Never Too Late

The Story of One Woman’s Incredible IT Journey

Growing up, Patricia Ordóñez was always good at math.

One day, a teacher who’d noticed Patricia’s abilities pulled her aside and asked her to work on special, more advanced math problems during recess. That was a nice moment for Patricia — even if it meant missing out on recess!

Fast forward to the ’80s. Patricia’s a first-year student at Johns Hopkins University with plans to study computer science or electrical engineering. She signs up for an intro course, and, in a class filled mostly with male students, finds the courage to ask a question. The professor looks at her and says six words that Patricia will always remember: “You should know that by now.”

Patricia was a bit behind her classmates because they grew up with personal computers, and she didn’t. This wasn’t her fault, but that didn’t make her professor’s words sting any less.

If this were a movie, this would be the part where Patricia studies really hard to catch up to her classmates, prove her professor wrong, and earn an ‘A.’ But it’s no movie; it’s a true story. Patricia studies hard, but ends up with the first ‘C’ of her life. She drops the program and switches her major to foreign languages.

Now, this might seem like an odd story to share during Women’s History Month, which is supposed to be about celebrating women’s achievements. But remember, it’s also about recognizing women’s struggles. Plus, there’s more to Patricia’s story, so keep reading till the end …

Our Stories

The theme of Women’s History Month this year is “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories.” Notice that it’s our stories, not their stories. Women’s stories are human stories — everyone’s stories. The lessons they contain hold universal value. Take Patricia’s story …

Mentors Matter

Did Patricia decide to take a computer science course in college simply because one teacher once asked her to do math during recess? Probably not, but it’s not a stretch to think that her experience in grade school played a part. Being recognized, encouraged, seen — these things matter. Patricia’s experience reminds us: when someone — a teacher, parent, coach, whoever — takes you under their wing, it can have a monumental impact.

So, to all the women out there pursuing, or thinking about pursuing, a career in IT (or any other STEM field), seek out mentors. This is common advice for good reason: mentors rock!

Did you know …

Women who were mentored are 27% more likely to remain in tech than women who weren’t mentored.

It’s Important to Know How When to Take Negative Feedback

Google “advice for women in tech” and you’re bound to run into a familiar bit of wisdom: Learn how to take criticism, negative feedback, etc.

This isn’t bad advice per se. Being successful in the fast-moving and ever-changing IT world means staying curious. Staying curious means trying new things. Trying new things means sometimes failing. If you can’t take criticism, you’re going to have a tough time in the IT space, regardless of your gender.

That said, there are times when it’s better not to take negative feedback — times when it’s better to ignore criticism altogether.

Take Patricia, for instance. She would have been better off tuning out her professor’s unkind words. Of course that’s easier said than done, but the point remains: sometimes it’s a good idea to reject or ignore criticism, especially when that criticism is coming from a place of anger, superiority, impatience, etc.

When it comes to feedback, a quote from Bruce Lee proves to be a terrific motto: Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not.

Start Where You Are

Patricia started her college studies without ever having owned a personal computer. This meant she was behind many of her male classmates in terms of computer science knowledge. Her professor, instead of allowing her to start from where she was, shamed her for not being further along. You should know that by now.

This could have been tragic, as it could have prevented Patricia from pursuing her passion for computer science.

This could have been tragic, as it punished Patricia for something that wasn’t her fault — not growing up with her own computer.

This could have been tragic, as it asked Patricia to feel bad about something she couldn’t change, instead of encouraging her to feel optimistic about the future and the things she could change.

This could have been tragic, but it wasn’t, because Patricia’s journey in technology didn’t end in college. More than a decade after taking that intro class, years into a career that had nothing to do with computer science, Patricia got herself a mentor and was accepted by a PhD program in computer science.

Was Patricia behind some of the other doctoral students when she enrolled in the PhD program? Certainly. But this time round, she decided to start where she was, tune out negativity, and commit to continuous learning and improvement. The result?

Dr. Ordóñez is now an associate professor of computer science at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Happy Women’s History Month!

Black Voices in Tech

Three Lessons from Three Key Figures

It’s Black History Month, a time for recognizing, remembering, and celebrating the achievements, struggles, and contributions of black individuals throughout history. Studying black history reminds us of the pivotal roles played by black people in shaping the world as we know it, and this applies as much to the technology fields as it does to any other area.

