Smb Community Podcast By Karl W. Palachuk

This week Chip Reaves from Bigger Brains announced a great new offering for managed service providers. I talked to him about Bigger Brains and the new offering – Computer College. Chip is the founder of Computer Troubleshooters in the U.S. (It was originally an Australian company.) Computer Troubleshooters grew to 480 locations in 33 countries. After selling off his interest in that franchise, Chip still owns a Computer Troubleshooters business in South Carolina. Bigger Brains was created to provide e-learning systems to Chip’s clients. Training is a natural addition to what we do for a living. In fact, many of us offer some kind of O.S. or software training in our managed services offerings already. Bigger Brains now has two levels of offerings. First, the “Bigger Brains” brand is a training service that you can resell. It has lots of courses and sells for about $17 per user per month. That’s end user pricing. You can make a very healthy profit on that (details in the audio). Cources include Excel, Word, Pow

I had a great talk with Michael Siggins, Publisher of ChannelProSMB. Among other things, he brought me up to speed on their big live event scheduled for April 10th: Channel Pro SMB Forum. This day-long educational event will be in beautiful Long Beach, CA. The weather is expected to be perfect! Channel Pro Forum  will be a jam-packed, one-day affair with great content, great food and great networking opportunities. Sessions include: o Adapting Your Business to the Cloud o Winning Sales and Marketing Strategies for MSPs o Where the Money Is in Mobility o Today’s Hottest Trends in Hardware o CompTIA Training: MSP Partners Trustmark And of course you, I will be there on a panel. The event is FREE. For more info and to register, please go to www.ChannelProForum.com.   Michael also mentioned that ChannelPro magazine is holding its Reader Choice Award voting. This is a program designed to identify the most SMB-specific products, solutions and services for ChannelPro readers and their customers. They are accepting

For several years now, I have presented my “State of the Nation” address for small business IT consultants. I never pretend that I’m unbiased. But most of my writing is pretty matter of fact. And most of my interviewing is intended to coax information out of other people. But once a year I dust off the soapbox and give a 45 minute “State of the Nation” address. This year, I talked about  . . . Highlights (lowlights?) from 2012 The Death of SBS Cloud Services Economy Rebooting Your IT Consulting Business in 2013 The recording came out pretty good, so I am posting it here. – Download Karl’s 2013 State of the Nation Address for Small Business I.T. Consultants here. Here are some of the web sites listed in this broadcast. www.SMBBooks.com  www.smbonlineconference.com blog.smallbizthoughts.com  

After months of preparation, Cloud Nation (www.cloudnation.co) was launched last week. I interviewed Tom Poole, President of Cloud Nation about the launch. First, I dropped in to www.cloudnation.co and signed up for the install-access 30 day trial. So I was logged into the system while interviewing Tom. The site has two sides. Betty the Business Woman represents small businesses. Folks who enter there will get a test drive, but they will be channeled to resellers if they want to buy. Carl the Cloud Guy The other character is Carl the Cloud Guy — the I.T. Pro. There are two levels of membership. There are partners who wish to offer their cloud services through Cloud Nation. But most of us are going to be exploring how to be a Cloud Nation Certified Professional. Yes, there is a certification program. The training program has a series of ten modules that cover the technology as well as sales and marketing strategies. As the introductory email states, “Getting the Cloud Nation experience firsthand is a great w

A few people have been talking about the new HIPAA training from Reflexion. In my brain, Reflexion = Spam Filtering. So how do you get from there to HIPAA training and certification? So I called Scott Barlow, VP of Sales and Marketing at Reflexion. HIPAA Training from Reflexion Scott ended up giving me a great education on HIPAA requirements, the one important “Business Associate Agreement” you need to have, and how you can get certified and resell certification to your clients. Scott tells stories about very small companies being fined due to HIPAA compliance issues – including a 5-physician that was fined $100,000! Training is very straight forward and very inexpensive. The course has ten sections with quizzes at the end. Then the course as a whole has a 50-question test at the end. It is 100% online and costs only $299! Best take-away is the template you get for your Business Associate Agreement. If you’re looking for a great additional source of revenue, and you want to work with people in the medical

