Meet Tom Schrader of Competitive Arts!

Tell us a little about your MSP…

Competitive Arts Inc is located in Green Bay, WI.  Founded in 2005, we have been serving the Green Bay and Fox River Valley area for over 15 years.

How long have you been a member of The 20?

 We’ve been a member of the 20 for about a year and a half. 

Why did your MSP originally look to partner with The 20?

Joining The 20 was a very easy decision.  For years, we had grown organically through nothing more than referrals.  When we decided we wanted to grow at a faster pace, it just made sense to join The 20 so that we could bring scale to the technical side and marketing expertise to the business side.

Tell us about the biggest change in your business since joining The 20.

Since joining The 20, we have grown the depth of our relationships with our existing clients.  The pool of products we access and the increased knowledge pool across a fantastic membership base has taken us from being a trusted resource for our clients to an invaluable resource.

What do you like most about being a member of The 20?

The sense of community we get as a member of The 20 is inestimable.  Being able to get advice from other members on all aspects of running a business is phenomenal and more than a little unique.

What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?

I believe the most important quality when striving for success is persistence.  There will be events that can be hard to push through, but the persistence to push past is how success is achieved.

What are your biggest business challenges?

The biggest challenge for us will always be embracing change.  Whether we are talking about adoption of industry standards or business practices, adaptation is the path to moving forward.  The challenge is in deciding to not sit back and continue on the same way as in the past.

What are your areas of focus for 2021?

For Competitive Arts, 2021 will continue to focus on growth.  Growing the business helps bring about new challenges and these challenges keep us sharp and let us provide for our existing clients in ways that may not have been evident previously.

What advice would you share with an MSP looking to scale their business?

No one is an expert in everything.  Experience is the most expensive way to buy anything.  Rely on trusted advisors who have been there and overcame.

What book are you currently reading?

Business Made Simple by Donald Miller and From a Certain Point of View (a collection of Star Wars short stories)

Favorite blogs/podcasts

Interested in becoming a member like Competitive Arts? Click here for more information!

Meet Bianca Rochell, Sr. Tier 1 Support Desk Technician

Bianca Rochell quickly became a tremendous asset to the entire team at The 20. Read below to find out more about Rochell.

What do you do here at The 20?

Support Desk Tech

Describe The 20 in three words…

Fun Tech Company

As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? 

I wanted to be and do everything I am capable of doing, accomplishing as much as possible.

What’s the most challenging thing about your job? 

The most challenging thing about the job is not being able to help every person like I would like to. Sometimes, we just have to let go and let someone else help, but I love finding resolutions.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? 

Owning a successful business

What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success? 

The most important quality of your success is within you. When we step out of our own way and let go of the fears that keep us from being great, we can accomplish amazing things and inspire others to do so.

What do you like most about The 20? 

I love being able to dress casually and having a pretty laid back environment.

What do you like to do in your spare time? / What are your hobbies? 

I love playing, producing, and mixing music, practicing yoga, learning as much as I can, and spending time with loved ones.

Where are you going on your next vacation?

Somewhere with see-through turquoise water and white sand

What’s your top life hack?

Interested in working with Bianca at The 20? We’re hiring! Check out our Careers page for more info.

Does the thought of a Zoom webinar bore you? What about a virtual happy hour or some other event which more often than not just feels forced and awkward? It would be a lie to say that something doesn’t change when you move an event from being physical to being digital, but that doesn’t mean the change is always for the worse. Digital events require someone to facilitate them and keep them on the rails enough to not fall into chaos, but organic enough they don’t get stiff.

When you facilitate an event, you have to take into account the presenters (who’s speaking, which may include the organizer), the audience (who’s listening), and the environment (where the event takes place). You’re not selling out on tickets to a death metal concert at a retirement home, and you’re not putting on a concert outdoors near an airport. The big difference between a physical and digital event is the control you have over how the audience can interact and your control over the environment.

A fun environment where people can interact even if the presenters or hosts aren’t that interesting is going to be more memorable than a stuffy event which was just okay. An amazing lecture in a drab, boring room is just as exciting to the right audience as a party in a fun environment. Each factor is important, but not every factor is relevant for every scenario.

What Makes a Webinar Exciting?