In this blog post, we will discuss and celebrate three black individuals whose impact on technology is undeniable. The three technologists we’re discussing—Mark Dean, Dr. James E. West, and Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson—are all still alive, and we honor them by not only celebrating their achievements, but also, by drawing ‘lessons for the future’ from their lives and careers.

Mark Dean, Computer Scientist & Engineer

With more than forty patents to his name, computer scientist Mark Dean is the epitome of an innovator. After earning his degree in electrical engineering, Dean joined IBM, where his brilliance and leadership skills landed him the position of chief engineer. Dean flourished in the role; he played a pivotal part on the twelve-person team that created IBM’s first PC, he pioneered the technology behind color PC monitors, and he helped invent the first gigahertz microprocessor.

Dean’s current work aims at nothing less than a total paradigm shift in computing technology. He recently shared that he’s “looking to develop an alternative computing architecture leveraging what we know about neuroscience and brain structures.” This project seeks to “move from a traditional ‘programming’ paradigm to a ‘learning’ paradigm.”

What this brilliant thinker teaches us …

Dean has faced resistance, doubters, and racial discrimination throughout his career, but hasn’t let the naysayers undermine his self-confidence. His strategy for not letting others slow him down: “I ignored the people attempting to block my progress.”

In our age of social media, where so much energy and time is wasted on fighting small battles with strangers online, Dean’s approach to dealing with negativity is something we would all do well to emulate. If you’ve ever met Dean, or watched an interview with him, one of the first things you’ll notice is how happy he seems; always smiling, exuding warmth and enthusiasm, Dean is living proof that attitude is everything on the road to success. Well, maybe not everything—having Dean’s smarts doesn’t hurt either!

Dr. James E. West, Inventor & Acoustician

Good technology makes an immediate impact; great technology makes a lasting one. By this measure, scientist, engineer, and electroacoustics expert Dr. James E. West is responsible for co-inventing something truly great: the electret microphone. The technology, which Dr. West developed as an employee of Bell Labs, revolutionized the audio industry by making high-quality condenser microphones much cheaper to produce. And get this—the invention is still used in 90% of microphones today, a testament to the efficiency and simplicity of Dr. West’s original design.

Not only has Dr. West pioneered game-changing electroacoustic technology, he has also worked relentlessly to promote diversity in STEM. In addition to spending countless hours mentoring, he helped convince Bell Lab’s board of directors to create the Corporate Research Fellowship Program, which funded, mentored, and graduated hundreds of women and minority PhD students.

What this selfless innovator teaches us …

In a recent interview, Dr. West spoke candidly on how his parents felt about his decision to enter the field of physics. “I very definitely disappointed them when I switched my major from pre-med to physics.” You might think that Dr. West resented—or still resents—his parents for disagreeing with his decision to pursue his passion, but that’s not the case at all. In the same interview, Dr. West said, “I can’t blame them, because at that time, preacher/teacher/doctor/lawyer were the main professions blacks were permitted to enter.”

There are really two lessons here. One: Don’t let other people tell you what you can and cannot do—not even your own parents. Two: Not everyone who sees things differently from you is an enemy, or the villain in ‘your story.’ Strive to empathize first and judge second, and if you succeed in your endeavors, don’t let that be an excuse to spurn the people who doubted you. That’s a positively powerful lesson that we can all benefit from!

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, Physicist

Learning from history is great, but sometimes, you have to make history. World-renowned physicist Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson certainly took this tack in her life and career. Dr. Jackson was the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate at MIT, and the second African-American woman in the U.S. to earn a doctorate in physics.

These achievements were just the beginning, as she went on to play a vital role at Bell Laboratories, where she conducted important research on novel semiconductor systems, and helped advance telecommunications research, laying the groundwork for the portable fax, touch-tone phone, and caller ID. She also served as the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and, in 1995, was appointed Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission by President Clinton.

In addition to having one of the most impressive resumes on the planet—the above is just a sampling of her distinctions and achievements!—Dr. Jackson has always had an eye to boosting diversity in the sciences. At MIT, she reflected on how quiet she’d been as an undergraduate, and decided that she needed to speak up on the issues of diversity and racial justice. Her efforts led to the creation of Project Interphase, a summer program that builds community among incoming first-year MIT students who belong to minority groups.

