Most of the moderately successful people I talk to often express their desire to treat their business as an ATM that they can rely on to fulfill their dreams all while not having to have a job in the said business.

The rest of this is not really for folks who have jobs, it’s for people who own companies.

Right now I’m working on getting ready for a huge week.

This huge week is really just a matter of lining things up for a huge November – without this baby step things just stay the same.

With a huge November, Q4 will look great again and as the complexities and frustrations we face now get solved the 2012 will look even more incredible.

The more successful this week, this month, this quarter, this year become the better next year will be and the less problems we’ll have.

Slow down..

This entrepreneurial trap of reducing problems in a growing company is a moving target:

The more successful your business becomes the smaller your current problems will become. If your issues are related to the infancy stage in which you’re lacking talent or funding or time, growing business revenues and profits will certainly eliminate a lot of your current problems. Don’t worry, you won’t get nostalgic or start writing a book about how great business success is because you’ll have brand new problems to deal with that will be tougher than the ones you’ve had to deal with before.

Back into the wheel little hamster

The bad & good news..

The bad news of course is that the business never quite becomes an ATM so long as you’re in charge of making sure that ATM has cash in it to spit out at will.

The good news is in realizing that and being realistic about it.

As the carnage of SMB IT consulting and SPFs has taught us, you can’t stay small or think small and build a successful business. There are no mythical blue oceans and you’re not necessarily any more brilliant than the next guy so the challenge isn’t in trying to build a better tool but challenging yourself to become as good as you possibly can with your existing toolset and managing risk correctly as you grow along.

You cannot separate yourself and your ability to manage/control the company. You cannot stay on top of things and become detached. You can’t be in charge and on vacation. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

This shouldn’t be depressing at all. If it is, then this is probably a good sign that you don’t really love your job/career and you need to sell the business and move to something you enjoy. Or you can completely divest yourself from the business emotionally and make someone else run it, at which point your say and your job there are done. It’s a potential means to an end.

Alternatively, you can learn to love what you do and relish in the challenge of solving tougher and tougher problems. That seems like a lot of work though. I suggest taking up blogging to let off some steam. Or MMA classes, but don’t let them lie to you and tell you it’s a great strength and cardio program because they will hit you and it will hurt much worse than your typical muscle fatigue. Overall, expect a huge toll on your ability to focus.

Now, alternatively… You can become the core of your business that is simply there in an advisory role while not really being a part of the direct output of the business. You may be able to help refine processes, give your opinion on them and how they are implemented.. but you wouldn’t be the one proposing them, implementing them, controlling the quality, execution management, tweaking, revisions and so on.

This is kind of like having your cake but licking the icing off the side of the cake you can’t see. In my opinion, it might be the best.

Personally

Above is kind of wishful thinking on my part, what I’m working towards. I still love what I do and love being engaged in being the actual part of the direct input. I’ve always figured that once the day came where I didn’t care enough to think about work someone else would do a much better job, easily.

The beauty of having a small business is that it becomes what you want it to be. You get to enjoy (afterwards; in the present tense it’s a series of calculated risks, long hours and putting up with crap) the journey and if you’re good and lucky it can eventually just become a chain in your investment portfolio that is that emotionally detached cash spitting box in the corner.

In the meantime, I’m the 0.1% and fortunate/motivated to move to 0.01%. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.

ABP

The Cloud Prior to 2002

From roughly 1997-2003, the SMB world was preoccupied with simply establishing a presence. From the massive buildout of LANs across small businesses to building web pages, this was the era during which people figured there was a world beyond @aol.com or @compuserve.com. Microsoft was taking over the network dominance from Novell and for the most part the IT businesses of this time were high on skill and highly compensated for it.

My first job in 1996 involved me talking to SMBs and helping them write connection scripts for Trumpet Winsock. With the release of Windows 95 the obstacle of connecting to the Internet was nearly eliminated and it created the largest surge of small business users trying to get to it. Along with it came the IT Consultant who no longer had to have a tremendous amount of networking skill – just listen to the customer and know who to call for help.

