Happy Monday, everyone.

I basically missed seeing Nashville, which makes me sad, but I had a great experience at XChange. Due hurricanes and air traffic confusion, I got to Nashville too late to see the sites on Sunday. Sigh.

But, as you can see, there was a bit of wizardry and fun at Xchange. I got to hang out with Eric Anthony from Egnyte. (You may also know Eric from the "All Things MSP" group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/allthingsmsp.

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HUGE thank you to Carolynn Herr and The Channel Company (producers of the XChange event) for letting me speak on the state of regulation and legislation in our industry.

XChange is a Vendor Partner of the National Society of IT Service Providers and provided us with a booth to attract new members.

I was very pleased to see several NSITSP members at the event and in my presentation.

If you missed us, or have any questions about the National Society, please check us out at https://nsitsp.org.

Xchange is unique in its format. Unlike most conferences, Xchange is not designed to have attendees wander back and forth to various rooms all day. Instead, a dozen or do IT consultants sit in one "boardroom" all day and vendors come in and make presentations. So, pretty much every boardroom has a different experience.

Some vendors try to hit every boardroom. Some focus on larger or smaller ITSPs.

The attendees get to know their fellow boardroom members a bit, since they spend two days with them. So it's also a unique networking opportunity than other events.

Xchange attendees are sponsored, so they are not out-of-pocket to attend. In exchange, they agree to attend the events as scheduled. As a rule, attendees are at or above $1 million in top line revenue in order to be sponsored.

The result is that vendors love the show because they know the entire audience has already overcome the challenges of hiring a few people, creating levels of managements, and operating with a number of employees. In other words, they are now facing a new set of challenges. Oh, and they should have some extra money to spend.

I talked about one of the long-time community members, Uli Kirkegaard, losing everything in the Maui fires recently. In addition to my appeals, Harry Brelsford and the ASCII Group have encouraged people to contribute to Uli's GoFundMe account.

See https://gofund.me/b9c99deb.

Now - Harry has organized a community update to give Uli a chance to talk to the community, thank you for your support, and give a "feet on the ground" update to the devastation in Lahaina. He'll also touch on preparedness.

This is not an appeal for more more. It's a report from Maui. Some things you can't prepare for exactly. But there always seems to be a new kind of unforeseen event. So what do you do?

Join us tomorrow, 9AM Eastern, Noon Pacific:

. . . and all of your vendors should be, too!

Check out the other vendor sponsors at nsitsp.org/vendor-partners. If your favorite vendors are not listed, please ask them to join today - and support the long-term professionalism of our industry!

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Filing for Committee and Board positions ends Thursday !!!

If you have considered volunteering and sitting on a committee, hurry over to https://nsitsp.org/elections and register today. To stand for office, you must be a paid member.

But at only $150 for your company - you should be a member anyway!

ALL boards and committees have openings. So decide where you can serve best and sign up. There is no additional cost to run for office. And we need YOU to help us represent all the people in this industry.

Join us!

I added several events to the big calendar. But I need more. What are you attending? What are your plans for the months and year ahead? Send me events and links if you have them.

. . .

As Promised . . . I am now officially off the road until the baby (my first grand child) is born. To play it safe, I have nothing scheduled until mid October.

What that really means is that I'm working on a new book and preparing for a slightly slower Fall and Winter. I find it easy to write near beaches (not sure why), but less easy when traveling for conferences.

Anyway, I have to get this book out of my head, and that takes focus. So I'll be enjoying a little less travel until I have something to share with the world.

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Sign up for the big Service Agreements class that starts September 19th.

And - Big Heads Up - Lori Hartke will be teaching a course on Profit First for MSPs this fall - exclusively for IT Service Provider University! Stay tuned here for details

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That's the news for this week. Let me know if I can help you with anything.

Please share this newsletter if you enjoy it.

Have a great week. And stay safe.

:-)

Links below in the events calendar - or at WhereInTheWorldIsKarl.com.

Taught by Larry Mandelberg

Author and Coach

- Five Tuesdays

- August 15th - September 12th

BONUS: I am buying a copy of Larry's book for everyone who attends this course!

Every business that has failed did so because of leadership’s inability to adapt to change. Learn how to prepare for the inevitable changes your successful business is racing toward now, and the changes continued success will impose on you in the future.

In the business world, change lurks around every corner. And the more successful you are, the more change your business will face. But no business ever failed due to external forces or finances. External forces can be anticipated and deflected, and finances are always lagging indicators of prior bad choices. Businesses always fail because success always brings change and unfamiliar problems without instructions on how to handle them. Without knowledge, experience, or instructions, leadership is forced to guess.

Author and Coach

Week Five - Putting it all together to become a sustainable, extraordinarily spectacular organization

Delivered by Larry Mandelberg, author and coach.

Includes five weeks of webinar classes with related handouts, assignments, and "office hours" with the instructor.