I ran into Arlin in Orlando a few weeks ago, but we never connected for a podcast. So we made a point of connecting my phone a few days ago.   Arlin Sorensen of HTG Heartland Technology Groups (HTG) have been a major force in the SMB space for many years. HTG programs have traditionally been face to face peer groups. Right now there are about 250 companies in the face to face groups. But now there are another 70 companies involved with HTG’s online program. Arlin gives us some good information about the specialty groups that are evolving. There are specialty groups for managers, smaller companies, and even much larger companies. HTG’s big annual conference will be in Dallas May 6-9, 2013. In addition, HTG is organizing a “CEO Vision” Summit in Omaha, NE August 15-16, 2013. This will be a special “Ted-Style” format. Arlin gives the details in our podcast. – Download the Interview with Arlin Sorensen here. Whether you’re interested in the Face to Face peer groups, online peer groups, or specialty programs, y

One of my favorite resources in the SMB community is Robert Crane – Directory of the Computer Information Agency. You can find him at CIAOPS.com. I refer to Robert as a resource because he really is “the man to know” with regard to SharePoint. That includes the SharePoint services shipped with Small Business Server 2003, 2008, 2011, the free version from Microsoft, or the full-price product now available as a hosted environment. SharePoint Operations Guide by Robert Crane Robert maintains a massive resource library he simply calls SharePoint Operations Guide. See more information at SMB Books and CIAOPS.com. The SharePoint Operations Guide now includes a great deal of information on Office 365 and how you can integrate these products to add value for your clients. Robert and I had a phone chat yesterday (Well, today in Australia). Robert gives us some great ideas about how to make money with these new products. He spells out a wonderful analogy between technology consulting and shepherding sheep. Imagine t

AVG Announces Cloud Care As I was wandering the floor at IT Nation, Jessica Turner from AVG stopped me to give me some information about the new AVG program: Cloud Care. Then Austen Clark wandered up to hand me to AVG marketing goodies. I assumed he was an AVG employee, but he’s a very happy client of theirs and volunteered to hand things out. So I snapped this picture:   Jessica agreed to an interview. She brought me up to speed on the new AVG program and the revenue opportunities for MSPs. This service is provided on an as-needed basis with month-to-month payments. Includes anti-virus, content filtering, and remote IT services. We also went into deployment options, installation, their dashboard, how new users are added to the system, and more.   Download the Interview with Jessica Turner from AVG. For more information on AVG Cloud Care, visit www.avg.com/cloudcare. For more information on IT Nation, visit www.TheITNation.com. For more information on ConnectWise, visit www.ConnectWise.com.     Side story:

As the IT Nation show was winding down, I talked to some guys from Continuum. Joe Consolmagno is a Technical Account Manager for the Mid Atlantic Region. Raymond Vrabel is Director of Technical Account Management. Continuum was at IT Nation to talk to partners about how they integrate with a variety software programs. In addition, they introduce a variety of products. I asked Joe about the performance of Continuum worked during Hurricane Sandy’s visit to New York and New Jersey. The result was pretty impressive. The combination of Continuum and Datto made response to the disaster fast and easy. In addition to “Continuum Vault” for disaster recovery, the performance of the cloud-based NOC was excellent. Ray mentioned that during the disaster, about 3,000 virtual servers were spun up in the cloud – many of them in advance of the hurricane just to make sure that companies would have no downtime. Download the Interview with Joe and Ray from Continuum here. For more information about Continuum, visit www.continuu

