08
Aug, 2016
August – The month to go “ALL In”
I absolutely love this from Gary Vaynerchuk. Are you “All In”? Let me know in the comments below.
I absolutely love this from Gary Vaynerchuk. Are you “All In”? Let me know in the comments below.
LinkedIn isn’t just a social network for job seekers and recruiters anymore. Over the past few years, it’s evolved into a powerful lead generation tool for many businesses. Its features, like Pulse and Groups, lend themselves well to connecting businesses with prospects. Furthermore, the Company Page feature can be developed into a one-stop-shop for anyone looking for information about your business. With so many great features, it can be quite challenging to figure out how to use the ones that best fit your needs. To help you navigate your way through LinkedIn, we’ve put together some easy-to-follow tips and best practices to make the most of your LinkedIn company page. In this eBook, we’ll show you ten things MSPs should be doing on LinkedIn right now to establish your company presence, attract and engage followers, and generate leads for your business.
About the Author
I’m a serial entrepreneur who has launched and run several successful businesses of my own since age 8. After running a successful MSP of my own for 10 years, I founded Orange Nomad to help MSPs, small businesses and entrepreneurs bridge the gap between strategy and execution. I enjoy the challenge of working with the smaller firms. All my life I’ve had to build something from nothing, and that’s what I’ve gotten really great at – scrappy, creative and really, really smart strategy coupled with hard work.
I love helping the ’underdog.’ When a client comes to me with a story about how I’ve helped them finally get the financial success they so desperately needed, or that I’ve helped their business grow, I’m totally fulfilled. That gives me far more personal gratification than helping a $20 million dollar firm generate an increase in sales. I’ve built my business from nothing and know how hard it can be to start and grow a business when you’ve got no money, no help and the world on your shoulders. I’m proud to be that “guiding force” to help my clients enjoy the same level of success I’ve been able to achieve myself.
Andrew Moon
Founder, Orange Nomad and LinkedIn For MSPs
The Profit is a show that airs on CNBC Prime about struggling businesses finding a “savior” in the person of multi-millionaire Marcus Lemonis.
In each episode, Marcus, the CEO of Camping World and Good Sam Enterprises will find a business in dire need of help and radically change its’ core while investing a hefty amount of his money to save it.
What I love about the profit show is that since it is very real, sometimes the deals work and sometimes they don’t. That’s life isn’t it?
Being a life-long entrepreneur, I absolutely love the show. Marcus Lemonis is an incredible business man, and seems to have a heart. I came across a video interview with Marcus the other day.
This interview really got me thinking. “I wouldn’t know if someone is BSing me.”, was his best quote. If someone like him will not invest in tech companies because he’s outside his element, how does the normal business owner make an educated decision about which IT company to choose to support them? The short answer…they shouldn’t be. At least not by themselves. Let’s face it. The average business owner has no idea whether they are being BS’d either. They usually start looking for another IT company when something is on fire and they need it fixed right away, or their current guy (assuming they have one) has royally screwed something up. After jumping on Google and calling down the list of names one by one, they finally get someone on the phone.
That’s where you as an MSP come in. Most IT companies go in and start talking about the tech. After a “Free Network Assessment”, they drop a RapidFire report on them (which might as well be written in a foreign language to the business owner), and kindly point out all the things that are wrong with their systems and network, and how they are going to be their savior for the low price of $xxx/month.
The business owner has no basis in which to make a decision. They have no idea whether that IT company will suck as bad as the last guy. They have no idea whether they are being BS’d. The only basis they have to make a decision is whether they like the sales guy, and the price. A decision based upon either of these two alone will never be a good choice. You already know this.
If I have just described your sales process, PLEASE change it! You will always look just like all the other IT companies to the business owner, and they will always make the decision solely on price. Even if you win the account initially, you will lose in the end. I’ll bet you already know this too.
WHEN: Thursday, November 19 at 1:00PM EST
SEATING IS EXTREMEMLY LIMITED! CLAIM YOUR SEAT TODAY!!
Here are the full details and registration: http://linkedinformsps.com/linkedin-for-msps-webinar/
During this event I’ll be covering important new information on what you need to know about how to maximize LinkedIn, as well as:
If you want to make sure you have a LinkedIn strategy as part of your 2016 marketing plan, you need to be here:
http://linkedinformsps.com/linkedin-for-msps-webinar/
This event is free to you, but you must register
soon because seating is limited.
SEATING IS EXTREMEMLY LIMITED! CLAIM YOUR SEAT TODAY!!
