Work On Your Business, Not In Your Business

Every January my readers eagerly await annual predictions and for the first time ever I got several emails about things “not to do, things that won’t matter” and I figured it was time to something funny. But before I get to that.

“Work on your business, not in your business”

I first heard this bit of brilliance at a trade show where four MSP masterminds unanimously agreed this was the key to success. Welcome to 2016, none of those four own their business anymore.

So, on to the funny, here is what you must do in 2016 to make it great:

1. Buy as many books as you can.
What are the odds that they are filled with the same common sense Business 101 nonsense you’ve read a thousand times already and didn’t implement fully. Fear not, 2016 is going to change all that. The next book you buy and throw on that bookshelf is going to change it all. All you need is to believe.

2. Attend as many trade shows as possible. You have to work with your vendors!
Cause you can’t just pick up the phone and call people, or invite them to deliver presentations to you – no, shell out thousands of dollars, take time away from work, away from your clients, away from your business and make sure you go to the bar and after hours parties where you can’t even hear the other person because that’s where real business gets done.

3. Volunteer for industry giants
Cause what a multimillion dollar org that lobbies congress on behalf of really large technology companies (and against your interests and interests of your clients technology departments) needs is your time and effort. Not only is it going to give you brilliant insight into people looking for their next job, you might even look for a leadership position and waste even more of your precious time away from work. You know, for the good of the industry.

4. Peer up, Peer down, Network your face off
No successful business exists without a peer group or a wolfpack of genius masterminds – make sure you commit to the one that takes you away from your business the most so that you can build that extra bit of industry leadership and channel prowess. Your clients, if there are any when you come back, will be far more impressed by who you know than by actually working with you in person. Businesses hire trailbrazers, not deliverables, work is for suckers and techs and you sir are better than that!

Unfortunately, your opportunity to help your business with a coach is gone because those guys have exhausted their unemployment benefits and have had to get a real job away from scamming. Some more enterprising ones have managed to get themselves fractually unemployed, chanalized if you will but tough luck there.

Cynical enough?

To make it through 2016 and grow you only need to do one thing and that is focus on your game plan. I have talked to a ton of partners last year, ton that didn’t have a good year, and many had a good plan. They just didn’t do the work, they didn’t put in the effort and just kept on searching for that magic blueprint to millions of dollars from people who disparage hard work. Wake. The. Hell. Up!

I have a lot of partners who have grown by double and triple digits last year. People always ask me what we’re doing that’s new and as I go into all the services they doze away – folks, business IT is mature, there is no new huge thing that’s just going to blow things up. Forget about the buzz words and emerging tech everyone wants to dream about, small business IT (and much more so for medium sized and large businesses) are very set, have tons of money in the existing infrastructure – they need someone to service all of that. Not fix it with the next gadget. You will need to find a way (hint: my business) to get more work hours in a day and deliver more services without doing more work directly on your own (or through your employees).

Focus on running and building your business. Leave the noise, distractions, championing, leadership, chanalizing, coaching, peertarding and ConferenceAsAVacationing to someone else and take their clients.

If you want to know how we’re doing that – call me.