I always like catching up with Dan Wensley from Level Platforms. Dan makes a point of starting out this interview with a ringing endorsement of the IT Nation conference. Level Platforms recently added helpdesk and NOC support for MSPs. The phones are answered in North America – primarily in Ottawa, Ontario. The key to success is the integration with clients’ existing RMM solution. We talked quite a bit about the lessons from Hurricane Sandy and the power of cloud services during a disaster. Hurricane Sandy was a real test for how MSPs will react to disasters in the age of cloud-based management and disaster recovery. Dan is proud of the performance of their NOC during the hurricane, and he’s confident that they will perform just as well in the next disaster. Download the Interview with Dan Wensley from Level Platforms here. For more information on Level Platforms, visit www.levelplatforms.com. For more information on IT Nation, visit www.TheITNation.com. For more information on ConnectWise, visit www.Connect

My friend Nancy Hammervik is the Senior Vice President, Industry Relations at CompTIA. On November 9th she was awarded a Bronze Stevie Award as “Female Innovator of the Year – Government or Non-Profit – 11 to 2,500 Employees.” The Stevie Awards were created to honor and generate public recognition of the achievements and positive contributions of organizations and business people worldwide. All organizations and individuals worldwide may submit nominations to the Stevie Awards for Women in Business. The Stevie Awards are given out by the American Business Association. We talked about her role mentoring women in business and specifically women in IT. Nancy deals with pretty much everything in CompTIA that deals with partners: Communications, education, and a lot more. Their goal is to be vendor neutral while providing education and opportunities for VARs and MSPs. Download the Interview with Nancy Hammervik from CompTIA here. For more information on CompTIA, visit www.comptia.org. For more information on IT N

Alan McDonald is President and CTO of Xilocore. Xilocore is a “business continuity and disaster recovery” company focused value added resellers. The develop entire disaster preparedness plans that can be added to managed service offerings. In addition to simply having a business continuity plan, Alan talks about testing recovery systems on a regular basis. He notes that the most successful partners for his product are those that focus their business around disaster recovery. And of course I made him answer some questions about their partner program. Download the Interview with Alan McDonald from Xilocore here. For more information on Quosal, visit www.xilocore.com. For more information on IT Nation, visit www.TheITNation.com. For more information on ConnectWise, visit www.ConnectWise.com.

While at IT Nation last weekend, I grabbed Kent McNall, CEO of Quosal for a quick interview. This “killer combo” of products is one of the most impressive things I saw over the weekend. Quosal was one of the highlighted products in Arnie Bellini’s keynote speech. Kent gave us some of the details about how Quosal connects the LabTech RMM to the ConnectWise PSA. We talked in some depth about the “possibility engine” in LabTech that triggers quotes from Quosal. From little things like the need for RAM, all the way up to creating an automated proposal for replacing an entire server, the LabTech/Quosal combination can help you find opportunities among your clients that you might otherwise miss. Quosal was written as an open application, so it works nicely with Autotask and other products in addition to ConnectWise. And with the LabTech integration it is very obvious that other RMM tools will want to develop a competing product as well. Download the Interview with Kent McNall from Quosal here. For more information

One of the fun people I don’t get to see enough is Ian Watkins from the UK. He has been using ConnectWise for seven years. I caught up with Ian as he was in line to get into one of the breakout sessions. So we recorded this podcast in the hallway. He gives us his perspective on the data protection issues for companies in the UK and European Union. We also talked about other vendors — and some comments about the music at the event. Download the Interview with Ian Watkins – ConnectWise user from the UK. For more information on IT Nation, visit www.TheITNation.com. For more information on ConnectWise, visit www.ConnectWise.com.

While hanging out in the PacketTrap booth, the talk turned to an interesting product combination that surprised me. Geoff Parker from PacketTrap tells me that a number of partners came by the booth and mentioned that they use these tools together. Hmmm . . . aren’t they both RMM tools? Well, yes, but they each have some outstanding features that makes them even better in combination. This is a quick interview but very interesting. Download the Interview with Geoff Parker from PacketTrap here. For more information on PacketTrap, visit www.packettrap.com. For more information on LabTech, visit www.labtechsoftware.com. For more information on IT Nation, visit www.TheITNation.com. For more information on ConnectWise, visit www.ConnectWise.com.

