Sunday, March 20, 2011

10 Key Area's of Attention For Your Business

This week I was blessed to be in Charlotte on a SWOT team with Jonathan Warrey and Tom Polk. We came to town at the request of The Network Essentials team – led by Kyle Elworthy and Nathan Sanders. We discovered a number of the normal issues – communication, service delivery consistency, sales and sales management, employee benefits and on the list goes. Here are some ideas that have come out of the last few SWOT’s that may fit your situation. Thanks to the SWOT teams for their insight (and particularly Jonathan Warrey for putting some of this on paper). We didn’t see all these this week – but over the past months I certainly have (some by looking at my own company) and these seem to be key areas that need owner attention.

1. Consistent company communication from owners to employees about what the vision of the company is and how it is doing financially. Employees are too often in the dark and wondering about the future. You have to be open book enough to help them be comfortable with your direction and the sustainability of their job.

2. Set and communicate goals—set a realistic goal, make it public, measure results against it, and communicate it consistently. Too often employees are unsure what the targets are and how they are doing at achieving them. People want to know they are doing a good job – that can’t happen if they are unsure of the goal and the status.

3. Explain why growth is important—often employees don’t see the need for it. Growth matters because fixed costs keep rising and growth creates further opportunities for good people in your company. If they don’t have opportunities for growth, many good people leave. Are you creating a culture where people feel like they have a career, or just a job.

4. Define and lead culture. This is definitely more caught than taught. Each company has its own culture – but far too often it isn’t really planned – it is just allowed to happen and then the owners look back and wonder what happened. Accidental culture never turns out the way you desire.

5. Create clear roles and expectations and confirm results—from service performance and efficiency results, to sales performance in various categories, to customer satisfaction metrics—how are you doing. Do each of your people know where to go when they don’t have an answer? Clarity in job definition is critical for satisfied team members.

6. Make sure everyone understands the mission of the company as well as the vision and company values. There should be no question about where you are heading and how people are expected to act along the journey. These things give us the boundaries that we will operate within. Without a clear definition – people will wander aimlessly unsure how to act. Throw in your BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) as well – so they know you have a big picture around the future.

7. Create Raving Clients. Client satisfaction should be at 95% or higher so you can build referrals to grow your business and maintain a strong client set to continue to work with. Referrals are still an important way to grow our companies. Too often we don’t want to go the extra step to make our clients raving fans. We are content to be “good enough”. It is the little things that make the difference – and a sincere thank you goes a long way.

8. Deliver what you promise. If you say you are going to perform something (i.e. periodic business or account reviews, preventative maintenance checks, etc.) you better deliver on it. Too often you commit to monthly reports, quarterly visits, and annual planning meetings and delivered on about 10% of those commitments. You need to make sure that you are delivering on our commitments. You owe clients the value they are paying for. Period.

9. Remember that compensation modifies behavior, but not personalities. People work on things that maximize their compensation, but it won’t drive people to do things that requires a change in their personality. You spend hours working on compensation plans that target higher compensation for important company initiatives. You certainly don’t always get it right. It’s a reason compensation plans change every year with at least some tweaks. It’s because the market keeps shifting and so do costs to deliver your products and services. You need to spend time understanding personalities as well as managing behavior with compensation. It takes work to understand the different personalities and how they interact and are motivated. Getting those two right at the same time really makes things click!

10. Change is a constant. Some companies have cultivated a culture that is open to change – while some certainly have not. This week in Asheville I ran across these words:

  • Life is change
  • Growth is optional
  • Choose wisely

What is your tolerance toward change? Change is led, not taught. It is not preached into existence – it is caught. Are you a change leader in your company?

So there you have it – ten areas that each of us need to take a look at and consider. If you are normal – five of these are direct hits – a couple more are too close for comfort – and the other three are in need of some work. Unless you are a very unusual small business – these are key areas that need your attention. The upcoming HTG Summit will address many of these areas. There also will be other business owners among the attendees who have these things nailed. You don’t have to go it alone. Get with others – listen and learn – and then get after making some changes. Vision without execution is only hallucination!