Here are the full details and registration:
http://linkedinformsps.com/linkedin-for-msps-webinar/
Hope to “see” you there.
Andrew Moon
Orange Nomad | LinkedIn For MSPs
Last week I had a chance to chat with Joe Panettieri, Co-founder, Content Czar at ChannelE2E. He’s covered the #MSP channel for quite some time. We’ve recently connected via social media. He had heard about my wild ride in IT for the past 20 years. Telling my story to someone outside my family was quite therapeutic. I hope there is something fellow MSPs, entrepreneurs, or anyone who wants to learn a little bit about the people behind their IT can take away from my story. I welcome comments, feedback and snide remarks 😉 Enjoy!
Story originally posted at: https://www.channele2e.com/2015/10/30/after-the-exit-one-msps-wild-ride/
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Andrew Moon has faced major adversity at least three times. The long-time entrepreneur and IT service provider navigated the dot-com bubble of 2000, the financial crisis of 2008 and his own health scare about a year ago. So what did he learn along the way? Perhaps most of all: It was time to get to know his son.
Moon’s IT journey began in the late 1990s. A veteran of the car industry, he built an IT service provider that rode the dot-com wave — until his dot-com customers all imploded within three months of each other in 2000 or so. Suddenly, “there were no clients, there was no revenue,” says Moon.
He retreated to the car industry but by 2004 Moon and his wife had a son. The 70- to 80-hour work week in the car industry wasn’t conducive to family life. So he regrouped and did a personal pivot. Again. Back into the IT industry and a reboot for his Network Logix business.
For about six to eight months in 2004 and 2005, Moon experimented with flat-rate services pricing. It was the early days of managed services. He reached back into the 1990s, and tried to apply some classic software like PC Anywhere to the emerging MSP model of 2005. But it wasn’t really a fit. He also dabbled with RMM (remote monitoring and management) and PSA (professional services automation) tools. Through trial and error and research, Moon discovered Autotask’splatform by mid-2005. “I was done tracking things manually,” said Moon. “It was a key turning point for me.”
The next inflection point or pivot arrived around 2008. The Wall Street financial and housing crisis was just starting to spill over into Main Street, U.S.A. The good news: Moon wasn’t losing any customers. The bad news: He wasn’t gaining any, either.
That’s when Moon discovered Robin Robins and her Technology Marketing Toolkit. The toolkit helped Moon to refine his marketing messages into a specific niche — apartment associations in and around Network Logix’s target region of Ohio. Moon already had a few customers in the multi-family housing industry. He started showing up at related events, learning the industry pain points, and speaking at gatherings. The typical result: Three inbound calls for help, with a 66 percent conversion rate into paying customers.
By 2013 or so, Moon couldn’t keep up with his business momentum. Network Logix was a micro business by design — leaning heavily on outsourcing many tasks to contractors. It was time for another inflection point and pivot.
Fortunately, Moon had options. Peer IT service providers within the Robin Robins network had expressed interest in his business. There were also local options. One of them turned into an M&A deal. In June of 2014, System Care Inc. acquired Network Logix, and Moon joined the new ownership.
But then came the next inflection point. It was late 2014, and some health problems cropped up. At the same time, Moon’s son was growing up fast — now around age 10. By December 2014, Moon exited the business and concentrated on his health and family.
Fast forward to the present and Moon is back on his feet. Through his latest company (Orange Nomad), Moon works behind the scenes — helping peer MSPs with sales, marketing and other strategic tasks.
The takeaways? There are plenty. For starters, macro-economic forces (a dot-com implosion, a Wall Street financial crisis) can emerge at any hour. And manual tasks will kill you. Even if you manage to automate much of your business, time doesn’t stop at home while you’re away at work. And at some point, your body will reject a tireless work ethic.
Moon learned that and more over the past 20 years. But he’s sounding healthy these days. And the Orange Nomad is once again on the move — helping some key MSPs to avoid the life-work mistakes he’s made along the way.
When you are starting a business as an entrepreneur, you don’t really give a whole lot of thought to your exit strategy, let alone selling your business. You are too excited with the challenge of building a great company. You’re finally living the dream!
Your new company becomes your child in a sense. And, let’s face it, you typically spend every waking hour taking care of it. (If you’re like me, you dream about it too. It’s 24/7.) You forgo sleep whether intended or not. But, you know that all the sacrifices will be worth it.
