Happy Monday!

Welcome to the last week of July! This year continues to zoom along.

Just a quick thought for the week: What do you have to change to be successful?

I was cruising around YouTube. I mentioned to someone last week that I like to view YouTube while I'm not logged in. I have a YT Premium account, which is great for curating music and making my playlists portable. But Premium also eliminates the advertising.

And sometimes I want to see the ads! I want to see the trends and see various sales pitches.

Recently, I started clicking on ads for various coaches. And it occurred to me that the focus on "How I can make you successful" misses a huge piece of the equation: What you have to give up to be successful with this formula.

The unspoken but widely understood truth about coaching and training and "programs" generally is that most people won't be successful with the program because most people won't change anything in their lives or business. So, whether you pay $1,000 and do nothing, or pay $10,000 and do nothing, you get the same results. Nothing.

I have often told people that subscribing (to my Community, the Tech Tribe, Robin Robins, Gary Pica, etc.) won't do you any good until you do something. True enough. But your life is full. You are probably busy from the time you open your eyes in the morning until you crash to sleep at night.

How do you add [marketing, sales, training, classes, videos, writing, blogging, web site tune-up] to the mix? There is only one way: You have to stop doing something else. But what do you stop?

For me, the answer to most choices is to set priorities. Whether you like it or not, your priorities are reflected in your actions. You can say that your family is a priority, but if you never spend time with them, that's a stark reflection on where they really fit in your priorities. Remember:

What will you do with the next fifteen minutes? With your afternoon? With today and tomorrow? The choices you make determine how time is spent. When something becomes important enough, you will find time for it.

Emergencies are an easy example. But your life is mostly not emergencies. It's mostly your regular routine. Which you created. And if it's going to change, you have to set new priorities.

When it comes to buying programs, there are some people who (eventually) buy everything. They buy one thing, which doesn't work because they didn't change their choices. Then they buy another thing, which also doesn't work because they still didn't change their choices. And on it goes until they've bought everything once.

Here's an alternative: Pick one thing to do. Make it a priority. Do it. Measure the success. Do it some more. Then keep doing it until it improves your business (or life).

In order for that to work, you will probably have to make a conscious choice that the new thing is more important than some other thing. That's where the measurement comes in. It's easier to stop doing something if your measurement tells you that the new thing brings more success than the old thing.

At a minimum, please do this: Take inventory of all the things you've invested in. Pick one thing and start doing it. It doesn't matter if it's an email campaign, a training program, a marketing tool. Whatever. Pick one thing and do it.

Whatever it is, actually do it for three months. Then see what else you should be doing. In a perfect world, you'll also consciously stop doing something in order to make room for the new thing.

My two cents.

I'm calling this "Not a Roadshow" because I'm not planning any formal presentations. I'm planning to hang out with Richard Tubb from tubblog.co.uk, and just meet up with folks and enjoy food and drinks in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Manchester.

AND it looks like our friends at Linode are going to help with food and drinks. :-)

Thanks, Linode.

Details to follow, but if you are interested in joining us for one of these events, please send me an email with UK 2022 in the subject line. karlp@smallbizthoughts.com

Basic Info:

Saturday, August 6th in Edinburgh

Tuesday, August 9th in Glasgow

Thursday, August 11th in Manchester

I now have tickets to and from the UK, plus hotel reservations. If you want to join me on the train treks between all these locations, you're welcome to do that as well. Just email me.

Why? LOL - Why not?

Let's be honest: Richard and I are promoting our communities. And, because we are who we are, we want to promote community more generically. It's always good to get together with like-minded folks and talk about what we do.

Richard and I have both build lives and careers around helping technology consultants to be more successful. So, getting together with folks and sharing ideas is an important piece of that.

So, join us if you can. But don't expect any kind of a hard pitch. You know where to find us.

:-)

On one hand: Ugh!

On the other hand: Things are going well.

After more than ten years at DreamHost, we ran into a series of problems they could not (would not) fix. So, with a heavy heart we are moving our hosted services to Cloudways on Linode servers, and using Cloudflare for increased stability and security.

Our primary servers are now 100% on the new platform (The Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community, IT Service Provider University, and our store front). We are about halfway finished moving our "feeder" domains such as the sites dedicated to specific books. We are also about halfway moving hosted client accounts.

We manage some services (domain registration, DNS, web sites, email, telephones, and databases) for almost every client I've had in my managed service businesses through the years. We should be finished migrating everything this week.

Luckily, everything is faster as we now have services divided onto four different dedicated servers. And, with luck, we won't need to change hosting for at least ten more years.

Amy has two active Mastermind groups meeting now and they’re forming a third in the GMT +0 time zone. Amy is personally running these groups so you will get the benefit of her experience and connections.

