Social Motivation

Posted: 5:30 pm
March 6, 2013
Boss, Gadgets
Comments Off on Social Motivation

I have written about this subject before but it’s hard to get motivated to get out of the rut sometimes. Couch is more comfortable than pavement, large cheese pizza is more filling than a salad and bad behavior is so easy while good behavior is almost a mental game of wits. Getting stuck in a pattern of bad behavior makes it more and more difficult to deal with problems and solve the growing pile of crap to deal with (or at times to even know which pile of problems is contributing to bringing you down).

This is why I love Nike+ stuff. I’m training for an Ironman race and I live in Florida which has the same average temperature as the surface of the sun 9 months of the year. Getting out there and training (considering the other 26 hours of the day are packed with work, clients, family) is not easy and Nike+ does a good job of doing two things:

1) Letting me know when I haven’t done enough

2) Giving me a goal to work towards

I know this doesn’t exactly have a very profitable “let’s turn it into an IT business” line to it but stuff doesn’t really exist in a vacuum when it comes to business – if your mind and body aren’t in it then there is really only so far you can push yourself and those around you to the next level.

First the basics… Nike+ is free, it has a free iPhone / Android app and there is other stuff you can buy like Nike Run Watch, Nike FuelBand, etc. I have pretty much all of them and use my Nike Fuelband the most because.. well.. I sit all day. When 7-8 PM comes around and I haven’t reached half my activity goal for that day it’s so much easier to get out for a 5K than if I didn’t have a constant reminder of my failure on my wrist. It also makes it easier to not defer the activity to tomorrow – every time you reach your goal the site gives you another badge and tracks your streak. Sometimes when I really, really, really do not want to do anything the streak pushes me to actually go do something.

nike1

You set your own goals (activity levels, calories, etc) and all it does is track when you are active. Some days you feel like you’ve been running around a lot but the numbers don’t lie. Either you did something or you didn’t.

As far as the runs go.. that’s the really awesome part. First, you need to have the iPhone/Android or Nike GPS Run watch – It plots not just your distance and calories but also location, activity level, etc. Look at the half marathon I ran over the weekend – see the orange spots – that’s where my pace was terrible – mile 6-7 was really rough:

nike2

Even better, every time you complete a run you get some really inspirational stuff from a pro athlete. The day I crushed my 5K record I got a message from Tim Tebow. While this may sound kind of worthless to a cynic, when you’re gasping for air and sweating like crazy it’s nice to hear some encouragement.

And if you’re a competitive a-hole that doesn’t like to lose.. well, this is the best part: You can compete with your friends. You don’t want to be on the bottom of that list.

nike3

Finally, the swag. You get points (“Nike Fuel” which as far as I can tell is an arbitrary activity measurement) and the more points you get the more swag you get. Things like badges, progress levels, distance, points, etc.. all lead you to getting more stuff.

nike4

No better feeling than syncing your phone / fuel band / etc and seeing progress – visually – of what you have accomplished. If you have a somewhat manic personality that drives you to obsess over meaningless stuff, this is for you.

So what?

It’s hard to get motivated.

Having been fat (and obese) for most my life I know (unfortunately) how delays in physical activity compound all the other problems. Let’s face it – Exercise is not necessary (you need water and food), it’s ridiculously easy to quit and you immediately feel better when you’re not getting physically strained.

Finally, there is no direct or immediate ROI on it – if you’re looking to lose weight get ready to starve and break your ass in the gym. It can take days/weeks/months/years to see significant difference and there is no challenge – short of paying for a gym membership or having a personal trainer calling you to sell you more sessions. The incentive is obviously to look better and feel better but when you’re too tired to even get off the couch what’s more likely to happen?

Nike+ flips this mentality by giving you something that always shows you where you stand, where your friends are and you get immediate feedback. It may not be much and it may not be meaningful but it works. Those of us that grew up playing video games are well aware of the desire to hit the high score even though it has no tangible value. But if it produces motivational long term results… isn’t it worth it?

Changes & Mondays

Posted: 4:04 pm
March 4, 2013
Vladville
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Doublesided post.. Changes to this blog and Dealing with Change..

First a little bit of housekeeping. For the past few weeks I’ve been working more closely with our partners at ExchangeDefender as a result of shutting down the partner program to new blood and really trying to work on making our partners more successful. I’ve heard some really horrific stories about business mismanagement, economy, crappy employees – you name it – and the most disheartening part of it all is that the stories are nothing new. It’s the same thing I’ve heard (or some that I’ve experienced myself) thousands of times dealing with entrepreneurial fatigue, fear of the unknown changes, uncertainty, etc.