When your child is born, you don’t immediately start thinking about the day he/she moves out. However, when you start a business, you need to plan your exit strategy from the very beginning. Let’s face reality here. Most of us won’t have an IPO in our future. The more likely scenario is a sale or merger.
2004 was a year I had two “kids”. My son was born in May, and Network Logix was reborn in September that year. So, for me, the “child” metaphor takes on double meaning as I write this post.
Your child soon learns to walk and then to run. It falls down and gets banged up. Welcome to life kid. Your “child” goes through all of life’s growing pains, and you continue to worry 24/7 like a normal “parent”. But, you know that all the time, effort and energy will be worth it.
Soon the day comes for your kid to leave home. In this case, the day came for me to sell my business. That day came on June 30, 2014.
This was a bittersweet day for me. Every waking (and sleeping) moment over the last 10 years spent thinking about my IT company had finally come to end. It was an extremely emotional time. But, I didn’t have much time to think about it. I now had more work to do in order to make the transition smooth for our clients. No rest for the weary!
As I’ve done with the other 6 posts in this series, I’d briefly like to share what I learned. It is my hope that this information can help at least one person learn from the good and to avoid some of the pitfalls I found along the way.
They say that, “Hindsight is always 20/20.” I agree with that for the most part. Things that you learn after the fact should have been obvious all along, yet they are not always apparent when you are in the heat of the moment. Here are the top 3 things I learned from going through the process of selling the business.
If you base success on a single event as an entrepreneur, you will be disappointed. As I look back, I have found that the most joy I derive from the last 10 years has been the journey. The journey of building, creating, learning. It was a wild ride, and I still have a few war wounds, but it was worth it.
As always, I welcome any thoughts or comments below. If you found it useful, please share with a friend or colleague. Until next time….
I’m excited and honored to be a guest with one of my favorite partners, eFolder. Please join me Tuesday, May 19, 2015 at 2:00PM EST where I’ll be giving away all the things I learned from building, growing and eventually selling my MSP practice. Register here: http://www2.efolder.net/7LessonsILearnedFromMyITBusiness
One would think this lesson should be a given. There should be no need to write about. It should be a no-brainer. Take care of my TOP clients. Duh! Unfortunately, this was not the reality at times for me, or for most IT providers or entrepreneurs. Let me explain.
“The customer is always right.” We’ve all heard this expression. This is one of the biggest fallacies in business. Think about it for a minute. What would that actually mean for you if it were true? If the customer (i.e. everyone who wants to do business with you) is always right, how can you possibly serve them all well? You might be able to keep some of them happy, but when you try to cater to everyone, you just end up being stretched too thin. I speak from experience here. I exhausted myself trying to keep everyone happy. I ended up making mistakes and letting people down. No matter how good my intentions were, no matter how determined to make good on my promises, I was overextended at times. Overextended entrepreneurs inevitably drop the ball. This was unacceptable for me and my clients. Fortunately, I didn’t lose any of my top clients, but it served as a wake-up call for me.
Back in Lesson 3, I mentioned the Pumpkin Plan book by Mike Michalowicz. (If you haven’t picked it up, I highly recommend it.) In Chapter 7 of the book, “Play Favorites and Break Rules”, Mike wrote that playing favorites is simply good business, and is mandatory for your success. “Your mission is to keep your top clients so happy you obliterate the possibility that they would ever leave you for the competition.” That’s exactly what I wanted, and I think that’s how we all feel.
You probably have a few favorite clients, the people you’re always glad to see and hear from, the businesses you’ll bend over backwards to help because you actually like them, and want to do a good job for them. (Go figure) I did too. I had clients that I would go to the ends of the earth for. It didn’t matter what time of day, or day of the week, I was on it. They always went to the front of the line.
As entrepreneurs, we want to be nice people. Sometimes we are too nice at our own expense. We feel guilty giving preferential treatment. My parents taught me to play fair. Let’s get real. Life isn’t fair. That’s part of the reason you’re an entrepreneur. You get to make the rules.
Playing favorites is nothing to feel guilty about. (I can say that with straight face because I was my dad’s favorite out of six kids. Love you pop!) Playing favorites is a winning strategy because your top clients are your favorite clients, and they need special treatment. How else are they going to feel special?
At times however, I found that some rotten clients were eating up the needed time and energy to focus on our top clients. I needed to fix that.
After going through the process of defining our Rules of Engagement (Mike calls them Immutable Laws) and completing the Assessment Chart, I now had a pretty good idea of who our top clients were, and what they had in common. I went through the process of Firing the Rotten Clients, and only our TOP clients remained. Phew!
