This program was recorded and is posted here.

Dave Sobel Joins Level Platforms

Podcast posted - A free-flowing discussion with Dave Sobel.

I caught up with Dave this week while he is in London, in a sweet little flat he rents by the week. As you may know, Dave has been a powerful member of the SMB community for some time. He has been a leader in the Microsoft MVP space, in the virtualization and cloud computing world, in HTG, and in the community at large.

Dave recently sold his managed service business and accepted a job with Level Platforms

https://www.facebook.com/djdave

https://twitter.com/#!/djdaveet

http://www.smbbooks.com/products/mssob01.htm

The book is Virtualization Defined - Now only $39.95

The DVD set is Designing, Implementing and Making Money with Virtual Environments - Now only $49.95

 . . .

Members download the podcast now.

Non-members can view the list of downloads and recorded shows at www.cloudservicesroundtable.com.  

:-)

This program was recorded and is posted here.

Part One of this Interview is posted here.

Interview Continued: Joyce Blonskij - Own the Clouds: The First Guide To Investing In Cloud Computing Companies

This is Part 2 of my interview with investment advisor and author Joyce Blonskij. Joyce is the author of Own the Clouds - The First Guide To Investing In Cloud Computing Companies. This book will be released on January 31st, 2012. For more information on the big "Virtual Launch Party" and a bunch of free give-aways, see http://owntheclouds.com/.

In this follow-up interview, Joyce gives some tips about getting started in Wall Stree investmenting. Joyce als introduced the four Key Cloud Elements - so you can identify cloud companies you want to own. She also introduces a chart called a Bollinger Band - her favorite kind of charting tool

The book will be only $24.95, and that prices includes a number of give-aways you can find out about at see http://owntheclouds.com/.

Joyce will be donating all proceeds from this book to charities, including Kiwanis House. http://www.kiwanisfamilyhouse.org/

Members can download this recording right now and get the year started off right with an introduction to investing. It's particularly cool to have such a great guide with a hook into our area of expertise. Check it out today.

:-)

This program was recorded and is posted here.

Interview: Joyce Blonskij - Own the Clouds: The First Guide To Investing In Cloud Computing Companies

I had a great interview with Joyce Blonskij, author of Own the Clouds - The First Guide To Investing In Cloud Computing Companies. This book will be released on January 31st, 2012. For more information on the big "Virtual Launch Party" and a bunch of free give-aways, see http://owntheclouds.com/.

Joyce's book is a great introduction to stock market investing generally, but her focus is specifically on Cloud and Internet companies. The book provides a four-layer view of investing, starting with the highest level "clouds" - The most visible companies. The second layer addresses the small companies that are flying under the radar. The third layer is the middle management view of investing. And the fourth layer covers low-level "technical" investment techniques.

The book will be only $24.95, and that prices includes a number of give-aways you can find out about at see http://owntheclouds.com/.

Joyce will be donating all proceeds from this book to charities, including Kiwanis House. http://www.kiwanisfamilyhouse.org/

Members can download this recording right now and get the year started off right with an introduction to investing. It's particularly cool to have such a great guide with a hook into our area of expertise. Check it out today.

Download the podcast here.

:-)

In case you missed the live broadcast, you can download my 2012 "State of the Union" address here: http://www.cloudservicesroundtable.com/free-public-broadcasts/123-karls-2012-state-of-the-nation.html

This one-hour program includes my perception of where we are as a community and where we'll be going in the year ahead.

I also have observations on business success for I.T. consultants and some tips about how you can make the most of the challenges and opportunities ahead. 2012 will be a tough year for many. But it will also be a great year, and you can make it a successful one as well!

Finally, I talk about some big changes that are coming to the Cloud Services Roundtable. In fact, the first change will be up in a few days. I'm going to reveal the branding for the Cloud Services Roundtable and SMB Community Podcast. For details, and a preview of the first new podcast, see the link above.

:-)

Join me tomorrow . . .
December 7, 20ll 9AM Pacific

Register Now. https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/467808952

I'll be talking to Alan Wilson, VP & Managing Partner for Cloud and Converged Infrastructure Consulting for Technology Services for HP.

We'll discuss HP's hands-on cloud services, such as the HP Cloud Discovery Workshop, which helps business and technology decision-makers understand cloud computing concepts and risk factors to mobilize their teams for fast decision-making.
 
HP Cloud Discovery Workshop is the first step in the journey to building an Instant-On Enterprise. It designs a flexible technology environment that can effectively match service requirements with the best source — either traditional IT, private cloud, or public cloud.

We'll also talk about HP's new Cloud Protection Program - just announced last week!

Security is one of the greatest concerns hindering organizations from moving to a cloud environment, and it should be integrated into an overall cloud approach at multiple levels. HP offers a comprehensive Cloud Protection Program across people, process, policies and technologies that delivers the comparable level of security for a hybrid cloud as a private internet-enabled IT environment.

