Vlad’s 2007 Agenda

Before I say anything else I would like to make it clear that this is simply my agenda for the coming year. Although a lot of this relies on Own Web Now Corp please do not look at this as corporate promises as they are just my own.  I chose to post this in the open in hopes that it would get a lot of you thinking because the results of this will impact a lot of you to an extent. I hope you can resist replying and instead let this simmer for a few days and hit me up at SMB Nation. As with everything that I do I would love input, negative criticism, etc.

 

Focus on Content & Distribution

Over the past year I have put a lot of time into the SBS Show and Vladfire as a hobby. A lot of you have contributed your time and expertise, something I am really grateful for. Both the audio and the video form have sent the “community” message far and wide to the extent most could only dream of. Millions of SBS Show listeners, thousands of Vladfire viewers.. but don’t look at it as gloating, look at it as an opportunity. The best side effect of what I’ve done (and what others before me have done to inspire me to do what I do) is the proliferation of meaningful conversations. While the newsgroups have slowly turned to potshots, insults, licensing holy wars and incompetent pleas for someone to do their job many have found a new creative outlet to put their findings in. This time last year there were, at best, half a dozen blogs that were updated regularly. Today there are dozens of blogs and they cover everything from mascara tips, suicide notes, small business tips, technology tips even ideas on how to help you relax.  These blogs are connected, convenient, relevant and lead in to other things.

Other things being sound and video. Again, perhaps the same information but a lot more convenient. Take it running, mowing, swimming or whatever else you can multitask at. Thinking about buying a book – listen to the author talk about why s/he wrote it. Wondering about a product – see what the folks that wrote it were up to and why they did it. And lots of people are doing it and have projects in plans to do even more.

The benefit of all of the above is that it informs more people and brings more people to the realization that this “community”  is not just a collection of whining unemployed people but a connection/networking mechanism for businesses of all sizes, competences and motivations – worldwide. The “newsgroup” community is tiny – 2000 people at best – with at least 1900 of that being uninvolved spectators not involved in a newsgroup “relationship”.  You see, a lot of people are willing to help but very few are willing to sink their time into the process of showing someone to troubleshoot, debug, structure, etc. Point a mic or a camera at them and they are very happy to talk.

The SBS Show has a sustained audience of about 40,000 people per episode, 60,000 downloads per week. I consider the show to be the intelligent crack of the “community” because it intrigues them to download it, listen, research, think. I cannot tell you how many emails and IM’s I’ve  gotten regarding the show from all walks of life that found something in it and found a better way to do things. These are not just Microsoft partners and ITPRO folk, these are small business owners, do-it-yourselfers, hobbyists, etc. You’d be shocked if you knew the number of people that listened to the SBS show but wrote in to ask what SBS was.  

 

Ok, so what? SBS Show Newsletter

Most people see the numbers above and they see dollar signs. The lineup of people that have inquired about sponsorship is huge. The number of people with crack headed pitches on how to cash in on the audience is even bigger. I am quite happy only pimping the business that pays for the bandwidth and the business-owner that came on the show to share their knowledge. I see no reason to sell out.

I do see a reason to use this huge audience to bring more people into the “community” because I think it benefits us all. Starting next week we will launch the SBS Show Newsletter.  As I mentioned, we have 60,000 downloads a week. That is potentially 60,000 people that could learn more about the partner community, more about their local Small Business Specialists, more about SBS and technology.  Here is what I imagine this will look like:

1. SBS Show will be the main story, similar to the announcements I frequently forward to this group.

2. Community Spotlight – I am not the only one doing this. Wayne and Tim are also doing video and it looks a lot better than mine. Eriq has an SMB business podcast, Susan has a patching podcast and several in the community are starting to make theirs as well. Top that off with dozens of people that blog about unique and interesting things in the world of SMB and technology. Most people do not have the time to follow 50 blogs and 3 podcasts and 8 videos every week – so I hope the newsletter can just pick out a few very interesting things and let them click around to what interests them.

3. SBSers in Wild – Spotlight on the SBS groups. Not so much the “snow day announcement” but a group leader talking about success stories of their group. Nothing moves crack like the image of success and fun.

4. Anything else?

I would really like some input on this. Please brainstorm and pitch it to me at SMB Nation. The one thing I do not intend to do is sell out and let others control what goes in and what does not. Remember that this is all just a collection/snapshot of things people give away willingly.