Everyone I speak to thanks me, writes me thank you notes and stories about how much something I said helped. Truth is none of it is some earth shattering genius of mine, just a matter of experience mixed with a little bit of sounding the problem out showcasing just how obvious the solution is.

It’s inspired me to start delivering more content through Vladville. This blog still has more traffic and eyeballs than everything else I or ExchangeDefender or even Shockey Monkey do.

Look for 3 weekly updates on Vladville.. everything from business, planning, marketing, management, change/conflict management and some emerging technology opinions as well. Please excuse some visual/layout mess in the meantime while I update this beast.

…

Depressed?

So true story here:

Throughout the typical day I have more than a few occasions where I feel like something I/we are doing just sucks. Either it’s not meeting my expectations or it’s actually bad. Every time I feel that way I start to fantasize about something I’d rather be doing than dealing with a problem – except the only thing I can do with a real measurable positive outcome is not to avoid the problem but work on it. So I just brush off the whiny attitude and get on with it.

Now, some problems are bigger than just being a petty bitch. I understand that.

Truth is, it’s usually not the really big problems that break us down but a collection of winy little inconveniences that pile on and make it seem like a dark cloud is hovering over us. As they pile, multiply and surface one day after another it just feels like we cannot catch a break.

Take a moment, write down all the problems that are in your head right now. How many of them are petty things that you really could just brush off? How many of them do you have a solid strategy of working around?

The more stuff you let bother you for longer the worse off you’re going to be. It’s far worse to have imaginary problems that are demotivating and beating you down.. than to have real problems that you’re actively working on solving. It may be a nuance, it may just be lying to yourself.. but you can either whine or you can win.

Having said that… here is a short list of shit not to do.

Get drunk. Yeah, it’s a temporary fix and depending on how skilled you are will just bring out more problems. If a problem is big enough to require an investment ($ for booze) then it better be f’n permanent.

Eat unhealthy. There is really no problem big enough (well, bulimia I guess) that cannot be fixed by eating a whole large pizza by yourself. Problems tend to fall into perspective when you’ve stuffed yourself so much you can barely get off the couch. The problem with this is the same as with booze, it’s a temporary distraction from what is really annoying you.

Stay up all night. Nothing compounds problems more like a lack of focus and energy. Staying up all night will double down on this. While it may be great for long-term problems that are directly proportional to the time invested (writing a long paper, f’n government paperwork) for almost everything else it’s a great idea.

TV, DVD, Movies. All temporary, all distractions, none leading to a solution. Get your ass out there an exercise. Get some fresh air, release some endorphins, beat yourself up a little and see how quickly things fall into perspective. If that’s not on the agenda and you absolutely must interact with the TV.. well, that’s why p0rn exists.

Most importantly, don’t pretend you don’t have a problem. Some of the most spectacular failures and blowups I’ve seen among the people in my life have been related to the stress of living a fake life. I’ve seen people whose marriages couldn’t be better snap in half, companies go under and things absolutely ruined. Even if you’re a complete and total scumbag there is a chance that you have people in your life that are willing to talk to you or help you.

Remember, when you have a bad day.. and a few more bad days.. and a few other things go wrong in your life.. things are really not as bad as they may appear to you. Find a friend with an ear (most of us got 2) and talk it out.

aho

Like I said, it’s usually not as bad as it seems. Whatever the problem, don’t expect the worst case scenario.. play for the most likely scenario and just hope for a little bit of luck. And always check that you’re not just surrounded by assholes because nothing will sink you faster than that. As I mentioned on Facebook today:

Whoever is running the factory that’s cranking out stupid people… can you take a day off? The line is wrapping around the building.

Have a good week folks… and happy Monday!

Live or Lose

Posted: 6:05 pm
February 22, 2013
Boss, Uncategorized
Comments Off on Live or Lose

I am currently sitting in a movie theater at 3:30PM watching Identity Thief and writing this blog post. I am able to peal out of the office for 90 minutes because I worked until 1AM and the fun resumed at 7AM and I plowed through my task list this morning. I love what I do, I love my life and I wish there were more hours in the day.

Now I’m telling you this because this “workaholic” behavior is generally seen as wrong by many writers and experts. Life should be in balance they say and almost everyone agrees about walls between work and home life and personal hobbies. If you’ve read as many self help garbage books as I have you would know that a common theme is balance: without separating everything and doing it 100% you are not living right.

