Tuesday, September 30, 2008

A Couple Podcasts That May Be of Interest

Our friends at Channel Pro have posted a couple podcasts online that you may want to listen to. Michael Siggins from Channel Pro SMB has done a great job of helping me define the history and value of HTG peer groups in the first podcast. It runs about 17:30 and really turned out to be a great interview about the way HTG got started and where we are today as we begin to build the next version of HTG. You can catch it at:

http://www.channelproonline.com/podcast/Sorenson1.mp3

We also captured a second podcast that addresses the topic of changes coming in the channel ecosystem. Michael talks with me about change and how we as partners will need to reinvent ourselves once again to remain relevant in the marketplace. I review the transition from where I sit and provide some overview of the next couple years. It is a bit over 1o minutes so a pretty quick summary. You can catch this one at:

http://www.channelproonline.com/podcast/Sorenson2.mp3


A special thanks to Michael and the team at Channel Pro for their support of HTG and all that we are trying to do to educate the channel. They really understand the SMB partner community and are committed to helping us educate. We value their partnership and support.

Mountains of Email

Brad Schow sent out the following thoughts and research on email last week. While I initially found it a little funny, the more I think about it the more I realize that in my case, I am losing my ability to focus because of the pda and phone. I allow things to distract me continually throughout the day. And that has to have an impact on my real productivity and ability to be effective. The key is finding the right balance. I am not one who believes we should cry uncle and just pretent our inbox doesn't have any email in it. People send email because they want to know something. And often my answer is important for them to be able to proceed with the task at hand. So ignoring is not balance. Neither is setting it up so it dings, pops up, vibrates or somehow grabs my attention every time one hits. Somewhere in the middle is where I need to land. Here is the research Brad shared:

In 2005, a psychiatrist at King’s College in London administered IQ tests to three groups: the first did nothing but perform the IQ test, the second was distracted by e-mail and ringing phones, and the third was stoned on marijuana. Not surprisingly, the first group did better than the other two by an average of 10 points. The e-mailers, though, did worse than the intoxicated people by an average of 6 points. The e-mailing group came in last.

What does that make you think of this statistic? In a recent survey of 320 professionals, 17% reported they check e-mail a few times per hour and 68% check e-mail more or less continually. They are constantly breaking their focus on the primary task at hand.

Something to consider. Some days I probably have a pretty low IQ as I chase the electronic messages moment by moment. I would love to hear how you are finding balance in your communications. It certainly is a challenge we all need to address.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Can you find a business to pimp

HP has just released details on a new promotion you need to let your customers know about. Check out the details at www.pimpmyinfrastructure.com. This contest has some serious prizes, and a couple of businesses are going to win a bunch of really cool HP gear and they did it right - if your customer wins the reseller gets 5K in stuff too. For once we don't get forgotten if things go our way. The contest is designed to drive awareness and interest in SBS2008 and EBS2008 with one lucky business getting a makeover for each segment. This is a great reason to send out some marketing info that will open the door to discuss these great new products as well as the supporting cast of gear from HP to run them on. Here are the rules in the fine print:

Pimp My Infrastructure is a contest sponsored by HP and Microsoft®.

1. Choose a customer (or customers) whose business is challenged by a lack of infrastructure power.
2. Ask your customers to tell us their story.
3. Remind your customers to put your company's name down as their reseller.
4. We pick the most worthy customers--one small-sized business (1 to 75 PCs) and one mid-sized business (76 to 300 PCs). We'll "Pimp Their Infrastructure" with a prize package of goodies courtesy of our sponsors.
5. If we pick your customer's submission, you'll win some cool prizes.
6. Keep in mind that the deadline for submissions is 11:59 PM ET ON October 20, 2008!
7. Announcement of the winner will be at the Microsoft November 12th Customer SBS/EBS 2008 Virtual Launch.

Take advantage of a cool promotion - get the word out on HP and the new MS products - and potentially win 5K. Just make sure your customers know what your company name is and enter it when they fill out the registration form. With all this remote MSP stuff - they may have forgot who you are! Good luck!

Saturday, September 20, 2008

ConnectWise Rocks!

One of the “benefits” of my role as CEO at HTS and Founder of HTG is to attend dozens of industry events all over the country each year. This past week was in Orlando at the ConnectWise partner summit and I want to share some thoughts on this company and event. First let me say that there have been a few things in my 23 years in the industry that have made a huge difference for us:

1. Getting involved in industry affinity groups – first VTN and then growing into peer groups through HTG. What we have learned from our peers has made our business.

2. Learning to work with vendors. Once we finally figured out that vendors were not the enemy but our most important allies, and began to treat them that way and create relationships where we were just as concerned with their success as our own, we began to share in that success.

3. Putting the right tools in place. And at the risk of letting Arnie get a big head, ConnectWise is at the top of that list at HTS. I was a little slow getting there, but today, take it away and I am shutting down. It is the business operating system at HTS and soon for HTG2.0 (thanks Arnie).

