Nothing Happens by Itself
Copyright © 2022 Karl W. Palachuk
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Greetings!
Last week was crazy busy around here. The "new info in the links below is quite significant. Blogs and videos and podcasts. Oh my!
And now I begin my countdown to travel! Among other things, that means I need to prep podcasts, videos, and blogs for the weeks when I'm gone. For some people, that would be stressful. But to me, it's part of the magic of travel - And I'm glad to be back on the road.
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By "road" I generally mean airplane.
Traditionally, I've done a lot of writing on the road. To be exact, I tend to do book-writing on the road. As a rule, I try to write an hour per day. Some of that is journaling (which for me means spewing out whatever pops into my head); some is blogging; some is outlining projects; and sometimes it's working on book chapters.
People often ask me "how" I write a book or what my process is. Most often, it consists of working through the material in my head for a long time - often years - before the writing starts. This goes back to my earliest books.
Relax Focus Succeed was supposed to be my first book. I wrote chapters one at a time, often out of order. Most of that writing took place at home.
For non-authors, let me give a quick background on fiction vs. non-fiction. As a rule, new fiction authors have to produce the entire book before anyone is interested. But for non-fiction authors, a lot less is required. To take a book idea to an agent for non-fiction, you basically need about three chapters to prove you can write, plus an overview of the book, and a business plan The business plan has to include a discussion of you audience and what we colloquially call your platform.
Your platform might be your YouTube channel, your mailing list, your podcast, etc. It's basically your known, good, current audience. The technology used to deliver that audience changes over time. When I wrote my first book, no one could spell TikTok.
Anyway, I took a thirty page sample, an overview, and a business plan to a writers conference in 2005. During that three day conference, I spent a lot of time writing. Writing what? Well, I had a lot of documentation forms for my IT business. So, I was writing instructions so new technicians understood how we documented and why.
That became the original Network Documentation Workbook. Harry Brelsford helped me promote that book. Then he engaged me to write a vendor-sponsored book on storage area networks. That was my second book, The SAN Primer for SMB.
And, thus, Relax Focus Succeed became my third book instead of my first!
My process, such as it is, is to outline ideas, then begin to organize an entire book. After that, I generally manage to practice thinking about chapters by adding the content to online or in-person presentations. After I go through the ideas several times, I begin to use the same words and stories consistently.
That's when a chapter becomes ready to be written. And one day (normally, when I'm on the road), I start writing. Most often, I write a chapter at a time. It "suddenly" all comes out in one sitting, about 90% complete.
I'm not sure how this process stacks up against any other authors. But it's my process.
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NSITSP Update
We had a great podcast appearance on the ChannelPro Network podcast last Friday.
Amy Babinchak and I appeared on the podcast for about 45 minutes (a long segment for them). I wrote a blog post for this on the NSITSP blog. But you can jump right to the podcast here:
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Please read through this blog post and give us your feedback! It's critically important that you help us create the right membership program so we can grow dramatically in the next year.
And if you are not yet a paid professional member, please join now! You'll be locked into the current pricing for a year. And you'll also be a voting member who can serve on boards and committees.
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Bitdefender Pushes Next-Level Security
We've had Bitdefender on a few SMB Community Podcasts this year as they role out some great advances in monitoring, detection, and response services. See:
September 15, 2022
Learn the differences between EDR, XDR, and MDR as we delve into why detection and response services are necessary for your business.
July 28, 2022
Find out what GravityZone XDR can do for your MSP business.
July 14, 2022
Skill gap, tools complexity, alert fatigue, and other market challenges have become increasingly difficult to navigate in the MSP space. And for those with limited resources, these obstacles will continue to inhibit successful customer service.
Bitdefender is a paid sponsor of the SMB Community Podcast.
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Check out the Bitdefender video MDR Foundations: Overview
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Final notes this week . . .
October is always a month of huge change. It starts with warm weather and the last bits of summer weather. It's actually the peak (and the end) of fire season in the west. And, of course, it's the beginning of the Hurricane season. October ends with a lot of cold weather.
I'm headed to Spokane and my Gonzaga class reunion in two weeks. But I'm only taking a sport coat and some layers. I'm assuming the weather will be in the 70s still. And I'm not dragging real winter coat to Australia, Thailand, and Singapore. Besides, I'll be inside most of the time.
I hope you are looking forward to a great October, a great Halloween holiday, and an amazing Q4.
Please let me know if I can help with anything.
Have a great week.
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Next Big Course:
Automate Your Accounting with QuickBooks Online and Integrated Apps
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Automate Your Accounting with QuickBooks Online and Integrated Apps
You’re guaranteed to learn something that will make or save you the price of admission!
Taught By: Rayanne Buchianico, coach and community builder
- Five Tuesdays - October 18th - November 15th
- All classes start a 9:00 AM Pacific
QuickBooks is the defacto finance tool for small businesses - and that includes IT Service Providers. In this always-fresh course, Rayanne takes two tracks to improve your business: 1) Get the most out of QuickBooks Online, and 2) Take your business to the next level by connecting QBO to other tools and services.
This is a very hands-on course. As you follow along, you'll fix-up your current QBO configuration and get the most out of integrations with your PSA and other tools. Plus, you'll learn the most important reports to use, how to effectively (and securely) share sensitive financial data with clients, and generate beautiful and amazing reports.
Whether you're new or experienced at running a business, this course will take your practical financial education to the next level!