HP Cloud Protection Center of Excellence (COE) offers an innovative lab environment that enables HP to test solutions as well as partner and third-party products that support cloud and virtualization protection to provide clients with innovative cloud security solutions.

As a major player in the hardware market, HP has a huge interest in the evolution of the servers that make up the Internet - and the Cloud. In addition, HP has a long history of providing excellent services as well as hardware.

Join us and find out how you can make money with HP's Cloud initiatives.

Register Now. https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/467808952

:-)

Designing and Selling Cloud Services into the 1-20 Desktop Environment

Recorded Audio Program with Slides

by Karl W. Palachuk

90 Minute audio presentation, plus question and answer session.

This is an audio program with the PowerPoint slides in pdf format. Includes one MP3 audio file, one PowerPoint slide deckand one client-facing advertising example. All delivered in one zip file.

How Do You Get Started with Cloud Services?

It can be challenging to offer us the right cloud service offering for small clients. After all, they want a service that's as good as what they're used to with a server. You can't put in a half-baked solution and keep your client happy.

Plus, you need to make sure you get the recurring revenue. So you don't want to sell solutions that pay you $00.36/month for each user while some major corporation earns $9.64/month. You need to own the client. You need to remain the trusted advisor.

Plus, in the long term, you need to manage ALL of the client's technology. Replacing the server is fine, but someone has to tend to routers, firewalls, switches, printers, cabling, battery backups, desktop PCs, monitors, and all the other stuff that lives on site.   

This seminar shows you exactly how to get started, and gives all the details of a plan you can build yourself. It also gives you a successful mindset for designing and building a custom cloud service offering that works for you and your business!

- Only $39.95 - Delivered Electronically

The Opportunity in Cloud Services is Huge

This is especially true in very small businesses.

There are 14.4 million businesses in the United States with 1-25 desktops! That's a huge market.

Learn the strongest attraction for cloud services, and see how you can create products and services designed specifically to address what your prospects are looking for.

Design a recurring revenue model that keeps these people as your clients for the long term. After all, backing up data to the cloud is a commodity offering. You need to have a unique value proposition that keeps your clients loyal to YOU.

Delivered by Karl W. Palachuk, a managed service provider and cloud service provider with more than 16 years in the consulting business. Karl is the host of the Cloud Services Roundtable and has been on the MSP 250 List every year it has been published.

Product Description

Only $39.95

You get . . .

- The Complete Slide Deck

- 90 Minute Presentations Audio plus Q&A Session

- Sample Marketing Flyer for Clients

- Background data on what clients are looking for in cloud services

Money Back Guarantee

If you buy any Books or Seminars from Great Little Book Publishing, we Guarantee your satisfaction - or you get a 100% refund - No Questions Asked!

Start on the Road to Success Today

Order Designing and Selling Cloud Services into the 1-20 Desktop Environment right now and you can improve your business right away!

No matter how long you've an I.T. Consultant, this seminar will provide you with lots of great new information . . . and a model for profitability!

Thousands of I.T. consultants around the world have used Karl's books and seminar to improve their businesses and adopt a Managed Services Model with success.

Order Now !

Only $39.95

We get email.

Awhile back, Ben M. sent me a question.

I don’t see how anyone can run a company just by reselling cloud computing to small and medium businesses, when there really isn’t much support needed. Once it’s setup, let’s face it, maybe a couple of people may have an issue here or their but long term, do you really think we can provide a service that people/companies will pay for? If so how do you envision that?

The key thing to remember is that we're migrating into a transaction based economy. Managed Service is a huge step in this direction. Cloud services is our opportunity to take this to the next level. (By "us" and "our" I mean computer consultants, managed service providers, I.T. Professionals.)

IF you start with the premise that you only talk to or work with clients when the have a problem, that's called break/fix work. When something breaks, you fix it.

If you start with the premise that clients are break/fix, then the cloud is bad news for you on two fronts. First, your clients will have fewer problems and therefore buy fewer hours. Second, the smallest businesses will move to the cloud faster than anyone else (because it makes the most sense for them), so you won't have any customers very soon.

Yikes.

Now, if you start with the premise that your clients want to have someone manage their technology so they can spend more time and energy running the profitable business they're in, that's called managed service. Managed services and cloud services are best friends! See this article I wrote on the Doyenz Blog.

In a nutshell, here's how we make money on clients with cloud services:

1) We sell them those cloud services. I've written many times about our cloud 5-pack. Excruciating details are available in my recorded seminars and in the member area of Cloud Services Roundtable. Basically, we sell a bundle of

- Storage
- Email
- Backup
- Anti-Virus
- Spam Filtering
- SharePoint
- Patch Management (RMM)

. . . for $249/month for up to five users.

2) We sell a managed service component on top of that. This means we'll cover the maintenance of the operating system and software for up to five users for $249/month.