The goal of the ConnectWise summit this week was to find “one”. We do that in our peer groups each meeting – what is your one thing – that gem you just have to take home and put to work immediately. You see many of us in the VAR channel are great at making lists and a little slow on the execution – like never. So this approach is a very good one and I hope you figured out your one and have already started to implement it. You HTG’ers better report good progress on that at your next meeting.

My one thing really had nothing to do with the conference at all (sorry CW) but it became clear as could be because I was blessed to be there. It is to focus more of my time building relationships with people in this industry and not only give ideas and best practices to them, but to receive more from them in return. In other words to carve out time to connect even more. We do a lot of that through the peer groups we call HTG. But like any good thing, we sort of get complacent and it was obvious to me as I was blessed to rub shoulders with so many this week, that I have to make time to learn from peers even more. There are so many brilliant folks in our industry, vendors and partners alike. And too often I still try and figure it out on my own – how stupid. There is bound to be someone, and likely many, who are ahead of me and have already made the mistakes and figured it out. So lightbulb goes on and says duh – spend some time each week just talking with folks to pick their brains but also to share something of value. So expect some calls from me.

I also just want to say thanks to Arnie and the team for building a great product. We are quick to point out the flaws, and we all know there are some, but it is really a great tool and I appreciate the quest to continue to make it better. Don’t forget to keep that support improving along the way, because exactly like that OS that prevents us from doing work when our pc won’t boot – for many of us today we are dead in the water if our CW business system isn’t running. So we are putting our trust in you and your team….don’t let us down.

The other thing I want to say is thanks for a fantastic conference. It is THE best partner conference there is in the industry bar none. And I go to a lot of them. Content is great – always a couple fantastic keynotes that are right on target – vendors are relevant and really want to engage – Arnie’s talk is always full of a good Dell bash or two – but the thing that separates this from all the rest is the quality of the partners that attend. There is no other conference anywhere that is completely made up of partners who share a common goal of growing their companies and are serious enough about it to make the investment not only in the time to be there but the money to put the right tools in place. ConnectWise is a great value and worth every cent, but let’s face it, it isn’t cheap. But if a partner spends the bucks to put it in place, there is a 99.9% probability they are serious about their business and in no way a lifestyle partner that just wants a job. I consider it the CW filter and as we recruit new HTG members there is no better place to find the quality that is exactly what we are looking for. So thanks for that. Christy and your marketing team do an unbelievable job of putting on a first rate event, but it is the quality of your partners that make it worth attending.

So this is a long winded way of saying thanks to the ConnectWise team and also encouraging all who were there to share what you learned with your own teams at home and with others, but most of all to get after that “one thing” and get it done. That is how we can change our companies and the industry. Together we can make a difference!

The Go Giver Update

Yesterday I was blessed to be on blogtalk radio with Stuart Crawford and Bob Burg to discuss the book "The Go Giver". You can catch the show at this link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/smb/2008/09/19/The-Go-Giver

We spent a little over an hour talking about the 5 laws of stratospheric success and real world examples of how these principles can be lived out in life and business. It was a great discussion and one I encourage you to listen to.

Along those lines, this week at the Connectwise conference, I moderated two breakout panels where we discussed these principles as well. Serving and sharing their experiences were Brad Schow, Jeff Howard, Erik Thorsell, Stuart Crawford and Jeff Wood. These guys opened up their businesses and personal stories to help people understand that there is another way to live rather than blindly following the common wisdom the world shares with us. If you haven't read the book, please take time to do so, about a two hour read which is great for a plane ride. The bottom line is that these principles can really change the way you look at business and ultimately life. Being a contrarian often has some hidden value and can lead to even more success!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Learning about EBS and SBS - the New Versions

We continue to move closer to the coming release of Windows EBS (Essential Business Server) - the new release targeting the midmarket customer base from 50-300 users. Part of the misconception about EBS has been the fact that Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG formerly ISA) is required as part of the solution and it seems many partners are afraid of this being in the product. One of the industry's foremost experts on ISA, Tom Shinder, wrote a great article on this on his blog. You need to take time to read his post on ISAServer.org at this link:
http://blogs.isaserver.org/shinder/2008/09/02/why-the-forefront-tmg-is-a-cornerstone-of-essential-business-server-ebs-network-security/

Also there is new training available at Partner Academy on the pending SBS and EBS products. Check out this link to prepare for these new versions and be ready with some tech readiness: https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/search_adv.aspx?ssid=2ff59e1b-42b9-4802-afc1-a02fb3d5eca3.

There are two 8 part courses on each product that cover these topics:
· Planning, Design, & Installation
· Migration
· Management, Health, & Reporting
· Messaging & Remote Access
· Security & Backup
· LOB Support, Extensibility, & Troubleshooting
· Virtualization

An Update for Microsoft Education Partners

I heard from my buddie Steve Winfield that the education team at Microsoft is alive and well and there is some new info he asked that I pass along to partners who work in the education space. There is a new community being started aimed at Microsoft education partners. So if you sell to schools or colleges or any academic institutions - this should be of interest to you. This has been an on again, off again focus for Microsoft, and our experience is that when it is on, we take advantage of the opportunities related to it. The bottom line is they are creating a site where they aggregate and funnel all sorts of information about education solutions on MSFT technologies as well as provide a way for partners to communicate with them and with each other. If someone has a Live ID affiliated with a partner in the MSPP, then they can access the main site at http://www.MSEDUcommunity.com. If they are not yet affiliated with MSPP, they can access the blogs and forums at http://cs.MSEDUcommunity.

