rackspace.com
Autotask – www.autotask.com
ConnectWise – www.connectwise.com
Salesforce – www.salesforce.com
ZenDesk – www.zendesk.com
FreshDesk – www.freshdesk.com
Tigerpaw – www.tigerpaw.com
OpenStack – www.openstack.org
A full list of BVoIP integrations – www.bvoip.com/integrations
George Bardissi on LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com/in/georgebardissi/
George Bardissi on Twitter – twitter.com/gbardissi

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You Might Also Be Interested In

Should your MSP be selling VoIP services?
Should your MSP be selling Telecoms services?
How to stop unwanted Telesales Calls

The post The opportunities for MSPs in Voice-over-IP (VoIP) – TubbTalk14 appeared first on Tubblog.

The return of TubbTalk – The Podcast for IT Consultants

If you’re a long-time reader of my blog, then you’ll know that the past year or so has been a tumultuous one for me — bad: two hospital stays, good: getting married, and a move to the other end of the country. If you want to know more, you can read more about why I’m rebooting my blog and my business.

Prior to all the changes, I published a regular series of Podcast episodes aimed at IT business owners.

I’m fortunate enough to be able to spend time with some of the smartest, most successful people in the IT industry. My Podcast was a way to allow other business owners to (politely!) eavesdrop on my conversations with these movers and shakers.

Podcasting is something I love doing, and over the past 18 months or so I’ve haven’t been able to resist sitting down and recording interviews with some amazing folks. Sadly, I’ve been unable to make time to publish those interviews… until now!

TubbTalk – The Podcast for IT Consultants… is back!

I’ve just published a batch of four episodes of TubbTalk – The Podcast for IT Consultants.

If you’re a subscriber (visit http://www.tubblog.co.uk/tubbtalk-the-podcast-for-it-consultants for more details) then you’ll already have those episodes waiting for you to listen to.

For everyone else, I’ll be publishing the new episodes in full via the blog over the next week or so — and another batch of four episodes the week after that!

But if you can’t wait to listen in, here’s a glimpse of what’s to come.

George Bardissi of BVoIP on the opportunities for MSPs in Voice-over-IP

I’m really proud of this episode. It’s a long-form detailed interview with George Bardissi, an MSP owner in Philadelphia, PA who also runs a business — BVoIP — that helps other MSPs successfully sell Voice-over-IP services to their clients. George is a fabulous interviewee and listeners will learn a ton about VoIP, running a successful MSP and more.

Phylip Morgan on Managed Service Retailers

One of the most popular episodes of the Podcast was on The evolution of IT buying groups – TubbTalk03. In this new episode, Phylip Morgan returns to give an update on Network Group and to talk about the opportunities for Managed Service Providers to team up with Managed Service Retailers (MSRs).

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

CompTIA is a not-for-profit trade association and a peer community. At their EMEA Conference in London, the biggest event outside of the USA, I spoke to four attendees to find out why they think CompTIA membership is a must for IT companies and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who want to grow their businesses.

Craig Sharp on How to be a Remarkable MSP

This episode is very special to me. It’s a different type of episode — a recording of a presentation, rather than an interview. Craig Sharp of Birmingham-based MSP, Abussi, talks on how to be a remarkable Managed Service Provider (MSP).

The reason it’s so special to me is it’s the keynote presentation *I* was due to deliver before I was knocked over in a hit and run accident! Craig stepped in at incredibly short notice to take my place and deliver his take on my presentation, which features three exceptional MSPs I’ve worked with.

This episode is dedicated to you, Craig. Thank you!

How you can subscribe to TubbTalk – The Podcast for IT Consultants

I hope you enjoy the above episodes as they are officially released over the next few days.

Next week I’ll be releasing another four special episodes. To make sure you don’t miss out on listening to those episodes as they are released, subscribe for free to the TubbTalk Podcast now by using the links below.

Subscribe via RSS

Subscribe in iTunes

Subscribe via Stitcher Radio

Who would you like to hear from?

If you have a request for someone you’d like to hear on TubbTalk (it might even be you!) or any ideas for what you’d like to hear on the Podcast – please, leave a comment below or get in touch!

You Might Also Be Interested In

The opportunities for IT companies in Cloud Accounting – TubbTalk13
The Importance of IT documentation – TubbTalk10
Tim Brewer on being a successful IT entrepreneur – TubbTalk01

Webinar – Automation: Does your MSPs future depend on it?

A heads-up that on Thursday, 8th March 2018 I’m going to be joining my friends at IT Glue to present a webinar. The webinar topic is one that is increasingly going to be seen as very important to Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

Automation. Does your MSPs future depend on it?

What is MSP Automation?

With 40% of business productivity being lost to task-switching and 30% of IT employees’ time spent on basic low-level tasks, automation offers more opportunity than ever.