A webinar doesn’t really have an environment associated with it. Your presenters and your audience are sitting in their homes, in a cubicle, or in an office (alone or with a group). Each person is in their own bubble away from others (as a whole). You lose control of the environment which means you have to more than make up for it with the content and targeting the right audience.

A webinar is exciting when the content is relevant and the audience can connect with others (be they the presenters or each other). Exciting content in the wrong package for the wrong audience is just as bad as boring content which is dressed to impress. There has to be the right kind of energy to excite the audience and keep the whole show moving.

Traditional conferences and master classes are about getting access to information, but also about interacting with the people who hold said information. Everyone is going to have a different level of understanding going in. You don’t go to a master class to just listen, you’re trying to get an answer to something. The lecturer may answer that something, but if they don’t, you’re going to want to interact and ask.

An exciting webinar is going to work within the confines of what it is. You can’t provide the same environment so you have to keep the show moving. You need to maintain the energy, and you need to make it interactive enough that people don’t feel they may as well watch it on YouTube.

Staying on Track

Your webinar is like a chemistry experiment, even if you control for every part of the process, things can (and probably will) still go a different direction. A good chemist will plan first, but react accordingly when the reaction doesn’t go as planned. There’s not much you can do if the raw ingredients are wrong though.

A good organizer is going to help keep the participants on track, and the audience engaged. When an event is interactive, it runs the risk of being derailed down line after line of tangent. Many organizers cut out the interactiveness or otherwise limit it, which can dampen the energy of the whole event though. The event goes from trying to be a digital conference to a plain lecture. While this can work with some scenarios, it ruins the experience for others.

To stay on track, plan for interactions and plan for questions; have multiple lines you can take a topic without it diverging from a planned direction. What questions do you anticipate from the material which you’re presenting? Get a feel for what would be most likely to come up and prepare a way to address each possibility without letting the webinar drift off course.

Have a general plan, but don’t try to plan every single detail. Prepare for what the webinar covers, and prepare for where it can go. If you plan too rigidly, you’ll choke the life out of your webinar when the wrong question or wrong contribution pops up. Moving the interactions to the end can help, but what happens when you have multiple contributors building off of each other? What about with a multi-part series?

Retaining the Human Element

Unless your webinar is a lecture series, you need to retain some form of interactivity to keep the human element intact. People don’t just visit conferences to listen and learn, they also go to interact and mingle, to make new connections and network. The nature of events changes when they go digital, so the nature of how you foster this human element has to change with it.

A digital event is binary for interactions, either you’re able to interact or you’re not, while a physical event tends to be more analog. When in a physical place, you’re going to have more opportunities to bump into someone and get talking. The shared space and the shared goal leads to more natural ad hoc connections. You can’t easily offer this in digital events (though people try with things like Second Life or other VR solutions), but you can offer something different which can scratch the same itch.

Involving the Audience

Personalize certain sessions, give your audience an opportunity to talk to you or your fellow presenters and participants. It doesn’t have to be throughout the entire event, but it should cover at least a portion. One way to consider handling this is to have multiple groups of presenters which can round robin open sessions. This provides the opportunity to split up the audience into smaller groups which can be more involved with the presenters.

You don’t get the same effect you get with an in person event, but you give a chance for people to interact with their presenters and ask the pertinent questions they may not ask (or get the chance to ask) in front of a huge group. Done right, you can put people from similar industries together or some other tiering to provide “group sessions”. Open group channels which are open at certain times can also spurn camaraderie, but it can also be a recipe for disaster. You have to know your audience to know how these solutions will work out.

How can you facilitate involvement with the audience and for the audience? More personalized access to presenters can be a huge boon, but only if you know everyone will prepare accordingly. The subject your webinar covers and the industry (or field) its in will affect what is going to work. If you’re in something like IT, large groups are usually going to be a bit awkward in person, but smaller groups may open up.

Larger groups online tend to be more awkward than larger groups in person. You can whisper to a person next to you at an event, but it’s harder digitally. Keep this in mind when planning for a webinar with any kind of interaction.

Putting It All Together

A webinar needs to have a human element or else it loses its energy. This human element is going to require interaction and flexibility. Keep in mind, you don’t have all of the same resources you would be able to rely on with a physical event. How can you facilitate an organic experience for your audience through a different medium?

