Social Media Image Management

Posted: 7:23 pm
October 17, 2013
Blogroll
Comments Off on Social Media Image Management

I’ve made somewhat of a lucrative career making fun of self proclaimed experts in our industry who only seem to excel at not going to work and not being able to keep a job. Perhaps the two are connected somehow? It’s my perception and I can back it up with various factoids that are among a wide array of general characteristics to the extent that many people seem to recognize themselves in.. somewhat. So yes, if you read Vladville posts and it strikes close to home then I am not just addressing generalizations, I am writing about you. You and nobody else but you.

meangirlsThe trouble with a relatively small and highly connected community is that we see the connections among people and, right or wrong, tend to base our opinions based on brief glimpses of what we see scroll by on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on. Getting to know someone truly takes time because most social encounters are in a business framing – conferences, mixers, barcamps, sponsored parties and so on.

Everyone is there to work. And like it or not, you have a public image that is built by what people perceive of you with a limited set of images, Facebook updates, tweets and quick interactions.

Consequently, my attitude towards what people thought of me seemed irrelevant. I don’t care because this isn’t me, this is my work image. I even have a work Facebook account with random amount of filth just to keep it entertaining.

Truth is, whether you respect the people who are forming an impression of you or not, if that impression is negative you have to make an attempt to turn it into a positive one.

Sucks, right? Well, it’s tough being popular. Even if it’s a matter of popularity in a small industry or in a small subset of it.

The point of reference doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who thinks you are stupid, fat, drunk, useless, unemployable, womanizer, whore, idiot – it matters that people look at the content you put up on the Internet and they form an impression of you based on that content. If that is the wrong impression, or the one you don’t like, you change it. Again, the reference doesn’t matter because these aren’t opinions being formed on a thorough research and personality quizes – people see one or two things about you and assume that it’s you. Even if people you don’t care about are forming this opinion of you without knowing you it stands to reason that the people that you do care about might form a similar opinion.

If you are one dimensional it’s easy to stereotype you into something negative.

So go ahead, flood your social media with tons of irrelevant stuff. Because the only thing better than inadvertently offending someone is ridiculously offending everyone to the point that it’s seen as a joke and keeps them guessing. Then before they judge you they at least have to take a moment to get to know you.

It’s that simple.

-Vlad

P.S. Terrible, terrible, horrific advice given by a guy who will never have to go look for a job. If you think you’ll be seeking employment some day make sure your name either doesn’t exist in a Google/image search or you change your name to John Smith so your future employer will never be able to illegally profile and disqualify you for employment. Or specifically qualify you based on some horrible thing you do in your spare time which would be even more concerning.

Discipline In Calldowns

Posted: 9:40 pm
October 13, 2013
Boss
Comments Off on Discipline In Calldowns

If there is one thing that I absolutely suck at it’s being the judge of talent. Sometimes I allow the potential someone may have to be productive at a given role overshadow their many shortcomings. To the extent that some of my ex employees used most of their talent to actively avoid doing their job.

I try to remind myself of my ineptitude as the talent judge when I’m on a sales call with someone I know will lead nowhere.

You know the type – multimillion dollar company with a clipart web page on a pwn3d Joomla site. Service questions from someone that apparently started doing IT in 2003. Business issues of scale and business case scenarios that wouldn’t even impact the lemonade stand 6 year old on a verge of an epic temper tantrum. Every other word makes me want to hang up – or at least send them to competitors web site for more info – but I stay on and go through the process..

Because money is money and if I was that great of a salesman I sure as hell wouldn’t be selling junk mail lockers for pennies. Perspective.

This is the concept that is lost on many: It’s not your job to judge and score leads. It’s your job to get them to sign on the line which is dotted. Furthermore: The type of the person making an IT decision is changing. It used to be an IT guy. Then the CIO, business owner, manager. These days the research is done even lower in the org. If you let yourself get caught up in the preconceptions on how IT used to be you’ll miss out where IT is heading.

I’ll be spending the bulk of the next 3 months on the phone with ExchangeDefender Migrations & Support trying to help our partners grow faster. If I ever lose sight as to why I’m on the call, feel free to kick me through the phone, k?