Now I am not an author. I am also not in charge of a criminal multilevel pyramid scheme. I am not the homeless guy at the bus stop offering advice about a life full of regrets that has passed me by.

What I am however is a CEO of a multimillion dollar worldwide company.. And I’ve worked for or employed or managed or been a business partner with thousands of people literally around the world. And you know what I’ve learned about the difference between successful and unsuccessful people?

Successful people never stop. Failures can’t wait for a break, for time to go home, for the weekend, for vacation time… They wait.

Successful people take advantage of every opportunity no matter how small or quick – power naps, working vacations, mini vacations. Failures go big, make grand plans and just push off.

The problem with all the feel good bullshit life/career balance is that it guides people towards becoming depressed losers. The strive for balance leaves people perpetually unfulfilled. They feel bad about their long term delayed balanced parts not coming to fruition so they come to work all pissed off. Their performance at work slips and they get mad at their coworkers. Now instead of liking the people that pay them or contribute to their success they associate them with problems in their life and have an absolute agony of a career. They go home, even more upset and drained, and try to balance their misery at work with drugs and alcohol and excessive partying, working out or anything away from work. They defriend and push away their work friends but the misery remains because the life out of balance striving for balance also starts to rub on whoever is left around – friends, family.. The feeling that life is imperfect and can somehow be brought to perfection crushes otherwise good people.

Don’t let others make you feel like there is something wrong with your workaholism. There isn’t. Successful career leads to a successful personal life which leads to everything else turning to success. Its not all roses and butterflies, its never going to be. But the more you try to build walls and compartmentalize your life and filter people life and wait for things to happen… The worse you are gonna feel and all the self-help books and gurus and advisors and coaches and all their collective bullshit won’t be enough to fill the hole that will be left in your life that you should be living instead of balancing and organizing.

Just live and enjoy the opportunity to do so from every single minute you get.

Have a great weekend.

An exercise in futility: What to do when nobody wants your products anymore

Posted: 7:15 am
February 18, 2013
Gadgets, IT Business, Microsoft, SMB, Web 2.0
4 Comments

Extremely long blog post cut short: When nobody cares about you, your products, your services or what you think you want to sell they still care a lot about their data. Never lose sight of what your client wants and what is important to your client and build your business around that – not around what you want to sell. To find out what that is and why it matters… well, reading required:

The chilling tale of what has been going on at Microsoft the past year or so is a huge warning sign to technology businesses everywhere that choose to stop innovating and become complacent with their cash cows. Those of us that have been in the IT world for a while can tell you that technology hype cycle moves very quickly and that while there is a great deal of money to be made staying behind on the legacy platforms, it’s hard to sustain a business looking backwards.

Microsoft (half through mismanagement and arrogant antagonism of it’s partner base, half through just lack of innovation and good products) has found itself behind the curve and outright slaughtering it’s two cash cows as they find themselves in a quick slide in popularity: Windows and Office. There are too many links to link, articles to quote and my point really is not about Microsoft except that they make a great example:

They killed Windows through a product that is too different from the predecessor to appeal to the current fan base and they are killing Office through a pricing scheme that few will swallow while not bringing much new stuff to the plate. It’s a change for the sake of what was popular a year ago with the hope that they can catch up a year from now.

Windows Phone has been through several disappointing iterations since the Nokia partnership launched with each new device being “better” than the iPhone and Android and still flunking by comparison despite massive advertising. Ditto for Surface, which Microsoft appears to be making it’s final stand on and somewhere between Pro supply mismanagement / managed “sold out” process fails to get a massive level of interest. Windows 8, despite a massive discount at launch, failed to find any excitement even among Microsoft biggest fans (present company included, bought a few upgrade boxes, installed just one begrudgingly and regretted it). As an ultimate change of direction, Microsoft is finally deploying it’s Hailstorm with Office 365: Releasing a product nobody can figure out why they want at a massive price hike with the huge reduction in rights that isn’t raising any regulatory issues or complaints because… well…

Because Microsoft has decided that it’s about consumers now and consumers only want it’s Xbox. Except Microsoft doesn’t seem to want you to pay attention to it’s Xbox which is the only thing it’s got going well, it wants you to buy it’s business software and act like a business not a consumer. How’s that going?

