What’s New
Posted: Community Confab – September 24, 2020
Note: The time notes here are approximate 🙂
Minute 12 - Ram kicks us off with a question on the Cloud Five-Pack: we discuss the merits of 5 Office 365 vendors who do you use? (based on invoicing, partner programs, margins and more)
Minute 37: Lynette shares more about the outcome of the "bad" potential client and how the issue was resolved. Folks shared their thoughts over withholding passwords as leverage to get past-due invoices paid - a good idea or not?
Minute 43 - Burak asks about Level I vs Level II techs - who does what at what level? How do you handle a Level I tech working on something out of their pay-grade and taking too long?
Minute 50 - On more of a personal note, we chat about the merits of smart watches
Minute 59 - Work life balance - how do folks handle the transition from work to home-life when we're all working from home?
Check it out here: https://www.smallbizthoughts.org/member_content/community-confab-september-24-2020/
Posted: SBT Roundtable: The Power of Asking the Right Questions
With guests Debbie Leoni and Jenifer Novak Landers
Our guests are two genius-level life coaches: Debbie Leoni and Jenifer Novak Landers. They are recognized as a couple of the elite life coaches in the U.S. But wait – that’s not all. They are both entrepreneurs and published authors.
Here’s the twist: This discussion is NOT about life coaching. I want to talk to these women about their super power – asking the right questions. A lot of the training for life coaches focuses on finding the right questions. Questions help us get to the root of issues. But they can also be used to encourage people to look at problems from a different perspective.
Our goal, of course, is to bring a unique perspective to your business. Sometimes, you need to just stop working-working-working and think about your business.
Members Access Here
Debbie Leoni
“Fearless”
PCC, Master Coach, Speaker and AuthorAs an entrepreneur and dreamer, Debbie Leoni has always been influenced and intrigued by the human psyche and what it takes to succeed. Debbie’s passion for success led her to become a small business owner in her early 30’s and since then she’s become an international coach and speaker, assisting hundreds of small business owners. Debbie supports her clients to unleash their power by recalibrating their mindset towards high performance and an enhanced ability to accelerate personal growth resulting in success.
Website: debbieleoni.com | Debbie's Book: I Am Fearless: 12 Elements of Fearless Living
Jenifer Novak Landers
“Fully Expressed”
Coach and PublisherJenifer is a professional coach specializing in entrepreneur coaching and the creative process. She is certified through JFK University and established her business, Fully Expressed Potential in 2005 to help professionals with business and personal growth. As a speaker and workshop leader, she brings 20 years’ experience as a business owner to inspire a thriving entrepreneur lifestyle. Jenifer is the author of Fully Expressed Living, The Guided Meditation Coloring Book. As an award-winning illustrator for children’s books, Jenifer established a publishing company to support authors to realize their dreams.
Website: fullyexpressedpotential.com | Jen's Book: Fully Expressed Living: 50 Perspectives From Stuck to Fulfilled
Posted: Community Confab September 10, 2020
Today's meeting is about how to structure bonuses, how the recession might (will) effect MSPs at some point (and what to do about it), and what to do with any downtime we have right now.
Amit also brings a great (and easy) service to offer businesses that is what he describes as a "cash cow" and is of great services to businesses during Covid-19.
Members access now
Posted: Community Confab September 3, 2020
We tried 10-minute time limits per topic today for the first time. The first ten minutes segued into a second 10-min topic but we got the hang of it after that.
Our meeting kicked off with Laine's feedback about Karl's recommendation to read From Good to Great and Great by Choice, both by Jim Collins.
Members access here: https://www.smallbizthoughts.org/member_content/community-confab-september-3-2020/
5:50 - Question from Laine: What are the standards you have for your company that you follow every day and that you have new employees follow? For example one of the standards we have is if you say you'll get back to a customer by the afternoon definitely get back to them. If you're busy ask your team members for help or tell the client you'll get back to them the next day at X time. Basically follow through on what you say you'll do. Another is treat your team members and our customers with Compassion, Integrity, Ohana, and Aloha in everything that we do.
Rabbit-hole topics include:
- Viewing resources through the lens of your business (e.g. a business presentation from a large corporation and fitting the content to your 2-person shop)
- Invoicing and terms
27:35 - Next Topic from Vince: looking for advice to take on his first Dentist - he says he'll take responses offline but, folks are happy to give feedback and share experiences right now 😉
39:40 - Next Topic from Kara: In our upcoming new community platform - does sharing your verticals seem helpful to build connection, network, and learn from each other?