What I’d really like to say – Unicorn v2

Posted: 1:19 pm
October 10, 2013
Shockey Monkey, SMB, Unicorn
Comments Off on What I’d really like to say – Unicorn v2

Now before you get mad at me, and you will, I urge you to accept that this is not just my opinion: but an opinion that I am putting my money behind. How I choose to build our business based on our strategy and research may not be fitting for everyone else.

We have been hard at work with Unicorn v2. Here is a bit about the infrastructure changes:

The old version of Unicorn used http replays between the client machines to relay information to the Shockey Monkey server.

The new version is a 3 part system: Server component, Client component, Viewer component.

The server runs on an independent machine in the cloud, accepting TCP/IP connections.

Each client, will authenticate with Shockey Monkey credentials and establish an open connection to the server machine. No information will be sent through the pipes until data is requested from a connected viewer.

Viewers also connect through TCP/IP and retrieve information from the selected machine. The client machine then packs up all relevant information and transmits It to the server, which relays the information to the view for real time data viewing and access.

Basically to be able to reach our global client base, we’ll spin up cloud virtual instances as needed and you’re welcome to roll out as many agents as you can against them as you wish. Here is what the latest beta looks like:

unicorn1unicorn2

unicorn3unicorn4

It will be released when it’s ready, we’re currently using it to support our existing ExchangeDefender Migrations & Support clients and are obviously adding more and more features to this new agent while creating a more scalable system.

You can see the commercial version that’s currently used by our partners here.

Unicorn: Is it dead? Is it ready? Can I replace XYZ with it?

Obviously, the existing version is used by a ton of people so it’s far from dead. The second release is in beta, as you can see above, so far from dead there too. Whether you can replace something else with it, that’s where things get a little tough.

When we originally built the Unicorn our agenda was to give that solution away because we firmly believe that the world of a pure play MSP is past the critical extinction level.

We build the Unicorn not to sustain or scale the pure play MSP – we built it to eradicate it. The business model behind the Unicorn is not to sustain the operations of the company that doesn’t want to go to our cloud – it’s to arm the companies in our cloud to be able to mass market the MSP bare bones as a valueless service that anyone can take to expose the holes in their in-house IT and let someone else handle it at a huge discount when you subscribe to other services. Other services are key here.

Mad at me yet? Don’t just take it from me, take it from all the other pure play MSP companies that are folding, selling for pennies on the dollar, laying people off and otherwise being marginalized with the reality that the commodity on premise IT business is an opportunity in the sunset.

Does that invalidate the business? Far from it – it shakes out weak and strong players alike – and empowers the more nimble and flexible IT Solution Providers to approach the customer and say: “You want to buy solution XYZ from me, listen – I can take this fee you’re paying to this other IT company right off your expense sheet and provide it for a fraction. So we’ll just fire them and look how much cheaper this makes going with us?”

So.. yeah. If you’re in IT selling servers and computers as your primary business.. sorry? But if you have a specialty, a vertical focus or a solution focus, if you’re diversifying and focusing on service instead of geeky stuff nobody cares about – you’re loving this. And you want to retire that Popular Mechanic Geek Squad guy too.

High five.

I’ve been saying this for at least 4 years now and it’s not a matter of bullshit on a blog or an expert panel of soon to be unemployed: We put a lot of resources into this. We’re not seeking to make the point-solution guy find full time employment – we’re looking to help our diversified partners cut costs and leverage their solution stack for greater profits simply by reducing expenses and creating a solution stack that makes them valuable and relevant.

Trusted advisor? Technology expert? Hit the bricks pal, nobody cares about your junk. We’re growing business by millions $ by aligning what the clients are willing to pay for with what they perceive to be valuable.

“Vlad doesn’t care about his partners..”

As far as I can tell, “Vlad” is the guy putting money, resources and solutions to help the partners move forward.

And doing so with a smile ear to ear baby! Thank you for your continued support and thank you for helping us design the solutions that make you more competitive in the marketplace. We’re simply moving our partners forward based on the advice you give us on what is going to make you successful. ExchangeDefender would still be a Gateway Pentium 60MHz box under my desk at DialISDN if it wasn’t for the  15+ years of partners constantly helping us make the right decisions.

What Is Really Wrong With America

Posted: 2:19 am
October 7, 2013
Misc
2 Comments

This is a technology blog and I typically only deviate from that topic to cover management of a technology business. Given the ongoing government shutdown and the persistent snaking about it from our foreign partners, I wanted to offer you at least my perspective on what is going on here. I probably shouldn’t say anything but to be honest it hurts to see what is going on with my country so I’ll try to make it quick and spare you the usual Vladville shenanigans and profanities.

