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The Monster at the End of the Book: What Grover Teaches Us About Taking Risks in Business

If you grew up in the ’80s or ’90s, you might remember The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone. I sure do. It was my absolute favorite book as a kid, and here’s a little secret—I still keep a copy on my desk today. Why? Well, besides the fact that it makes me smile whenever I see that cover, it also holds a lesson I think about all the time when it comes to business: how fear can stop us from moving forward.

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Surviving and Thriving: How Stan Kats Built an MSP from Scratch

ITBODD (IT Business Owner Didn't Die) is where IT business owners who’ve faced the hard knocks of the industry share what it takes not only to survive but to thrive. Hosted by Allen Edwards, each episode dives deep into the experiences of those who've navigated unique challenges, transforming obstacles into valuable lessons. In our first episode, we sit down with Stan Kats of STGIT, who went from break-fix shop owner to MSP builder, tackling every hurdle in between. Join us as Stan shares his story of reinvention, resilience, and the determination it takes to build a business that lasts.

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Effective Communication Strategies for MSPs

Now more than ever, clients expect fast responses and real-time updates, especially when dealing with time-sensitive IT issues. In the MSP/ITSP industry, communication is at the core of delivering exceptional service. To meet these demands, MSPs must adapt their communication strategies to suit the preferences and unique needs of their clients. This includes managing tickets through a support portal, communicating by email, and adopting text messaging. The key is ensuring that both technicians and clients can stay connected easily and efficiently. Today, I'd like to explore why texting matters.

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A Guide to Mastering Productivity and Prioritization

In today’s fast-paced world, where demands constantly tug at our attention, mastering productivity and prioritization has become more crucial than ever. The ability to navigate through an ever-growing list of tasks efficiently can mean the difference between success and overwhelming chaos. Yet, despite the importance of these skills, many find themselves struggling to juggle competing priorities and deadlines. Struggling with productivity and prioritization isn’t your fault. The sad truth is that no one teaches you how to prioritize, how to juggle competing priorities, or how to be productive. Let’s take a look at some of the strategies to help streamline workflows, manage your to-do list and regain control of your time management.

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Mastering Revenue Attribution: A Strategy for Fair Technician Compensation

I was recently speaking to a group of IT business owners about team member onboarding at XChange Nexgen. A question regarding technician compensation arose as a tangent, and since I had the time, I addressed it. I was surprised that my answer became the central topic of conversation with many follow-up questions and pens writing furiously on notepads. I’m taking that as a sign that you may want to learn about my response, too.

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To Free or not to Free? The life-cycle of a sync tool's free tier

Gozynta got its start in the late 2000s, going through the trials, woes and growing pains that all small businesses do, specifically as an IT service provider starting as a break-fix shop and evolving into a full-fledged Managed Service Provider. As we grew, we pivoted to developing integrations to automate some of those tasks that take up so much time. We experienced, first-hand, the challenges and struggles that come with creating, managing, and growing your own company. At each step of the way, we asked ourselves,

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Lean Forecasting with Google Sheets

My first experience with Kanban was in 2012 or 2013 when, as manager of a 10-person sustaining engineering team, I needed to organize software delivery against internal SLAs. We were responsible for resolving Support issues escalated to Engineering. The time frames and priorities changed daily, if not hourly. Managing via Scrum with sprints was simply not adaptive enough. I found a great primer from Jesper Boeg on Kanban and over a month or so reinvented our development and release process around Kanban metrics. The turn around was dramatic and the team wonderfully successful.

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Personal Core Values

Heather and I recently had a conversation about "who are today's Fred Rogers and Bob Ross"? It seems that there aren't any such prominent role models today that seem to be so wholesome, caring, and just good (both on screen and off). As we probe this further we do find some other examples that perhaps fit the bill (Steve Irwin, Dolly Parton, and Betty White were all suggested). It doesn't take long before we question this person or that person, and we need to define some values on which we're going to determine who deserves to be on the list or not. After further reflection, I decided that this is a good exercise to explore our personal core values. With our company retreat coming up, knowing our personal core values will help us be prepared for updating our company core values.

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