44:00 - Next Topic from Kara: Is there an ethical responsibility for MSPs to report business refusing to follow HIPAA etc in terms of consumer protection
Rabbit-hole topics include:
- Firewalls
- Anti-virus - SentinelOne vs Cylance
1:02:35 - Next Topic from Vince: How to differentiate your business and respond to a client who says "I've been talking with some other MSPs"
Next SBT Roundtable: The Power of Asking the Right Questions – 9/23
In the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community, we have a special get-together we call the SBT Roundtable. In September, our topic will be: The Power of Asking the Right Questions. This is a members-only event.
Our guests are two genius-level life coaches: Debbie Leoni and Jenifer Novak Landers. They are recognized as a couple of the elite life coaches in the U.S. But wait – that’s not all. They are both entrepreneurs and published authors.
Here’s the twist: This discussion is NOT about life coaching. I want to talk to these women about their super power – asking the right questions. A lot of the training for life coaches focuses on finding the right questions. Questions help us get to the root of issues. But they can also be used to encourage people to look at problems from a different perspective.
Our goal, of course, is to bring a unique perspective to your business. Sometimes, you need to just stop working-working-working and think about your business. Please register now and join us . . .
September 23rd
9:00 AM Pacific / Noon Eastern
Members Register Here: https://www.smallbizthoughts.org/member_content/roundtable-power-of-asking-the-right-questions
About Debbie Leoni
“Fearless”
PCC, Master Coach, Speaker and Author
As an entrepreneur and dreamer, Debbie Leoni has always been influenced and intrigued by the human psyche and what it takes to succeed. Debbie’s passion for success led her to become a small business owner in her early 30’s and since then she’s become an international coach and speaker, assisting hundreds of small business owners. Debbie supports her clients to unleash their power by recalibrating their mindset towards high performance and an enhanced ability to accelerate personal growth resulting in success.
Links:
About Jenifer Novak Landers
“Fully Expressed”
Coach and Publisher
Jenifer is a professional coach specializing in entrepreneur coaching and the creative process. She is certified through JFK University and established her business, Fully Expressed Potential in 2005 to help professionals with business and personal growth. As a speaker and workshop leader, she brings 20 years’ experience as a business owner to inspire a thriving entrepreneur lifestyle. Jenifer is the author of Fully Expressed Living, The Guided Meditation Coloring Book. As an award-winning illustrator for children’s books, Jenifer established a publishing company to support authors to realize their dreams.
Visit her websites:
🙂
Posted: Community Confab August 27, 2020
Check out the replay from this morning's member meeting
Members Access NowWe kick off with suggestions on how to take a step back as the business owner and start delegating and trusting your team.
Of course this takes solid processes and procedures - tune in for tips on this, too.
0:22:00 - Lynette shared a huge win by not signing a potential client
0:38:40 - Karl asks about the need for client-facing handouts/cheat sheets
- Top 10 ways to avoid ransomware
- Videoconferencing setup, an infographic
- Secure at work, but what about at home?
- How to sanitize your machine (from Covid germs, etc)
0:47:00 - Training clients on handling phishing campaigns
0:58:30 - Is anyone using AutoTask API? And why Chris wants to use it
Those are the main points - see ya'll next week! 🙂
Next Roundtable: The Power of Asking the Right Questions
We have a special get-together we call the SBT Roundtable. In September, our topic will be: The Power of Asking the Right Questions. This is a members-only event.
Our guests are two genius-level life coaches: Debbie Leoni and Jenifer Novak Landers. They are recognized as a couple of the elite life coaches in the U.S. But wait - that's not all. They are both entrepreneurs and published authors.
Here's the twist: This discussion is NOT about life coaching. I want to talk to these women about their super power - asking the right questions. A lot of the training life coaches focuses on finding the right questions. Questions help us get to the root of issues. But they can also be used to encourage people to look at problems from a different perspective.
Our goal, of course, is to bring a unique perspective to your business. Sometimes, you need to just stop working-working-working and think about your business. Please register now and join us . . .
September 23rd
9:00 AM Pacific / Noon Eastern
Members will find the link inside the community here.
