Hey Reader, when was the last time your sales team had to explain their metrics the way your help desk does daily? Does that same level of scrutiny apply to other teams in your company? In many MSPs, I observe this odd situation where the expectations of the help desk teams are very high. There is extreme scrutiny of performance and plenty of corrective feedback based on client feedback or other sources. Meanwhile, the project, sales, and admin teams are left to do their thing without much...
14 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader I rant about how useless the word busy is all the time. I love this fantastic visual representation of what busy vs. productive looks like. Don't try to hero your way through your work. When you're feeling overwhelmed, it's not the time to do more. It's time to stop, step back, reflect on your priorities, and start creating more proactive time for the important tasks you have on deck. Being able to measure your progress and point to your achievements is far more important than how...
21 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, Not all stress is created equal. Storytime My stomach dropped when I realized what had happened. It wasn't a single client that was impacted... it was all of them. We were now facing 100+ clients without functioning DNS. This was a challenging day, to say the least. You know what's weird, though? It's a day I remember kind of fondly. We set up a war room in the boardroom, rallied the team, and started calling clients and migrating them one by one to a new DNS provider. The stress...
28 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, would you call me crazy if you saw me talking to a rubber duck at my desk? What if I told you I was problem-solving? Okay! Todd has really lost it then! 🤪 This is the rubber duck technique. It's a strategy for troubleshooting when you are really roadblocked. Everyone in tech has had this experience: You start writing an email to someone about an issue. Hit send. Then, 30 seconds later, you realize the solution to the problem you just emailed someone about. Humans are incredibly...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Reader You know your client security posture needs to be strong, but how do you know what is good enough? Security is a sliding scale. It's a constant battle between cost and security. Sure, you could throw crazy amounts of money at the problem, but in what case is that necessary? Your clients don't have an enterprise-level budget to dedicate to security. As a former Citrix administrator I used to fight a similar battle on uptime. How much was enough to keep the systems up? How much downtime...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader! I was recently a guest on my friend Keith Daser's podcast Sell Me This Podcast. Keith caught me at a moment when I was pretty fired up, and he got me ranting about all this MSP business. He used a very fun term that I'm going to use more in the future. "Boss-Level Problems" Building a successful MSP business is not easy, as you'll face a ton of boss-level problems. If you approach the business properly it shouldn't cause you to burn out. Check out my ranting and raving thoughts on...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you "won" an argument but didn't feel like you'd made any progress? This is the difference between persuading and convincing. Convincing Someone When you try to convince someone of something it's like going to battle! You have prepared all of your ammunition to overcome objections. Overwhleming them with evidence Using debate tactics Focusing on being "right" The result is that even if you've "won" the debate, you've created a...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, does your business have a no assholes policy? I think most businesses should. There should be very few exceptions where a brilliant jerk is tolerated. This certainly does not seem to be the case, though. Every business ends up collecting one or two of these staff over time, but it is shocking to me how long they are tolerated despite the obvious signs that it isn't working well for the team. I've been there, I understand some of the justifications we make in our head about why we...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader! After working with hundreds of MSPs across all revenue stages, I've noticed a clear pattern in what separates the thriving businesses from those that struggle: It's not about the technology. It's about the people and culture. I know you've heard this and probably even believe it, but why do so many businesses not follow through and act on this? In our industry, we have a natural tendency to look for technical solutions to business problems. New RMM tool to improve efficiency?...
2 months ago • 1 min read