Next the fun started! I now began to focus on taking care of the clients that made getting up in the morning pure joy. I now had a different approach for our top clients. We pushed them to the front of the line whenever they put in a service request. It was kind of like the wristband you pay extra for at Kings Island or Cedar Point to go to the front of the line. (Yeah, I loathe those people too when I’m standing in the 95 degree heat because I’m too cheap to pay the extra money.) I was always looking for new and better ways to serve them. I accommodated their special requests, and even made trips to the cell phone store so they wouldn’t have to. Most importantly, I always went out of my way to help them grow their business. I wanted to discover all the right things I could do for them so that I was significantly better than my competition could dream of being.
In the process of doing these things, I found that our top clients were a lot alike. And, because they shared many of our Rules of Engagement, they were a lot like us. It actually became easier to serve them. I knew that I wanted more clients just like them so I could keep growing our top-client list, and that’s precisely what I did. I stopped taking clients that didn’t fit our business, and focused all my time, effort and energy on our TOP clients.
“The customer is NOT always right, but…
The right customer IS always right.” Thanks Mike!
It doesn’t take much more effort to have all your clients see you as their world-class de facto provider, and have raving fans for life. I’d like to think I did something right over 10 years of running my IT business as most of our clients were with us nearly the whole decade. That’s nearly unheard of in the IT industry.
You don’t need to create elaborate plans to take care of your top clients. You simply need to be a little bit better, a little bit more helpful, and little bit more creative at solving their problems. You need to be willing to do the things that others can’t or won’t do. Don’t get stuck, just get started.
I’ll leave you with one final thought from Jim Rohn: “One customer, well taken care of, could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising.” Everyone thinks they need more clients, and they spend an inordinate amount of money to get new ones. From what I’ve seen, the secret to long-term success is taking good care of the TOP clients you already have, and clone them.
My final lesson in this series #7: Run It Like You\’re Going To Sell It is coming up next week. I’ll be sharing a few tips I learned from the actual sale of my business.
As always, I welcome any thoughts or comments below. If you found it useful, please share with a friend or colleague. Until next time….
If you were to talk to any CEO/entrepreneur/manager/Executive that has been able to scale his or her business, most of them will tell you the secret of their success in one word: consistency. Nothing can be fine-tuned until it’s first consistent. How do you become consistent? Process. How do you develop processes? Document and systematize everything. Boooring! I know, this isn’t a sexy topic at all. But, stay with me.
I was recently interviewed on this subject by my friend Mike Michalowicz for his Profit First Podcast: Click Here or listen below.
In my last post, Ruthless Productivity, I talked about the daily game of Whac-A-Mole that was daily life for me for too long. If you are worn out and completely exhausted from running your business, please keep reading. If you are even mildly frustrated, please keep reading.
In the beginning, I was like most other small IT providers. I was a one-man-band doing everything. Sales, marketing, support, project management, etc., etc. I had a ‘way’ of doing things. I had everything documented… in my head. Bad idea! I realized that, as I tried to grow, I had to pass along the knowledge of how to do things to others. Otherwise, I would be stuck doing everything forever. If you haven’t figured it out, you can’t do everything and grow. So, stop trying. It’s pretty difficult to share everything in your head. (My head is a scary place. My wife can attest to this.)
In 2009, I attended a workshop at Sparkspace, an offsite retreat center here in Columbus, owned by my friend Mark Henson. (This place is awesome by the way. If you are ever in Columbus, you have to check it out!) I was introduced to EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System). Being an IT company, I worked with Operating Systems on computers all day, so I was naturally intrigued by an Operating System for my business. I immediately bought the book where this concept originated, Traction: Get A Grip On Your Business by Gino Wickman.
When I got to Chapter 7, The Process Component, I started to see a light at the end of the tunnel. (I was hoping it wasn’t the headlight of an oncoming train.) “This component is the most neglected one, often taken for granted and undervalued by entrepreneurs and leaders. Yet the successful ones see what process can do for them. By not giving this component your full attention, it’s costing you money, time, efficiency, and control.” Like most type A personalities, I’m a control freak. How about you? If you are reading this, I’ll bet you are.
I was like countless business owners that complain about their lack of control or freedom, and yet, in the same breath, discount the value of process. I was determined to change this.
A typical organization operates through six to 10 core processes. How these processes work together is a unique system, your “Way”. To systematize your organization through your core processes, you must take two major steps.