Debbie Leoni
About Debbie Leoni
"Fearless"
PCC, Master Coach, Speaker and Author
As an entrepreneur and dreamer, Debbie Leoni has always been influenced and intrigued by the human psyche and what it takes to succeed. Debbie’s passion for success led her to become a small business owner in her early 30’s and since then she’s become an international coach and speaker, assisting hundreds of small business owners. Debbie supports her clients to unleash their power by recalibrating their mindset towards high performance and an enhanced ability to accelerate personal growth resulting in success.
Jenifer Novak Landers
Jenifer Novak Landers
"Fully Expressed"
Coach and Publisher
Jenifer is a professional coach specializing in entrepreneur coaching and the creative process. She is certified through JFK University and established her business, Fully Expressed Potential in 2005 to help professionals with business and personal growth. As a speaker and workshop leader, she brings 20 years’ experience as a business owner to inspire a thriving entrepreneur lifestyle. Jenifer is the author of Fully Expressed Living, The Guided Meditation Coloring Book. As an award-winning illustrator for children’s books, Jenifer established a publishing company to support authors to realize their dreams.
-- -- --
Free to members. Non-members are encouraged to JOIN us.
Members Register Here🙂
New Resource: Marketplace Mandates – John Armato
Five Marketplace Mandates - Make something meaningful happen.
Members Access NowThis resource comes as a result of the roundtable discussion on Creativity and Finding your Authentic Voice with John Armato (August 2020). He specifically references it during the conversation on "Made You Look isn't the same as Made You Care."
You can watch the time-stamped recording here: https://www.smallbizthoughts.org/member_content/sbt-roundtable-john-armato/
John Armato is a creative thinker, insightful facilitator and trusted advisor whose career has spanned three decades and more than 200 clients across all sectors. Armato joined FleishmanHillard in his hometown of Kansas City then moved to New York as co-chair of the firm’s global Brand Marketing practice. He led the development of five “Marketplace Mandates,” which have been featured by the American Brands Council and Forbes. Now based in Sacramento, Armato focuses on message development and organizational narratives, media training and presentation coaching, and insights and ideas sessions. He is a “go-to” writer for unique or demanding projects as well as a popular professional development and keynote speaker.
– From https://fleishmanhillard.com/profile/john-armato/
New Resource – Ideas for the Asking – John Armato
John describes Ideas for the Asking as "a sort of cheat-sheet for getting started with the intentional use of questions to produce ideas and insights.
Members Access NowThis resource comes as a result of the roundtable discussion on Creativity and Finding your Authentic Voice with John Armato (August 2020)
You can watch the time-stamped recording here: https://www.smallbizthoughts.org/member_content/sbt-roundtable-john-armato/
John Armato is a creative thinker, insightful facilitator and trusted advisor whose career has spanned three decades and more than 200 clients across all sectors. Armato joined FleishmanHillard in his hometown of Kansas City then moved to New York as co-chair of the firm’s global Brand Marketing practice. He led the development of five “Marketplace Mandates,” which have been featured by the American Brands Council and Forbes. Now based in Sacramento, Armato focuses on message development and organizational narratives, media training and presentation coaching, and insights and ideas sessions. He is a “go-to” writer for unique or demanding projects as well as a popular professional development and keynote speaker.
– From https://fleishmanhillard.com/profile/john-armato/
New Resource: Anatomy of a Plan (John Armato)
A one-page takeaway from John's Anatomy of a Plan presentation
Members Access NowThis resource comes as a result of the roundtable discussion on Creativity and Finding your Authentic Voice with John Armato (August 2020)
You can watch the time-stamped recording here: https://www.smallbizthoughts.org/member_content/sbt-roundtable-john-armato/
John Armato is a creative thinker, insightful facilitator and trusted advisor whose career has spanned three decades and more than 200 clients across all sectors. Armato joined FleishmanHillard in his hometown of Kansas City then moved to New York as co-chair of the firm’s global Brand Marketing practice. He led the development of five “Marketplace Mandates,” which have been featured by the American Brands Council and Forbes. Now based in Sacramento, Armato focuses on message development and organizational narratives, media training and presentation coaching, and insights and ideas sessions. He is a “go-to” writer for unique or demanding projects as well as a popular professional development and keynote speaker.
– From https://fleishmanhillard.com/profile/john-armato/