 

Just give me $100,000

If you look at the Nascar picture of SMB Nation you’ll see that the future is in franchises and toolkits. “Just give us $10,000 to $100,000 and you’ll be successful. Really! No, really, people have heard of the Vlad’s Home Computer Troubleshooters – why you have Computer and Troubleshooting, almost everyone has heard those two words and Vlad is a brand and…. Just give me $100,000, OK?”

I am not sure how intelligent people fall for the crap above but it seems to be a prevalent thought that franchising is the way to battle the Geek Squad. Apparently IT businesses whose sole differentiating qualities are in technical competency and customer service are also really dying to outsource that pesky key to success to India. Reeeeeeeealy! Look how great that works for Dell and other mavens of customer support. Fight fire with fire, Geek Squad is crap well we can match that!

I don’t know about you but I can’t wait to sink $10,000 to $100,000 to buy a job. After all, they’ll take care of everything for me. What do schmucks like Karl and Erick know about IT business, I want to entrust the future of my business to the people that have get rich quick thing figured out!

I’ve heard all of these rehearsed pitches over the years and they reek of last nights infomercial. The only stunt I have not seen them pull yet is of a guy saying he is a millionaire thanks to org XYZ that also brought an inket printout and highlighted it as a proof. Let’s forget for a second that none of these franchises have any brand recognition (the one reason you would buy a franchise) nor a very sophisticated business plan (the other reason you buy a franchise) so what do these things actually address? Business owners insecurity because they are too small to compete with Best Buy? Well whats the natural evolution of a franchise here, how does the top guy make money? Off licensing fee percentages for all eternity….. or of selling it out to the highest bidder. At which point your business will be a part of Geek Squad anyhow so you might as well just save the thousands of dollars and strap on a fake tie today.

But what do I know, I have my own profitable business.

 

What I think the answer is…..

I feel that the only way to grow (not survive) in this business is to offer a wider portfolio of services and a more custom/personal relationship with the business technology. All the franchisors and retailers offer break-fix packages and deals but throw them in front of an LOB and they die. Make them deal with a server and they call someone else. Make them work a complex project and they fall apart or bill to the sky.

That is not to say that they will not figure it out one day (very soon).

But when they do they will face the same costs and problems we have today.

Even Microsoft  won’t help them because Microsoft turns to us.

All the Exchange Rangers, MSC and Indian graveyard shifts won’t make them competitive.

And that is the key to growth and survival.

Competition.

 

How do I compete….

Loop back to the SBS Show numbers. There are literally thousands of people worldwide you can *compete with together*. The advantage is twofold:

–          You can offer the same services you offer locally nationwide or even worldwide

–          You can offer more services locally than you can by yourself

–          You can offer higher end solutions that you may not be able to manage yourself

We have this thing figured out in Orlando through our group down to a fine science. We know who the CRM guys are, who the phone guys are, who the break fix guys are, who will repair the hard drive on a Sunday afternoon, who has a hard drive collection dating back to 90’s, who does every little vertical you can think of. And get this magic – they share. They work together.  And they get more work as a result of it!

This works because someone sunk a lot of time and money to organize Orlando, bring these people out, market to them the crack dream detailed above, get them to buy in and actually see the fruits of it all. Now more are interested in the collaboration, higher opportunities and bids (government work, etc) are coming in. And as awesome as this works locally, imagine the opportunities globally

 

Global Opportunities

The global opportunities can be easily summed up under the category of reduced cost of labor.

I don’t know where most people in this group stand but it costs a lot more for someone to reboot a server during the grave yard shift. It costs me very little to reboot it in the morning or during afternoon hours when I’m staffed the best. It also helps if someone else of my equivalent talent does it. Now lets assume that the earth is round and that its sunny on one side while its dark on the other. So long as that continues to hold true I can trade off with my friends on the other side of the world and collaborate to bring down the costs of mundane and repetitive tasks.

It also gives me the ability to provide competent service 24×7. Now I don’t have to outsource my technical tasks to a recent hotline reject, I can trust someone with actual technical background to handle things.

If I can find someone with the exact same needs that I have, I can just trade time with them and not have to work odd hours anymore, use creative staffing, or overpay for overtime. My friend on the sunny side gets the same benefits.