The (only real) problem with United States is that we have a culture which has rapidly made it more acceptable to lie.

That’s it in a nutshell. We have entire news networks who do nothing but lie to the stupid and afraid masses. On both sides of the polar political spectrum.

But why, you may ask, why does this go unchecked? Because everyone lies. Our political parties and their leadership openly lie to the people with no recourse. They rely on the public spectacle (the shutdown) to continue a very divisive, uncompromising, righteous and loud opposition to the compromise which keeps the money pouring in to the political machine, keeps people tuned in to the news networks to track a manufactured crisis that they don’t want the general population tuned out from. If you stop getting prodded about things you view differently from your neighbor, you just might see how much you have in common with them and you’d tune out. And none of them want that so they continue to leverage the complexity to lie and continue to gain attention (and by proxy, money and support)

This is not just a spectacle of our leadership, it is something that is rapidly becoming the norm. While we’ve sort of come to terms with our politicians lying to us, the entire culture of lying in marketing to get a sale, lying about income to get a house you cannot afford (you’re welcome for that 08’ financial collapse btw), lying about experience to get a job, lying about anything and everything.

As much as some of you like to laugh about United States (having traveled the world) this really is the best country on the face of the planet. By far. We have it good here – and that leads to complacency, boredom and general dumbing down of the public. So we have “reality television” which champions the culture of cheating, deceit, lying and doing anything by any means necessary to win. Things like Survivor, Apprentice, Bachelor, My fake fiance (in which a fake bride lies to her family about an obnoxious fiancé that she is fake marrying just for the $) and the list goes on.

Example of stupidity

So is America just full of idiots? Yes. But that is not something exclusive to United States. The question you should be asking is: Why do rational people give into irrational, lying and divisive political debates?

Like I said: Because everyone lies and they make a show of it. They all start with a grain of truth, which isn’t disputable, and surround it with a mountain of deceptive and wildly flamable conent. It’s pretty much the recipe for the success of this blog. But here, let me offer you an example:

Last Friday, Bill Maher, a comedian, made fun of World War 2 veterans, on a premium cable show. To any normal, rational, even deeply opinionated person about veterans affairs that would have been the end of it – comedians tell jokes and sometimes they work sometimes they don’t. No news there, everyone moves along right?

Well, not in United States where news networks behave like sharks during the mating season for any bit of polarizing material they could turn into outrage. Think about it, when was the last time a comedian said something stupid that made you even give it a second thought? So let me walk you through this one step at a time:

BILL MAHER: The other thing that apparently was so important for the Republicans to keep open was the World War II Memorial in Washington. That was closed, so a bunch of the World War II vets knocked down the barriers and stormed it. [Laughter]

And then I loved this, they posed for pictures with Michele Bachmann who showed up. Michele Bachmann, one of the people most responsible for shutting the fucking thing down. They’re the greatest generation – nobody said they were the brightest generation. [Laughter]

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/10/05/maher-mocks-wwii-vets-nobody-said-they-were-brightest-generation#ixzz2h0qsuBEd

For a moment, forget that this is a comedian. Forget that it’s a joke. Forget that it’s a premium cable channel show airing at 10PM on a Friday night that very few people will see. Forget all that. Here is how it’s served:

“Wow!

So in Maher’s world, even the last remaining survivors of those that defeated Hitler and Japan are to be ridiculed.

How can the folks at HBO abide this?”

Here are some annoying facts for you before I help you understand how this works:

1. The government is shut down because majority of republicans in The House of Representatives refuses to send a bill without major cuts to Affordable Care Act to the Senate. This is a fact.

2. Michele Bachmann, Republican, is a representative whose tea party movement wants to repeal major sections of the Affordable Care Act and was instrumental in continuous votes and bills to limit ACA. This is a fact as well. But this is where the show begins.

3. President Obama campaigned on the ACA, won the majority of the vote and feels that the USA ratified the ACA that should proceed unaltered. Republicans in the House of Representatives were also elected and they feel that it’s their duty to limit it. Both of these are also matters of fact. There is no dispute between the two parties on this.