3) For those who need/want local on-site storage, we provide a "server lite" box for $100/month or sometimes $200/month, depending on how beefy it needs to be.

Remember what I said about transactions? This is a transaction based economy. That means the credit card goes DING! every month. On the first of every month, we get $249 + $249 for our smallest customers. That's about $5,976 USD per year.

For the average 10-user client with a server lite, we get twice that, plus $1,200 for the server. Total: $13,152 USD per year.

Interestingly enough, this is almost exactly what we makes on managed services with a client who has a server on site. In most cases, however, we've discovered that the service tickets for cloud service clients are mostly minor, easy things. Taking Exchange out of house seems to have made a lot of problems go away. I'm not sure exactly why, but that seems to be the case.

And what about Adds, Moves, and Changes? Well, they aren't covered under our regular Managed Service plan and they're not covered under the Cloud Service plan. So all that little stuff is billable by the hour, just as it was before. Everything that's not "maintenance" is not covered.

. . .

Your plan will vary, of course. Your prices will be different.

But the point is: You make money by NOT engaging in the break/fix model and praying that your clients' computers break. You make money by managing your clients' computers and technology.

The key, as always, is to set up regular recurring monthly payments. Provide superb service, and the client will always be happy to have you helping them to make their business run smoothly!

:-)

Recorded Audio Download

"Making Money in the Small Business Cloud"

Learn about the best tools and services to combine in your cloud service offering.

Only $249.95
On sale now: Only $199!

With Karl W. Palachuk
        Small Business Consultant, Trainer, Host of the Cloud Services Roundtable

This four hour program includes four sessions of recorded audio with slide decks and related handouts. We focus entirely on moving into cloud services AND making money while doing it.

Among other things, we talk about . . .

• Specific offerings you can use to make money
• Marketing and promotion
• The effect on your personnel and operations
• The practical side of building your own, reselling others' solutions, and simply being an agent for another product
• How to restructure what you do for greater success in the cloud
• and more!

    Many of us have made a living selling, installing, and maintaining Microsoft's Small Business Server. But now as we begin to integrate cloud services we need to figure out how to make that transition in an order - and profitable manner.

- - - - -

About Karl:

Karl W. Palachuk is the founder and CEO of KPEnterprises, a technology consulting firm focused on the SMB market in Sacramento, CA. He has experience running support services for companies from one person to some of the largest companies in the world. As a leader in the development of network documentation and managed services, Karl is a very popular speaker in the SMB Consulting Space. KPEnterprises was founded in 1995, but Karl has been working with computers and "the internet" since 1982.

Karl is also the host of The Cloud Services Roundtable, a broadcast/podcast dedicated to spreading information about cloud services to the SMB Community.

:-)

After two years of producing the Cloud Services Roundtable podcasts, we're going to implement some changes to provide more information and better information to you starting in January 2012.

There's an old truism on college campuses that you should pave the pathways where the students walk. Many schools build beautiful, new "quad" areas with sidewalks all the way around. Immediately, students begin cutting across diagonally. Eventually, there's a big muddly path across the grass. And eventually the university figures out that they need to pave that pathway.

Well, I've got the same situation going on with my podcasts. More and more people are paying the small monthly fee to access the resources I've got posted up at CloudServicesRoundtable.com, and fewer and fewer people are listening to the live broadcasts.

When we started podcasting (four years ago!), the listenership grew so fast that we kept running out of phone lines. We bought 100, then 200, then 300. Finally, we settled on a system that allows us to have 1,000 listeners at once. We have only stressed that system once in four years.

But the trend is very clear: Very few people want to listen to the live podcasts (or it's inconvenient, or the bad timing, or not a high priority, or whatever). People aren't listening live.

At the same time, more people subscribe to the downloadable podcast all the time.

So here's what we have planned for 2012:

First, we are going to eliminate the live broadcast. No more "First and Third Wednesday" podcast from Karl.

The live broadcast limits what I can do on Wednesdays and takes a certain amount of resources on our end to provide the phone lines that are used only twice a month. If 300 people were still showing up each week, that would be different.

Second, I'm going to produce a lost more mini-audio programs. In addition to the hour-long interviews and product profiles, I'm going to start interviewing people for shorter podcasts and posting them up for members only. In addition to audio programs, we'll be posting up more white papers and how-to articles with all the accompanying slide decks and supporting materials.

Here's What Will Change for You

So what does this mean for you? Basically, you can expect more great information and audio programming from Cloud Services Roundtable in the year ahead.

I'll kick it off with my annual "State of the Nation" show on January 4th, which will be my last live broadcast.

After that, we'll create some special vendor areas where you can download specific information on products and strategies. We'll include recorded webinars and audio interviews whenever possible.

I welcome your feedback on what we've been doing and where we should go next. In the meantime, I thank you for your support and look forward to a totally new kind of Cloud Services Roundtable in the year ahead.

:-)