The Point Being…

Microsoft isn’t jumping the shark here. There is no hope of actually missing the shark and surviving on the other side. It’s jumping straight down towards the sharks mouth, ninja style, hoping to dropkick the shark in the nose and kill it before it has a chance to kill it. In a less visual language: Microsoft is hoping to change it’s business model before someone takes the opportunity to make them obsolete. For all the worries about Linux, it’s Android that dethroned Microsoft as the king of all devices, maturing to rapidly and too successfully without ever announcing itself as a Microsoft competitor. That’s an interesting lesson.

But what does this mean to you as a Microsoft partner, IT Solution Provider, worker in the IT field, developer…

1. The ecosystem you’ve gotten used to is changing. So you have to change faster if you want to survive.

2. The single dominant player marketplace where you can hitch your ride to one thing and ignore others is over. You will be forced to diversify.

3. You won’t be able to “sell” your preferred platform, you will work with the one your clients picked (for example, you don’t get to “Support only Apple” you will support Windows desktops, Apple iMac, Android Tablets, Windows Phone, Apple watch) – or you can try your lottery luck at telling your prospective client that they need to switch a platform to get your service after they have already spent the money.

4. You no longer get to choose what you support, because your clients will choose someone that supports what they got.

5. Selling on features is long gone, benefits will become harder to explain.

All this may sound terribly negative if you’ve got a massive successful business. Perhaps it is – but it’s an incredibly positive thing for business development going forward – because just about everyone out there is sitting on their hands working on the past while trying to figure how things play out. Even a blind man can tell you what’s coming: When the consumer knows more about technology than your average IT employee and knows what they want the IT guy and the sales guy lose all relevance. But all this new flawless stuff will still break and will still have to work for a business, creating a massive new opportunity to generate a sticky business that doesn’t live and earn on point releases, upgrades, migrations and the likelyhood that “Well, when it breaks we’ll be there to fix it but we manage it anyhow so it’s probably not going to break very hard either” – Now is the time to develop the glue between what you’ve already have and the layer which your client cannot live without. They may not care about your products or what you and your vendors want to sell: But they care about their data. That, dear friends, is key to the future.

Consumerization is no longer a word that Microsoft dictionary cannot recognize or some future, it’s the single largest driver behind technology spending today. You can ignore it, you can watch it, or you can start to establish your business around it.

No time to start like today. Happy Monday.

382 Shades of Vlad

Posted: 1:23 pm
February 15, 2013
Boss, IT Business
1 Comment

When I started this business my goal was to make $100,000 a year which was the average college dropout salary in Silicon Valley at the time. I never quite expected the company to grow to what it has become and even at the time when I was responsible for far more than I’m responsible for today I dealt with a different kind of animal. Management of a “smart” company with a few ridiculously smart, talented and creative people is far different from managing an empire of clock-punching idiots and unfortunately the management books are written for managing precisely that. To manage and motivate smart people that can do basic math you need to study psychology, team building, organizational behavior, human behavioral decision making process.

We didn’t develop Shockey Monkey by accident. It’s not as ridiculously successful as it is by accident. It’s current development, again without accident, is built around the reality of managing a service business and not an industrial clock-punching company. Some of you are obviously going to disagree with this notion, looking to manage your business more like a carpet cleaning dispatch center that screams at employees that aren’t billing enough, but much like so many of your peers have found out the hard way.. the margins for dumb businesses are disappearing quicker than the opportunities. To each his own, I love ya either way, I’m here to help, but it’s pretty clear what’s going on out there.

With that in mind, I decided to sit down and write a Vlad Owners Manual per se..  to help people that work here understand how I work, what makes me tick, what my many faults are and how to work around them:

Introduction

Congratulations on joining ExchangeDefender, you are now a part of a very talented team that manages worldwide network operations. You will be working in a high-paced, high-stress challenging environment and if you do your job right this will be the last job you’ll ever need to find. That said, your job will never be the same from day to day and it will never be done. Welcome.

Everything you need to know about working at ExchangeDefender has been officially documented in the Employee Guide and Employee Videos you should have seen by now.

My name is Vlad Mazek, I am the CEO and founder of ExchangeDefender, and you will get to deal with me directly or indirectly as your career here progresses. This document is an honest outline of my background, values, process, work ethic and will give you some insight into what makes me tick so you don’t have to base your expectations on the urban myth of “The Vlad” or the blogs/Facebook/twitter posts that are written for entertainment purposes.

