Not external perception, external perspective. You have relatively little control over the opinion people have of you, and even if you’re just the nicest guy on earth people will still hate your guts (see Tim Tebow) and find great reasons to.

Few years ago when we were having issues I turned to my friends/clients and asked why they worked with us. Two comments from my buddies Wayne Small and Dean Calvert stick with me to the present day:

“This isn’t a date, this is a marriage.”

Getting everyone in an organization to understand the level of dependence that clients have on us, the level of trust they extend, and in bad times – the level of personal stake they have on the product choice they use to solve problems – is incredible. How do you build that? My personal answer to this is under a press embargo and NDA for a little while, but I can offer you some insight

Autotask ________ Conference

Last week we were invited to Autotask HQ for a ______ conference. As you can guess, literally everything is NDA at this point and in the event that even the company name is NDA, consider this a lovely event I had behind a dumpster doing heroin with my imaginary friends.

First thing they did at 9 AM was to let the CEO lay out the next 2 years worth of the roadmap, with the first year of it clearly spelled out – from vision to agenda to the end game.

The next 6-7 hours was basically spending time with some of the smartest people around and the key executives, developers, support, etc going over the details, suggestions, ideas and implementations.

The final hour was the CEO again, basically saying “Here is a list of places where you make money.”

Note to Self

First of all, I don’t know anyone that does this. The closest thing I’ve seen to this type of event is what Microsoft used to put on back when they had a partner program – back before the CEO would stroll into a keynote looking like he just left a BBQ and the program itself looked less like a time share sales training seminar.

Second, shame on me for not doing this for our partners. I talk to thousands of people each year, I’ve got a bunch of people in my company that talk to far more and we talk to each other every Thursday and Friday. Why we’re not sharing this collective knowledge (that most of you probably get on Vladville in between profanities) is embarrassing.

Third, shame on you for not doing the same for your community.

On To The Next One

I’ve made no secret over what I’ve been doing for the past year.

After we damn near rewrote our process, support, billing and half the products I dedicated myself to a new job – that of the PSA strategy. About a month ago I took a leave of absence to take care of some other business projects that just needed to become rock solid before I took the helm of OWN again.

In about a week or so, I am coming back to the helm of ExchangeDefender. And my first goal is to make sure we let our partners benefit from everything we know about where the money is.

I don’t think I’ve been this excited about what we do in at least 4 years.

Unless your friends all have cameras and camcorders.

Once again, I find my mortality at the hands of the New Orleans Hurricane. I am not sure when I will learn that whenever Europeans and Australians agree on a drinking game, it is not safe to participate. Good god. Anyhow, here is the final sequence in my evening:

Now as foolish as that looks…. Try to imagine what prompted the following video closing sequence, which in all good taste, I can’t post in its entirety.

Best… conference… ever. And when people with funny accents approach you and propose shots while swirling poprocks.. Don’t do it.

P.S. In case you’re wondering where pictures and detailed videos of Aussies, Dave Sobel, Mark Crall, Nancy Williams, Jeff Middleton, Andy, Frank, Karl, etc are – keep in mind that I am showing you the only clean/non-incriminating stuff. Use your imagination. Hint: Pat O’Briens, fan, bachelorette party, girl friend getting a hot girl to pose with your “gay” friends and the reaction when she finds out they aren’t gay, just old + drunk + deaf… I don’t think I’ve had this much  fun in a long, long time. Thank you NOLA.

Last week we sponsored the Autotask Live conference and hung out with a few hundred Autotask users, integrators and sponsors in Miami. As usual, Autotask staff pulled off an awesome event and I’m amazed at the extent that they are willing to work with the partners to make stuff happen. Steve Noel (one of their head dev / integration guys) was by our booth probably half a dozen times with ideas and suggestions on how to extend our feature set (ExchangeDefender integrates into Autotask for billing, support, statistics and LiveLinks).

What I was really curious about was the keynote. Bob Godgard is not on Facebook or Twitter, he doesn’t blog and I think I see him once a year in a booth where he looks more like an inconspicuous swag hunter than the CEO of the whole thing. It’s hard to figure out what’s on his mind and outside of meticulous press releases and scripted speeches, sometimes it’s hard to feel the emotion and the drive behind where the company is heading.

This is extremely important. I remember a few years ago blogging from the Microsoft conference when the mood on the podium turned very anti-Partner. It was clear then and there that Microsoft was about to annihilate it’s partner channel and everyone who stood in it’s way.

