I am really looking forward to the MSP University bootcamp this week. It’s in Baltimore at the end of this week and is my last big thing for this quarter before we get into the summer of announcements.

I’m excited because I’m trying out new content. For years I’ve done a variation of “Vlad Mazek, MCSE, CEO… I’m here to make you money” followed by 20-30 slides outlining our company. This typically went over the head of 50% of the audience, the other half would come and chat with me for a free tshirt and we’d get about 10% of them to try out our stuff. Worked great but at this point in our business and in the marketplace (where we are already working with just about everyone in the SMB market) it’s more about getting to the core of the problems we find in this business together than just trying to earn that next IT guy that’s never heard of us.

My new deck starts with:

Vlad Mazek, Philanthropist, Remote Viewer, Prophet.

Should be interesting. Should be unique.

For years I’ve had the benefit of observing my fellow peers / clients / victims at the events and one of the constants until 2009 has been the perpetual lack of progress. People kept on coming to events, to the extent that I doubt they ever did any actual work, only to be seen at the next event slightly disheartened about their lack of progress.

But they fixed it that night at the bar.

In the morning they were back with lack of progress, lack of a cohesive approach to their market and no concrete process driven environment that can be replicated and grown as the news of their service spread.

But they fixed it that night at the free drinks party that some vendor invited them too.

The next morning they were still going and getting nowhere, but they had more friends.

And then it ended….

2009 came around, economy fell apart and their prize 1-2 clients went out of business and along with them a huge bulk of their revenues. Dell entered the market, other shops smelled the blood and the local competition intensified. Are you the next one to jump the shark?

The tragedy here is that it didn’t have to go down like this – because for the most part the business owners had all the control, had all the opportunity, had a demanding market, had a thirsty audience with nothing but problems and broken infrastructure on hand – and so many people failed to capture it.

Why? Because it required hard work.

This is why I love Erick’s events and am so dedicated to helping folks that are part of MSP University bootcamps. They aren’t swag collectors sitting around in hallways waiting for the next snack break or for the big dinner – MSP University is a bootcamp. Classroom all day, homework at night.

It’s so easy to find out who will not be with us next year – they will be at the bar all night!

When you listen to Gary and Erick present with their minions, one thing is clear – this stuff is not difficult, but you gotta get on the ball right now. Not tomorrow.

Times are tough, for many…. there is no tomorrow. I’m accounting for so much in my presentation and not even bothering to talk about OWN and all the ways we can help produce revenues and grow the client base – because if the fundamentals and process of our reseller aren’t solid…. then we’re just wasting time setting up reoccurring billing.

Welcome to the new world.

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