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You will learn:
- Touch your transactions exactly one time to avoid duplicated entries
- Make your business audit-proof with automated attachments
- Understand the purchasing and procurement process in detail
- Connect your PSA for automated invoice importing
- Pay your bills electronically from INSIDE QuickBooks Online
- Match your vendor bills with actual credit or bank payments
- Set up and record:
- Deferred Revenue
- Customer Deposits
- Sales Tax
- Hardware as a Service
and MORE!
ITSP University Certification:
Meets Certification Requirements for:
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 Introduction and Connecting Your PSA
Unit 2 Document Management and BillPay
Unit 3 Automating Accounts Receivable
Unit 4 Time, Payroll, and Revenue
Unit 5 Cash Flow and Putting It All Together
Note: * Members of the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community attend at no additional charge. See details in the Community
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All the Resources That Are Fit to Print |
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Recent Blog Posts, Podcasts, and Videos |
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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:
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Selected Recent Videos and Webinars:
Our YouTube IT Consulting channel now has more than 540,000 views!
Subscribe today and don't miss a thing!
A quick guide to my Playlists:
- Total: Over 840 videos on the Small Biz Thoughts channel
- 345+ SOP videos
- 265+ Relax Focus Success videos
Plus . . .
- Training, Courses, Seminars on Managed Services
- Product Reviews
- and more
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Community News
SmallBizThoughts.org
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Community News comes out Friday. Members, keep an eye out
- and Our Roundtable is next week
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The SBT Technology Community Newsletter went out on Friday, along with the news video.
Here's what's up this week:
This will be First Thursday and our monthly members-only Roundtable.
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Russell Benaroya will be our special guest on October 6th.
Russell Benaroya is an author, entrepreneur, coach and speaker focused on helping people achieve their highest and best use by staying in their genius zones. Russell has spent the last twenty years in investment banking, private equity, and entrepreneurship and today is the cofounder of Stride Services, an outsourced accounting and strategic finance firm that helps business owners use their data for better decision making. Russell speaks on topics designed to help business leaders build more successful businesses through a combination of self-discovery and tactical financial tools.
We'll talk a bit about Russell's book, One Life to Lead. But, as always, we try to get folks to abandon their "script" and have a rock-solid business discussion on the SBT Roundtable.
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Members join us - Free!
Non-Members pay only $1,199 (includes one year of membership)!
Also join us for the weekly Zoom call. We continue to have good turnout and great discussions - every Thursday at 9AM Pacific, Noon Eastern. Join us!!!
The link for the weekly Zoom call is always in your Dashboard.
All meetings are recorded, along with the transcript, chat, and links mentioned on the call.
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That's it for this week. I'll see you at the meeting on Thursday.
Thank you!
:-)
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From Josh Liberman - This client claims they've hardly ever spent anything on tech support.
I believe them.
:-)
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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.
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October
ASCII Success Summit
October 4-5
Dallas, TX
SMB Techfest
October 20
Anaheim, CA
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SMB IT Professionals Conference - Australia
October 21-22
Gold Coast
Join me Live !!!
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Xchange NexGen Security
Oct. 23-26, 2022
Orlando, FL
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November
ChannelPro SMB Summit
So Calif
Nov 3rd
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Acronis Summit in Miami
November 7 - 9
Miami, FL
Join me Live !!!
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MSP Community Block Party
Nov. 9, 2022
Orlando, FL
IT Nation Connect 2022
November 9 - 11
More Info: https://www.connectwise.com/theitnation/connect-na
Service Management World
Nov. 12-16, 2022
Orlando, FL
Managed Services Summit North
Nov. 16, 2022
Manchester, England
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December
Cybersecurity & Cloud Ezxpo
Dec. 1, 2022
London, England
Cisco Live!
Dec. 6-9, 2022
Melbourne, Australia
James Kernan's Millionaire Mastermind Quarterly
Dec. 8-9
Las Vegas, NV
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January
Send me your events !!!
Karl's 14th Annual State of the Nation Address for SMB IT
January 11th - 9:00 AM Pacific
Join me Live Online!
:-)
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February
MSPExpo
Feb 14-17, 2022
Fort Lauderdale, FL
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March
James Kernan's Millionaire Mastermind Quarterly
March 30-31
Orlando, FL
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April
The IT Sales And Marketing Boot Camp
April 11-14, 2023
Nashville, TN
RSA Conference
Apr. 24-27, 2023
San Francisco, CA
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May
2023 SMB Online Conference!
May 17-18
Zoom
Online - Stay Tuned for Details - but mark your calendar now.
Join Me Live Online!
:-)
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June
Cisco Live!
June 4-8, 2023
Las Vegas, NV
IT Nation Secure
June 5-7, 2023
Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center
Orlando, FL
Infosecurity Europe
June 20-22, 2023
London, England
James Kernan's Millionaire Mastermind Quarterly
June 29-30
Denver, CO
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July
Send me your events !!!
:-)
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August
Send me your events !!!
:-)
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September
James Kernan's Millionaire Mastermind Quarterly
Sept 28-29
Omaha, NE
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October
dattoCon 2022
Oct. 2-4, 2023
Miami, FL
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November
Send me your events !!!
:-)
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December
James Kernan's Millionaire Mastermind Quarterly
Dec 7-8
Phoenix, AZ
:-)
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Note: If you know of any in-person event for SMB Consultants, please send info to [email protected]. |
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