Like everyone else, I have many flaws. My hope is that this document gives you an idea of my shortcomings and gives you the best possible way to interact with me and what to expect. ExchangeDefender is a team effort so the better we all work with each other around our handicaps, the more successful we will be.

Enjoy and welcome aboard.

About Me
–    Personal
–    Career
–    Role & Responsibility
–    Contact Availability
–    I am always right, until I am wrong
–    What I actually do around here
–    Flaws

Frequent Questions I Get
–    Why are our clients so stupid?
–    Is this in my job description?
–    How do I get more money?
–    Why do things change?
–    How do I achieve career/life balance?
–    Why am I surrounded by idiots?
–    Why do certain employees get away with more?
–    Why can’t we have consistency on expectations?
–    Why is everything always broken?
–    Why can’t I talk to XYZ? How do I escalate and who is in charge?

People and Activity I Like
–    Personal Accountability
–    Organized, Reminding, Tracking
–    Transparency & Communication
–    Email & Communication Effectiveness

Activity I Dislike
–    Condescending Smartass Behavior
–    Lack of Personal Accountability, Hygiene
–    Complaints about “The Greener Pastures”
–    Lack of Team Mentality
–    Disrespect of Our Clients

If you happen to do an obscene amount of strategic business with us, I’ll gladly share this with you under an NDA.

I read a few business books a month (some more than once) and without exception they are written in a top down approach with the high dose of self-help. Basically, you have faults that you should fix but spend your time eliminating everyone else’s faults. OK, fair enough and very valuable, but the problem at ExchangeDefender is that I’m the least productive person here despite probably the longest hours and almost everything I do is reliant on the very people that I’m supposed to beat the shit out of. We’re just supposed to come to a mutual understanding that even though I suck they are supposed to pretend not to notice and we dance around it? Hell no.

You may be perfect, congratulations, wish I could be like you. I’m not. Rather than having the new people find that out the hard way (and troubleshoot the correct way to deal with it), I’ve decided to put it in writing as honestly as I could so that they know the best ways to manage their way to getting their job done (even if in spite of me)

The process itself is quite rewarding because when you start putting things in writing the list of things that you should be working on as an executive tends to explode. The amount of gray area is exposed and you have to explain it as well.

I encourage you to sit down and fill out your Chemistry.com-ish executive profile so your team can become more effective with you. Feel free to use my layout as a guideline.

What is it you’d say you do around here?

Posted: 12:15 pm
February 4, 2013
Uncategorized
Comments Off on What is it you’d say you do around here?

One of the best parts of my gig is hanging around and talking to entrepreneurs and small businesses. ExchangeDefender does business worldwide with all sorts of organizations, I’ve been lucky to travel the world with it, and small business is just fundamentally more remarkable when it comes to the passion for detail, quality and reputation. In enterprise they call this quality “leadership” but in small business it’s really all about hustling and making every day better.

This weekend I was out buying something fairly labor intensive and I spoke to several different companies about it. Where larger and more established ones focused on the financials, mind numbing series of options that only made it more difficult to hand over my money, technical details that I’m sure even they didn’t fully understand or had the capability to explain, customer service courtesy.. small businesses focused on the quality and advice. Here are some of the quotes:

“I mean, it could be done for less but I would not put my name on it.”

“What you need to consider is X, Y and Z.. let me show you the pitfalls of each.”

“This is what I do for a living, I would not let you talk to someone else and tell them I did something like that to you”

Literally every interaction is about quality, detail and education.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I dislike luxury. I love it. I own a Mercedes Benz and the dealership I bought it from has 2 concierges that drop off loaners and pick up your vehicle anywhere you are – no need to drive to the dealership. In case you wanted to, the waiting room has free soda and a neverending hors d’oeuvre. The one time I went to the closest Mercedes dealership and decided to wait they had a chef making lobster eggs benedict with the concierge serving a choice of white and red wine. The lesson with luxury is probably all too familiar to my female readers:

When they want something from you they’ll wine you and dine you and treat you great. Then they try to fuck you.

If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a $300 oil change or $50 windshield wipers you know that feeling.

This is why, whenever possible, I try to give my business to small business. Not because of the treatment but because of the passion and attention to detail. I work very hard for my stuff and I only trust it to someone that is going to take care of it as I would.

The Point

Every small business starts with an incredible promise, passion and care.

It’s a fatal mistake to be 100% focused on products and service – if you don’t sell and market and grow you will disappear. But just as abuse of focus on quality can be fatal, so can the abuse of focus on the profits and sales.