So we’re at an impasse. Normal people compromise, move on and live to fight another day, right? Well, not here. Here they lie, cheat, sensationalize garbage to upset people enough to take out their wallet and donate to have their cause heard. Because they care so much about their cause? Not really – just because they are pissed off that the other side is going to win! Really? Yes, really. Here, let me walk you through this:

1. Bill Maher makes fun of WW2 veterans calling them “the greatest generation – nobody said they were the brightest generation”; Now even though this is a comedian, you can be easily offended by this.

2. Michele Bachmann, instrumental in the government shutdown, is posing with the WW2 veterans to show outrage that the government shut down access to the memorial – the very shut down she orchestrated! You could be offended that she shut the government down, you could be offended by the insinuation that she was instrumental in shutting it down (after all, in your eyes she may be right), you may be offended that the WW2 memorial is closed.

3. Liberal comedian is making a joke about WW2 veteran, this by proxy (according to the article) means that the HBO supports, endorses and promotes disrespecting the people that fought Japan and Nazi in WW2. You could be offended that someone would reach so much to say a joke is equivalent to a promotion of mocking of our veterans. You could be offended that someone is picking on a liberal comedian that is pointing out a fact that a conservative republican is shamelessly lying for publicity. 

There you have it

This is how they sucker people into getting upset over things that for the most part they wouldn’t even pay attention to at all. They give a teaser fact to get you involved. Then they pour on a flammable mixture of disgust, outrage and sensationalism to associate any given topic with things that are very near and dear to you. Repeatedly. Frequently. Violently.

It makes for a great show. It also makes for drawing incredible amounts of money into the political system and a discourse that focuses on the negative and divisive. It helps the corrupt government politicians from being able to say: “We are fighting for you.” while they are really just fighting for more funding to keep their jobs. Unless they can continue to piss people off the population might tune out and the money would stop flowing – so they lie to continue the manufactured fight.

While it works in the short term.. and yes, sadly there are more stupid people than there are educated ones.. it doesn’t work in the long term. This country, however much ridiculed for it’s policies and it’s freedoms, is full of people who like and trust their neighbors far more than they have ever trusted their government. We happen to be pretty proud of that and pay for it dearly.

Our politicians of course don’t want us to remember that. Love thy neighbor.

Business Model Match

Posted: 2:35 pm
October 1, 2013
IT Business
Comments Off on Business Model Match

While we haven’t yet officially announced the biggest thing we have on deck this year (because we want to talk to our partners about it first and there are many of you and most of you don’t pick up the @#%@ phone) the details of things that are coming along with it are starting to pop up as is the usual partner chatter and the never-ending bitching from my competitors who just can’t get enough of my missteps to make it seem like “we’re not listening to our partners”.

But you know what.. record numbers came in again. Record month, record quarter, record year. And I didn’t have to suck Arnie’s dick for it.

So with all due respect, kiss my ass.

Now that we have the pleasantries out of the way..

Let’s discuss something that has been on my mind all year and that is the subject of vendor responsibility and the right fit for the MSP.

Which in itself is a mindfucking misnomer because the job-hopping channel chiefs seem to be in consensus that all MSPs are pretty much the same and (if you kind of squint on their PSA/RMM/BDR choices). And as 100% of my former employees who knew how to run my business better than I do while being completely incompetent at the task they were given, I am going to offer some fucktastic advice for you to ignore as you try to decode the fountain of channel chief bullshit being spewed at a smaller and less occupied side room

Vendor Perspective

To a vendor, you the MSP are the channel. That faceless, mindless, numbfuck ninja that can get past the executive gatekeeper / IT guy in charge through your cunning use of body odor and Gilden cotton shirt with a BBQ stain on it.

emptypanelAs the channel chief looks down on you from their elevated stool the airport Hilton facilities guy stole from the bar, s/he (let’s not be sexist here, tits are tits) thinks the following:

What the fuck have I done wrong in the life to be stuck here??? I guess this is better than being back at home with the wife that hates me or the office that I can’t stand but how much longer can I keep up this shit show of having these idiots fail at selling my shitty half baked solution till the last of these morons gets a real job? What the fuck do I tell them?

I am here to help you make more money.

Sell this shit right here, your clients can’t get enough of it, your business needs more revenues.

And friends, they aren’t that wrong: The typical MSP is just an animal that needs to be optimized for a maximum sell-through. The only problem is that the animal farm MSP they think they are talking through/about died last decade. You can’t get people to sell more shit because the end user got a lot smarter and more informed while the MSPs diversified far from their RMM-watching days.