So what did Bob talk about?

Platform.

That’s it. There were no elaborate service pitches, even though they got VARStreet there was no long talk about how this service is going to change the way everyone worked: just about how it’s going to strengthen the platform. The entire presentation was about broadening the reach of the platform, making it OS/Browser independent, moving onto touch screen devices, adding more back office stuff.

For integrators and developers like OWN, this was very welcome news. It was similar to Ballmer’s “Developers, Developers, Developers” pitch at PDC a few years ago. It established a clear focus that Autotask is spending it’s money on improving it’s platform and by proxy our ability to continue to help our partners realize additional value by using it.

To me, this is key. Things like Windows, Autotask, etc are platforms. The second they lose the focus on their core (see Microsoft Windows Vista) product and get distracted the entire ecosystem around them suffers. Autotask, in my opinion, is going in the right direction for it’s users and it’s partners.

At the event, we released two products based on the Autotask/ExchangeDefender platform. One is a ticket-to-email gateway, which is free and open to everyone using ExchangeDefender. The other one is Orangutime, a desktop gadget that helps you track time and update tickets (offline) without launching a browser.

I have to say, I am very impressed with what Autotask is doing and I look forward to bringing more and more solutions into that ecosystem. A huge part of our partner base relies on Autotask, and one way we contribute back to our community (aside from t-shirts) is by helping make you more efficient between the two platforms with the software we’ve already developed in-house.

Rich people tend to make stupid decisions. Stupid decisions that, with eBay’s help, address a big problem in my life: driving the same sports car on consecutive days. This injustice, of my garage, driveway and back yard (redneck style) not being packed with cars from Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini can only be corrected by doing the best job I can as CEO of Own Web Now and promoting the awesome things we do with our partners.

So I’m hitting the road in December to talk about what’s made us so successful in 2009, hopefully get some more folks onboard, and what we intend to do in 2010. Having spent better part of 2009 on the road we’ve built what you’ve asked for – so in 2010 we’re taking that momentum even further. So..

Tomorrow (Wednesday, December 2nd)

My buddy Karl Palachuk is sunsetting the SMB Conference Call podcast. It’s a true pleasure to be among the last few folks to be a guest on his podcast and while my buddy Erick will be doing Bette Midler song on the table, I will be talking about ExchangeDefender 5. As usual, the swag will be plentiful, join us live. Click here to register, it starts at 9 AM Pacific, Noon Easter.

Note: I have lost my voice and while I can talk for about 10-20 seconds, about a minute in I sound like an 11 year old girl with a smoking problem. Just a heads up.

If you are near Grand Rapids, Michigan, I will be presenting ExchangeDefender 5 to the West Michigan Small Business Technology User Group. Specifically, I’ll be talking about the business of managed security with ExchangeDefender 5, showing off a few screenshots and basically trying to explain a few things about consistency in UI design and end user expectations. It won’t be the same thing that Karl and I will be talking about so you’re quite welcome to check it out via LiveMeeting starting at 6:30 PM EST.

Next Week (Tuesday, December 8th)

Two (or three), depending on when my Aussie friends decide is a good time for an Australia podcast, we’re covering the launch of ExchangeDefender. Stay tuned to www.ownwebnow.com/blog for details.

Week after Next (Going back to Cali…)

Pimp tour bus starts in San Diego and goes to San Francisco for Chinese. If you are anywhere along the way by all means stop by, say hi, pick up a tshirt and let me introduce you to some of my biggest friends in this business.

Monday, December 14th: www.mspu.us – I will be in Orange Grove (near Santa Ana) at MSPU HQ hanging out with the staff and talking about our strategic partnership for 2010. MSPU and OWN have a pretty tight relationship so we’re trying to figure out ways to keep on pushing one another forward. If you’ve never heard of or seen any of MSPU webinars, books, presentations… you must live under a rock. But if you’d like to come and help hang the lights off Castle Simpson, give me a ring.

Tuesday, December 15th: SMBTN Los Angeles – My buddy Dave Siebert has invited me to talk to the SMBTN Orange County from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM in Los Angeles. If you’re in Pasadena though.. I’ll see you on Thursday (see below). Since it will be a longer show I’m open to long form abuse, talking about anything you want to know about. Would love to see some of our LA partners come out for a dinner afterwards, on OWN’s bill.