I know far too many companies, may of which you’ve probably been burned by, that grew on a great product and then fell into the sea of mediocrity where all they care is about what they are going to sell you next.

This doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design and ignorance: owners enjoy the good life, take their eyes off the ball, bonus their sales people over their product people and pretty soon the obsession isn’t about the customer and what the client needs – the obsession is on what else we can sell to the customer. It’s not about adding value anymore, it’s about milking out more revenue from what is already being delivered.

It then feeds on itself. As the business becomes more about the numbers than about the service, it’s owners and creative lifeline of the company take another step back.. The faith is all but sealed then – find a buyer or race to the extinction.

Don’t think this affects multimillion dollar companies either – it happens in SMB too. I used to be a pretty big proponent of a group that was founded on the principles of sharing and holding other people accountable: they shared SharePoint templates, marketing plans, product deployment guides.. but a funny thing happened on the way to the bank: their meetings became about which overcompensated people to fire, how to cut costs and they sat around like the sheep in a room staring at the business revenue and profitability profiles that did nothing for their business but make them feel inadequate. Here is a f’n newsflash:

Your business is not about you. It’s about what you can do for your clients.

Yes, we can argue whether it’s better off to be Daimler/Mercedes Benz or the local guy building Cobra replicas and barely scraping a decent salary.. but there is no argument over what is truly important in business: your clients. Money isn’t everything or the only thing and without clients you get none.

Forget that little tidbit and your clients will forget about you. Quickly.

Happy Monday Folks. Australia, see you in a bit!

Virtual Management

Posted: 5:00 pm
February 1, 2013
Shockey Monkey
Comments Off on Virtual Management

There are thousands of books written about management, I’ve read more than I’ll ever be willing to admit, but I will sum them all up for you in one line:

The only thing separating a good manager from a bad manager is the amount of information they have to make good business decisions.

There. I’ve just saved you years worth of studying. You’re welcome.

The problem with getting the good information about your business is that the people that have the best information are the ones that spend the most time with the clients: they know all the challenges, they spot all the opportunities and they have the rapport and trust of the client that is absolutely priceless. They also happen to be terrible at documenting all this because there is no incentive for them to pass on the knowledge, they are there to do the job. When your management process interferes with their ability to do their job… well, there is a term for that: Corporate Bureaucracy. Or slightly less offensive terms like CRM & ERP.

Things are a little bit different in SMB. Which is why the big boys can never enter the SMB space: They try to solve the problems that managers have instead of helping the people that actually do the job. I am not knocking that in the slightest, in fact, I am jealous and hateful: those solutions cost a ton of money because they sell to the people with money. There is only one problem:

…running a business based on those solutions is kind of like trying to lay tile on sand, it looks great from the top but the second you step on it you sink.

In order to manage everything sensibly.. everyone needs to have input. Not just top down but bottom up too.

Here is stuff that we’re adding to Shockey Monkey in February: Goals, Achievements and Reprimands.

profile_additions_list

Key here is that the system is managed by everyone. It’s not just about the managers uploading goals and reprimands into an arcane HR software that will only be looked at the day you need to print out a reason to fire someone. It’s about transparency.

Managers will enter the goals and employees will enter accomplishments.

This way the career management becomes an arcade game of who is more obsessive. If employees are shown how they will be compensated and are given the power to visualize how they go from $ to $$ to $$$ in their career, there is a clear incentive of what needs to happen.

Compensate good behavior. Terminate bad behavior. The end.

Shockey Monkey Beyond IT

While Shockey Monkey may have had it’s humble beginnings as my side project to help thousands of my partners without an effective way to organize and bill for services, no what those same partners are selling Shockey Monkey to their clients.. there is a need to adapt to the reality that most businesses do not have a single workspace.

So in February we’re adding the ability to create multiple service boards. Each has it’s own tickets, it’s own rules, it’s own SLA, it’s own management and soon it’s own ACL (access control levels)… but initially the choice is simple: Is this a board we will use to correspond with our clients or is this the board we will use to manage internal company stuff like projects, case work, research, etc?

serviceboards_list

serviceboards_create

Looks pretty simple, right?

