I think at some point about two years ago Erick and I were going through a collection of Mojitos at Downtown Disney, talking about a concept for an MSP conference. I believe that the less colorful version of what I said was “Oh no, not another one.” Back then the conference market was pretty much a glorified vendor festival, with barely enough content to even attract attendees. Things got a little obvious when the attendees were left to eat on the soccer field, in the parking lot and entire “content” sessions were just infomercials. Oh please, not another distraction I thought.

Erick really changed my mind when I visited the first Intelligent Enterprise MSP bootcamps. The setup of their shop was very professional, the training was… well… an ass kicking. Almost Matrix-like. Geek walks in. CIO walks out. The session I got to watch was basically Garry, two sales executives and the geek is trying to pitch to them. Watching the “CEO” and “CFO” shoot down the proposals, watching the video recording of the whole thing, trying all the different sales scenarios. Impressive.

So when Erick told me they were going to do a conference bootcamp I was not sure what that experience was going to look like. Obviously the “close combat” training works  very well, but does it translate to the crowd of people?

Amazingly enough, it did.

Not your usual conference by any means. The content is basically nonstop, 7 am to 7 pm.

Party at night as usual, right? Nope. Folks have homework. Videos to watch, projects to complete, surveys to do.

This is not your usual SMB conference.

Well, first of all it’s free.

Second, there is an actual agenda and a deliverable. As in, when you leave this place you’ll have stuff you can use immediately. Stuff that let’s you compete in business, not in the techie bs being done by Indians for $1.50 an hour.

I hope if/when Erick throws one of these again many of you reading this blog get a chance to attend. For years many people in the IT field were able to coast through simply on the pent up demand and customers actually wanting servers and services.

Now that things are tougher, that projects are more complex and that competition is intense… you have to step your game up.

Check out www.mspu.us

Recording podcasts can be a lot of fun. Things tend to build on one another, conversation carries on… and one sure way we always knew it was time to wrap things up was when someone said something so suggestive that any comment, response or further conversation would get us all in trouble. Bringing the show to a new low with a little humor always let our listeners walk away from it with a positive feeling, no matter how difficult of a topic we were discussing.

Autotask Conference Promo (Last 60 seconds of the show):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Last Friday we recorded a podcast with the usual characters and really the folks you would pay hundreds of dollars to hear speak at a conference. The topic? How economy is affecting the MSP market. Things are either going great or they are going terrible, and taking sides in that conversation can be dangerous.

I’ve included the last 60 seconds of the podcast (player above, if you don’t see it please navigate to www.vladville.com) in hopes that it will give you an idea of how we turn a difficult topic into an educational and entertaining one.

All in all, I just hope we’re still invited to the Autotask conference. You can’t buy publicity like this

SPAM Show is Own Web Now’s official podcast, meant to improve communications between OWN and our partners. Hear anything interesting? Call us, email us, twitter us, find us on Facebook, etc, etc..

I can’t believe I’m about to write another serious post this year. I’m going to have to quit this as it’s really going to mess up the Vladville vibe and let you all in on what I really do and well… nobody wants to read about that. But I hope you forgive me this one, I promise a prompt return to jackassery in the very next post.

I am really excited about tomorrow.

As you know from reading this blog, I’ve built Own Web Now and ExchangeDefender from a one man web hosting operation to a global leader in a whole bunch of categories. Life is good. But life is not all about money, and when you really love something and put your name on it. Well.. you just don’t want to turn into a Symantec.

There is another company out there, that I write about a lot, that has lost it’s way, burned friends and got ridiculed for its poor quality to the point that it had to rename the exact same thing just to be able to save face. Yeah, 90% share is good, but it’s the consistency that matters.

It’s something I wrote about earlier this month as I was really getting into the new gig at OWN. The painful side effect of success and growth is that mistakes are harder to spot. While something is working so well and perfectly for 99.999% of people, that 0.001% are becoming mortal enemies. Moreso, what about people who never became a part of the count because they simply couldn’t figure out what was going on? Attracting attention is easy – everyone can bullshit marketing. Setting expectations, and delivering on them, consistently, reliably.. that’s a huge undertaking.