I know what you are thinking right now. “How the hell am I going to get all this done? I just don’t have time.” That’s exactly what I was thinking too. But, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. (No, I’m not recommending you go kill a real elephant. I don’t want to be accused of that.)
Don’t try to tackle them all at the same time. Paralysis by analysis will set in quickly, and you’ll end up doing nothing.
Start with ONE process, then move on to the next. This will take time and effort, so buckle your chin strap. Nothing great comes easy.
I started with Sales. (Big surprise since I like sales.) I broke down how I wanted the Sales Process to go, and documented it on paper. I then input this process as a Track in ConnectWise, our PSA tool. (Geek for Customer Management System) I now had a documented, repeatable process. This led to consistent sales. Remember the opening paragraph. “Nothing can be fine-tuned until it’s first consistent. How do you become consistent? Process.” (Yes, another light bulb moment for me.)
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I did this perfectly. That would be a bold faced lie. It was a struggle to put it mildly. However, I never stopped working at it. By strengthening the process component, I was able to gain more control. By taking control, I learned to get better. That’s what we all want, right?
Thanks for staying with me on this one. There is way more on this topic for sure. Lesson 6 will cover Focus All Your Attention on your TOP clients. I’ll give away how I created Raving Fans and had most of my clients for nearly a decade, which is kind of unheard of in the IT industry.
As always, I welcome any thoughts or comments below. If you found it useful, please share with a friend or colleague. Until next time….
Being an entrepreneur can be a challenge to put it mildly. The odds of survival are stacked against us before we even start the day. Yet we press on undaunted. In most cases we wear many different hats throughout the course of a single day. The challenge is how to get it all done without losing our minds. The word productivity seems to be an oxymoron.
Over the course of running my IT business for 10 years, that challenge was amplified by the speed at which our digital world changed. Back in 2004 the iPhone hadn’t been invented, and we weren’t walking around with the Internet in our pocket. There has never before been an age in which we could get so much done so quickly. There also has never before been an age in we are so overwhelmed and exhausted with information and tasks, so bombarded with emails and things to read and watch, so stressed by the intense demands of daily life.
For many people these days, work is a constant stream of emails, of phone calls and instant messages, of Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/Pinterest/SnapChat/[insert new social media distraction] updates and connection requests. The day starts with an Inbox full of emails, and ends with an Inbox just as full, and each email is a request for information or actions that we don’t have time to fulfill.
Just because I ran an IT company didn’t mean I was immune to the same crushing stress. If anything, hyper-connectedness was amplified due to the fact that I also had to manage our client’s incessant need to be hyper-connected as well. (All’s fun and games until someone loses Internet or Facebook goes down)
There were many days I felt like I was playing Whac-A-Mole. Remember that game? I remember the first time I played it. I was 10 years old. (Ahh, to be a kid again) I was at Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh. It was awesome! Beating the crap of those little moles as they popped up…YES! However, even at 10 years old, I got tired fairly quick. But hey, it was fun!
Day in, day out playing Whac-A-Mole got really old really fast in my business life. (Not so fun) I really struggled to get everything done each day. So, I started working more hours. 12, 16, 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. I figured eventually I’d be able to get caught up. “Just work harder”, I told myself. Unfortunately, this strategy is not sustainable, and after a couple years of this, I nearly found out the hard way. I was writing checks my body couldn’t cash. (Top Gun anyone?) If I didn’t change, I would end up flying cargo planes full of rubber dog crap out of Hong Kong. Or, worse yet, I’d end up being fertilizer. I wasn’t happy with the thought of either.
I venture to say, that some of you reading this can relate. In order to get control, I learned to be ruthless with my time and energy. I’m not perfect at it, but I’m at least aware of how I spend my energy. So, I’d like to give you a few secrets that I used to get control of things before it was too late.
Being productive is key to growing and managing your company as an entrepreneur. You only have a limited amount of time and energy. The #1 pitfall to being productive is interruption. There are many reasons for these interruptions, and almost none of them have to do with necessity!
I could probably write a book on all the lessons learned on this subject alone. (Hmm, maybe I will) At minimum, I think there might be a workshop on this. Let me know if you might be interested.
If you want to read a good book, I recommend “The Power of Less” by Leo Babauta. It’s an easy read with many actionable things you can do right now to get control.
Lesson 5 will cover Document and Systematize all Processes. This isn’t a sexy topic. Everyone knows they need to do it, however, this is one that most entrepreneurs have the hardest time with.
As always, I welcome any thoughts or comments below. Until next time….