Last week was a lot of work and too little sleep, but I have to admit, I love attending ITNation. This was my fourth ITNation, and my second participating as a sponsor with Managed Sales Pros. With so many changes to the event this year, the biggest one being the venue change, I think everyone walked in wondering if it would be the same event we have come to know and love.
Like all trade shows, ITNation is really what you make of it. You can grumble that there aren’t enough seats on the patio, or you can go network inside. You can complain about how far apart your hotel room and the sessions are, or you can budget some extra time to walk there. Personally, I didn’t enjoy the parties this year, but I didn’t really come to party. (Don’t get me wrong, we definitely spent some time partying!) Previously, as an attendee, I went to ITNation to learn as much as I could about the industry. As a sponsor, I attend for brand recognition, prospecting, and most importantly, I go to check in with my current client base and connect with people I know and love. How often can you meet with dozens of your clients in one week? That’s our WHY for attending ITNation, so at the end of the day if that patio is crowded or the music at the party is ridiculous, well, it doesn’t really matter.
With extremely limited time available to me, the only session I attended was the Day 2 Keynote with Marcus Lemonis, from The Profit. I heard mixed reviews throughout the day afterwards. Personally, I loved this incredibly intense and very human talk. I am not ashamed to admit that it hit me hard enough that I was in tears. Marcus shared freely the struggles he’s experienced personally, and invited others in the audience to do the same. There was an enormous vulnerability in the room. He encouraged the audience to share their fears – both personal and professional – and people did. And for an hour the entire ITNation was deeply connected. It was more interesting and enjoyable to me than the usual “get better at business” keynote, and I thought this talk threaded itself gorgeously into the final day of ITNation. The conversations I was privy to that day were more personal, more engaged, more gentle. People were open and connected. It’s easy for us all to meet in Orlando once a year and drink too much and celebrate our successes of the previous year. It’s harder to show up and talk about what was really difficult for you that year, what you are struggling with, how you feel about yourself and your business. As an entrepreneur, I often feel terminally unique. What a great reminder this was that I’m not going through anything my peers aren’t going through, or haven’t gone through or will go through. To those of you that took the time to chat with me after the event about what YOUR fears are, and what you’re going to do differently when you get back to the office, and who took some time to listen to mine, I just want to say thank you and let you know that I feel privileged to be in your lives.
It was exciting to see three of our clients – ITGlue, Datto and OpenDNS take home awards. Maybe they’ll let us hold one. I’m in San Francisco now, and visiting OpenDNS today. If the award goes missing, you saw nothing. Got it?
One of the things I like most about ITNation is finding new vendors wandering the hallways, chatting up their new ideas. Most of these new startups are founded by former MSP owners and employees, who are eager to share how they helped their MSP succeed, and want to help other MSPs replicate their success. I met two such founders this week. The first, Ryan Suchit, has launched a marketing-as-a-service company for MSPs. His previous marketing experience included time spent learning and executing most of the big, well-known MSP sales and marketing guru systems, and he has taken the pieces that have worked best for their company out of all of those programs and created a program that he can launch and, most importantly, manage for MSPs. There are a lot of MSP marketing companies out there right now, but MSPs may want to pay special attention to this one. I like working with new companies – they’re hungry, and they’re flexible. Check out Ryan’s new company, Managed Marketer at www.managedmarketer.com
The other new company I’m interested in hearing more about over the next year was founded by former MSP owner Garrison Strickland from Nashville, TN. Garrison recently exited successfully from his MSP business, and as he describes it, wanted to focus on what he feels is the single biggest challenge facing MSPs right now – and that is the lack of intentional corporate culture. We’re keeping an eye on this one, as it’s something we’ve seen as well – many MSPs claim they have trouble attracting and keeping talent – could lack of culture be the missing link? We think he’s on to something. Stay tuned.
Now for the stuff you really came here for: Who won the #coffeeisforclosers Apple Watches? Our first winner is Jon Stagman from Pantheon Computers who posted their coffee mug to Twitter for our “Coffee is For Closers” contest. Your Apple Watch is in the mail. Thanks so much for participating in our contest!
Next, our on-site booth visitor winner was Brad Cicero from Allied Technology Group LLC. Thanks for dropping by to chat with us about your lead gen requirements. Your Apple Watch is on its’ way! Thanks for coming by for some coffee at ITNation, and I hope you enjoy your new prize. Tracie Orisko and I each picked one up as we selected our prizes, and so far the only thing we use it for is to send each other doodles. Technology!
This is the last event on the Managed Sales Pros calendar for 2015. What a year it was! Now we get a few months at home to focus on getting ready for the 2016 calling season. A reminder: we are geographically exclusive and we are limited in the number of campaigns we launch monthly, so if you are considering a campaign with us, it is first come, first served.
We launched a few new products and services at ITNation, including online prospecting training. Want to sell like the pros? Our next five week MSP prospecting series starts December 01, and is led by yours truly. Give us five weeks and 25 hours of your time, we’ll have you scheduling more sales meetings with qualified prospects. Spaces are limited, and this is the perfect program to get you focused on 2016. Learn more about it and reserve your spot here: https://www.managedsalespros.com/online-msp-prospecting-training-q4-2015/