Actually, Karl Palachuk and I have more in common than not. We both recently published blogs on MSP events.
My blog that was part of a recent newsletter to you focused on highly successful MSPs attending no events per year to focus on growing their MSP business. You can revisit my blog HERE.
Karl respectively took a different approach to this conversation. His contribution spoke to the “rest of us” and what’s practical for the true SMB MSP in our space. Here is an excerpt followed by the link to read the complete blog!
How Many Events Should You Attend?
This is a commentary on an article my friend Harry Brelsford posted in his recent newsletter. Harry notes that there appears to be an inverse relationship between attending too many conferences and being financially successful in this industry.
It started with one conversation. Harry thought, “That's an interesting perspective.” Then he did a little bit of research, and talked to some people, and collected some stories. His article mentions three different perspectives. He now has a much stronger opinion that it might not be in your best interest to attend too many industry events.
As you know, there are hundreds of events in our space, many of them very highly focused on a specific vendor or a very specific niche within the industry. But it's worth considering how many events is the right number for you? One of the things Harry mentioned is that a lot of people, myself included, used to regularly attend the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. Well, they got rid of the term “partner” a long time ago, and I stopped attending when Microsoft stopped actually trying to engage us, help us, or see us as partners.
Other conferences are often very specific to a product. For example, DattoCon and IT Nation are focused on their users and partners. And, of course, on the products and services they sell. If your company uses one of these as your primary system for running your business, it's probably in your best interest to attend their event at least once. But only attend if you focus on educating yourself, improving yourself, learning the software more thoroughly, learning some new features, and getting to know people in your industry.
It's perfectly fine to say, “I attend no conferences in IT,” but my suspicion is that the people who say that don't define themselves first and foremost as technology consultants. They define themselves first and foremost as business owners. And chances are very good that they go to conferences and events that are focused on learning marketing, learning training, learning sales, improving their employee relationships, improving their customer relationships, local networking events where they can meet prospective clients, and events that allow them to get involved with their local community. None of those things has to be focused on running an IT business, but all assist in running a business generally.
In my experience, almost all of the very large MSPs that I've worked with in the U.S. (and there are some huge exceptions), have an arrogant perspective that they made it on their own and they don't need the community. They don't need to talk to people in the industry. Some of them have the ridiculous belief that they have a secret sauce, and that their secret sauce is part of what makes them successful.
I've been in this industry for 30 years, and I've not yet found any secret sauce. I have found good processes and bad processes; good behavior and bad behavior; hard workers and not-so-hard workers. I've found all kinds of people and advice, but I've never found a drop of secret sauce.
I pride myself in having helped tens of thousands, maybe 100,000 IT consultants to improve their businesses. But you know what? I don't have any secrets. When I tell help people or coach people, I’m sharing knowledge and wisdom learned from my experience – and the experience of those I’ve worked with. Those who study creativity know one thing above all else: We don’t create new ideas; We combine ideas. As the Bible reminds us, “There’s nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
There's no secret to:
- Get up
- Have a great set of processes and procedures
- Have great employees
- Have great clients
- Have a great offering
- Have a bundle that works all together
- Then marketing it, push it, sell it, and
- Providing good service so your clients will stay with you forever
That's it. Those are the secrets. Execution is the thing that separates one group from another.
You can read the rest of Karl’s post HERE
BTW – don’t feel too sorry for Karl – he is on his annual trip to Australia to support long time SMB MSP legend Wayne Small at the annual SMBiT Professionals conference. Nice time of year and yes, I’m jelly about this LOL!