Friday, March 11, 2011

The Importance of Legacy

Warren Buffet is a very successful business person. While I can’t say I always agree with his politics or policy leanings – you can’t argue with his wisdom. This year in his letter to stockholders he makes some important comments that we all should take as a cue for what to do. Check out page 26 of the PDF and read his two-page Memo to all Berkshire Managers. In this biennial memo, he reemphasizes his number 1 priority and asks for letters outlining who each manager has chosen to replace themselves if something happens to them. Here is the excerpt:

“I need your help in respect to the question of succession. I’m not looking for any of you to retire and I hope you all live to 100. (In Charlie’s case, 110.) But just in case you don’t, please send me a letter (at home if you wish) giving your recommendation as who should take over tomorrow if you should become incapacitated overnight. These letters will be seen by no one but me unless I’m no longer CEO, in which case my successor will need the information. Please summarize the strengths and weaknesses of your primary candidate as well as any possible alternates you may wish to include. Most of you have participated in this exercise in the past and others have offered your ideas verbally. However, it’s important to me to get a periodic update, and now that we have added so many businesses, I need to have your thoughts in writing rather than trying to carry them around in my memory. Of course, there are a few operations that are run by two or more of you – such as the Blumkins, the Merschmans, the pair at Applied Underwriters, etc. – and in these cases, just forget about this item. Your note can be short, informal, handwritten, etc. Just mark it “Personal for Warren.””

So what is the lesson? If Warren Buffet is concerned about succession planning – my advice is that we sure better be too. It is a key part of legacy planning. It is a key part of business continuity planning. It is central to planning in general. So many of us believe we are invincible. It will never happen to us. But it does, and I guarantee it will, so now is the time to put plans in place – on paper just like Warren says – so there is clarity about how things should proceed without you. That is legacy – what happens after you are no longer in the picture. Have you made those decisions? If so, have you written it down and actually shared it with anyone, particularly the one who is listed? Amazingly people will put guardians in their will to take care of their kids if something happens without ever telling the people they are listed. Now that would be a very rude awakening. But the same would be true for your business. You need a plan – you need it now – it is time to take this step.

I can’t encourage you enough to create your legacy plan today. It is one thing you can’t do after the fact. If you don’t do it – someone will do it for you. My suggestion is that a decision this important is something that you want to handle. Don’t leave it to chance or be late to the party.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Power of the HTG SWOT

I was blessed last week to spend a few days with Michael Cocanower and the team at itSynergy. We were invited to come in as part of the HTG SWOT process and take a look under the covers and give some ideas to the team on ways to break through the barrier they are facing – revenue around the $1M level. I see this happening quite often as companies grow – it seems to be the step that happens when a company has leveraged all their personal relationships and client referrals and are up against the need to build a true sales organization. It is so frustrating and Michael was no different than many IT owners – he is ready to break through this challenge and move on to the next level. There are numerous ceilings that we need to break through along the path of growth – which is why being involved in a peer group with others who have been there before can be so helpful.

We met with the team as a group and individually. MSPtv was on hand to video our interaction, and will be creating the second TV show in our series of SWOT makeovers in the near future. You can catch it on MSPtv in the next month or so. We discovered exactly what Michael was experiencing – he had self-diagnosed a major part of the barrier. The team at itSynergy is technically talented, and while they have been working to build a sales organization – they haven’t cracked the code on that one quite yet. So HTG team members Steve Riat and Lyf Wildenberg (who accompanied me on this SWOT) were busy creating a plan to help drive sales to the next level.

Michael’s approach has been to focus one of his sales guys on the medical vertical, and have the second doing general SMB sales. But the culture at itSynergy was very much technically driven and controlled. It is the way many IT companies operate today – they come from a technical perspective and the sales culture is controlled by and actually stymied by that approach. You can’t build a culture of sales excellence if everything is created by and driven by technology. Sales is about people and finding pain and solving that. Technology is a tool for sales people to use – but it is not the first response – and it can’t control how clients are served. That is where many companies fail. They allow the technical side of their business to have a strangle hold on what happens in the sales process.