The Beef With Vendors

Small business is also different from the Fortune 500 in the level of dependence on third party vendors. Most of us don’t have entire departments built for the sole purpose of not paying people on time: purchasing, procurement, etc. If you’ve ever worked with Fortune 500 or Government you know that getting paid by those organizations is harder than landing on the moon. The problem in small business is that so much time goes to focus on the clients that pay the bill that too little is left to work with vendors efficiently:

vendors-list

Quick, how do you get the credentials for your vendors shopping cart? How about a password reset link when your admin tries to make a change for you? Where do you retrieve invoices? Who is your sales rep at the company you haven’t ordered anything from in the past 6 months? Where is their LinkedIn account? How about our contract – you know, the one signed 3 years ago – wanna guess which filing cabinet that thing is in? The answer to all these questions is obtained the same way: Search Outlook. Timeout. Timeout. Crash. Restart. Repair. Timeout. Whitescreen. Reboot. Repeat.

This vendor section is pretty much the most ambitious piece of our Spring update and I really cannot wait to get my hands on it. If I’m right, this will virtualize me to the point where I will just be able to leave a FatHead in my office smiling at the door while I ride around all day and let the others do the work that I would otherwise have to be involved in.

Every business.. and every employee at every business.. looks at their useless pointy haired boss as a scatterbrained bowl of insanity making random business decisions while genius employees have their genius ideas discounted.

Shockey Monkey is fixing that for businesses worldwide. And people love us for it.

Vendorification

Posted: 5:44 pm
January 30, 2013
Shockey Monkey
Comments Off on Vendorification

We do an amazing job tracking our clients. Meanwhile, we do a terrible job tracking our vendors and more often miss out on the potential opportunities to grow our business together. Some of you choose your vendors poorly and see them as an obstacle that is trying to screw you out of money – I can’t help with that – but the people we work with closely are strategically important to us and we need a better way of keeping in touch with them. Specifically:

It is one of my long term goals to be efficiently impersonated by my staff so I can play with toys all day long with the cloneVlad does all the CEO stuff.

Now, Shockey Monkey as you know is the core of everything we do. And with 2013, as you’re able to sell Shockey Monkey to any company on earth, it needs to be able to track any kind of a vendor.

Here is what I’m thinking:

v1 

v2

The problem with dealing with vendors in small business is that all the engagements are initiated by the CEO or decision makers – all of whom are the least likely to efficiently organize documents or access credentials.

ExchangeDefender was started 15 years ago, I’m still asked to search my Inbox for some random vendor we got started with in the 1990’s.

We are adding a new module to Shockey Monkey to track vendors, vendor contacts, vendor resources and notes & documents:

Vendor data: Mailing address, fax numbers, phone numbers, web site.

Contacts: Vendor sales, support, procurement, shipping personnel contact info, both phones and social stuff to keep an eye on and annoy at will.

Resources: Key. There are more outlets that companies are using to distribute information and being able to pay attention to all the LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Web site, Blogs, Pinterest, Support Portal, Billing Portal, Shopping Cart, Youtube Marketing, Youtube Training, ecommerce catalog, support knowledge base, NOC twitter account, CEO blog.. I think you’re starting to get it! There is a lot of stuff to track and having it all in one place so that any employee (with permission) can access credentials to perform their job – EFFICIENTLY – in a secure, documented and ACL respectful way that is easilly accessible through search.. is key.

Notes & Documents: If you suck, and most of us do, only the person that filed the paperwork can actually file it. Yes, one day we’ll all be riding around in our hover cars and rocketships and you’ll have an efficient edocument library, until then the collection of emails, contracts, faxes, images you snapped with your phone at their booth and voicemails will need to be organized.

Simple, right?

Every CRM out there is absolutely awesome at tracking clients. Typically for sales purposes.

Small business exists beyond the “Sales” department and if we treated all of our operations with the same level of accountability and performance bonus promises.. well, Shockey Monkey is there to help you do just that. Regardless of if you’re an MSP or a plumber or a baker or firearms dealer.

HR tips for effective sexual harassment

Posted: 10:36 pm
January 28, 2013
Boss, IT Business
Comments Off on HR tips for effective sexual harassment

The easiest thing you’ll ever do in your business life is hire tons of ineffective employees. It’s easier than coming up with blog post titles that have nothing to do with the content of the post! So I’ll keep it short:

Round up all the employees you’ve got on your payroll that resist change and like their job description clearly stated in a clear bullet point list that doesn’t change… and fucking fire them right now. Seriously, don’t even bother reading this blog post: People that don’t work on changing your organization for the better, that don’t tinker/tweak/test better ways of running your business should be templated, documented and outsourced… immediately.

Business that doesn’t innovate doesn’t improve and doesn’t survive. The End.

