In the long, long ago, Chris Rue (happy birthday!), Susanne Dansey and myself put on the SBS Show: dedicated to the world of small business technology and technology consulting. The time for the SBS Show had come and gone, with over 26+ hours of recordings and thousands of downloads it was clear that the industry was no longer interested in the basics of SMB technology. Most of us that started and grew businesses in that era had moved on to the bigger concerns.

Say hello to the SPAM Show. In a way, it’s a show to address the topic of working in the business of technology. One of my biggest challenges, as my business grows, is explaining to my new employees that come from diverse backgrounds just what IT Solution Providers do, what we do, what our values are and what our mission actually means. Onboarding people is a painful and expensive process and there are few resources to help you align your organization with your vision, the new opportunities that present themselves daily… but that’s just me.

Over the past few months a few of my close friends (who also happen to be authors, vendors, industry leaders, speakers, CEO’s and so on) have put together over 11 hours of content on a very simple subject: What’s going on out there?

Until now this was only available to Own Web Now Partners. Now, it’s available to you, free, via Facebook. Click here.

Show regulars include Karl Palachuk, Erick Simpson, Dave Sobel and Mark Crall with special appearances by Stuart Selbst, Bob Godgart, Joe Panettieri, Chris Rue, Tim Barrett, Clinton Gatewood and more.

The agenda is to help the people we work with get an entertaining and educational take on what we do for a living. So fan us on Facebook or hit the Community tab in the OWN support portal. You won’t regret it. Money back guarantee. And yes, please tell a friend!

Hope you had a wonderful holiday. Earlier tonight I stood in the front yard of my new home and watched the fireworks over Cinderella’s Castle in Magic Kingdom / Walt Disney World. I don’t mean that euphemistically, like being able to see it on the TV in the living room, I am lucky enough to live that close to it!

So today, I wanted to thank all of you that do business with Own Web Now, resell and promote ExchangeDefender, trust us with your data and with your clients, and by proxy, make it possible for me to have what I have. Thank you.

So today, I get to say thank you. Later today I’ll post the latest SPAM Show #11 recorded Friday, perhaps the funniest SMB / Business podcast ever produced. Details to follow on Sunday. Hope you’re having a wonderful weekend and again, thanks from my family to yours!

Got something to say?

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.