Where does that show up? Consider who determines what solutions you will take to market. My bet is that it is the engineering team – not the sales folks who actually are listening to customers. Why should a sales motion be controlled by what engineers want to sell or support? That is backward to the way a true sales culture operates. Sales determines the need and finds solutions to address those needs that can be sold to the customer. Of course the engineering team needs to evaluate things to be sure they actually work and will solve the issue. But most companies never consider how solutions get created, or supported, or tested, or priced, or marketed – from a sales perspective. It always has engineering overtones. That is how most companies think.

If you want to succeed in building a sales culture – you have to change the approach. You have to come at things from a sales perspective first – not as an afterthought. You should never be asking the question “can we sell this”. If you approach it with a sales mentality – you are creating an environment that allows your team to succeed. The transition is easier to talk about than to do. Habits are difficult to break – and engineering has been king a very long time in most organizations. But in the new world – that has to change and reverse completely. It isn’t going to be about what you can implement or fix – it will be about what you can sell.

In the case at itSynergy, we recommended some pretty basic things:
1. Train the team in effective sales
2. Create an effective sales management program

Basically there is a need to create a sales organization driven by a sales culture. This is true for 80% plus percent of HTG member companies. It is our Achilles heel. It has been an aggravating problem to this point since most of us have been able to stay successful serving our current clients and growing slightly using relationship based selling. In the new world – the cloud world – that is not going to be enough. We are moving quickly to a much more transactional based sales motion – we have to be able to find and add new clients. We have to be able to grow our client base and sell new products to new people. It is a very different landscape than we are used to farming. Basically we need to learn to hunt. That is uncomfortable and challenging. But it is essential for our long term survival. Are you in process of transitioning your company? If not, now is the time to get started down that path.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Two Big Opportunities for Microsoft Partners

In the next few weeks there are two very important opportunities for Microsoft partners to participate with key executives in Redmond and get first hand information about the direction and strategy of the company. I encourage you to make this investment of time and join one or both of these events. It is not often that we can interact directly in this manner - so don't let it pass without your attention. Far too often partners complain they have no part in the discussion, or are not informed of what is happening. You can't use either excuse if you don't get involved and participate.

Microsoft Partner Network Interactive Leadership Forum

March 10, 2011 - 7:00-8:30 am Pacific Time

Presented By: Eric Ligman - Microsoft Director of Partner Experience

Jon Roskill - Corporate Vice-President, Worldwide Partner Group

Julie Bennani - General Manager, Microsoft Partner Network

Ross Brown - Vice-President, Worldwide Partner Sales

Karl Noakes - General Manager, Microsoft Partner Strategy & Programs

Join the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group leadership team for an interactive partner forum webcast on the Microsoft Partner Network. During this session, we will be discussing topics, questions, concerns, misconceptions and more that we have heard from partners around the world regarding the Microsoft Partner Network to help address and answer these for you, the Microsoft partners. This session will also include an open forum Q&A session where you will be able to ask questions of the leadership team regarding the Microsoft Partner Network.
This session will be moderated by Eric Ligman.

A sample of some topics included:
• Small business focused partners in Microsoft Partner Network
• Which is right for you: Action Pack, silver competency, or gold competency?
• Microsoft Partner Network and market awareness
• Revenue requirements in Microsoft Partner Network
• Partners, cloud, and Microsoft Partner Network
• And more…

Register for the event here.

Join the Conference at this attendee URL:
• Toll-Free (Within US & Canada): (877) 505-6621
• Audio Pin: 7912


Session #2 - Meet the US Partner Team for HTG members only

We heard your feedback and wanted to introduce you to a few people at Microsoft who live and think about Microsoft partners each and every day.

Why? Because our relationship with our partners matters. We know that we can’t meet all of you individually, so we’re going to put technology to work and invite you to join us on a Meet the US Partner team held via Live Meeting on Monday, 4/4 from 2:00 -3:00 pm cst. We want you to know that we value the relationship we have with our partners and want to make sure you know who to contact and when. Some of the team members who are eager to meet you include:

• To Partner Communications Lead – Diane Golshan
• Microsoft Partner Network Lead – Sharon Collins
• Compete Lead – Alistair Cloke
• Incentives and Solutions Incentive Program (SIP) Lead – Hany Adeeb
• Partner Capacity Lead – Michael Pearson

And a few more of our key partner leads who care about the success of our partners.