I’ll be joined by Alex Ford of IT Glue to look at 3 key areas of interest for MSPs

What automation really is and who is successfully using it already
My 3 routes to automation success in your MSP
How you can boost efficiency and create a competitive edge with automation


Register for the Webinar

Our webinar takes place on Thursday, 8th March 2018 at 1 pm GMT.

The webinar is open to all — IT Glue customers and non-customers — if you’re in the Managed Services business, then this webinar will be of interest to you.

You can register now for the webinar at https://events.itglue.com/automation-webinar

As always, we have a lot of fun with these webinars with the live attendees – so have your questions about automation prepared!

If you can’t make the live webinar, make sure to register anyway and you’ll be sent a link to watch the webinar on demand.

What does automation mean for your MSP?

Join us for the live webinar to discuss. Leave me a comment below, or get in touch with your questions now. I want to hear what you think automation may mean for your MSP business.

You Might Also Be Interested In

Webinar – Operational Efficiency: 5 Quick Wins
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A New Employee: What Is The Cost To Your MSP?

Futureme – Write a letter to the future

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 Futureme – Write a letter to the future.

What is it?

Futureme is a website that allows you to write a letter to yourself in the future.

How can it help me?

Write a letter to your future you at the FutureMe website, ask it deliver the letter in 1, 3, 5 years time (or a specific date of your choosing) and then sit back.

At the date you’ve specified in the future, you’ll receive an email from yourself in the past!

You can make your letters private or public, but anonymous. You can read the Public, but anonymous, letters on FutureMe and there are some great ones!

I inevitably forget that I’ve sent the future me a letter, and so it always comes as a surprise when I receive the letter from my past self!

I’ve used FutureMe to remind myself of important lessons I’ve learned, experiences I’ve been through, a reminder that perseverance and consistency lead to success, and hopes that I have for the future. It’s a surprisingly effective method of reminding yourself of what is important to you.

FutureMe is like a tiny personalised TARDIS for your letters.

Why Your MSP Business Will Never Be Completed

In all the years I’ve been working within the IT industry, meeting hundreds and hundreds of IT business owners, I’ve never once met a business owner who, when asked what they’d like to improve within their IT Solution Provider or Managed Service Provider (MSP) business, replied “Nothing!”.

The reality of running an IT business is that the growth of the business is never, ever “completed”. Even if you’ve built the perfect sales machine or the perfect Service Desk. Even if you have the best employees and the most qualifications. The IT industry is forever changing and so your business needs to adapt to those changes. Clients have new requirements. The sands are constantly shifting. Your IT business is like a Jigsaw puzzle that is always expanding and is impossible to complete.

Most IT business owners would agree with this. They’d agree that their business is a continuous work in progress and they will never be “finished”.

Why then do many IT business owners put important tasks, such as Sales and Marketing, off – citing that the time isn’t right and once they’ve finished something else (a client deployment, hiring a new employee) they’ll do those important things?

We don’t have time to do Marketing

Don’t get me wrong. As the former owner of an MSP myself, I know that the demands on an owner’s time are immense. You have to be Technician, Salesman, HR and Chief Bottle Washer. But you know what? That’s unlikely to change unless you change it.

The most common aspiration I hear from IT business owners is that they want to acquire new clients and grow their business. But when asked what Marketing they’re doing, the response is typical — “We keep meaning to, but can’t find the time”.

Let me be blunt. Within a constantly evolving IT industry, with new products and new tools always being released, with clients who have ever-changing requirements, with the goalposts constantly shifting – something will always demand your attention, distracting you from doing any Marketing.

Unless you make the time.

Making the time to do Marketing

Making the time to do marketing means taking baby-steps and being serious about executing them.

That means not trying to coordinate a massive Direct Mail campaign after months of doing nothing. That means not asking Vendors to give you unsolicited Marketing Development Funds in the hope that will cure-all. That means not throwing money at a Telemarketing company and expecting miracles.

What making the time does mean is Googling the next business networking event in your area and booking a place. That means in the days before the networking event, organising cover for any emergencies or distractions that might occur. That means on the day of the networking event, turning up on time, with your Smartphone turned off and a pocket full of business cards. Then repeat, the week afterwards. And the week after that. You can learn how to end procrastination.

What making the time does mean is scheduling the time in your diary to sit down and think about the type of clients you’d like to work with. That means that at the time you’ve specified, not being distracted by emails or some mock emergency. That means sitting down with your Smartphone turned off and writing down the type of clients you’d like to work with. Then repeat, the week afterwards, only taking a business directory with you and writing down the actual names of the companies you’d like to work with. Then repeat, looking for a way to begin a conversation with them.

If you struggle with making time, then why not view my Tate Talks with Tubb recording on demand. We cover time management for MSP business owners.

Conclusion

Your IT business will never, ever be complete. It will never be finished. Nor will the list of tasks that you need to do in and for your business.

If you agree with this statement, why then are you putting off the most important jobs – such as finding new clients, marketing and business growth. Why are you waiting until the time is right and you’ve finished the swathes of other less important work?

Stop putting off the important tasks and start making the time. No excuses. Simply make the time to complete baby steps.