This course is intended for business owners and managers. It is particularly useful for the Owner or Operations Manager.

Meets Certification Requirements for:

This class will be recorded. Each unit is generally posted within 24 hours of the live class. These recorded units will become the On-Demand class and you’ll have lifetime access to it.

SMB Community Podcast - New episodes drop every Thursday

Our YouTube IT Consulting channel now has more than 9,185 subscribers and 710,000 views!

Subscribe today and don't miss a thing!

You can always check out my YouTube Channel and subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/smallbizthoughts

OR my Relax-Focus-Succeed Channel at https://www.youtube.com/relaxfocussucceed

My brother Manuel has been a technology savant for more than three decades. He has run and managed managed services business across the U.S. and coached consultants from all over the world.

Manuel has a great keynote speech entitled The Culture Imperative. He'll be our special guest on the Small Biz Thoughts Roundtable, the first Thursday of September. That's September 7th at 9:00 AM Pacific.

Open to all members. Join us!

Members find out more. Click Here.

No need to register. Just show up. The link is in your Community Dashboard.

-- -- --

All New Roadmap!

This is a special Roadmap for two reasons.

First, the content is a direct result of member request. I met with a member who is completely new to the IT consulting business. He asked where to start with the "absolute basics" of building a network.

Second, this Roadmap is focused on the technical side rather than the business side. Our other Roadmaps are all intended to help you to be better on the business side of your business. This one is 80% technical and 20% business.

So I created the classes on TCP/IP and networking. Then, we bundled those with previous materials on DNS and the use to TCP/IP to grow your business. And, along the way, I revised a lot of forms related to network documentation and cloud services. This Roadmap brings it all together!

Members can access here . . . or just click on "Roadmaps" from the top menu.

Other Roadmaps include:

Here's the last Community News video:

I smiled when I found this in my daughter's tool box. For the newer members of our community, Level Platforms was one of the early RMM tools and was acquired by AVG . . . many years ago.

This calendar lists two kinds of things: LIVE in-person events from any organization that focuses on the SMB consulting community; and MY events, whether live, webinar, etc.

More Info: www.cmitsolutions.com

August 30 & 31

Toronto, Canada

More Info: https://events.ascii.com/

:-)

Sept. 6-7

Boston (New England)

More Info: https://events.channelpronetwork.com/channelpro-smb-forum-2023-boston

More Info: https://getnerdio.com/nerdio-training-camp/#trainingregister

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/events

September 20 & 21

Chicago, IL

More Info: https://events.ascii.com/

More Info: https://www.canitcon.ca/events/canitcon-2023-banff-1

Sep 18-21

Huntington Beach, CA

More Info: https://summit.sandlerpartners.com/2023

Sept 28-29

Scottsdale, AZ

More Info: http://bit.ly/kernanmastermind

Oct. 2-4, 2023

Miami, FL

More Info: https://www.dattocon.com/

More Info: https://getnerdio.com/nerdio-training-camp/#trainingregister

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/events

XChange Emea

October 10-11

Amsterdam, Netherlands

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/xchange

Oct 9-11

Washington, DC

More Info: https://msspalertlive.com/2023

Oct. 10-11

Atlanta (Southeast)

More Info: https://events.channelpronetwork.com/channelpro-smb-forum-2023-atlanta

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/events

Oct. 16-18

Miami, FL

More Info: https://promo.acronis.com/summit-2023-pre-register.html

More Info: https://getnerdio.com/nerdio-training-camp/#trainingregister

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/events

More Info: https://www.smbtechfest.com/registration.asp

October 18 & 19

Washington, D.C.

More Info: https://events.ascii.com/

October 19

London, England

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/xchange

More Info: https://www.smbitpro.org/conference-2023/

Oct. 30-Nov. 2

Miami Beach

More Info: https://www.channelfutures.com/channel-events

More Info: https://events.channelpronetwork.com/content/2023-events-registration

More Info: https://www.connectwise.com/theitnation/evolve/agenda

More Info: https://getnerdio.com/nerdio-training-camp/#trainingregister

More Info: https://www.connectwise.com/theitnation/evolve/agenda

:-)

More Info: https://web.cvent.com/event/70970f2a-39dd-46ad-9469-1c6e7733071e/regProcessStep1:74825d1d-ed84-4213-ac63-741430f5a2d4

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/events

More Info: https://navigate.ascii.com/

Dec 7-8

Phoenix, AZ

More Info: https://kernanconsulting-mastermind.mykajabi.com/mastermind-event

More Info: https://getnerdio.com/nerdio-training-camp/#trainingregister

:-)

Send us your updates

March 3-5

Orlando, FL

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/xchange

March

UK

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/xchange

More Info: https://www.channelfutures.com/channel-events

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/events

Send us your updates

More Info: https://www.mspgeekcon.com

June 2024

East Essex, England

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/xchange

More Info: https://www.thechannelco.com/xchange

View this and previous newsletters at