Interview with Erinn Davis, Community Manager for ConnectWise, Labtech, and Quosal Erinn Davis is one of the hardest working people I ran into at IT Nation. We grabbed an empty boardroom to talk about these three products and her role connecting with the community. The “Community Team” currently has 12 people. They manage all partner-facing activities at ConnectWise, Labtech, and Quosal. These activities include facilitating user groups and working with social media. One person on this team is Holly Soule. I mention the Pinterest pages she manages. You can see a taste of this at http://pinterest.com/connectwise/look-learn/. When we took the picture, the first shot didn’t capture Erinn’s hot shoes, so we had to redo this. Download the Interview with Erinn Davis from ConnectWise, Labtech, and Quosal here. For more information on LabTech, visit www.labtechsoftware.com. For more information on Quosal, visit www.quosal.com. For more information on IT Nation, visit www.TheITNation.com. For more information on Conn

ChannelEyes is now in its second year and Jay McBain was on the floor at IT Nation to talk to vendors about connecting with partners. According to Jay, most MSPs work with an average of eight vendors, and yet they are overwhelmed with the information flooding from vendors to partners. Jay explains the mobile “Channel Candy” apps that ChannelEyes makes available for vendors to develop. Channel Candy apps will live on your cell phone/mobile device and be a direct communication system between vendors and their channel partners. Jay gives us a great deal of detail on channel relations and how ChannelEyes is working to improve those relations. Download the Interview with Jay McBain from ChannelEyes here. For more information on ChannelEyes, everyone should visit www.channeleyes.com. For vendors to view the mobile app, visit www.channelcandy.com. For more information on IT Nation, visit www.TheITNation.com. For more information on ConnectWise, visit www.ConnectWise.com.

Kim’s cloud display was very clever. In fact, it caught my eye and I had to take a picture. Then, of course, I turned on the microphone to ask what they do. Integral is a “full IT solution provider.” They were recruiting partners to resell their managed service offerings, including cloud services and hosting/colo services. SSAE 16 SOC2 Audit Compliant. (See http://www.ssae16.org/ssae-16-reporting/ssae-16-type-2-reports.html) Their channel program has no minimums and no quotas. They will help train you to sell their solutions, so they can help you with both sales and technical support. Download the Interview with Kim Mann from Integral here.   For more information on Integral, visit www.integralsg.com.   For more information on IT Nation, visit www.TheITNation.com. For more information on ConnectWise, visit www.ConnectWise.com.

I dropped by the Symantec booth at IT Nation and had some fun horsing around with Anne Stobaugh and Dal Gemmell. They brought me up to speed with some of the latest programs at Syamantec. Anne made a point that Symantec is trying to be very MSP friendly. They offer a monthly subscription buying program AND promised that you don’t have to worry about Symantec contacting end users! The monthly program is a buy-what-you-need model and great for cash flow. A few products are available in this program either on-premise or in the Cloud, including End Point Protection and Backup Exec. Dal focuses on that Endpoint Protection piece and says Symantec is totally supporting Windows 8 devices at this time. As he says, “In this business, if you don’t adapt quickly to change, you’re not going to be in business for very long.” Symantec is also a big supporter of HTG. They support some groups directly and try to have a tight relationship. Their goal her is to stay tuned to what MSPs are looking for. Symantec has an “MSP Spec

Karl with Jenna from Spam Soap Jenna Chase is always in a good mood, and she really enjoyed the IT Nation vendor floor this year. We caught up with her on the last day. Spam Soap is a cloud based email and security provider. Which means cloud-based spam filtering, archiving, encryption, and hosted Exchange services. Of course they’ll filter any email you need filtering, so you don’t have to be hosted with them. Download the Interview with Jenna Chase from Spam Soap. For more information on Spam Soap, visit http://spamsoap.com or Call 866-772-6688.   For more information on IT Nation, visit www.TheITNation.com. For more information on ConnectWise, visit www.ConnectWise.com.