The answer to this question is going to depend on the purpose of the webinar and your industry or field. Why are you putting on a webinar? What is its purpose and what is your audience looking to get from it?

Once you can answer these questions, you can work in ways to prepare for the unexpected and make your webinar an interactive experience more in line with a physical event rather than something which may as well be a YouTube lecture. Allow questions and input which will provide value to the audience member asking, and to the whole group.

People will be coming in at different knowledge levels and with different understandings of the topic. Give them a way to get what they need at their level without running off into countless tangents. Prepare the material so that you can move naturally down the path you’re given without planning so rigidly you can’t get a little off course.

Don’t just try to open the flood gates on your first rodeo. Build up to a more interactive approach in stages rather than just trying to jump in head first. A truly open session is going to be chaos unless its planned for. As you find ways to facilitate a higher energy and more interactive rapport between your presenters and your audience, you’ll find ways to shape your sessions around what a good presenter would do within the medium at play rather than just trying to turn a physical event into an online one.

Meet Clare Davis, Account Manager

Clare Davis quickly became a tremendous asset to the entire team at The 20. Read below to find out more about Clare.

What do you do here at The 20?

I work with our awesome MSP partners as an account manager!

Describe The 20 in three words…

Supportive, visionary, agile.

As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? 

A popstar!

What’s the most challenging thing about your job? 

Striking a balance between individual desires vs. collective needs.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? 

Every year of my life has been better than the last.

What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success? 

Resilience

What do you like most about The 20? 

The people and the vision.

What do you like to do in your spare time? / What are your hobbies? 

Spend time with family and friends, travel, music, and be outdoors!

Where are you going on your next vacation?

Probably another wedding. ????

What’s your top life hack?

Interested in working with Clare at The 20? We’re hiring! Check out our Careers page for more info.

By: Crystal McFerran | CMO, The 20
Originally shared via Forbes

How you run your marketing process determines how it nurtures the rest of your company. Marketing traditionally feeds sales, but it also helps with ongoing retention and expectations. Your marketing team is going to help you provide your customers with a way in, but it is also going to help keep them coming back and keep them happy. The right perception can make a mistake an issue, but not a problem.

Marketing and sales should act like a well-run kitchen. Your marketing team determines which raw ingredients make it to the sales team to be baked into a final product. Sometimes, you’re going to get something bad in the shipment. It doesn’t matter how good the marketing efforts are if your sales team can’t make use of the leads that are generated.

Avoid trying to filter sludge for water. Don’t just blindly burn money, and don’t let the process get overcomplicated. Marketing requires creative adaptation, so we can’t get caught up in what we should do, as it is ever-changing. Certain things are showstoppers no matter what, though.

Don’t filter sludge for water.

Some leads just aren’t that good. Not every lead has the same potential to become something of value. Throw out your obvious junk and grime before it damages your process. Even if you can filter it out, you still waste your time and resources the longer it takes to toss out the obvious no-go’s.

When you have marketing parties, don’t invite your dead-end leads. Each one of them isn’t only a waste of money; it’s also a potential liability. Don’t advertise to the leads you know aren’t going anywhere. If you target medium businesses and larger, you’re not going to put out an ad for companies you know have fewer than 10 employees. How much juice are you going to squeeze from rotten fruit? Even if you do get juice, are you really going to want to drink it?

Don’t burn money.

Marketing costs you money, and even if you use a wide net, someone still has to sort what it brings in, clean it and maintain it to keep the process going. You’ll catch something in a lake with no fish, but it likely won’t be anything you need. This burns time and money sorting out things that you don’t want.

By filtering the junk before you start spending real money, you can throw out the opportunities that aren’t really opportunities. Leads are like relationships: Some of them are toxic, and you won’t want to deal with them. Don’t waste money expecting them to change.

The marketing funnel starts with general awareness, and then you foster interest. But how much desire is there at that point? Your prospective lead can be all over the place for this process, so how much are they worth to you? If you know there is desire, it can be worth spending resources. But if they just want to browse, do you break out the samples and the goodwill, or do you wait to see what develops?