The industry got better. To be more specific: The part of the old VAR/MSP industry that thrived looks nothing like that stereotypical case-study guy that’s at every IT roadshow talking to you.. because he wants a job!

MSP / VAR / ITSP Perspective

You’ve heard the same sales pitches about the same crap a million times before. The only thing that has changed is the logo.

The reality of the MSP marketplace is that it matured in a way that many didn’t want it to – instead of the “come to your friendly local MSP pawn shop, we’ll sell you yesterdays technology at last decades price” – the smart people ignored “Just do anything for money and sell all of our shit because we came up with this cool 3D poster” and instead specialized in different things. Some went into health care, some into legal, some into VoIP and communications, some into mobile, some into…

This is infuriating to a software/hardware/solutions business that no longer has your complete and undivided attention and a cookie cutter mass sellthrough solution is no longer appealing.

The Conflict

The coming age of conflict, as has come up in many of my conversations with service providers over the past few months, is in the realization by the vendors that they will have to do a lot more work to remain a relevant piece of the puzzle because you have diversified your business away from what was traditionally seen as IT.

The traditional IT got commoditized by the MSPs (remember how we pulled the plug on the in house IT employees last decade) and the workstations/servers are rapidly becoming commoditized by the cloud and mobile devices. With less gadgets to monitor and patch you have to move up the food chain.

This natural evolution of our business has a casualty: the incentive to do the hard, ugly, difficult and messy “must not impact business operations during business hours” job is now not the primary revenue driver for most small business IT providers.

Simply put: The vendor community has a much higher incentive to do the hard work than your typical service provider who frankly isn’t interested in making cents on the dollar and is chasing 3 digits rates per hour.

Not everyone has received this memo yet. Hence the bitterness and misplaced anger.

The future of MSPs, just to arrogantly pile you under the same convenient panel moniker, is in working with vendors who effectively supplement the business model to eliminate headaches or boost profit margins. With the traditional IT becoming a commodity, this business is no longer about maximizing revenues “to keep your lights on through the effective use of an RMM platform that” – it’s about finding people who will do as little or as much work as needed to get the solution implemented. Smart and profitable MSPs are diversifying away from being the provider of the commodity service and are positioning themselves as the expert part of the overall solution. You’re just no longer dumb enough to be the conduit for it all that assumes the most liability while getting the least margin in return.

The vendor community now has to bend itself to fit into the MSP / IT Solution Provider business model and do so in different ways (branded, white label, full service, licensing only, software with support contracts; because different MSPs will rely on the same vendor for the same product at a different level of involvement depending on the client, business maturity, other business projects and opportunities, hiring cycle, etc)

emptyGood for you. The line between solution providers and vendors is blurring. Which yes, brings some competition & friction, but elevates service levels and brings the common interest closer to the top.

As for the swag dispenser road shows.. Well, I don’t want to say anything rude.

Loyalty Not Included

Posted: 11:17 am
September 25, 2013
Boss
1 Comment

Modern workplace, and the behavior of everyone in it, has changed since the 50’s. Small businesses owners often find frustration in the perceived lack of gratitude and loyalty they get from employees that they feel they are treating like family. Conversely, employees often feel like they are being treated like children and compensated on a level of an allowance with talking down every time they break curfew (late to work) or make a mistake.

Bottom line is, there are some terrible people out there.

There are as many terrible bosses as there are terrible employees. There are mismatches between company culture and employee personality. The communication between the employees and managers sucks because the goal is performance, not alignment and nobody wants to do any more than they think they should.

What I’m trying to say is, life isn’t fair and sometimes the employees get screwed and sometimes the employer gets screwed. You as the employer make more money so you have to take more shit and grief for it. Sorry, it comes with territory.

Shit your employees will do to you

man1Strategically and intentionally sabotaging other employees, departments, products and services  they don’t like.

Quit with no notice.

Make all their worldly problems root in something you have unjustly done to them.

Ask for preferential treatment while complaining about the preferential treatment of others.

Consider professional criticism as a personal affront.

Know how to do your (and their managers and their coworkers) job better than you while being completely incompetent at the one they are assigned to.