  

What I’ve been doing for the past 6 months

Several people on this list have been chatting with me about this for quite some time. In late February I started working on a practice management software. I originally started writing it because Microsoft CRM almost destroyed our business management and I wanted to offer something to my almost 5,000 worldwide partners and resellers. I invited about 40 people from the community to test drive it, help provide features, ideas, suggestions. About two months into it the snowball started rolling and I realized that the opportunity for this “tool” is far greater than just “yet another trouble ticket management system” so we threw in a whole bunch of stuff that unifies the tools you probably already use.

At some point over the summer I got the cash set aside and was going to spend nearly all of it on advertising. That didn’t work out so I figured the next best thing would be to invest into the people themselves and give them more of a push to do what they already do. That being blogging, video blogging, user group activities and overall marketing of the community.

 

It’s all “in the tool”

I sat around the roundtable focus group earlier this year with about 20 SBSC’s and I believe I took more notes than the folks that threw the event together. Then I set in the smb-managed newsgroup and took notes of one complaint after another. I listened to about 40 people that work in our space talk about what would actually save them time.  Then I sat in roundtable discussions at WWPC and again took more and more notes. And I started building and documenting and building and the nice thing about all this is that we own all the IP so when things don’t make sense they can be fixed. It took three of us here at Own Web Now to write what we have now and will likely complete the entire roadmap by Dec 31, 2006. Awesome! But what does this do for you?

Well, the biggest problem to the whole “global networking” plan described above is that there is no easy way to network. You have to invest time, money and rely on the trust factor that the person on the other side is really who they say they are. In USA we have these awesome TS2 events where Microsoft brings in local IT shops and presents marketing info for about four hours. Awesome guys, awesome presentation. At the beginning of every single presentation they pitch this: “… and remember you are all in the same business so talk to the people next to you, exchange business cards, network…” at which point they go to the next slide and proceeed to run behind schedule for 4 hours straight. If you’re lucky there is a 10 minute piss break, in a movie theater… so unless you enjoy networking at a urinal or bathroom line your chance of finding a good business match are close to none. And TS2 guys are absolutely the best ones out there (vs. ascii, etc)

 

Geographical Networking

Not everyone is comfortable approaching others. Furthermore, not everyone at the event is looking to network with your particular business. One tool I’ve been working on that I will make public pretty soon is the event networking portal similar to evite, eventful, etc. Basically UG can list the local IT events (as we all do) and encourage people that are attending to provide their info. Then you can see who is going to the same event you’re going to, see if you can arrange a meeting with them. Microsoft does this remarkably well but it’s a nogo on the local/free event because nobody can opt into it due to Microsoft privacy policies.

 

Reputation Networking

Part of the tool above is reputation networking. Not all partners are suitable for all jobs. For some things (like CRM) I want to outsource to as large of a small shop as possible because I can trust that company to manage the project and actually have developers that can customize it. However, if I have a dead PC somewhere in Tennessee, I want to send that to someone that can actually spend time troubleshooting it and not come back with the bill larger than the initial purchase cost of that workstation.

So how do I know who is who?

What do these guys do? Primary competency? Secondary competency?

How do I know if they are a hobbyist SPF or an IT business?

How do I know they don’t have a trail of lawsuits behind them….

One thing we’ve integrated in Shockey Monkey is the ability to shoot off a survey when each ticket is closed.  Survey results can be anonymously collected to build a customer satisfaction score for a particular business. Am I looking for someone that went out on 2 calls in the past year or 200? Am I looking for someone that has 1 employee or 10? These are the kinds of answers  I think everyone ought to ask before they go into any business relationship.

What do we have currently? “Does anybody know someone in Tennessee? Email me info off-list” – how much time does then get wasted in proofing, interviewing and consulting with these folks to get things done? I think we can simplify that.

 

What I am NOT doing

I have no interest in creating a franchise, I am not out to control or represent you

I am not proposing any kind of business relationship you are not comfortable with

I am not asking you for money, almost all of what I’ve described (except Shockey Monkey) will be free

This is not some flash in the pan effort by Own Web Now either. We’ve dedicated a lot of money and infrastructure to retool our business to help our partners deliver more solutions to their customers. Now I want to grow those partners, have them talk to one another and eventually get bigger and sell more of my crap.

 

So here is what I’m doing in 2007:

I am continuing to work on Shockey Monkey

I am spending the ad revenues to hire folks to make all of the above possible

I am making this a core of what we do for the future

…. Hopefully some of the above struck your interest and I hope you’ll find me at SMB Nation and give me ideas and suggestions on how to make all this work better. It’s a little ambitious but that’s me.