You need to gauge their interest in your company before you break out the fine china. Are they a good fit, and are they going to be willing to sign up? If not, how much does your sales team want new leads, and how much will it do to try to woo them?

Don’t overcomplicate the process.

A great campaign requires a lot of work and a lot of coordination to make it function, but you can’t let it get overcomplicated. How do you prevent the funnel from getting clogged, and how much safety do you put into the process? The irony here is that you don’t want your filter to be perfect.

The more complicated and error-proof the process, the less likely it is for your organic process to shake loose the mediocre leads. It’s OK if a little bit of junk makes it into the main filter, and it’s OK if a few good leads fall off if it keeps the process simple. A simple process tends to be more agile and adjustable.

When the process gets too complicated, it’s likely to break from the first adjustment that isn’t planned. The real world isn’t perfect; something will go wrong with your campaign. You just need to know that and be ready to change course to fix it. The less baggage you heap, the easier it is to adjust.

Sales is also responsible for helping you filter leads. Let them have the lead (or at least the data about the lead) sooner than later. They may know that a company isn’t a good fit for reasons that can’t be measured by your marketing campaign. Don’t intrude on their part of the process without a good reason, or you may hurt both campaigns.

Take the next steps. 

Marketing is the first filter for your company’s sales. Don’t let the wrong things in the filter; don’t burn money, and don’t overcomplicate the process. When you prevail over these issues, you can work to make the campaigns generate more leads during the initial steps — and better leads during the later steps.

You need to work with your sales team to shape your goals and purpose for each campaign. If you are targeting new clients and your sales team is targeting upsells, you are working against sales, and they are working against you. Figure out what the bigger picture is, and make your efforts synergistic rather than antagonistic. Help them get the best ingredients so they can make the best meals.

Interested in The 20’s Marketing Program? Become a member.

Meet Matt Jones of Freedom Tech!

Tell us a little about your MSP…

Freedom Tech was established in 2011 in Rural Harnett County, NC – but is now headquartered in Raleigh with additional locations in Fuquay-Varina, Chapel Hill, Fayetteville, Lillington, & Southern Pines, NC.

How long have you been a member of The 20?

 We’ve been a member of the 20 for about 4 months.

Why did your MSP originally look to partner with The 20?

Without customer service, you have nothing. Yes, we answer our phones live, but if our reception team couldn’t get an available tech at that moment, customers often felt they needed to make more calls or send more messages, usually to me. I’ve lost clients in the past solely because I couldn’t be in 3 places at once. We want our customers to have the ability to reach a technician any time they pick up the phone.

 

Tell us about the biggest change in your business since joining The 20.

Full Confidence to scale, knowing our customers will be under-promised, and over supported with the team on the help desk always ready to help. Now it doesn’t matter if the client as 1 computer, or 1,000 – I don’t have to worry, know we’ll take care of them, and I don’t have to find additional staff to do it.

What do you like most about being a member of The 20?

Our excitement & anticipation for the future. We’re now part of a team & collective that isn’t just hoping to help & grow the industry, but we’re doing it! A lot of IT Company’s are sitting around wishing, but The 20 is taking massive action to ensure we get where we want and need to be. Not later, NOW!. And the best part, there’s room for more on the journey.

What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?

You have to be willing to take massive action. Period. Wether it’s lead gen, sales, or scaling. You have to take action this very second.

What are your biggest business challenges?

Honestly, lead gen is our weakest link currently. I can sell, I can fix – our lead gen pipeline is the area we’re working on more now.

What are your areas of focus for 2021?

 Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales. – The Core: Lead Gen + Sales + Scale.

What advice would you share with an MSP looking to scale their business?

Stop letting your pride, your family, your head trash, or whatever else keep you stuck. I promise you, if you’re looking for a team that isn’t stuck, The 20 is it.

What book are you currently reading?

Scaling Up by Verne Harnish & Leadership Strategy & Tactics by Jocko Willink

Favorite blogs/podcasts

Interested in becoming a member like Freedom Tech? Click here for more information!

