How to: Business topics

I was setting up a kitchy OOF for the upcoming holiday season, when I noticed this menu item and decided to check it out. Yikes! Look at all of those authorized connections from Outlook. One of them was even from a Windows phone I owned years ago. Yes, all but three of these are old… Read more: You might be surprised, I was, at which devices have access to Outlook. Here’s how to tidy up

At the end of this course, you will have developed your AI Consultancy plan and be ready to integrate it into your MSP offering.

It’s been a long time since Third Tier did an in-person event. We did Brain Explosions years ago. Now we’re bringing together the Masterminds. For the last two years, we’ve been holding Mentor-led Mastermind groups for solopreneurs, small firms and large firms each grouped by size to focus the content to their unique needs. Unlike… Read more: Mentor Led Mastermind in person event

An MSP may consider themselves to be doing a good job when calls for help are answer quickly and there are few of them. But your client probably doesn’t view it that way.

from the SMB Community Podcast Determining the right amount of compensation for employees is a complex issue that many businesses face. In a recent podcast, Amy and James discussed their thoughts and strategies on how to compensate employees. The discussion revealed a wide range of compensation for the same skill set, with some employees being paid… Read more: MSP question of the week: Strategies for Determining Employee Compensation

from the SMB Community Podcast The MSP question of the week is how to hold employees accountable for subpar performance. It’s a common problem for any business owner, especially in our industry. The key is to define the culture with three steps: 1) set goals and expectations in writing with your team, 2) train your employees… Read more: MSP question of the week: How to hold employees accountable for subpar performance

from the SMB Community Podcast The conversation discusses recent changes to laws regarding non-compete agreements for employees. Previously, senior employees could be subject to non-competes but now only those in policy decision making roles qualify. There are differences in state laws, with some like California banning non-competes. But there are also strategies companies can use to… Read more: MSP question of the week: We can’t have non-compete agreements. How do we protect ourselves now?

from the SMB Community Podcast Jame and Amy discuss different strategies and options for acquiring a book of business from retiring or exiting MSP owners. One technique for buying a book of business with no money down: One technique is to pay the seller a percentage of the revenues from the transferred clients for a… Read more: MSP question of the week: How can you buy another managed service provider (MSP) with no money down?

We are in a period of rapid change. The next five years is full of drama for MSPs. This should all be information that you’ve already heard. But have you internalized it or operationalized it yet?

Cybersecurity is a tricky subject for MSPs and I know it’s on everyone’s mind. Join me in this AMA, sponsored by SuperOps and let’s talk about these issues.

You can gain all of those benefits, if you do customer appreciation right. If you don’t your customer appreciation might just get lost in the shuffle.

Opening an MSP is easy. Building an MSP is hard. Establishing a grow pattern is harder. Building culture is the hardest part of running an MSP. I’ve shared a lot of the wisdom I’ve gathered over the years. It can summarized as follows: This summary reflects the overarching principles for managing and evolving a business… Read more: Embracing Change and Growth in your MSP

Do not confuse this phrase with the customer is always right or that you have to ask how high when they ask you to jump. Yes, is about empowering your employees.

This newsletter is a curated blog roll of the 8 most important topics published by Microsoft in the previous week.

For Managed Service Providers (MSPs), the process of developing a robust set of services transcends mere compilation; it is an art form that requires a deep dive into creative thinking.

“The trough of success” perked my ears. Used in context it’s a phrase that means, you are continuing to feed on past success and being stuck there at the trough of success is a guarantee of future failure.

I’m going to leave that right there for you to ponder.

How do you find the time to learn? How do you find the time for your staff to learn? How do you motivate them to learn? How do you motivate yourself to learn?

This is a collection of my posts about running an MSP and successful business strategy and theory.

A list of our blog posts on Copilot. Start with Outlook and move through the entire suite at your pace.

Once adopted RMM becomes the foundation of your business. Is that the foot you want to step forward with into the world?

The wave of digital transformation across industries has placed increasing demands on the information technology (IT) industry, urging its professionals to stay on top of their skills and competencies. As discussed in a previous post, one of the critical areas in the IT profession is self-management, which involves being organized, responsible, independent, and open to… Read more: Promoting Eye Health Among IT Professionals

Create a news source that is focused on helping Microsoft 365 IT businesses by providing them with curated and summarized information, published by Microsoft and their MVP community

The value of these groups is in the deep trust and friendships that evolve over time. Having a career-long group of trusted advisors is a huge advantage.

I’m writing an on-going series on AI for businesspeople. What is AI? How does it work? How do you use it?

I realized that type of person that I needed to hire, how to recognize them, and how to cultivate any short comings that they had.

This is a limited time opportunity to join a group in owner-led growth. Ready to take the growth of your business seriously? Willing to share and learn?

What does no RMM mean? It means not subscribing to a third-party tool to manage Microsoft products

The headline might be a little strong but in the new Microsoft Cloud Partner program, you’d be a fool if you didn’t read it that way, because in areas where you can score points toward your partner capability score is a section granting you points for staff with specific certifications.

What is the mind set of people that take this stance. How do they excuse themselves from the ethical question?

I’ve been in a group for several years that I value very highly and it’s made a HUGE difference for me. I want that for you too.

It’s the curse of being successful. Everyone wants your time all the time. There are several components to this problem. A core tenant of solving business problems is to make them obvious and not convoluted or obscured by other issues. So let’s solve one aspect of this problem.

We don’t set alerts on full hard drives because they don’t happen anymore

When you are telling me about a new film, I’m only half listening to you until you say “and Will Smith is in it”. Now you have my attention.

I was reminded of this phrase the other day when I saw a post in a Facebook group aimed at IT business owners asking if anyone puts their business over their health.

What is holding your business back? Let’s pick one issue and solve it. You’ll be amazed at how this invigorates your business.

If you are struggling with how to make connections to local prospects, then this paper is for you. I show you exactly how to do it in LinkedIn

Choose wisely and have a plan when you decide upon the size of firm you will grow.

Once you know your where your business is going then you can begin to not only work the business in that direction but also work toward giving away your job.

Here’s the Q&A and recording for the webinar on running an MSP without an RMM subscription.

The question isn’t what you use for a central pane of glass without an RMM. The question isn’t how you access machines that are unattended or manage patching. The question is how do you do business differently? How you focus on customer service, security, true proactive action and projects that together make a positive improvement in your client’s businesses?

We often hear this phrase used in IT as well but while it might be ethical to do nothing in medicine, it nearly never is in IT.

A large part of being a technical support person is understanding the problem that you’re trying to solve. This one phrase prevents a lot of missteps due to assumption.

Today it’s the one that my staff knows me best for. How do I know that? Because often when asking me for some advice or an idea on how to tackle a technical issue they will start the question with, I know it’s always DNS but

If we’d like to make more money from the cloud than we ever did from infrastructure, then I think we shouldn’t be worried. There’s more money to be made than there ever was in infrastructure

Somehow, in our industry, the idea that small clients are bad for business has become a standard thought. It’s wrong

When the word IT is used, business comes immediately to mind but these days IT is needed in the home too. This isn’t a new notion. I have a book on my shelf, called Mommy, why is there a server in the house? It’s an adorable, narrated book explaining the features of Microsoft’s now defunct… Read more: Identifying home security needs

Adopt, Do I really need to know that, and you’ll find that the clarity you have on everything in your business will improve.

If you’re mhklassen@aol.com, your account has been compromised and is being used by criminals to attack my website. I do hold you responsible because you’ve ignored that message to change your password to something more complex and use two-factor authentication.

Of all of the phrases I use to run my business, this one probably translates most directly to the bottom line.