It’s a Jeep thing…
It’s a Jeep thing… I don't know what it is, but I know so many guys (and its almost always guys) in their 50's who get Jeeps. I am sure there is a...
New Year’s Resolution
New Year’s ResolutionWhat a crazy ride 2020 has been! There is not a person on the planet who has not been affected in one way or another from this...
Rules: In the eye of the beholder
Black and white vs shades of grayIt occurred to me this morning while I was driving home from the gym in the rainy, early morning darkness, that the...
What a difference six months makes…
What a difference six months makes…It has been quite some time since I last published a blog. So much has happened since the last one went out. It...
I can’t believe it has been 6 years…
Today, April 7, 2020, marks the six year anniversary of the selling of our company and the slow, steady progression to my next career. In one sense...
Suck It Up Buttercup!
Suck It Up, Buttercup!This blog is in memory of our dear friend Doris Ann Allison, she was one of the most caring and compassionate people in our...
Word of the Month: ANTICIPATE
Anticipate My word of the month is ANTICIPATE. As I work with business leaders and owners, it occurs to me how underutilized this word is. It is...
Is Google smarter than your company?
Is Google smarter and easier to deal with than your company?I recently purchased a new car and have been having issues with my EZ-Pass, the...
Our Work Is Our Practice
OUR WORK IS OUR PRACTICEI was recently listening to an audio book that made an analogy about sports and business. While I agree with many sports...
Put Your Margins Where Your Value Is.
Put your margins where your value is.If you hide your margins in a commodity price, your clients will find lower cost alternatives.Last week on July...
Clutter and Accumulation
Clutter and AccumulationOur stuff can weigh us down and hold us back. Staying light and nimble will ease the journey.A couple of weekends ago we...
See Something, Say Something
See something, say something.In the IT managed services business (MSP), in my opinion, symmetry is the holy grail. The more of it there is, the...
The Helpless Desk
It is March and that means our annual foray south, leaving Pittsburgh winter behind and kickstarting spring. We have lots of family and friends...
Find the time to enjoy the journey
Time. It is a funny thing. When we have plenty of it, we can fill it with all kinds of activities, both productive and unproductive. When we...
Business Planning for a Recession
Happy New Year!The New Year always provides the opportunity to step back and take stock. It gives us the chance to celebrate our successes and...
Customer Expectation Setting and Inflation
Towards the end of my last post on Customer Loyalty, I mentioned “Thoughtful and constant cultivation of expectations is key”. This apparently...
How Is Your Customer Loyalty?
One of the issues with spending one’s career in and around services businesses is that one has a tendency to overanalyze any experience consuming a...
Return on Luck
Return on Luck. One of my favorite chapters in Jim Collins’ book Great By Choice. It talks about how when presented with good or bad luck, you have...
All I ever wanted was an unfair advantage
All I ever wanted in life was an unfair advantage. What the heck!! What ever happened to customer service?!? As a generalization, IT STINKS! I...
The Power of Habits.
Habits are funny things... For a very long time, habits have been important to me. It has been my belief that the outcomes we achieve in life are a...
You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.
You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube… Thank you for all the get well wishes during my recent back issues. It is coming up on five weeks...
I wish I could take out the garbage
Gosh, I wish I could take out the garbage… I am mending from a rough two weeks with a back ailment. For most of my life I have been fortunate to...
Never Say Never
Never say never! I have been an Apple guy for a long time. In the beginning I was all Microsoft: first DOS and then moving to Windows...
Uber 5 Star Rating System
Uber Rating – The 5 Star System Last week I had the privilege to attend Schnizzfest 2018 ( www.schnizzfest.com ). This is my favorite event of the...
Work – Organize, Manage, Reuse – Part 2
Organize, Manage, Reuse Work In the last article we discussed the concepts around reusing work. In this article we will discuss some basics around...
Work – Organize, Manage, Reuse
Organize, Manage, REUSE Over the past few months I have been pondering a theme about how IT service providers think about work. As I have been...
You never forget how to ride a bike
Guest Post by Kathy Briden There is something special about biking when on vacation and our trips south always include a fair amount of pushing the...