Wednesday, December 16th: www.chartec.net – I will be in Bakersfield visiting my good friends at CharTec. Own Web Now recently developed CharTec’s new MSP service configurator and Alex (AARC & CharTec founder) and I are trying to figure out how to leverage this technology to help MSPs grow more aggressively by removing the burden of quoting and proposal writing from MSPs. If you’d like to know more about that, or CharTec or anything about HaaS, these guys are the ones.

Later that night, I will be visiting SMBTN Fresno, virtually, and Ma’am Susan Bradley will be opening the doors internationally for a brief demo of ExchangeDefender 5 and discussing the value of providing the managed security service that isn’t based on nickel and diming your customers to death (hint: money is not in the addons, it’s in the service and reporting you provide on top of it). I will be on at 7:30 PM!

Thursday, December 17th: www.autotask.net: Autotask is a cloud based PSA solution that helps MSPs automate their service, support and billing every single day of the week (including Monday, Tuesday AND Wednesday!) – but more importantly, they are the ExchangeDefender/OWN preferred PSA platform and all of our business support and automation hooks work on their solution to help our partners spend less time managing support and billing of our services. If you’re not familiar, by all means check them out – $29/seat. But even more importantly, they hired a good friend of mine to help manage the MSP community interaction (so his job is making me and you happy) and his first shot comes on December 17th. I’ll be presenting our integration and business model at lunch but you should really check this show out. It’s on Thursday, between 10 AM and 3 PM. Click here to register. Live in Pasadena (University Club of Pasadena). 

How do I keep track of Vlad….

Facebook: vlad@vladville.com or Twitter: @vladmazek

Corporate-side: www.ownwebnow.com/blog

Now, I also have an office but in 2009 I’ve spent more than a quarter of the year on the road. So it has become painfully obvious that in order to interact with people I really need to get a cell phone to share with everyone. I’m working on that, should have one very shortly – but in the meantime, get in my virtual world to track the physical Vlad around the world. I’m like Swag Santa this season. Hope you wished for some mindcrack and tshirts.

It’s 3 AM, I’m tired, motivated and enthusiastic by what I see.

Inside, I’m depressed and frustrated by what I hear and witness because it’s so hard watching people who know what they need to do ignore it because change is too scary. So they sit, look for comfort and try to avoid stuff that becomes more real with each passing day.

Over the past few days I’ve had a chance to talk to so many people that my voice has completely given away. Shot. In that time, I’ve discussed things with people that are growing and that are slowing. Let me sum it up:

The era of nickel and diming, tiering, layering and stacking is over. Really, I am happy you’re making a living at it now, I really am. But we all know that the money next year won’t come from the basics. So either give it up now and grow your share/client base, or watch your empire erode.

And as many of you have seen & heard in Orlando, and will soon be reading in the press, these aren’t just words my friends.

There is a reason janitors, door greeters and security guards with flashlights make minimum wage. Be IT innovators. Not IT janitors.

ConnectWise Partner Summit starts in a few days and it’s one of the biggest MSP-centric events of the year that brings together all walks of IT life.

Last year the vibe was very positive, attendees were excited and everyone was “trying to move my clients to managed services” but since then we’ve had a catastrophic collapse of the banking industry, something damn near a stock market crash, record streak of unemployment growth and a slowdown of all measurable economic growth indicators.

Looking over the numbers that we track, pure play MSP’s have been hit the hardest. They led the pack in the percentage of closed shops and they were overwhelmingly the ones that lost the largest number of seats.

In the same time span, OWN has had an all time record growth in accounts, revenues and profits (unfortunately we’ve also had to do a lot of collections and longer DSO as economy spares no one). Today is our biggest $ day, ever. Our partners at MSP University, ConnectWise, Autotask, CharTec have also posted record numbers and the MSP solution provider presence at conferences and events is bigger than it’s ever been.

What Vlad would like to know is….

It’s obvious that the only people making significant money in the MSP industry are the software and outsourcing companies providing managed service providers with services that they use to manage end customers. MSPs aren’t doing so hot. Some are even losing out to their suppliers that compete for MSP business, such as Dell.

With the space getting crowded and the deliverable/value very difficult to differentiate and distinguish between MSPs.. which other lines of business are MSPs going into to actually generate profit growth?

So where is the money at? Let me know, we’ll have a booth at both HTG and ConnectWise events next week, would love to hear some really good MSP stories and ideas for a change.

