Karl's SMB Email June 20th

Nothing Happens by Itself

What's Your Kind of Vacation?

Greetings!

Happy Juneteenth - American's newest Federal holiday. The holiday's official title is Juneteenth National Independence Day. It celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. The holiday was first celebrated in June of 1865 and became an official federal holiday in 2021.

My company's offices will be closed, although there are a few meetings I need to attend. Remember: Banks will be closed and there will be no mail delivery.

-- -- --

Vacations/Holidays

I actually need a day off. Last week was crazy busy on several fronts.

I attended a meeting last week with a timely question as part of the group introductions: What are you vacation plans? I live in the far west, so a lot of people are going hiking, camping, and trundling off to various national parks. A few are traveling overseas to relaxing or "destination" resorts.

What's your kind of vacation? Personally, I don't need two weeks off. Once in awhile, I find myself taking that much time, but it's unusual.

I prefer lots of little vacations. That's why it works so well for me to add vacation days to work days. As long as I'm going to _____, I might as well see some sights, wander through the old part of town, and find a beach to relax on (when available).

This year, I've snuck off to Southern California and Hawaii for a few days. Then a week in Mexico with my daughter and daughter-in-law. And I added some days to a Las Vegas business trip. In August I'm off to Scotland and England. In October it's mostly business in Australia, followed by all vacation in Thailand.

For both the UK and Thailand, I bought one way tickets. So I know I'll get home at some point, but I have no specific plans to come home.

Obviously, I can enjoy vacations like this because I don't have to coordinate with a spouse or little kids. And, to be honest, I've spent the last twelve years designing my life and business so I can make this happen.

You know my motto: Nothing Happens By Itself.

What's your favorite flavor of vacation?

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Tid Bits . . . from the NSITSP

Lots of activity last week!

Keep informed by reading the blog at https://www.nsitsp.org/blog/.

The Logo Contest received nineteen entries. The Marketing Committee will be reviewing them at their next meeting, then we'll have a vote! Thank you to everyone who contributed time and talent.

We also launched the official NSITSP Vendor Partner Program.

Vendors:

Find out all the details, download a PDF, and join us at www.nsitsp.org/vendors.

Also look for links to the meeting recording on our YouTube channel at YouTube.com/nsitsp.

We literally need each other to succeed. Please join us.

-- -- --

I mentioned that this has been a particularly busy week.

In my world, that also means there are new videos, new podcasts, and new blog posts. Please consume what you can. And I always appreciate comments and feedback.

I particularly enjoyed the podcast with Toby Nangle from Field Effect. Check that out at SMB Community Podcast. Toby has agreed to come back and tell us more.

I also really want everyone on earth to read my latest Relax Focus Succeed blog post. I've watched presentations for fifteen years now where "millennials" are talked about as if they're space aliens and we need to treat them as such. I simply ask that you consider young people to be an amazing resource in your business.

-- -- --

NOW is the time to sign up for our next 5-week course: Managing Your Service Board. See the description below. This is always a popular course, whether you've been using a service board for a long time or you're just getting started.

That's all I have this week. I hope you plan a vacation . . . and have a great week!

- Karl P.

:-)

Next Five Week Course:

Managing Your Service Board

Class starts July 5th - Register now!

Managing Your Service Board

- Setup, Core SOPs, and Daily Procedures

You’re guaranteed to learn something that will make or save you the price of admission!

Taught By: Karl Palachuk, author and coach

- Five Tuesdays - July 5th - August 2nd

- All classes start a 9:00 AM Pacific

This course covers the most important pieces of making your PSA (Professional Services Administration) service board work effectively. Your PSA is the brain center of your entire operation.

Most Managed Service Providers don't use their PSA systems efficiently. In fact, most of them only use 10-20% of the capabilities of their PSA. This costs you money because you have the tool to run everything in your business more effectively. But if you don't put the right information into the tool, then you can't get the reports you need to improve your business.

This course covers the daily operation of a managed service business - or any IT shop with a service board and one or more technicians who execute the service. It assumes you have a service board or PSA (Professional Services Administration) and a service manager.

Whether you sell “break fix” or flat fee services, a service board will take your company to the next level – if you use it right. In addition to covering setup and core standard operating procedures, we'll get into the "nitty gritty" of running a service board and managing the service department.

Which PSA? (It mostly doesn't matter, but . . .)