Over the past few months I have been very hard at work assembling a team in Orlando that I believe can help me fill the holes in our portfolio and come up with a story. While I’m not foolish enough to believe my business plan has a 5 or 10 year shelf life, I do believe that the current offerings will continue to make a living for thousands of people. So even though it’s going really well, I owe it to them to perfect it. I have so far hired and trained folks to assist in the areas I believe we suck at. You’ve seen massive improvements in a number of areas already, however, we have miles to go. I only have one role still on the market – Shockey Monkey Product Manager and a PM for OWN Australia.

Get to it already..

My new job at OWN, aside from being the CEO, is the systematic implementation of ITIL.

Many of my long time readers remember this as the book that I have been writing for over a year now. The work eventually became the wishful thinking of how I hoped OWN would run – and now I get to make it a reality.

The responsibility matrix on this one is pretty interesting:

Procedure Development – 25%

Quality Control – 25%

Software Development for the above: 50% (trend analysis, reporting, checklists, loopbacks and controls)

To an extent, we are very much there. Unfortunately, in the areas where we aren’t the system just falls apart and defers to “Talk to Vlad” or “Let me fix that for you ™” which is akin to making crap up as you go along, though with the best intentions, inadvertently screwing most of your clients. (see Microsoft Licensing for an example)

The real question, in case you’re wondering, is this: How do we remain on the top of the technology infrastructure pyramid?

I will blog about my efforts here from time to time.

P.S. “Where does this leave the Monkey and relationship between the Monkey/OWN applications and Connectwise and Autotask?” Due to a few NDA’s and current work with those companies I can’t go into full detail, all I can tell you is that the relationship with both is better than ever and some big announcements will be made towards the end of March. If you’re a Monkey subscriber or on the waiting list, you should be “seeing” things very soon.

We’ll be in California next week.

Through Sunday actually. If you’re in SoCal and work with us we’d love to meet up with you. We’re doing a lot of interesting road work with our partners this year.

We’re very happy to be supporting Erick Simpson’s MSP University bootcamps this year. I haven’t seen once since 2006 but have sent a bunch of people there, it would be interesting to be a part of the whole thing again. We are bringing a mountain of swag, tshirts, spare office furniture, etc. If you plan to attend, let me know. We always have some extra special swag hanging around.

As for the blog, I’ve gotten a number of pings – yes, I’m fine. Things are moving a little slower @OWN than I’d like, and we’re making more idiotic mistakes than I’d prefer, and we’re growing faster than I’ve expected, and I need a bigger office and a few more hours in a day. Seeing the wasteland of economic apocalypse, I am more than thankful to have these problems. But I’m in there, greasing the wheels, dipping monkeys into water head first and throwing in the space heater. It’s moving… This is when our competitors are slowing down, labor is cheap and people are cutting deals – if you can’t cut it now don’t even bother showing up.

It doesn’t leave much energy to put on the Vladville show each day. Good news tho, SPAM Show will still be recorded tomorrow.

Soo… this one goes in the WTF category if there was one:

California NOW: Tax Workshop for Strippers & Sex Workers:

http://www.canow.org/canoworg/2009/02/tax-workshop-for-strippers-sex-workers.html

Topics for discussion include the pros and cons of income and tip reporting, what receipts to save and what records to keep, how to write off expenses for costumes, shoes, sex toys, computers, cell phones, etc.

The most hilarious part? Organized by “California National Organization For Women – Working to advance the women & girls of California”

Now I know many women, from very liberal to very feminist, some even in the industry that this workshop is geared for, and I’m absolutely certain none of them would consider this to be working towards the goal of advancement.

I sooooo want to be there for the Q&A!!!

The funniest part? I got this from Ms. Susan Bradley.

I’m slowly training people not to put me on the speaker-phone. <names removed for their safety>

Earlier today, one of the support guys called and asked the following question:

Support: I asked <the developer> about this feature and he said it was impossible. So I wanted to call you and just confirm.

Now, before I explain what ensued, feature creep is my achilees heel. I hate feature requests that show up in the middle of product design that nobody bothered to submit before. Especially now, when OWN is kicking ass and everything is on the up and up. I’m dedicating this year to sticking to the deadlines, shipping stuff and basically delivering. Something we’ve quite frankly sucked at in the past.