The Angry Ocean
The Angry Ocean: A leadership lesson. I would be remiss if I didn’t write at least once about the beach while on vacation. This morning I took my...
Go jump in a lake (pool in this case) – Guest Post
When Jumping in the Pool Can Help You as a Leader Recently, Peter and I made our annual March trip to South Carolina. Peter had begun researching...
Is your sales narrative a fairytale??
Is your sales narrative a fairytale?? I have just finished up a busy stretch in my schedule and have had some time to collect my thoughts. For the...
They beat me into submission…
They beat me into submission, a customer success failure. I travel a lot and spend many a night in hotels. Many times I don’t have a choice of the...
Make a hard right or easy wrong
Never wish life were easier, wish you were better. Jim Rohn This past weekend I was fortunate to attend a family gathering. We were gathering for...
Upside Down Day
When my kids were young, their teachers would occasionally shake things up in their routines in class, they would call these upside down days...
I have been kicked out of better places than this
I’ve been kicked out of better places than this (actually not)… but never as nicely. The Friday before Christmas I was having breakfast with a...
Customer Success & Chutes and Ladders
Customer Success & Chutes and Ladders Trust and goodwill. The foundation of a healthy relationship. In the IT services business, we strive to...
Making the trains run on time.
In my work with IT service provider business owners, when discussing how IT operations should work, I commonly use the phase “making the trains run...
I’m OK – You’re OK
I’m OK – You’re OK was the title of a popular self-help book in the late 60’s, I remember it as a kid, but have no idea of what it was about. I just...
Can you really have your cake and eat it too?
Can you really have your cake and eat it too? I had the good fortune to recently spend time with 80 IT services business owners at a peer group...
What the heck?!?
I had a breakfast scheduled this morning with a business associate. Those of you who know me know I am always early for my appointments and I got...
Seizing the Opportunity
Seizing the Opportunity While at dinner one night, a colleague and I were talking about our careers. He made a comment that although he loved his...
It’s all about them…
It’s all about them… We ran a successful IT services company. After selling the company 3+ years ago, I have had the opportunity to step back and...
Focus and Success
Last week I had the good fortune to spend the week fly fishing in Colorado. This is an annual trip I have been taking for 15 years with 3 very good...
When life gives you lemons…
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Things don’t always go as planned. It’s not whether or not things go wrong, it’s how you deal with them...
Better results with fewer resources, an oxymoron?
Early one morning last weekend I went walking with a good friend and vacation house neighbor, his name is Jack and he is one of the best business...
Over Promise, Under Deliver
A good friend of mine’s father has a saying. “Don’t tell me how great you are, let me catch you at it.” This saying came to mind to me recently...
What is the point?
A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine and fellow Pittsburgh MSP recommended a book to me called the Go Giver. Like many book recommendations, when...
A Silver Bullet – Psst: and it’s free
The IT Managed Services business, like many businesses, is simple in concepts, however, extremely difficult to deliver, especially as it scales....
All I ever wanted in life was to be mediocre.
All I ever wanted to in life was to be mediocre... Nailing Fundamentals is the Foundation for Greatness I was watching the Pittsburgh Pirates play...
Sales – What would you spend for a dollar of MRR
How much would you pay for a $1 of MRR? I spend a lot of my time working with IT managed services companies (MSP). The main revenue stream for...
Perspective – sometimes you need a bad day…
One of those days… The other evening my youngest daughter came home from her dog grooming job and she was dressed like she just came back from the...
World Class – you know it when you see it
Sometimes you can just tell a great business when you see one. Walking my dog this morning I happened across one of my neighbors getting their...
Expectations
I have seen this too many times… What is one of the easiest thing we can all do improve our results for all our stake holders (clients, team,...
Bridging the Gap Between Fiscal & Clinical Programs
Working in the healthcare industry throughout most of my career, I found that fiscal departments and clinical departments functioned in silos. In...
Lessons Learned When Implementing an EHR System
One of my favorite projects in my career was implementing an electronic health record for a community based nonprofit mental health agency. The...
Zoom Out, Zoom In
Each March we head to the beach to kick start spring and get away from the last vestiges of Pittsburgh’s winter. One of my favorite activities is...