The 20 Announces Partnership with Liongard

Companies see future of MSP growth in standardization, scalability 

Houston, TX, DATE, 2021 — Liongard, an automation platform for managed services providers (MSPs), today announced a new partnership with The20, a business development group for MSPs. Through the agreement, The 20’s partners now have access to Liongard’s platform, which enables MSPs to automatically document, audit and secure their clients’ systems from cloud and network to on-premise environments and beyond as they keep pace with ever-changing IT requirements.

“To keep pace with constantly evolving IT requirements, we are excited to offer Liongard to MSPs,” said Tim Conkle, CEO of The 20. “Liongard’s trusted platform enables MSPs to have greater visibility into how their systems are managed. With its capabilities, the solution gives our members a competitive edge.” 

Benefits of Liongard 

The Liongard platform features trusted, automated documentation with Inspectors and Integrations to track historical changes and keep all documentation up to date to save time and increase productivity for MSPs.  

• Custom, Actionable Alerts eliminate reactive responses so MSPs can stay ahead of issues. 
• Robust Reporting features the historical configuration data and can be exported and shared in 1-click for easy customer reports.  
• Unified Visibility delivered across the stack by mission critical Inspectors pulling data from more than 50 systems, and a growing number of Integrations, including Hudu, AutoTask, ITGlue, Connectwise and Kaseya BMS.  

“We are thrilled to partner with The 20,” said Casey Higgins, Director of Channel and Alliances at Liongard. “Both of our companies believe standardization can help secure and scale MSPs, and I’m excited for the growth opportunities this provides for our industry.” 

For more information about Liongard, visit liongard.com or request a demo.   

About Liongard 
Named Houston’s fastest-growing company of 2020, Liongard has defined a new segment focused on unified visibility through automated data aggregation. With automated discovery, Actionable Alerts, documentation and rich reporting capabilities, Liongard unleashes MSP teams to operate at 10x, optimizing their resources and more effectively serving their clients. Known for their user-centric design and constant innovation, Liongard is setting a new precedent for MSP vendors. Their platform’s nimble implementation enables teams to integrate automated documentation into their existing workflows for faster insight across all managed systems. To learn more or to request a free demo, visit liongard.com.  

About The 20
The 20 The 20 is an exclusive business development group for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) aimed at dominating and revolutionizing the IT industry with its standardized all-in-one approach. The 20’s robust RMM, PSA, and documentation platform ensures superior service for its MSPs’ clients utilizing their completely US-based Help Desk and Network Operations Center. Extending beyond world-class tools and processes, The 20 touts a proven sales model, a community of industry-leaders, and ultimate scalability. For more information, visit: https://www.the20.com. 

In celebration of Women’s History Month, we wanted to take the opportunity to recognize the women who have impacted the technology industry. The following women have impacted this industry over the years and this list is only a fraction of the influential female leaders in technology.  

Ada Lovelace, First Computer Programmer   

Elizabeth Feinler, Pioneer of the Internet  

Donna Dubinsky, Creator of Digital Assistants 

Hedy Lamar, The Mind Behind Secure Wi-fi, GPS and Bluetooth 

Grace Hopper, Esteemed Computer Scientist 

Radia Perlman, The Mother of the Internet  

“If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.” -Dolly Parton
 

As we celebrate and acknowledge these women, we want to assure women that they will always have a seat in the world of technology. A huge thank you to these women for their contributions and their impact in today’s world!  

Want to join some of the amazing women here at The 20? Apply now!  

Meet Matthew Ledbetter, Live Call Team Lead

Today we turn the spotlight on Matthew Ledbetter. Matthew quickly became a tremendous asset to the entire team at The 20. Read below to find out more about Matthew.

What do you do here at The 20?

Live Call Lead

Describe The 20 in three words…

Teamwork, Respect, FUN

As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? 

Growing up, I wanted to be a band director.

 

What’s the most challenging thing about your job? 

Learning the process. 

What do you consider your greatest achievement? 

Marine boot camp.

What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success? 

Networking and asking questions.

What do you like most about The 20? 

I like that everyone treats each other with respect. 

What do you like to do in your spare time? / What are your hobbies? 

I enjoy arcade games, playing fetch with my dog, and spending time with my family. 

Where are you going on your next vacation?

Go on a cruise!

What’s your top life hack?

Never stop learning, 

Interested in working with Matthew at The 20? We’re hiring! Check out our Careers page for more info.