Check with your Microsoft HTG Champ or watch the newsletter or portal for the live meeting logon information. I would be glad to send you the invite as well if you drop me an email.

Two great opportunities to connect with the people who make things happen at the largest vendor for most of us. Don't let this slip between your fingers! See you on the calls!!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

A Great Opportunity to Expand Your Options to SMB Customers

I don’t normally write about specific technology products, but last week Microsoft released to manufacturing a great new product called Windows MultiPoint Server 2011. This product has been revved from the previous version and I think has a great application for those of us serving small businesses. The previous version was only designed for education users – but this version – while still designed with education in mind – has a significant play for us in SMB.

With Windows MultiPoint Server 2011, the licensing and purchase model has been simplified. There are still two versions as before, with similar restrictions:

• Windows MultiPoint 2011 Standard – still cannot join a domain and still has a max of 10 work stations
• Windows MultiPoint 2011 Premium – CAN join a domain as before and can have up to 20 workstations

The most important piece of information to note in the SMB space, is that BOTH of these MultiPoint editions are offered in multiple Microsoft licensing channels. So now you don’t have to be a large school to actually purchase the more useful edition of MultiPoint. And that is where our opportunity comes in.

Imagine going to your small business customer with this solution. You walk in the door and are told they don’t have any money to upgrade their network. Their equipment is 5-7 years old and you have been holding things together with baling wire for the last couple years. They have a dozen XP workstations and a server that has run out of space so it is eating you alive on your managed service program as you have to clean files weekly just to keep it up and running.

The way that conversation normally goes is trying to coax enough funds out of them to replace the server and maybe a critical workstation or two. With Windows MultiPoint 2011 Premium – we now have some real options to help these businesses refresh in a less expensive but very impactful way. We still need to get a new server to do the work – but rather than also have the battle over replacing workstations – we can extend their life with MultiPoint. They become end terminals that don’t need to be upgraded from XP to Win 7. That happens as a MultiPoint client.

But wait, there’s more. The 2011 version of Windows MultiPoint Server has support for thin clients. Here is where I think the big win for Small Business can occur. If you have 12 XP workstations, you can simply obtain 1 copy of MultiPoint Premium and now each of those XP workstations have another 5 years of life but yet, they get a full Windows 7 experience when used as a MultiPoint workstation over the network. And when they finally begin to die – you can replace them with thin client devices rather than buying a new PC. It all runs over the current Ethernet network you have in place. And the real deal – it runs in a virtual session on a Windows server too.

We have been testing Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 in one of our education clients for the past few months. Our engineer has four virtual servers running WMS 2011 and serving thin clients and older desktops and notebooks alike. It has great management features for the teacher or business owner – the ability to shadow users – block activity – really keep track of productivity on the network.

It is essentially a turnkey TS server on steroids. Just show the business owner the console where you can get a thumbnail of each individual workstation. Business owners will love that they can now watch their employees desktops for use of Facebook or selling something on EBay, or other non-productive time wasting tasks on work time.

You owe it to your customers to take a serious look at Windows MultiPoint Server 2011. Combined with the new SBS product line – this will be a killer opportunity for us in the SMB space to refresh our clients to a level of productivity where they can use all the current technology without having to battle with them to buy all new hardware. It is a win for all of us in the mix. Check it out, and let me know what creative ways you come up with to deliver this technology to the marketplace!

Here are some resources for those of you interested in more:

1. The main website just went live today with WMS 2011 content. http://www.microsoft.com/multipoint
2. WMS 2011 Premium Eval is on the download center. This is a 180 day eval. It can convert to full product by entering a key. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=3188a587-3542-4dda-99b3-551cdabe581f
3. WMS 2011 Premium full product is also on technet for technet subscribers. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/securedownloads/default.aspx?PV=42%3a433%3a---%3aen%3ax64
4. And it’s also on MSDN for MSDN subscribers. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/securedownloads/default.aspx?PV=42:433:---:en:x64