Before long, all those little baby steps will have added up to significant milestones in your business and you’ll look back not having maintained your business position, but having strode forwards with it.

What would you like to get started with for your MSP business? Leave a comment below or contact me — I’d love to hear what you’re working on!

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IT Glue Roadshow Series 2018

A heads-up from the UK team at IT Glue that the Glue Crew are hitting the road in 2018!

The IT Glue Roadshow is visiting London, Birmingham and Manchester and is aimed at both existing IT Glue partners and newcomers to IT Glue.

What is IT Glue?

If you’re unfamiliar with IT Glue, it’s a smart documentation platform for IT Solution Providers and Managed Service Providers (MSPs). Not properly documenting your clients and your business is one of the biggest mistakes MSPs Make that cost them time and money, and so I’ve been thoroughly impressed by how IT Glue helps MSPs turn documentation into an asset for their business.

Whether you’re an expert IT Glue user or just want to know more about how smart documentation is transforming the way MSPs work, these roadshow days will be full of relevant and actionable insight.

Mornings for Newcomers to IT Glue

At each event, the morning is dedicated to newcomers to IT Glue, including:-

Those who are not currently using IT Glue
Those keen to understand more about how documentation can help your business
Those interested in finding out more about IT Glue

The morning session will give you an overview of IT Glue’s documentation platform and discuss the impact of time waste and how smart documentation creates efficiency gains for your business.

0930-1000 – Registration & Breakfast
1000-1030 – Creating a Leaner, Fitter Smarter MSP: Born from an MSP’s frustration with time wasted by their technical team, they’ll share how IT Glue was designed to help service providers become leaner, fitter & smarter.
1030-1100 – Documentation, Why?: A strong documentation culture can ‘free minds’ and allow an MSP to scale while enhancing service delivery. Discuss how out of date systems and processes can hinder and what you need to do to avoid gambling on your ability to scale.
1120:1230 – Live Case Study: – London – James Ratcliff, Managing Director, Ratcliff IT. Birmingham – Paul Dadge, CEO, PC Paramedics. Manchester – Greg Jones,  CTO, Aabyss.
1230:1330 – Lunch

Newcomers are welcome to stay for the afternoon event should you want to learn more about the solution the latest IT Glue product updates.

An Afternoon for IT Glue Partners

For existing IT Glue partners, the roadshow event offers an afternoon with exclusive product updates and what they mean to your business.

1130-1230 – Stadium Tour
1230-1330 – Lunch and Registration
1330-1400 – Product Updates
1400-1440 – Introducing MyGlue: MyGlue is the solution you’ve been waiting for to effortlessly secure your clients’ digital footprints.
1500-1520 – Flexible Asset Design Showcase: Flexible Assets is a powerful service tool allowing your business to unleash creative processes and run leaner & smarter.
1520-1630 – Best Practice Live: London – James Ratcliff, Managing Director, Ratcliff IT. Birmingham – Paul Dadge, CEO, PC Paramedics. Manchester – Greg Jones,  CTO, Aabyss.

The IT Glue Roadshow 2018 Dates

You can join the IT Glue Roadshow on:-

Monday, March 12th in London at Stamford Bridge
Wednesday, March 14th in Birmingham at Villa Park
Friday, March 16th in Manchester at Old Trafford

Register for the IT Glue Roadshow

Make sure to register for the IT Glue Roadshow now!

Do you already use IT Glue for your MSP business? How do you find it helps you? If you don’t already use a solution like IT Glue, then I’m intrigued — how do you document your business? Leave a comment below or get in touch with me.

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101 Tokens – Retrain Your Booze Brain

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 101 Tokens – Retrain Your Booze Brain.

What is it?

101 Tokens is an app that helps you be mindful of your relationship with alcohol.

How can it help me?

Love a drink, but hate hangovers? 101 Tokens helps you keep track of when you drink and asks you the important question “Was it worth it?”

From 1st January – 31st December (365 days) you have 101 Tokens – that’s under two tokens per week.
A sip of alcohol is One Token.
A whole night of drinking is also One Token.
After each Token use the 101 Tokens App to ask yourself ‘WAS IT WORTH IT?.’ This is how you retrain your brain to make every drink count.

We’re all human and it’s easy to drink and find yourself in an embarrassing situation (see my article on How to Prevent yourself being tagged in Facebook Photos) or to do something you regret the next day. 101 Tokens helps you reassess those situations and prevent them happening again.

101 Tokens is a free app that helps you re-train your booze brain

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The 101 Tokens app is supported by a community of smart drinkers including experts with advice on hacking your drinking habits.

How much does it cost?

101 Tokens is free to use.

How can I get it?

You can download the 101 Tokens App for iOS from the Apple App Store, or download the 101 Tokens App for Android from the Google Play Store.

To find out more visit the 101 Tokens homepage, join the 101 Tokens group on Facebook, or follow 101 Tokens on Instagram.

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