This was also the moment at which technology became affordable and available. Purchasing computers immediately prior to this era required setting aside thousands of dollars to place the order, waiting weeks if not months for your 486 or that shiny new Pentium, upgrading your modem or USR Courier firmware every fall – naturally, you wanted to consult more than the sales guy when parting with so much money or reading books (yes, books – thick ones with no pictures) to get up and running. Prior to this it wasn’t simply enough to want something and have money to buy it – you had all sorts of considerations and limitations in place. People had to find out if they were on copper or SLIC lines, they learned their distance from the central office or DMARC. 

This era ended with the ability to walk into Best Buy and walk out with everything you needed 20 minutes later.

With this mass availability of technology the biggest business for SMB consultants was connecting all these computers, printers and “the Internet.”

Primary business: LAN buildouts. Most of us made money on the side designing web sites, setting up an online presence, upgrading networks to Windows 95, NT4 and dreaming about XP.

SMB, The Cloud and 2003

This was the year that everything changed. Windows XP had taken off, Microsoft announced Office 2003 and SBS 2003.

For the first time, ever, it was the user that was put in charge. SBS 2003 was in fact designed to allow the business owner to manage things, not the IT department.

There was a catch here. Because things got so easy for people that were computer savvy, suddenly if you were in business but not on the Internet you were at a huge disadvantage.

Computers got cheap. Internet access got even cheaper. The demand for all things IT skyrocketed. We got mobile.

It also marked a gold rush of SMB IT jobs. Prior to this, most SMBs didn’t have an IT department, the closest they got to one was having one of the employees kids come after school to fix computer problems. But troubleshooting network connectivity wasn’t as easy as changing the screen resolution or creating desktop shortcuts. Enter the “IT Consultant”

This was also an era in which being an SMB IT Consultant went from a highly profitable hobby to an actual professional that had to talk about more than just technology. Because the job of connecting everyone and everything became more time consuming, it also became extremely expensive: justifying costs, explaining the tradeoffs, presenting alternatives and being a part of planning stages was the new norm.

It also shifted many of the existing companies from being technology enthusiasts to focusing on the business. The rise of VAR came from the rapidly declining costs of hardware, software and directly from the decrease in complexity. Because the costs started shifting from the cost of purchase to the cost of deployment and support, established SMB IT companies started reselling a lot more than just their time or their one vendor they were certified/authorized for.

Primary business: Network infrastructure. Beyond computers and monitors, IT in small business became less of a tool and more a part of the process. Margins on hardware declined but margins on support and billable hours exploded.

2004-2005 The Dawn of Cloud

Now even laptops were affordable. Internet was everywhere and it was free. It started showing up at Starbucks and McDonalds. Email became free and Google’s Gmail launched with 1GB of storage.

SMB IT started to mature and the support personnel that came with it was under more fire to respond quickly to problems and outages. Businesses started relying on technology more and demanded it on mobile devices. At home. On the road.

Assuring the uptime and eliminating ugly encounters with large service bills gave rise to managed services model. VARs could now get a more predictable level of revenue and eliminate the surprises that came with ad-hoc support.

The key here was that network control became decentralized: you no longer had to be in the office to work and the IT provider no longer had to stop by to fix the problems or perform maintenance tasks.

Primary business: VAR. The more dependent companies became on technology, the more stuff they bought and wanted it connected and sync’d to their existing infrastructure.

2005 – 2008 The Fall of Steel

As the small IT solution providers were building their management cloud, they were simultaneously discounting the relevance and eventual success of large software companies who no longer wanted middlemen at the gate. The entire SMB IT food chain turned from steel and towards services.

IT providers faced their second major growth challenge in a decade: maintaining technical expertise while supporting/migrating/project planning of legacy systems.

For the first time we no longer were preoccupied with the faster, newer processor or the next big OS – we were spending more time trying to keep the old stuff up.

It was also the beginning of the end. With software/hardware companies at odds with the clients and partners that dealt with the client issues, someone had to fix the problem.

Primary business: Support.