Peer group 1 is for smaller businesses with fewer than 6 employees. This group meets on the 4th Monday at 4pm Eastern. This group has two openings. And if they fill up, there's a wait list.

Peer group 2 is for larger businesses. This group meeting on the 3rd Thursday at 3pm Eastern. This group has one opening. And if it fills up, there's a wait list.

Peer group 3 will be for businesses in UK time zone or nearby. This group is just now forming so please sign up!

Use this link and contact Amy to get started: Mentor-led peer groups - Ultimate Support for IT Pros - ThirdTier.

The NSITSP Elections are just around the corning. You can file to run for office on Monday, August 1st.

Go to the Meetings link at nsitsp.org to watch the Election Kick-Off meeting with an overview of timeline, etc.

And NOW is the time to register for the next big all-member meeting on August 10th. Obviously, the elections will be a big topic . . . but there's lots of news as well.

-- -- --

You should join me at ChannelCon August 2-4. You can register for FREE, even if you can't attend in person. You'll get the links and downloads.

Click here: https://i.snoball.it/p/I9xl/t to register.

Then use the code CC22SmallBiz to register free.

-- -- --

Have a great week.

- Karl P.

:-)

Taught By: James Kernan, Author and sales coach

- Five Tuesdays - August 9th - September 6th

- All classes start a 9:00 AM Pacific

Learn the industry’s best practices on the overall sales process from Prospecting, Qualifying, Needs Analysis and Assessments, Connecting your value proposition to the customers issues. Tips to get through the Sales Process faster and Closing the Deal!

The MSP Lead Generation and Appointment setting course will include five live training sessions delivered in 60-minute classes. Designed for technology business owners, sales managers, and sales professionals, this training program covers industry best practices for selling contractual monthly recurring revenue and finding new accounts.

All five sessions will be recorded LIVE and delivered with a PDF workbook and related template exercises. 

You will learn:

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.

Unit 1 Creating Your Sales Playbook

Unit 2 Appointment Setting 101

Unit 3 The Sales Process and How to Run Your Prospect Meetings

Unit 4 How to Keep Customers for Life – secrets of QBR’s

Unit 5 Creating and Presenting Amazing Proposals

For the past 12 years, James has served as a Principal Consultant for Kernan Consulting and provides Coaching, Advising and Mentoring programs to entrepreneurs and leaders. Kernan Consulting offers One on One Coaching, CEO Peer Groups, M&A Consulting and online training programs.

SMB Community Podcast - New episodes drop every Thursday

The Killing IT Podcast - New episodes drop every Tuesday

Our YouTube tech channel is now reaching 19,000 views per month (and sometimes 20k). 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

If you haven't seen the latest news video, check it out here.

That's it for this week. I'll see you at the meeting on Thursday.

Thank you!

:-)

I ran into this guy at the California State Fair.

Before Covid, this was always a great fair. This year, I would describe it as a fair in recovery. My bet is that it will be totally back to its former glory in 2023.

I'm happy to have gone and contributed to their recovery.

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.

Of course: Everything here is subject to change based on Covid. Click the links for the latest details. Please send updates so we can post them.

July 27-28

Toronto, ON

More Info: https://asciievents.com/

More Info: https://connect.comptia.org/channelcon/home

More Info: https://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/2022/03/heads-up-making-non-roadshow-roadtrip.html

More Info: https://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/2022/03/heads-up-making-non-roadshow-roadtrip.html

More Info: https://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/2022/03/heads-up-making-non-roadshow-roadtrip.html

Charlotte NC

Aug 9

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

August 21-23

Denver, CO

More Info: https://event.thechannelco.com/xchange-plus-august

August 23-24

Miami, FL

More Info: https://asciievents.com/

August 24-25

Charlotte, NC

More Info: https://live.7figuremsp.com/sign-up

Sept. 12-15, Orlando

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

Washington DC area

Sept 8th

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

More Info: https://dattocon.com/

IOTSSA Cybersecurity Expo

Sept. 14-15 --> was January 18 - 20, 2022

Phoenix

More Info: https://www.iotssa.com/cybersecurity-expo-phoenix/

September 28-29

Parsippany, NJ

More Info: https://asciievents.com/

Sept. 29-30

Omaha, NE

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

October 4-5

Dallas, TX

More Info: https://asciievents.com/

October 20

Anaheim, CA

More Info: https://www.smbtechfest.com/karl

More Info: https://www.smbitpro.org/smbit2022/

So Calif

Nov 3rd

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

November 7 - 9

Miami, FL

More Info: https://acronis.events/summit2022/

November 9 - 11

More Info: https://www.connectwise.com/theitnation/connect-na

Dec. 8-9

Las Vegas, NV

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

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