Only keep the people that are capable of thinking and eager to make things work – better, faster, more efficiently, more effectively. Keep your creative core. Like the reliability of the person that keeps your books – fantastic, outsource it to a CPA agency where they don’t suck the life out of your organization. Like the accountability of the janitor that shows up every day – hire a custodial firm and focus the company culture on improvement, not stagnation.

Unfortunately, you better be really passionate about what you do because having a company full of passionate and creative people is like staffing a grocery store with a bunch of starving zoo animals. They will wreck the joint fast – so you have to keep them motivated, distracted, driven and constantly moving the target. A bored creative person will find a way to entertain themselves at work and that is not going to be fun, just trust me on that one.

That’s it.

This is the brave new world. Everyone is eager for the buck and the lazy, unmotivated, change-resistant people are dime-a-dozen, outsource your mundane tasks to the sweat shops that will hire them and keep them in check with the kinds of HR controls that would make Henry Ford roll over in his grave. In a competitive market dealing with innovation and constant change the only advantage is your ability to quickly adjust and effectively promote your gig. If it’s easy, it will be automated.. if it’s time consuming, it will be outsourced to the third world, if it’s cheaper.. well, it’s only gonna get cheaper:

So if you’re not where you need to be going there is no time like now to start moving.

Happy Monday.

This post has been partially inspired by Dell. Yes, even they realized that nobody can make money on cheap PCs and are trying to take the company private because admitting to their entire shareholder base that they need to cook the golden goose to move to the next level is.. challenging. Odds are, your problems are smaller so if Dell can do it, you can too. Or you can keep on building PCs and refilling printer cartridges for people that work like it’s 1999. I’m sure you’re smarter than Dell and more successful too. Wake the f up. : )

What is your exit strategy?

Posted: 2:09 pm
January 24, 2013
Boss, IT Business
Comments Off on What is your exit strategy?

The performance of ExchangeDefender and Shockey Monkey have been a fascination for many of my friends and partners and to be honest I’m the one that’s least surprised by it: which is why I’m always shocked when people ask me the following question:

Vlad, What is your exit strategy?

Cold. Feet first. Wrap me in dollar bills and stick me into a Corvette and roll that bitch off the cliff loaded with explosives and blow the motherfucker up before I hit the water.

Then collect life insurance.

Yes, I want to keep on making money even in the afterlife. Why? Because that is what I do.

I have this conversation with people all the time and it’s very, very, very simple.

Back when I started Space G (which became what you see today) I had many friends that moved to the Silicon Valley to be the .com millionaires. I f’d up and went to college. We all make mistakes. But funny thing happens when you’re broke: You learn to respect the value of money. You become weary of borrowing it, you become suspicious when someone wants to give it to you and you learn that nothing ever comes easy. Ever ever. Even Ana Nicole Smith had to work for her $ and look where it got her.

Business has a simple premise: Make more than you spend. Keep the difference or reinvest.

For the first few years I reinvested aggressively – everything I had (not just financially) went into it. It taught me a few things:

1. More or less, financial rewards are proportional to the effort.
2. Business world is not fair
3. Some people are scumbags – trust is earned
4. Given the chance, most will take advantage of you
5. There is no crying in business but there is always another day

I have lost so many deals and so many customers have fired me that if I cried over every one of them I would have drowned by now. I’ve been screwed by so many people that I could put Peter North to shame. It is what it is though – just like there are people out there that have to clean toilets – it’s a job. Just like everything else, I just try to be a little bit better the next day, the day after that, next month and next year.

I am in no position to offer advice – I’m rich and employed – find someone that isn’t either and have them coach you. I cannot tell you what to do beyond explaining what we do at ExchangeDefender and what works and doesn’t work for us. I don’t know your risk tollerance, I don’t know your work ethic, overall ethics and morals, I don’t know your skill level or willingness to succeed. But you do.

So instead of asking others what they plan to do – ask yourself what you’re willing to do and where you are going with your business. Everything else will fall in line.

Maybe someone rich and desperate and bad at math will come along and swoop your business. In the event that doesn’t happen, a huge chunk of your monthly revenues will continue to go into your pocket. Just keep stacking it.

….

Here are comments from my Facebook friends:

Julian Wilkinson Heart attack working hard doing what I love.

Tom Wyant Sell out to one of my sons so he can support me until I die at the age of 107.

Not for attribution: Screwed to death in a traditional harem.

Ed Mana The front door to my office.