I used ConnectWise for four years in my business. Then I switched to Autotask and used that for five years. Eventually, I move to SolarWinds and used that for more than five years.

On top of all that, I've worked closely with coaching client who have used all of these products. This course is intended to apply to all PSAs. I will point out areas where differences are most obvious.

You will learn:

How tickets should flow into, through, and off of the service board
How to set up the core components of a service board
Priorities
Statuses
Workflows
Time Estimates
The most important processes and procedures for making the board work effectively once it's set up
Introducing new processes to you employees
Getting clients to understand the new processes
Time tracking the right way
The most important reports you need to run
Every Day
Every Week
Every Month
When it's time for client renewals
Avoiding the biggest pitfalls with service board management
Building an Action Plan that works
and MORE!

ITSP University Certification:

Meets Certification Requirements for:

Management
Technician
Service Manager

This class will be recorded. Each unit is generally posted within 24 hours of the live class. These recorded units will become the On-Demand class and you’ll have lifetime access to it.

Class Content

Unit 1 Core Components / Building Blocks of a Great Service Board

Unit 2 Core Processes and Procedures for Success / Time Tracking the Right Way

Unit 3 Implementation and Daily Processes

Unit 4 A Day in the Life of the Service Desk / Policies that Drive Profitability

Unit 5 Build and Maintain a Well-Oiled Machine / Getting the Details Right

Delivered by Karl Palachuk, author of Managed Services in a Month and many other books for MSPs – managed service providers.

Note: * Members of the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community attend at no additional charge. See details in the Community

All the Resources That Are Fit to Print

Recent Blog Posts, Podcasts, and Videos

Small Biz Thoughts Blog:

SMB Community Podcast - New episodes drop every Thursday

The Killing IT Podcast - New episodes drop every Tuesday

National Society of IT Service Providers News Blog

Relax Focus Succeed:

No One's Paying Attention - and that's okay!

Clarity - Asking and Receiving

Selected Recent Videos and Webinars:

Our YouTube tech channel is now reaching 19,000 views per month. Subscribe today and don't miss a thing!

A quick guide to my Playlists:

Total: Over 800 videos on the Small Biz Thoughts channel
340+ SOP videos
265+ Relax Focus Success videos

Plus . . .

Training, Courses, Seminars on Managed Services
Product Reviews
and more

You can always check out my YouTube Channel and subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/smallbizthoughts

OR my Relax-Focus-Succeed Channel at https://www.youtube.com/relaxfocussucceed

Community News

SmallBizThoughts.org

Community Member: Newsletter Drops Friday

Members: Join us every Thursday at 9:00 AM Pacific

Even though Friday is on the 24th, it's the final Friday of the month, and that means you should keep your eyes peeled for the SBT Technology Community Newsletter.

And even though it's a long ways away, July 7th is the First Thursday and therefore the SBT Roundtable. Our guest will be Rob Marenich.

Our topic is Entrepreneurism and Service. Rob is an entrepreneurial consultant, working with young businesses and leaders in need of an experienced business consultant, serving across horizontal industries and all markets.

He also volunteers for SCORE – US Small Business Administrator, plus has a nonprofit mentoring program for veterans. And, most recently, he's starting an organization to help the citizens of Ukraine.

Plan to join us July 7th – 9 AM Pacific / Noon Eastern.

As always, your link is in your Community Dashboard.

All recorded member meetings are in the Member Call Archive.

Join us!

If you haven't seen the latest news video, check it out here.

SBT Technology Community News - June 2022

That's it for this week. I'll see you at the meeting on Thursday.

Thank you!

:-)

Picture of the Day

Members of my Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community enjoyed a Roundtable discussion of the Funeagram by Jenifer Novak a few weeks ago.

If you're familiar with the Enneagram, this card set will help you determine your Enneagram profile. And then you can walk a friend through determining their profile as well.

If you're not familiar with the Enneagram, head over to https://funeagram.com/ to start learning about this personality profile method.

:-)

Live Events Calendar

What's Here?

This calendar lists two kinds of things: LIVE in-person events from any organization that focuses on the SMB consulting community; and MY events, whether live, webinar, etc.

If you have live events on your calendar that may be useful to others in the SMB Community, please let us know. We'd be happy to list them.

Of course: Everything here is subject to change based on Covid. Click the links for the latest details. Please send updates so we can post them.