Check it and and let me know what you think. I also would love to hear what would help you be more effective in selling into the education sector. We need to win the battle for these kids early and often so they don't get brainwashed by some fruit.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

The Power of Cooperation

One of the great things that happens when partners get past the fear of competition is that true partnering can happen. A couple of our HTG partners, Erik Thorsell at SCC and Lyf Wildenberg from MyTech, did a very unique event cooperatively to drive business. These two companies compete in the Minneapolis market. Both are in HTG - SCC in HTG3, and MyTech in HTG2. As is the case for most - the fear of competition is really based on lack of understanding and relationship. These two companies have worked over the past year to learn about each other, understand where the strengths and weaknesses are in both companies and become true go-givers with each other. They have done an exchange day where staff spent time in the other business to see how they run their business. They are doing joint telephone cold calls together through an IBM campaign - did you catch that - their sales teams sitting together in the same room. Their success has been based on open sharing - but between competitors in the world's view.

Most would say the culture of HTG is crazy - to open up a business completely to 11 other companies. And in this case - to be transparent even to another company right in the same market. The world would say "bad decision". But these guys have proven the power of peers. They have recently held a joint marketing event. Each invited their own customers plus they marketed to drive prospects to the event. In prior years each had done their own pretty successful event. But this time, by working together, they hit a home run. They had more people than either would have drawn on their own, much more vendor participation, and most importantly, both companies are energized and growing. Of course a lot of the success comes from the top - leaders who get what it means to be go-givers. They communicated clearly and set expectations. It didn't just happen, but it was a powerful example of what can be when people live out the power of peers in community.

Stuart Crawford recently did a blogtalk radio show with these two. I encourage you to take time to listen and see how the culture of HTG and the power of peers can make a huge difference. Check it out at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/smb/2008/09/05/The-Art-of-Coopetition.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Can you Spell Virtualization?

HTG member and virtualization guru Dave Sobel has announced his upcoming book on the subject is now available for pre-order. "Virtualization: Defined. A Primer for the SMB Consultant". This first book in a series walks a SMB consultant through the basics of getting up and running with virtualization.

The book covers:
What are the kinds of virtualization?
What can you do with them?
Why should a SMB consider virtualization?
What are the technology platforms available to virtualize on?
How do you sell virtualization solutions?

There is also a coming DVD and Audio program set where Dave and Karl Palachuk present and can train your staff, or you can listen to the presentation in your car or on your iPod.

You can get details and buy or preorder here:
http://www.evolvetech.com/mambo/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Book-Available-for-Pre-Order-Virtualization-Defined.-A-Primer-for-the-SMB-Consultant.html&Itemid=87

Stuart Crawford also did a blogtalk radio show with Dave - catch it at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/smb/2008/09/30/Living-in-a-virtual-world.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Press Release on our Benchmarking Partnership

We have announced a strategic partnership with Paul Dippell and Service Leadership to provide us some best in class benchmarking capabilities for HTG members. This platform will allow us to go deep in the area of financial analysis and enables us to really take our peer program to the next level. Here is the official press release:

Service Leadership, Inc. has been selected by Heartland Tech Groups (HTG) to deliver quarterly performance reporting to HTG members. With over 150 current members, HTG is the largest executive peer group organization for IT Solution Providers. Service Leadership Index(TM) quarterly benchmark reports will enable HTG members to
quickly compare their quarterly financial and operation performance versus 1) their own past results, 2) the results of their HTG group peers and 3) the results for Best-in-Class Solution Providers in their business model category.

Service Leadership enables organizations like HTG to deliver insightful information to a large base of Solution Providers with diverse business models. "We've grown rapidly because our members value their quarterly best practice meetings and the ongoing interaction with other IT Solution Provider executives," said Arlin Sorensen, founder and visionary of Heartland Technology Groups. "We've used a spreadsheet-based financial tracking method to help our members get a handle on their financial performance. However, our members have clearly indicated that they want richer, more actionable reporting. The Service Leadership Index(TM) reports enable us to deliver 'next generation' benchmarking resources for our members. As part of their HTG best practice meetings, members will use the Service Leadership reports to determine how they are progressing quarter to quarter and what specific actions they can take to improve performance."

"HTG's new approach combines peer group interaction with best in class quarterly benchmarking resources," noted Service Leadership CEO Paul Dippell. "It is the most effective way to help Solution Provider executives strengthen their companies and the industry as a whole. It is an honor to work with HTG to help its members leverage their Service Leadership Index(TM) reports to reduce their business risk, grow faster and drive Best-in-Class results on behalf of their shareholders, their employees, and their partners."

We have over thirty HTG members who participated in the Q2 financial benchmarking and it will only grow from here. Take advantage of this opportunity to compare yourself to others in HTG and the industry. It is this kind of information that can truly help you make the needed changes to grow your business.