Lie. Constantly. (Hint: Move them to sales)

Bring their home problems to work: From vacation and wedding planning to drug trafficking using your corporate UPS box (yes, it happened)

Ask you to pay for their training and immediately upon passing the exam ask for a promotion, raise and more.

What to do with shitty employees

Fucking fire their fucking ass right now.

I have to say that my biggest regret is not getting rid of bad people at the first opportunity I had. Unfortunately, at times I let the potential of the person to perform at their god given talent cloud the evidence that I should strap sticks of dynamite to their chest and shoot them out of a cannon Road Runner style.

Those homicidal feelings are normal.

Truth is, some of my best employees that are still with me after all of these years are the folks that understand the reality that everyone has a bad day, month even a year. It’s all about showing up, sometimes you win sometimes you lose but you show up again. People like that can see past their bosses mistakes and bosses can let the shit slide because hey, nobody is perfect and we don’t aim for perfection. This isn’t the military, we aren’t disarming a nuke. We’re killing emails advertising dick pills. Perspective.

Then there are bad people. And there are more bad people than good. So the next time you’re in a spot wondering what you did wrong… just take a deep breath and focus on moving forward. Take good with the bad and align people with your mission.

Treat people right and set the right expectations and keep on moving the ball towards the end zone.

man2Unless you’re sitting handcuffed in prison drenched in blood because you unloaded an AR-15 at work… it’s gonna be alright. So long as nobody got shot, everything is gonna be alright.

If that fails, remember that it’s good to be the king. It sure as hell beats working for someone else and nobody wants to go to jail.

Yes, I’m alive

Posted: 3:28 pm
September 17, 2013
Uncategorized
Comments Off on Yes, I’m alive

Sorry I haven’t had the energy to post anything on Vladville. I’m OK, everything is OK, life is good, etc. I’ll be posting new stuff this week.

IMG_5475If you really must know, I’ve been really depressed for the past two weeks. I don’t know if “depression” is the right term for it, it’s just that I’ve been working on a project that I endearingly call “Leaking Shit Fountain” and as soon as I plug one leak, shit starts coming out of 5 other cracks. I’m working on something that is not my strong area, I’m the only one that can do it and I have nobody else I can delegate it to and I’m literally reconciling years worth of shit that has piled on since. Making matters worse, I can’t really blame the person that buried me in all this shit because it’s ultimately my responsibility to manage the product and the image we put out there and well, I trusted the wrong person who was incapable of doing the job and that’s my bad. Every day I wake up I am further away from being done, every time I get one thing addressed few more issues pop up and the incredible volume of stupidity that I have to deal with makes me stop, think, lose focus and get set back even further. It’s really a miserable situation that continues to kick me in the balls and I have no way of doing anything constructive but to lower my head and continue working until I’ve addressed all the leaking cracks in the fountain.

So everything is OK, just feeling defeated and trying to fix my past mistakes.

I’ll be back.

SM Mobile Strategy & Growth

Posted: 1:54 pm
September 11, 2013
IT Business, Shockey Monkey, SMB
Comments Off on SM Mobile Strategy & Growth

A little bit on strategery here just so we’re smoking the same stuff..

Today we announced the Android native application for Shockey Monkey:

clip_image002 

It’s joining native applications on iPhone and iPad – none of that webkit / slow junk anymore, we’re spending a lot of time expanding the mobile offering very quickly and I thought I’d offer you some perspective as to why in case you haven’t figured it out yet.

Why?

As you’ve seen by our ExchangeDefender business model, things are growing very rapidly and we are expanding our solution portfolio in a manner that we believe will allow our partners to grow exponentially.

The launch of branded support and branded migration services removes the “human”  “tech” factor involved in service delivery, it basically allows the solution provider to not be a salesman and a plumber at the same time. Everyone wants the salesman salary, nobody wants the sanitary waste mess on their hands that comes from supporting someone elses product/service or the solution. At the same time, there are no shortcuts – someone still has to do the work, the tools are still necessary to fall back on if “best case scenario” doesn’t work out and… well, I wish I had more developers and I wish I could take on more business but we’re moving as fast as possible with the resources we’ve got and we’re trying to do it right instead of doing it quick.

So what you are seeing with the agenda of Shockey Monkey and ExchangeDefender – with the fascination with mobility and the fascination with the remote access/management with Unicorn 2 and focus on storage with LocalCloud – is a convergence of the stuff we know works and stuff our clients and partners are begging us for.