Vlad: Ok, what would you like?

Support: Well, you know that ____? Yeah, well…

Now I know this feature request, it will save us 1 minute every month that we have it happen. So I could be rude, cut him off, hang up and tell him not to bother the developer.

But for some reason, I was in a very good mood. Very good mood = Complete Ass.

As he was describing the feature I started humming the Justin Timberlake song – Cry me a river.

Then I started to sing.

It went downhill from there

Sadly, they are learning Vlad speak. “So when you say it’s on the to-do list does that mean it’s going to get done or is that Vlad for it’s never, ever, ever going to happen?”

Just a broad announcement to make sure I am not offending anyone.

Starting today, I will not be approving any more Facebook friends. Unless I’ve met you, I’m not adding you. Over the past two weeks I’ve received a few dozen requests, most from people that work at Own Web Now – whose names I don’t recognize - so until Facebook gets their spammer problem under control I’m not looking at that tab anymore.

Here is something to brighten up your weekend.

Last week I chatting to my buddy Erick in passing on IM (apparently both of us need clones and secretaries but if there is a problem with a hotel reservation or ExchangeDefender both of us waste our valuable time instead of sacrificing the underlings). A while back one of Erick’s star employees moved to Central Florida and was looking for a gig but my schedule has been all over the map and I just didn’t get a chance. The following conversation ensued:

Erick: You gotta talk to him.
Vlad: I know man, I’m sold, I just need to find some time.
Erick: He is loyal, dedicated, really cares about the customer.
Vlad: Oh. He won’t fit in here at all.

You see, Popcopy skit from the old Dave Chapelle show is one of the staff favorites at Own Web Now. I have to admit that it is about the only thing that can resurrect my day after I’ve had to spend ten minutes on a phone apologizing for stuff that is not our problem, trying not to get straight to the point and as my Beverly Hills guys say: “Go all Vladville on him.”

There are days that you just want to grab the computer from the customer, hand them classifieds and say: I don’t know who lied to you but this computer stuff is not for you. Look for a career that doesn’t involve reading comprehension.

Alas, can’t do that.

So I indulge in the guilty pleasure of living vicariously through the skit. Click below to play it (if your reader is not showing the video preview please visit vladville.com directly)

Occasionally you may get snagged by one of these customer people.
Your job is to frustrate them and make them feel unwanted.

You know, a lot of people ask WHY? WHY treat a customer this way?
Why? Cause fuck em, that’s why!

And should you ever doubt yourself and treat a customer with respect, just remember this: you’ve graduated from grade school and you don’t have to take shit from anyone!

Earlier today a few of my closest advisers in our business got together to record a podcast: Karl Palachuk, Dave Sobel, Mark Crall, Stuart Selbst talked about Microsoft, Apple, MSP, marketing, top 100 lists, SMB strategies, etc.

This is perhaps the most valuable 1 hour I’ve spent this week because these are the folks I seek out when I go to a conference. Just about the most connected, most social bunch of people I know and talk about a great sounding wall. Now I can keep in touch with them and evaluate all the developments in the space that I may not be in. Today I found at least one successful marketing strategy that we need to be working on, plus all the real stories behind the headlines and what’s really going on.

Karl did mention smbbooks.com once or twice or..

And damn it was hilarious.

We’ll have SPAM Show #3 online early next week at www.ownwebnow.com, if you’d like to keep in touch with these community podcasts sign up for the blog feed off the main page or just listen to it on the right.

-Vlad

Every now and then Vladville is not an act and I tell you exactly what’s on my mind. Enjoy.

There is always this sinking feeling of suspicion that my company will go direct.

In part, it’s justified. I am constantly being pushed to go direct by people within my company who have never had the pleasure of doing technical work with a technically handicapped client. Sure, the allure of business, the look and feel of pretty charts of untapped markets of underserved small businesses, home offices and end users is stunning.

Yet, nobody has yet figured out how to sell technological value to technologically ignorant client.

Do you think it’s a sheerer coincidence that smallbiz VARs rarely ever gross over a million in revenues, or just a few at best?