2008 The Fall of Bear Sterns & Global Depression. The rise of IT consumerism.

To this day, the most popular Vladville post is the one covering the fall of Bear Sterns that plunged us into a depression/recession. Almost immediately following March 16, 2008 folks stopped looking forward with technology as an investment and focused on it’s cost.

This was bad news for pretty much everyone. Large companies gutted their IT departments. Small companies froze projects, purchases and more.

This was the era of “Do we really need ___?”

This was the tipping point for the cloud in SMB. Up to this point, the sales were largely based on the solution fit and the new features that solved problems. The discussion went from buying something new and towards using something less expensive.

At the same time, technology became more personal and the division between work PC and home PC blurred with the new wave of smartphones, web sites and online services. The more cool stuff people used, the more of it ended up in the business.

Suddenly workers were not willing to wait for the IT department to get things online or to allow something that restricted their control – they just signed up for an online service and eliminated the middleman. In SMB, we were the middleman.

Primary business: Support.

2008 – 2011: Cloud, Cloud, Cloud

The title sums it up. IT providers, to both large and small companies, were dealing less with steel and cables and more with consumer devices, online services, hosted services and gadgets.

The era of buying something that would break and then cost you to fix it was replaced with the subscription service that (once it broke) could be substituted with another. When it was no longer needed it got handed down (iPod, iPad, iPhone) or repurposed.

Primary business: Pimpin’ – anything that could be marked up, measured or required IT assistance got a plan attached to it.

The Future

The future, or the end of the past I’ve outlined so far, is surprisingly similar.

The frustration of IT Solution Providers over not being able to move ahead quickly is met with the rapidly declining demand for their services. The consumers (not clients anymore) are willing to pay for certain services but that doesn’t make IT Solution Providers profitable or produce a reliable revenue stream. User friendly gadgets and user friendly online services seamlessly integrate with one another and with social networking and Google, solving problems is easier than ever.

The error margin is widening and tolerance for failure is higher as we have alternatives. If the computer is dead, you pick up your tablet. If it’s dead, you go to your smartphone. If you don’t have reception, you’re never too far from free wifi. Service companies get by without even posting a phone number on their web sites and support is peer based through social networking sites and forums. The value of the human interaction, while desirable, is not compensated enough for it to exist.

This is a far cry from a highly competent, highly skilled and full service IT solution provider. They are deemed too expensive. Meanwhile, a large cloud service provider loses tens of thousands of accounts and escapes without a scratch.

Let me make this clear: This is the end of IT Service Provider business as we’ve known it.

Without being able to pick the low hanging fruit (remote managed services) IT Solution Providers will find a harder time trying to pay off the huge investment in the tools and training they bought to build the business up in the first place. It’s not like all the servers and IT demands are suddenly going to disappear and be replaced by the iPad or the next Android tablet, but with the consumers ability to find quick and cheap alternatives the profitability and business viability of your typical IT Solution Provider is questionable.

That is a difficult thought to swallow but as you can read in this post, it is not the first time our industry and our profession has faced a challenge. What is new is that at some point the paths of software/hardware manufacturers and those that support their solutions diverged. The software/hardware manufacturers won – they are selling more stuff than ever but the support jobs that existed to get that technology in the hands of consumers aren’t needed. They made devices cheaper, software more reliable, user experience more friendly and the consultant unnecessary.

Everything has become a subscription service. There will still be edge cases, a slim minority that will either never be able to accept that or use it. But business is seldom about edge cases and IT services aren’t luxury goods.

It is time to take a good hard look at what makes money and what doesn’t, what sells and what doesn’t, and what the marketplace is actually demanding. In my career I’ve been blessed enough to build and sell computers with a $1,000 margin, collect thousands of dollars for a migration that took half a day, get thousands of dollars just for offering my opinion on a conference call and get paid for seeing the progress bar move from left to right.

Those days are gone. So is Vladville’s coverage and fascination with it. I have a month-long vacation coming up to reflect on the past decade of the fun in this business and look forward to coming back and talking about what’s next. In the meantime, I encourage you to sign up for our Own Web Now blog and Looks Cloudy site.