This tends to piss people off. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I know that you’d rather see us focus on the legacy stuff and you’d rather optimize the heck out of the old way of doing things… but my business model is very simple: I do what people are willing to pay for. And the cold hard ugly truth is that people are not willing to pay the top dollar for minor enhancements of stuff they already have that works for them.

They want a solution that dramatically improves their efficiency.

While a tweak or two to the desktop or web experience is always on a to-do list, I’m getting hounded day and night to support mobile devices because high profile (read: employees in organizations in charge of spending money) are not walking around with laptops.

While a solution to a gaping hole in the portfolio might make some of my partners more entrenched with a client… the ability to offer migrations, support, new solutions and not having to do any of the hard work to get it – will grow your business, not just make it stickier until the client pulls the plug.

I understand that there is a conflict. There is comfort in safety and lack of ground breaking changes minimizes the risk of having to do more work. I understand that.

The positive solution to this conflict is to be able to do more.

We are seeing the opportunity in converging the service (migrations, support, billing) with the products (ExchangeDefender, cloud, Exchange, Lync, storage, Compliance Encryption and Archiving) with the business process (Shockey Monkey) and deliver to small and medium business what enterprise has been able to enjoy for a decade. Like an IBM commercial, minus the 8 figure bill.

The good news is that if you really hate me and what we’re doing, you have other options. We’ve considered that. Other options are doing nothing (going to conferences trying to find more clients, trying to find more people to sell legacy stuff) or fortifying a legacy tool with stuff that would make your business look amazing for 2010.

We’re investing in our solution and in our partners to make you great for 2014 and beyond because we have full faith that we’re not going to be going out of business (or on the sales block) anytime soon. Perhaps that’s something you ought to ask yourself when it comes to the vendor choices you’re making – is the service changing with the market demands or are they just trying to monetize (ie, take more of your money sooner) me in the short term because they have no faith in me long term.

That answer ought to answer far more than I ever could on this blog.

What is your business really worth?

Posted: 2:43 pm
September 9, 2013
IT Business
Comments Off on What is your business really worth?

Business valuation is hardly connected to reality and sales prices can wildly swing depending on whether the industry is growing, if the technology is truly unique or it’s hard to find talent. Sadly, most companies look for a seller out of necessity not out of opportunity and are typically gutted of both valuable items and opportunities by the time they are forced into sell-or-fold. Recently we got a chance to review the offer sheet of one of our competitors as they put themselves on the market and I think it offers a valuable lesson for anyone building a business towards the valuable exit.

The Valuation Math

The key to valuation is knowing that bankers can smell the valuation padding. Mostly because the same guys that advise the seller to manipulate their financials are also unwinding it on the other side for the buyer.

When a company doubles in the last year, after barely breaking even for nearly a decade, all through one or two partners – through which it’s selling stuff at cost – it doesn’t paint a wildly successful company with growth potential, it paints a desperate one on the way out.

If a company is growing while it’s margins are imploding, that is not a growing business. It’s the very definition of churn.

If you look at your revenue/margin year over year and your profit margin is dwindling you either have to make a hard decision to chop off the golden anchor business that’s sinking you or come to terms that the profitless revenues won’t get it done. P.S. This is also a trick companies play on outside investors and banks – though it never works – they make it seem like they are growing where they are literally just giving it away. The excuse is “well, one day we’ll just raise prices” but if that was in the cards company wouldn’t be on sale.

The IP/Tech

Every software company I have ever looked at pretends to be Apple. Just because you run your office on a homebrew firmware on dd-wrt does not make you the next Cisco.

When a company derives most of it’s profits from licensing third party software and solutions.. it has no discernable value towards it’s tech. Maybe over time most hardware will qualify as vintage and will be highly valued on eBay or electronics clubs.. by someone..

If you are sitting on a ton of hardware, licensing, third party solution stacks and integration projects the core value of your company is significantly lower than what you think it is.

The People

Finally, the monkey circus.

“Our people are geniuses and are highly respected in our field.”

Oh yeah? If they were so smart why are they working for you while you’re here trying to sell a box of fleas?

If the later part of that line is true, they have likely been sitting on the fence waiting for a major “buyout” so they can cash out and get the hell out of dodge for a long time. I’m sure they are fantastic but this isn’t Bell Labs with Nobel laureates – and they are itching to get away from this business as bad as you are.

