Giving, Getting and Sharing

For those of you who eagerly await our monthly eNewsletter, this is a bit late.Sorry about that.  “Reality is that which gets in the way of what you have planned” is one of my favorite sayings.Last week I was sitting in the middle of a gathering of about 250 or so MSP’s (Managed Service Providers, which is what Simplex-IT is), down in Orlando.  Over the 2 days I’ve seen presentations on cyber security best practices for MSP’s, optimal accounting practices for small-medium entrepreneurial organizations and better sales processes.  Friday I took the stage for an hour and shared my thoughts on Co-Managed IT services in terms of marketing, selling and proving services.Ya gotta keep improving.Last month Kevin Dutkiewicz (Tech Director) and I spent a couple of days in Orlando looking to learn ways to improve what we do.  We also hosted our first Co-Managed IT services event, which drew about 15 IT professionals who wanted to learn how to do their jobs more effectively.Last Tuesday, we hosted our 9th annual Geek Raffle, benefitting Hattie Larlham.  We raised just over $600 in raffle ticket sales, which Simplex-IT matched.  We then took advantage of special offer as part of “Giving Tuesday”.  This meant that another donor (anonymous, I believe) doubled that.  So, we went from $600 to over $2,400 raised, which was a record for us.  Thanks to everybody, especially our hosts at the Malted Meeple.  We’re already talking about 2020, which will be our 10th annual event.We’re finally filling some open positions here.  More news on that in the next newsletter.We’re getting close to the end of the year.  Boy.  This has been a rough year.  Some idiot (whose name rhymes with “slob”) decided it would be a grate idea to implement a new backup service and new monitoring solution.  In the same year.  Plus implement a completely new management structure.  And keep an aggressive growth strategy.Aaaaaannnnd…it’s been a rough road.  But we’ve been moving forward.  More on that next month.The end of the year always brings a lot of technical projects from clients, and this year is no exception.  Server upgrades.  Getting rid of Windows 7.  Improving security.And next month we’ll also talk about some of the new marketing strategies for 2020.  This will include an event each month at our Stow offices throughout 2020.I’ll be continuing to work with other MSP’s (Managed Service Providers) in helping them develop their own Co-Managed IT services practices.  I’ll be hosting a webinar on the 9th to talk about how they can start doing what we’ve been doing.  And I’ll be speaking at numerous conferences in 2020.  I recently put together my travel schedule for 2020…and it’s busy.This is going to get interesting.