To be clear: I don’t think the MSPs have much to worry about. MSPs on the other hand are very worried and with the consolidation, economy going further in the toilet and even global concerns (EU members defaulting, UK cutting half a million jobs) heading into the holiday season of typical inactivity – the fear out there is pretty thick as folks struggle to figure out a way to keep on growing.

I personally do not believe MSPs have jumped the shark… but I think the IT consultants and IT generalists, if they aren’t already working for a software/hardware vendor, are looking for real jobs. The cycle is similar in nature and exactly opposite in direction than the one we took 10 years ago – when massive layoffs and downsizing forced a lot of people who haven’t kept their skills up to go into the private sector either in small consulting firms or in business on their own. Now, nearly a decade later, with compressed margins and higher expenses, many are finding that 10 years of experience can fetch above $50-60,000 at a much lower level of frustration and effort.

We have to understand and accept the fact that every technological evolution is cyclical. When things are hot, many pursue the opportunity and exercise their options. The same is true in reverse – as technology becomes less complex (less profitable) the safety and perks of full time employment become more attractive.

Frankly, multiple things contributed to this:

1. Small business IT never quite recovered from the SPF (single point of failure) consultant problem we used to have. Too many bad apples made it excessively difficult for MSPs to sign profitable long term contracts because IT consultant experience was so bad.
2. Microsoft killed the channel. Then it started directly competing with it.
3. It’s just too damn easy.

Big problems are expensive to fix.

Small problems can be fixed by anyone.

Most small business IT Solution Providers manage to keep talented staff capable of fixing big problems by making a great margin on managing small problems. With the small stuff becoming free and too many people moving too slowly to adopt the cloud and grow their market share, things get difficult.

Hope:  I know this sounds like doom and gloom but real life is difficult. As a vendor though, I have better and better numbers to show every single month which proves that adaptive businesses are not just growing, but thriving.

Now, for your opinions..

Do you consider yourself to be a Managed Services Provider (MSP?)
91% Yes
3% Sort of; we’re getting there though!

What are your major concerns as an MSP?
55% Vendors going direct
12% Marketplace has too many “managed service providers”

What are your major opportunities as an MSP?
38% More clients to sell MSP services to
33% Selling more cloud services

What is your #1, sure thing, most certain area of marketing and sales in the coming year?
46% More clients to sell MSP services to
18% Selling more cloud services to

Health care as a $20 billion dollar opportunity?
31% Bullshit
28% Total bullshit
26% It’s there but I’m not making much money yet.

The numbers speak for themselves. The health care question was there for my amusement because I find the whole medical industry opportunity as laughable as the “government opportunity”. It’s for people who think they could sell casualty or E&O insurance to the mob. Yes, there is a ton of money but virtually all of it controlled by very few players and the remainder of it pure hype – as evidenced by the results most of which were padding attempts coming from IP address of a well known EMR vendor to the MSPs. Nice try.

One thing is for sure – the marketplace is getting crowded but people are more optimistic about competing.

Today, the debate is not much different. It’s in-house IT vs cloud IT. Same debate, same points, same concerns and largely, the same players. Only there are a whole lot less of them. The era of RMM eliminated the fly-by-night SPF that existed for the sole purpose of workstation reimaging and spyware removal. The era of cloud eliminated a lot of hardware specialists and “we install support and manage small business networks”

And here we are today.

So before I write the last chapter, I’d like to take a moment and let you in on a little secret. Throughout my blogging career I’ve received countless amount of advice from people that are less successful than me (at blogging or in business) and I can’t even begin to count the millions of dollars I have lost by not spell checking my posts, including more advertising, making my posts less direct and my arguments less controversial. Yes, if only I were more boring, surely that would translate into more money…

… meanwhile in the real world, what really matters is the idea. Thanks to the calculated profanity laced posts and opinions wedged in between grammatical crimes, I have been able to talk to the world and have it respond back with some brilliant ideas. People I’ve never met in my life have approached me in person and said “You’re Vlad! I like you!” – best damn feeling in the world.

As my mentor once told me, opinions are like assholes – everyone has one. My opinions are just that, and my opinions don’t typically represent those of OWN & ExchangeDefender (though multiple people have quit over them). What’s important in business is rarely what you say – what counts is what you do.