I’m writing this post at the Las Vegas airport, with one of the most expensive skylines in the whole world. Nearly all of it built over the past 15 years.

It has a lot in common with the computer business industry these days.

Hotels are half empty, showing clear sign of neglect and overbuilt space.

Some hotels are halted in the middle of construction…  places like The Venetian have idle cranes resting on top of the homage to the old world paradise.

It is currently all sustained on the deals, tricks and haggles… holding on to hope that things will get better quick, before the banks forclose on the remainder of the unfinished projects, and the serfs underneath grumble in despair.

But what if it doesn’t get better?

I don’t know about you do for living, but this is something I think about because I’m responsible for a lot of families out there that depend on me for a paycheck.

This week we sponsored a conference at which we were promised two thousand companies with businesses bringing in more than $1 million in revenue. I’ll tell you something funny, for a bunch of millionaires in this bunch, an alarming number of them don’t own pants, long sleve shirts, or polo shirts that don’t have some vendors logo on them. Yes, the world of IT professionals and millionaire business owners is dominated by the guys in shorts, vendor shirts and sweatpants. Amazing.

You know how I know I’m right? When I try to explain what we are working on right now to these folks they look at me like deer in headlights. They have no idea what I’m talking about, how to make money in that world, or what their role in it could even possibly be. The more they hope for a world in which they can make $100/hr walking a person through filling out a web form, the faster the innovation will remove them from the chain.

As some empires go, new ones come in their place. The amateurs and enthusiasts are on their way out and under.

It’s a great time to be in this business, folks.

Here is a quickie overview of where we’ll be in case you want to meet us, hang out with us, get the new ExchangeDefender shirts, etc.

Tomorrow/Thursday – ASCII Chicago – Nicole

2nd week of July – Microsoft WPC NOLA – Vlad, Nicole, Travis, Jen

1st week of August – CompTIA Las Vegas – Vlad, Nicole, Travis, Jen

2nd week of August – MSPU Los Angeles – Vlad & whoever draws the short straw.

There may be other smaller events through August that I am not aware of….

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.

The first day of the event went very well I have to admit. Autotask hooked us up with a very nice spot, we got a lot of traffic and got to chat to a lot of new folks and existing customers. For the most part, slimy vendor whoring at these events has gotten much tamer over the years as more people use them to showcase solutions and software becomes a subscription, instead of a bucket of Oxi Clean. For us, the key value as we grow is collecting live feedback that just doesn’t get to us any other way, good or bad. Most people, even live, are admittedly swamped throughout their workweek to bring up stuff that is working well or remarkably poorly, so days like this give us some insight to what we are doing and what we could be doing to make money for everyone involved.

My presentation is later this afternoon. We’re talking about OWN-Autotask support integration workflows and the difference this makes when you are reselling services. Since services/hosting thrives in tough times, managing the support of services becomes crucial and if you have to go back and forth through different portals not only do you lose money but you also lose insight and reporting capability that you have when all your support is rendered in house. That, and a few other surprises. I know this block is likely to raise all sorts of “but what about Shockey Monkey and ConnectWise?” – April/May.

If you aren’t here, or you just got lost in Gaylord and decided to settle somewhere in the Delta Quadrant and start a new life, don’t worry – we’ll have series of webcasts starting next week to onramp people onto the new support integration and all the support tools.

One thing we’ve had to come to terms with is that nobody, ever, reads the documentation. So going forward, we won’t do anything so stupid as to put our software on the front page (www.exchangedefender.com) and hope the people look at those README or Documentation folders. Instead, access to the integration and product management will be embedded behind a training webcast and a quiz – we’re growing too rapidly and too widely with our solutions and business management is becoming too complex to “release and pray” any further. If that doesn’t sound appealing, we’ve also teamed up with a bunch of people that will offer our stuff direct off their web sites, probably significantly cheaper than we’re willing to let it go for…

…

You can’t really tell that this is the first conference Autotask has thrown. Everything is very clean, organized and put together. Our handler Lauren has followed up with us a bunch of times during the event, Autotask staff is mixing with the crowd and introducing people to us, everyone is taking really good care of just about everything. As more vendors look to bring in their own communities together, and display this level of professionalism and event management, it sort of spells doom for the big disorganized SMB conferences with spotty content and general lack of understanding who is there and why… As a slimy vendor whore I welcome that demise because it helps filter the message – much like with MSPU – the people that are here didn’t just sign a check, they have actually developed a solution for your platform/business and we all work together.