2019: Best of Times, Worst of Times? What the Dickens?!

To start this conversation out on the nerdy side, the decade isn’t over.  Just like the “new” Millennium didn’t officially start until January 1st, 2001.  Yup, everybody hooped and hollered about it starting in 2000.But 2020 is technically the last year of the decade started in 2011.So there.  And all you damn kids get off of my lawn.But at least we can all agree that the year is over.  2019 is now gone with the exception of the numerous times I enter it while typing or those few times I actually write a check.  And 2020 is a great year.  The puns write themselves (2020 vision, Barbara Walters saying “This is 2020”).  In 2021 we’ll only have sayings about hindsight being “2020 vision” (get it?).For my January comments I usually talk about how great or challenging the prior year was.I wish I knew how 2019 really was.  To be honest, I’m still not quite sure.  What was it Charles Dickens said?  “It was the worst of times, it was the best of times”?Yeah, that works.But let’s look at the whole first sentence of “A Tale of Two Cities”:  “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”Usually in Writing 101 they tell you to keep the number of words per sentence to a minimum.  The alternative is you make a reader really work to read your stuff.  But in this case, I wouldn’t change a single letter.Let’s start with the cool stuff.  In 2019 Simplex-IT was recognized on several levels.  Some awards we received:

• MSP 501. Top 501 MSP’s (Managed Service Provider, our industry) in the world.  Yup, we’re among them.  I believe this is the 4th time we’ve achieved this recognition.
• Hattie Larlham Corporate Partner of the Year. We’ve had a loooong relationship with Hattie Larlham, and it was nice of them to recognize us for it.
• Technology Marketing Toolkit “Better Your Best” finalist. Did I get a car?    Was it nice to be recognized as one of the top 5 MSP’s in terms of growth and productivity for the prior year within this well-established organization?  Yuppers.
• Technology Marketing Toolkit “Genius of the month” for June. I was a Genius.  For a month.  On July 1st I went back down a few notches.
• Case Weatherhead 2019 Upstart Award. Our 3rd year for this recognition.
• Featured MSP in September 2019 issue of “Channel Pro” magazine, probably the most visible magazine in our industry. Kinda cool.
• Amazon Best-selling author (second time) for my second book. Big whoopity-doo<g>.

Believe me, winning some of these awards make me realize how a couple of these aren’t as earth-shattering as they sound (starting with “Amazon Best Selling Author”).  But still.  It’s nice for all of our efforts to be recognized.Speaking of my second book, “The MSP’s Survival Guide to Co-Managed IT services”, it’s made some waves in the industry.  I’ve been asked to present to about every major MSP event in 2020, which is kind of cool.  Simplex-IT is a leader in creating relationships between ourselves and the IT department of our clients.  It hasn’t always been smooth (trailblazing rarely is), but it certainly has (IMHO) been a great program for both us and our clients (partners, really) that work with us.Our QCT (Quarterly Client Training) program has been a hit, and I know it’s being copied in various forms by other MSP’s (we share our stuff pretty freely).We also had some great events, partnering with PNC on a cyber security breakfast.  We also gave our first CoMITs (Co-Managed IT services) breakfast.  Plus I presented at several conferences, on topics from Cyber Security to Business Intelligence to Critical Thinking.We grew, adding a couple of people to our family.  If you saw our posting of our holiday gathering at Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens, it’s getting really crowded at these things.  We’ve had 4 new people start within the past couple of months (2 actually reported for their first day today).Which meant expansion.  We added an additional 1,000 square feet to our dungeons, moving Sales and Marketing over in Q2.  We then outgrew that spot, meaning that Sales (ok, John) had to move back.  In theory we won’t have to expand our offices for another year.  I hope.We added new faces throughout the year.  Adam (Level 3 Tech) joined us Q2.  Natasha (Marketing) joined us early Q4.We were pretty aggressive in terms of goals.  Honestly probably a bit too much.  We decided to completely replace our backup strategic partner (moving to Datto) and our networking monitoring and management tools (again moving to Datto).  While we were trying to do this we also wanted to grow and implement a better reporting/management structure throughout the organization.How did we do?  Ahhh…meh, honestly.We actually are much better organized from a management and organizational standpoint than we were last year, mostly thanks to the management team (myself, wife Julie, Tech Director Kevin, Marketing Director Patti, Operations Director Michelle and Sales Director John).  Plus, a grateful shout out to Kimberly over at CulturShoc, who has been our guide through this process.We did get a lot accomplished.  What didn’t happen, to be honest, was our revenue goals or profitability.  We had a healthy amount of growth in terms of revenue but missed our target by about 5%.  We’re still in the near-hyper growth category but could have done better.Profitability?  That’s one we need to work on.  Simplex-IT is profitable, but we could have done better.  And I think we’ve put the controls in place to do better in 2020.  It’s actually an interesting challenge.  Our profitability was primarily hit by us trying to do a lot of changes that generated additional temporary expense but not as much corresponding revenue increase.  That’s ok if the expense is necessary for growth purposes, which most of it was.On the cybersecurity side of things, it was a year of growth and learning on our part.  One of the biggest challenges for us was walking that fine line between “the customer is always right” and “it’s our job to protect the customer from themselves”.  That’s not placing blame on our clients, by the way.  But in the past when we clients insisting on doing things in a way that presented them in a vulnerable way, we usually gave in.  We’ve since changed that strategy to becoming a lot more insistent on closing known vulnerabilities before they become compromised.My 3rd book (“I don’t want your job:  Is Co-Managed IT services the right fit for You?”) should be out by February.  Honestly the final publishing pieces have taken a bit more time than I thought.  But I’m happy with the book, especially the 3 clients who were good enough to write pieces endorsing the practice.  Plus 2 of our strategic vendor partners (Datto and Sophos).My travel schedule was downright silly in 2019.  Texas, California, Florida, Nashville, Paris, Denver (and probably some I don’t recall).  I’m really getting to know the Nashville and Orlando airports much more intimately than I care to.  And 4 of those states were visited multiple times.  Schedule for 2020?  Already much busier than 2019.I normally post prior quarter goals and current quarter goals, but honestly, I’m going to be a bit late on these.  Check out our blog within the next couple of weeks or check out our next newsletter.If you’re interested, check out my reading list for 2019.  These are the books I read (or listened to, I use Audio books a lot) last year.  I like to do this each year.Speaking of, I now need to dive into 2020.  Should be interesting!