Connor Swalm with Phin Security joins us again to talk about defining company culture in today's IT world. While Conner and Adam run their companies differently they do agree on how to define company culture and different ways of taking an intentional approach to leadership.
Conner Swalm with Phin Security brings his expertise to discuss how competing incentives are affecting the vendor community. In this episode Adam and Conner discuss how to identify what incentive your partner has to be successful, we don't want to create conflicts with tools and relationships. However we can often unknowingly create a conflict by not being intentional in our relationships.
MSPs and IT Consultants tend to over-standardize in order to achieve efficiency. The main issue is that your clients often require unique solutions and are willing to pay for that experience. In this episode, we talk through how you can have a standard approach to clients that also is adaptable to their needs which will make both of you more money during the relationship.
How do you know your processes are ready? How do you prepare for the unpredictable? This is the world of table top exercises, to help your team identify where there are gaps in coverage as well as ensuring events run smoothly. In this episode Skip and Adam talk through table top exercises, a few tips on running them as well as lessons learned from table tops in the past.
How do you find solutions for customers? Is it just a matter of specing out a laptop or PC with some network items and calling it good? In this episode, Skip and Adam talk through what it means to find solutions to customer problems and align to help their business grow using your engineering skillset.
How do you deal with new prospects? Do you accept anyone or do you find the best fit for both you and the client? In this episode, Skip and Adam talk through how to define great relationships and what it means to properly communicate your client fit.
The Ides of March used to be a time of celebration and new year celebration. However thanks to a certain playwright we now see it as a time of bad omens. The question is, "Is March a time of celebration for your team or is it a reminder of how much you haven't gotten done?" In this episode Skip and Adam talk through how preparation and execution can turn the Ides into a time of celebration.
What does 2024 have in store for MSPs? In our First MSP Advice podcast of the year we bring in Mike Giovaninni of Netwerks to discuss what 2024 has in store and advice of how to prepare your business for success.
Interruptions are a way of life in engineering. However you also need to manage your time and projects. So how do you keep on track while managing triage? It is not an easy answer that is for sure! In this episode, Skip and Adam talk through the tips and tricks on how they have dealt with balance in their engineering lives.
Many leaders think accountability is all about having a stick to keep employees in line. However, accountability is more about measuring perceived value. Different people hold you accountable in different ways and if you are not aware of how they are measuring you, then you can work yourself to the bone without any appreciation.In this episode, Skip and Adam talk through what accountability actually means and how to use it to generate revenue and increase perceived value. As an added bonus your ...
"If you always do what you have always done you will always get what you always have got" In the past few episodes we talked through QBRs and having a plan. Today Skip and Adam talk through the importance of pacing. Having scheduled checkpoints throughout the year that follow up on the plan you create today. This means no procrastinating, that if you want to change and grow you need to make the change today.
Real world examples of what the results of a proper QBR are. In this episode Skip and Adam tell tales of how they were able to drive businesses forward with a proper QBR. Often helping businesses identify solutions to problems they did not know they had!
In part 3 of this series, we walk through a pragmatic approach to QBRs. What should we actually talk about during a QBR, specifically what topics and tools can you use to drive a truly strategic conversation with your clients, even if you are not a business strategy expert.
In Part 2 Skip and Adam talk in depth about how you can tell if you are actively listening to your client. This is important because many people think they are listening to their clients when, in actuality, they are railroading the conversation. So what are the indicators that you are all on the same page and making money by working together?
If car salespeople treated their customers the way MSPs did...they would never sell anything. No moment in a MSP's cycle shows this problem more than the QBR. So people are always hitting our site and material to learn "How do I run a QBR?" Today we are still seeing people miss the point of QBRs and today we talk through one of the biggest issues that technical people have when doing QBRs.
Sometimes we think if we just work hard good things will happed. However, if you do not put order into a system it will just become more disordered. This is why many of you are stuck in firefighting mode. In this Episode Skip and Adam talk through how to find a plan, any plan and iterate to make it better over time. It doesn't have to be perfect today, it just needs to be SOMETHING.
2024 What is going to happen here? It is an election year, and we missed a recession, so what does this mean for consumer confidence? What about MSPs? What should we be focusing on with clients this year? In this quick episode, we forecast a little of the year as well as what we can expect out of an election year in the states as well as how to take advantage of this.
It is time for the holiday that marks the end of the year. So we keep this short and talk through the year. We salute those of you who have to work change windows during these days as well as those finally taking time to yourselves. Merry Christmas from all of us here at Humanize IT.
Impatience : The anger you feel when the computer is being lazy. This makes you write programs that don't just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or at least pretend to. In today's episode, Skip fights through a cold and talks with Adam about using the 3rd great virtue, which can put you in a bad spot with clients or accelerate your growth!
Hubris : The quality that makes you write (and maintain) programs that other people won't want to say bad things about. This extends to so much of your professional life, Do things well for your clients that they brag about what you do. In this episode, Skip and Adam talk about how having excessive pride has helped the engineering world evolve and how it can help your clients succeed.
Laziness: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure . In this episode, Skip and Adam talk through the value of being lazy and how it can drive your success. We talk in-depth about how to work smarter rather than harder as well as tips on how to gain that focus you so desperately want.
Everyone has blind spots, do you know yours? How can you find out and what is the cost of having blind spots? In this episode seasoned veterans Adam and Skip talk through blindspots and how egos get in the way as well as how to sort them out so you can continuously grow.
This coming week marks the beginning of the end of the year. Since it is a 2-day holiday it kills the week and bleeds into the Christmas season. So what can you do with this knowledge? In this episode, Skip and Adam talk through the opportunities that the holiday season brings and some tips and tricks on how to make the most of the chaos through the end of the year!
Culture is often ignored when it comes to tech companies. What kind of culture are you creating? What kind of culture to you want to foster among your staff? If you are not deliberate you are leaving one of the most important aspects of your company up to fate. Find out how to set culture and what the advantages are in this insightful episode!
Mike Giovaninni and Adam Walter will be giving a talk at 4:00 Friday November 10th at IT Nation connect. This podcast is a preview of that talk and how you can effectively step into a CIO or CISO role to do a risk assessment with a versitile tool...the SWOT.
Have you been told you need to be a better listener? Well so have we, well 'We' actually means Adam. So, how do you listen better, what does it look like to listen well and what are the results of those 'conversations'. In this episode, Adam and Skip talk through how to recognize when you are being a bad listener vs a good one.
October is an odd month, it seems so simple and easy, just one holiday at the end of the month. So why is it always so chaotic? In this episode, Skip and Adam talk through the reasons why Octobers are so chaotic and how we can avoid it.
Do you ever wonder if there is a cost to being perfect? In this episode, we talk about how to become better rather than perfect. How you can stall your company by aiming for perfection rather than good.
At Build IT Live 2023, we met great people and had great conversations. We recorded this conversation with Jonathan Crowe about community building. Check out this great episode as we discuss how we build our respective communities and attempt to steal Halo's McLaren...
Some MSPs call it firefighting mode, some just are feeling overwhelmed. Whatever you call it, you are overwhelmed by the amount of data and items coming at you every day. We have sen quite a few MSPs who have been in this mode for YEARS. In this episode Skip and Adam talk through different techniques to help you get out of analysis paralysis and get some traction so you can move forward with confidence!
