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This is the second SBS Show with Erick Simpson and combined with the first one perhaps the audio bible of managed services - how to offer them, how to sell them, how to provide them, how to manage it all. Must hear.

SBS Show Episode #26 – Managed Services Howto with Erick Simpson (final)

If you haven’t heard SBS Show #25 you might want to listen to the two of these at the same time.

I’m proud to announce that we’ve launched the first SBS Show newsletter. In the same spirit as the podcast, the newsletter is a non-commercial glue for the SBS community that we can share info thats relevant to us.

I’ve even spent some time to design the “fan club” concept that is similar to digg.com and the social way of voting for stories. Let’s be honest, we all find info every day that pretains to our business, but we’re all too busy to review every single thing. And we all can’t stay on top of a newsgroup thread with 500 posts – “so give me the skinny” becomes the way of life.

Please sign up for the SBS Show fan club, it’s free. Please download SBS Show Episode #25, with Erick Simpson, it’s awesome. And, thanks for all the support. Big thanks to Susanne Dansey and Dave Sobel, my cohosts, Susan Bradley my spiritual advisor, Tim Barrett the UG guy and our long lost friend, Chris Rue, may god bless his soul.

Well someone did because here it is, fresh from the north pole: SBS Show Episode 25 with Erick Simpson of Managed Services University. Erick talks about his new book, about the trends in our industry and really engages in a deep dive – one so deep it took two SBS Show episodes to splice it together.

So here is something for you to enjoy over Christmas, our newsletter and our new site launch tomorrow. So from me and Susanne, Merry Christmas!

SBS Show #24 features an interesting conversation on communication, design and management of a small business IT provider. Dave Sobel, CEO of Evolve Technologies, based in the metro DC area, joined us to talk about how he has and continues to apply lessons and strategies from the popular book e-myth to his IT practice. Why Dave? First of all because Dave had nothing to sell, he simply was very successful and very passionate about the way his business runs. As far as credentials are concerned, his company is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, 2006 Sales & Marketing Partner of the Year in the Small Business Specialist category, blogger, Mac User and one of a dozen or so SBSers that showed up at TechEd. We (myself, Chris Rue, Amy Luby, Dave Sobel) had lunch at WWPC and talked about sales strategies, process management, documentation, documentation, documentation. I felt it was imperative to get Dave on the show as soon as possible and discuss how to do things right. Consider this episode the e-myth for IT business owners. Dave talks about strategy, management, HR, documentation, training, communication, community and the importance of harmony and repeatability in all those areas.

You can see and hear Dave Sobel on Vladfire #14. You can see Dave’s company Evolve Technologies here. You can subscribe to his blog here. But I know what you’re most interested in so here it goes:

Download the SBS Show #24:
http://www.vladville.com/sbsshow/sbsshow-episode24.mp3

Note: I am turning off the comments for the time being for a major announcement about changes and news at the SBS Show. The show is not fully published, ie, it will not show up in iTunes today as I want to give my visitors the advantage on beating the thousands of people that will hit my network almost instantaneously by publishing the feed. Pass it on, if they want the SBS Show fast and hot off the presses today would be a good day to download it

SBS Show #23 with Karl Palachuk covers the world of Service Level Agreements and a whole lot more. We talk to Karl about the importance of documentation, ways to build and manage a business, community involvement as well as many tips, tricks and ways to do it all. We talk at great length about Karl’s new book “Service Agreements for SMB Consultants - A Quick-Start Guide To Managed Services” and whats actually in it. We try to dispell some myths in the SMB IT, ask Karl about the community and the concept of paying it forward but most of all we just rave about his book and discuss what value an SMB owner can realize from a properly documented business.

Additional Resources: Karl’s Book Karl’s Blog

Download the SBS Show #23:
http://www.vladville.com/sbsshow/sbsshow-episode23.mp3

It is going to be hard to believe but the picture below is of Chris, myself and Susanne. Believe it or not, it is the second time we have ever been together in person. We have put well over 20 hours worth of “edutainment” with the SBS Show before ever meeting one another. Talk about the power of internet, collaboration and people who are willing to make a difference. Yes, we’ve been slowing down lately but we’ve fought through a disk replacement/fusing surgery, bitter divorce, many professional changes, challenges and opportunities.

 So in just a little under a year we’ve gone from almost certified unknowns to one of the most popular podcasts on the net and certainly the most dominant SMB IT show out there. Here is the first post of me meeting Susanne.

Now god save the queen. Queen, Queenie, Susanne Dansey, our pal invited us among her people at the WWPC party for UK. Thanks for Robbie for inviting us and playing a phenomenal host. As many of you know, I don’t drink. But here I was, at Cheers, with a bar full of Brits… let’s just say I counted up to 8 bud lights, and as big of a guy I am…. I’m really a wuss.