The Client Base

The client base can tell you how the company is really doing.

Did most business come aboard recently? If so, at what profit margin?

Did the company retain any truly long term clients? How big are they and have they been growing?

Most companies, after they get redrawn for sale, make a mistake of scraping their legacy business for new business and in the process get a ton of new clients that aren’t very profitable and will likely switch as fast as humanly possible as soon as a more cost friendly solution came around anyhow.

Further complicating things is that the change in management often opens up the likelyhood that the clients will bolt under new management for something else. When you look at what you are buying and consider raising prices on the existing client base, what are the odds the clients stay on board? If both the price and management shift (and along with it the staff) then anything you added recently might be heading for the exit as well.

The Summary of Despair

People have emotional attachment to the things they built and feel that the value far exceeds what the company is currently worth. So instead of proving that, they are offended when they take it to a third party that has to do the hard work.

When you buy a software business, and an antispam company qualifies as that, you are essentially buying clients and contracts. And when the company is obviously struggling and brings in a lot of money that it’s making slim to nothing on – that’s not an opportunity, that’s a liability waiting to explode. Thinking that such a nightmare is worth millions isn’t even viable from the standpoint of basic arithmetic of just multiplying the profit numbers considering how much of it comes from few large resellers and distributors. Any one of whom can dip at any time.

MSPs need to do the exact opposite of what is “logical” when prepping for a business sale. Money needs to come from a lot of different areas, the staff has to be disposable, the liabilities and debt need to be damn near none and your profit margin needs to be climbing not disappearing.

But then again, if you ran your business like that in the first place you wouldn’t be the one being shopped around.

Stupid or unmotivated?

Posted: 4:19 pm
September 5, 2013
Boss
Comments Off on Stupid or unmotivated?

ernestMy basic thesis is that there are too many fucking morons out there in corporate America. My friend Kate tends to disagree, believing that most people are smart but just not very motivated – as in they have the capability to be successful but not the catalyst to convert their god given potential into action.

In other words, all people walking towards a cliff can see that they are about to die but some do not perceive warning signs and guard rails as life threatening until they are falling to their death. To which extent they are willing to stop at the warning sign, at the guard rail, at the edge of the cliff or holding on to the edge is simply a matter of outside factors.

My explanation is far simpler: You’re walking off the cliff to your death you fucking idiot.

As usual, I am writing this with a healthy dose of profanity to avoid it being taken seriously by those of you that will inevitably self-identify here and get offended. The reality is that anything short of 100% effort is a 100% guarantee that things will not work out the way you hope they will. Or your boss made you read this because he thinks you are an idiot but didn’t want to offend you by telling you that to your face (in which case you’re both idiots and he should fire your ass)

Examples of Stupidity

“I’m smart, I don’t need to attend school to tell me that.” Idiot: If you were smart, you’d know that attendance is required. When you grow up you’ll be the smartest guy at McDonalds.

“I’m smart, I don’t need to go to college.” Idiot: High paying jobs use college degree as an HR filter, you won’t even be considered for a phone interview for a professional role without one.

“I’m smart, I don’t need to show up for work on time.” Idiot: You may be the most valuable person in the company, but if you aren’t there for work then you aren’t there the next payroll cycle.

“I’m smart, I don’t need to put in extra effort.” Idiot: If you aren’t making the connection between effort and exceeding your potential then you’re automatically subjecting yourself to being perpetually stuck where you are.

I could take this rant for another 1,000 pages but the reality is that a lot of people think they are just geniuses being crushed and manipulated by the unfair world: not true. If there were so many geniuses out there, there wouldn’t be that many minimum wage employees – they would be replaced with robots.

dicemanNow I don’t want to get on a rant here…

So we have a rigged system that empowers stupid people to think they are smart, broke people to live like they are rich and cheerleaders for everything else in between them and folks that know what’s going on.

In case you’re wondering which side of this equation you’re at go ahead and ask yourself whose fault it is that you’re in the fucked up situation you find yourself in. If you are not in prison and cannot think of a single person whom you fault for your life not being everything you hope it could be – congratulations, you’re probably not an idiot. Everyone else, grab a big f’n mirror and take a good hard look at the problem. If you don’t see your own reflection it’s probably not a mirror but a picture frame with some stock photography in it you dumbass.

Good day.