So before I drop the nuke on this place, I would like to thank so many of you that have not just read Vladville – but actually gave some thought to what I was saying and bothered to email me and give me some more ideas. I have benefited from those tremendously, both personally and financially, and I’ve spent a great deal of that time and money giving back. I encourage you to do the same.

In business, there is a safe path and there is a challenge. If it’s safe and easy, everyone will be doing it soon. So you can either be first – and always be chasing, or you can be brave.

Somewhere between outright stupidity and careless spending is a goldmine. Thank you!

Here is what I want you to think about: What does the technology landscape look like without you?

Dream. Think. Share. vlad@vladville.com

Most people that read Vladville are in IT industry at some level (service providers, consultants, SPFs, LARs, VARs, MSPs) and our industry is rapidly consolidating more of us out of a job. How do you see the landscape of technology in a company when you’re out of the picture.

What does IT look like without you?

Who pays the technology bills and whats billable?

Who renews the service contracts?

Who buys the contract and what does the contract cover?

That should get you started.

Get creative. It’s the subject of the 2nd Vladville newsletter! Email me your responses please.

P.S. I don’t care what your thoughts are if you’re still employed – it’s a given that the IT support teams will never go completely extinct. This is not what this is about. What I’m curious is what everyone thinks is the next major area of consolidation and how we can make revenues if we are no longer in the picture – the service doesn’t disappear, but the serviceman will. So how do we get paid in a world where we don’t exist?

Please share / blog / tweet and ask your peers. 

But where is the line? Let’s for a moment forget the beta culture most of us younger entrepreneurs have brought up in and assume that there is a happy place between shipping shit for money and burning the midnight oil checking all the t’s and dotting the i’s.

The question is: Where is the line and how do you find it?

I don’t have an answer, earlier in my career when I was very close to the product development and support I spent far more time focusing on perfection but we made a lot less money. I worked very hard and we grew slowly and patiently – but we didn’t take it to that “next level” until I focused on the product distribution and growing the scale of what we do here. In the end, we’re able to deliver a product that has a higher quality and reliability with a better profit margin.

One piece of advice I have for people that are just starting up is to focus on building the business, not the products. You can always hire amazing people and build amazing things – once you’ve got the money. The line between where you can be proud of your solution and run a profitable business – that I don’t know. I’m proud of what we’ve build and what we deliver but I also know at least a dozen holes that we’re working on and I have another 200 that I haven’t even thought of yet. But by the time I perfect ExchangeDefender there won’t be any SPAM around to block anymore

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.

(you might not like what I have to say)

Let’s not argue about that, we have the numbers to back it and the number is growing rapidly.

And it’s not just the assortment of Action Pack pirates, SPFs, fly-by-nights and other types I’ve shamed over the years on Vladville. Legit IT Solution Providers have taken a big hit in 2009 and it keeps on getting worse.

My check for a motivational speaches bounced. So I’m going to be honest with you.

Today was the first positive conversation with an MSP that I’ve had in at least two quarters.

Not positive in a sense that they are making a killing in the marketplace, but positive in a sense that they see some hope and ability to grow their margins through innovation and doing something new that their marketplace responds to.

You know what it doesn’t respond to? Everything that worked up until now: Large projects, large migrations, large network designs, huge purchase orders and massive upgrades. That stuff is in the past, along with a $12,000 server and $2,000 tape drive. Right under that $4,000 laptop.

In 2009 I’ve been sitting patiently, biting my lip as people pitch one doomed scenario of the recovery after another. See if you’ve said some of these:

SBS 2008 promises to be huge for our business..
Lot’s of interest in EBS..
I think Windows 7 will launch an upgrade cycle..
The economy is coming back, baby!!!

And the beat(down) goes on.

Why?

Because the taste and market demand have fundamentally changed.

You know how all those corporate IT jobs that people made 6 figures for watching a monitor and eating Cheetos never came back? You know how all those outsourced IT jobs are still in India and China? You know how people still seem to be buying those junk Netbooks left and right that the industry as a whole is losing a ton of money on?