So man, did we have an awesome time. Thank you, thank you, thank you UK. Sorry Queenie if we embarrased you in front of your countrymen (and women) with our weak alcohol tollerance. I’m hanging out with Chris at the moment and he’s talking about going out again so… man, Ballmer is so going to get revenge for everything bad I ever said about Microsoft as he starts booming through my headache in the morning.

Ok, last post, no mo WWPC stuff. Back to business. But I sincerely hope you do find this inspirational. In the space of 12 months I’ve made some great friends, great connections and pushed out over a million podcasts. For a threesome that really didn’t think twice about the community at this time a year ago this is one hell of an accomplishment.

I can always ride through to the other side knowing that my work is positively impacting people:

BTW - Thank you for the SBS Show dude. I had a 6-hour road trip this weekend and got caught up on the show (with a couple of re-listens). It really made the trip go fast and I learned tons!

My day could not have sucked any worse, until I got that IM. Now, granted, I get a little boost but it will take quite a bit more till I’m doing well enough to get my own castle, like some other SBS Show hosts.

But I’m not complaining. After all, it could be much worse.

The entire SBS Show crew, poles, shoes, Nascar and the famous dental plan will broadcast live from WWPC in July.

SBS Show 22 live from TechEd. We grabbed everyone left over after TechEd ended earlier today and brought you the SBS Show live from TechEd’s Security MVP executive office. By the time we were done not even the posters were left on the walls. Hope you enjoy it, we talk about the new technologies demonstrated at TechEd, general Microsoft technical direction for the next year, what we took from the event, working on SBS as a big-business employee and more. Joining me are Susan Bradley, Alun Johnson and Dave Sobel.

Download the SBS Show #22

http://www.vladville.com/sbsshow/sbsshow-episode22.mp3

I have to admit I'm a little puzzled about the lack of feedback on the changes to the SBS Show. I realize people are busy but since we crossed the 10,000 download mark I feel obligated to ask:

How do you like it?

How do you like the web site?

I've only received one you sold out note from Amy Luby about the sudden commercialization of the SBS Show but honestly it was neccessary. No, I don't like the disclaimer either but truth of the matter is that most people do not download the SBS Show from us or through us - very small part of the population goes to www.sbsshow.com. Most downloads are coming via Odeo, Podzinger, iTunes, Yahoo Music, Tivo and a number of other syndication services. I have no way of telling these people that what they are listening to is not hardcore business IT consulting. Unfortunately, its really just for the stupid ones that we have to put up the disclaimer to begin with… but stupid people hang out in groups and the most eloquent of idiots become lawyers so then we have to put up with liability for something that we gave away for free? Disclaimer stays.

On the ad thing. I thought about that for the long time and here is the deal. If the SBS Show was mostly listened to by the SBS Community this wouldn't be a big deal, we could serve this out of the simple web account. However, Vladville now has 10,000+ daily visitors, tens of thousands of SBS Show downloads and the premium bandwidth costs a lot of money. I've paid up front for the SBS Show to grow but I sink 5+ hours an episode into organizing, producing, editing and publishing the best so it's not like another mindless blog post that you're reading right now. You guys are awesome, many of you have offered to contribute to the show in terms of donations, buying tshirts, etc and most of you said to just make people pay for it. There are three problems with this:

1. SBS Show gets the enormous distribution because its free and easy to obtain.
2. Guests are willing to come on for free because they can get great exposure.
3. It would be against the spirit of why I started the show in the first place.

I'll level with you, I'm doing alright. I do not want the SBS Show to become a business or yet another job - it is a service to the community, the channel for people who have a story to tell it to the others that are in the same role. I don't want to flip it upside down, sell advertising spots, kiss babies, shake hands and have demographics discussions to justify doing this. I'm just a geek. Really, everything else is just a success based on applying the strict work ethic and hardheadness towards what I'm involved in. The SBS Show is an extension of that but if you've listened to the show you know I don't have a bright career as a commercial DJ Furthermore, if you've met me you can testify that I've got the face for radio so there goes that TechTV show some of you think I ought to be on.

Point is, this is a free show and I want to keep it available for anybody that is willing to learn and make something of themselves in the SMB world. It also has to cover the costs of at least distribution, so I outright do ask you to support my business which has financed every penny and kb spent on getting every SBS Show episode to the day. If you're getting anything out of the SBS Show I don't think its too much to ask you to consider that when you line up OWN's solutions against the competitors. As always, thank you for your support of the SBS Show and please let me know what we can do to make it better.