Is it shocking that the only successful and highly profitable tech firms only reach their greatness once they start moving up the client chain where they provide value to the tech staff in a firm that actually values technology instead of fearing it?

Has anyone caught on to the trend in our business, whereby a company can only reach mediocre profitability margins if it rejects personalized consulting service and engages in the cookie-cutter MSP services that address only the standardized technical processes, protocols, alerts and standardized responses?

Nirvana, right? No. Because you see, even at the big stage of larger managed service providers, there too is despair and recognition that scale cannot come from selling something that the client inherently sees no real business value in. So they drop their MSP focus and try to be the shining beacon to the would-be-VARs-and-MSPs, leading them to the same rocks their ship got stranded on: 

Although the article got pulled as of this writing, it stands as a bit of a monument to the whining folks that hit another wall in their venture:

“Mike and I have been writing this blog for some time now and it seems that channelinsider did not find us when it came to writing about valuable resources for managed service providers this week.

I know it is a bit self serving to ask this but if you read our blog regularly it would be great if you could take a minute to let them know they missed us by leaving a comment on the article.

Full article here

That being said we truly believe we are the only educational resource that we have been able to find that does not have any affiliation to a vendor, has grown a managed services practice over 5 million dollars (not including product revenue), and  can share this experience.”

The experience that you, the MSP/VAR of course will have to fork over some cash to hear..

I am not suggesting that everyone is in this business to be a multimillionaire, rather, I am trying to suggest that the folks that get lost in their delusional picture of how technology scales to serve it’s consumers often lose perspective of the actual client and just how valuable they find all of this stuff.

The folks that don’t have that connection to the actual end user are the ones that are lost in the dream of infinite revenues from untapped markets which just need to be enlightened. And when you ask for examples of successful and massively profitable ventures providing similar services, you don’t hear about the guy next door or the local franchise. You see business cases from IBM and Unisys. You see charts from EMC and Citrix. You get quotes from massive research firms.

Yet, when you look around, most people in the VAR/MSP space are well below a million, with just a few collecting more than that and a virtual ghostland in the 8 figure range.

But don’t get me wrong – it’s not all about the money, or growth projections or the opportunity. Plenty of people are where they are and are perfectly happy with where they are going.

I have beef with people who don’t work with the customer, don’t understand the customer, and are desperately trying to make everyone believe that there is cause to profit off people who really could do just fine without you and your product/service.

Of course, it’s not simply enough for me to say it, or to point at the billions of dollars that have been lost by companies trying to court the customer that was adversely served by technology.

Earlier this week someone spoofed our corporate phone numbers and sent a credit fraud SMS and automated voicemails to a bunch of people in the 742 area code. Not only did the fools that got the message call us, but even after being told about a spoofed/forged number and it’s consequences, they still left a voicemail! Some were even so foolish to provide personal information, note that they don’t even have an account with the said bank and just wanted to check in. Yes, really.

Now you see, when you work in a bubble separated from the actual consumers of technology you don’t get the dose of reality that smashes that “predictable service for predictable revenues” dream to pieces. The reason why it’s so hard to build a massively scalable, massively profitable IT operation is in the fact that end user education is so expensive and unpredictable that in the end only big, highly skilled and highly specialized companies generate huge profits. On the other end of polar spectrum sit highly specialized, highly trained individuals working their niche.

In the middle? Hit and miss, and the odds are against you.

Compound this problem with the fact that the general population is getting more technologically savvy and that information technology, be it corporate or personal, is a basic expectation in America – from buying insurance to flight tickets to vacation research to homework – it’s all online and you have to be too.

Trends suggest that catering to the technologically ignorant is a dead end. With everyone suddenly convinced they know exactly what the market needs, and all crashing into it at the same time, the same conclusion is inevitable for even the largest ones.

Which brings me to the bitter conclusion these so called “masters” and “gurus” and “business experts” need to come to terms with: that businesses and business models die and that there is only one fundamental business metric that matters: the profit.

So if what you aren’t doing isn’t profitable, and you know the opportunity will soon sunset…. in terms of the Bob’s…. What would you say it is you do around here?