Things change.

Profit margins change.

Demand changes.

We’re in the middle of it. And it’s a crying shame that with all the traveling, speaking and talking I’ve made it well into November for a single new idea to come to the market.

If you are waiting for the margins you used to get in 2005/2006 to come back, go look for a job now.

If you are waiting for an OS or device to bring back the margins you used to get in 2005/2006 to come back, go look for a job now.

If you’re thinking that expertise in the past is going to translate into success in the future, for the love of god, launch a training company and suck any money you can from the people dumb enough to think that doing shit the same way you did 5 years ago is going to make them profitable again tomorrow.

Now I have been working with a few friends in HTG and execs Autotask / ConnectWise / LPI / Kaseya on something new and while people are excited, there is a lot of hesitation to come to terms that things have changed. You’re as likely to uncover a business that is going to pay $50-$100 / workstation management as you are going to sell a $4,000 laptop.

Not saying that there isn’t a sea of people willing to pay $4,000 for a laptop, but that sea is drying up.

This isn’t a college thesis or a thought-provoking blog post… it’s just the way things are.

In order for “the channel” to survive, it has to change. It’s gotten you this far, right? But what now.

P.S. I wonder how big the market is for a “2012” or “The Day After Tomorrow” style book for the MSP industry…

. . .

What is more interesting is that a lot of people are curious about my vendor tour and the new products that we have coming out of Own Web Now that I have hinted at, yet not talked about. I know that is quite unusual for me since there is very little secrecy about what goes on @ OWN but to be honest it’s more of a realization/admission that mine (and yours) time has passed. The more remarkably successful people in the channel I hang around the more I am convinced that we don’t have the skill set for the changes that are coming our way.

I grew up idolizing Billy Mays. I received my business education from 60+ year old professors at University of Florida. My business value set works like a 1980’s arcade “He who dies with the highest score wins!” and movies that said that “greed is.. good”. What matters in business? Money. What’s my job? To make a profit.

But how do you get out of bed each day and go to build something that isn’t measured on profits, where a win doesn’t come with a $ commission based reward?

It’s a new world out there. It isn’t just the economic recession/depression, Obama vs. Rush, Mac vs. PC or us vs. them anymore. The values are changing and it’s probably the most interesting time to be in the technology business since the .com days.

Let’s face it folks, business is still slowing down. Many people have cut people, lost big projects, clients that were around for years, etc.

If you want some of my success, call OWN and figure out how to offer cloud services.

Though to be honest, I see a world in which even that will very soon be available for free or so close to free that it won’t really matter.

If you are under impression that big projects are right around the bend, where you can charge a big hourly premium to make up for lost ground, don’t bother: Wallstreet Journal: ‘Billable Hour’ Under Attack.

Fearmongering

The recent post I wrote about Future View scared many of you. What was really just a post acknowledging rebalancing of our training and support services to a new era where the basics of technology are worthless (ie, anyone can do it) and towards things our clients are actually willing to pay for brought many to the edge. I got everything from “is own shutting down” to “will I still be able to buy stuff from you” and even “so are you going to sell direct?”

These are fears our industry is facing as it becomes every man for himself type of an environment. Between big corporations being bought for pennies on the dollar because they can’t make payroll and conglomerates fighting one another over which industry they can devalue faster, the premium of technology is going away.

So assuming that folks that are successful in the industry aren’t about to blog it, and that people on the outside that write books and articles for money only do so because they couldn’t make it in the industry in the first place.. where are you going to fight for the survival of your technology business?

Tip: Start asking your clients what they are willing to pay for.

I’m sure the SPFs, if they were still around and not selling Kia’s and Huyndai’s right now, would strongly disagree and do the song and dance about being a trusted advisor and how business people are really just stupid and would rather pay $100/hr for someone else to do it…. let’s look at the big picture for a moment: In less than 10 years, back when we used to dial up to the Internet, newspapers, encyclopedias, local garage sales and just about everything in between got decimated. Are your stills REALLY that invaluable that you’re foolish enough to think the same tide won’t take you under? Hope not.

Survey Monkey. It’s free.