What this fearless trailblazer teaches us …

Dr. Jackson has a heartening message for all of us: “Where you are does not make who you are. And so, you start from where you start.” This is a powerful reminder to keep going, have faith in ourselves, and not let our present circumstances define us. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking: Because I am experiencing X now, or suffering from X now, I am destined to always experience or suffer from X. But more often than not, this simply isn’t true.

So, if you’re feeling stuck, or discouraged by where you’re at, remember Dr. Jackson’s words: Where you are does not make who you are! If your current situation doesn’t reflect your image of yourself, that just means you need time. Be patient, and whatever else you do … KEEP GOING!

Final Thought

Black History Month is as much about looking forward as it is about looking back—learning from the past and applying those lessons to creating a better, more equitable future for all. In this blog post, we looked at three black individuals whose significant contributions to technology continue to reverberate and shape our lives.

It’s interesting, and certainly no coincidence, that all three figures discussed in this post—Mark Dean, Dr. James E. West, and Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson—all share a particular character trait: They believe strongly in themselves, and focus their attention on what helps them advance, and not on the things and people who stand in the way of progress.

So let today be the day you make the choice to invest your time, energy, and attention in things that uplift, help, and inspire you. If we can all do that, we can change the world.

Getting Specific

Four ‘High-Resolution’ Resolutions for Your MSP in 2023

It’s the end of January, that time of year when gyms and produce sections get a little less crowded. Those ‘get in shape’ and ‘eat better’ resolutions are weakening. What was resolved has now all but dissolved, and many of us are right back to our old bad habits.

As an MSP owner, you likely made some New Year’s business resolutions. That’s great! But you know what’s even better? Sticking to those resolutions and actually making the changes you envisioned when the clock struck midnight and you geared up for a big 2023.

In this blog post, we’re going to talk about why people so often fail at keeping their resolutions, and then we’re going to apply what we’ve learned to help you, the MSP owner, form ‘high-resolution’ resolutions you’ll actually stick with.

The Plague of the Vague

It’s easy to form resolutions at the start of a new year, but oh-so-difficult to stick with them. This is partly due to the fact that making a to-do list is a whole lot easier than checking off the items. But there’s more to it than that …

Research shows that less than 10% of adults stick to their New Year’s resolutions for more than a few months. Although that’s not a particularly inspiring statistic, there’s a reason why people fizzle out on their goals — well, multiple reasons, but we’re going to focus on one big one here: specificity.

More precisely, most people set goals that are too big and broad. Instead of resolving to eat salad for lunch three times a week, we aim to “eat healthy” or “lose twenty pounds.” But by choosing the loftier goal, instead of the smaller, more specific goal, we sabotage our chances of success. Why’s that?

Because of how we’re wired! Human beings aren’t good at making radical, sweeping changes. But we do quite well with small, incremental changes. So if you’re already starting to slide on some of the resolutions you made for your MSP in 2023, ask yourself:

Are my goals too broad? Are my resolutions lacking in specificity?

If your resolutions are on the broad side (they probably are), change them to be more specific. To help you out, we’ve taken four New Year’s resolutions that MSPs are likely to pursue, and for each one, chiseled it down to a more manageable and specific form.

We hope these ‘higher-resolution’ resolutions give you a clearer idea of what it means to get specific with your goals.

Higher-Resolution #1 – Leverage Automation Automate Patch Management

Perhaps you resolved to leverage automation in 2023 to propel your MSP forward. Not a bad goal, but a bit vague. Instead, how about resolving to enlist automation in one or two specific areas of your MSP business? Our suggestion: automate patch management if you haven’t done so already.

With 57% of ransomware attacks stemming from unpatched software, patch management is a critical component of your security posture, and a pivotal part of protecting your clients’ data. So don’t depend on the willingness of clients to stay on top of security updates and to do so in a timely manner. Rather, automate the process so that your clients can stay a step ahead of the latest threats without having to lift a finger.

Higher-Resolution #2 – Strengthen Cybersecurity Posture Implement End User Security Awareness Training

According to Verizon, 85% of breaches involve a human element – or more simply, people getting tricked! In short, the weakest link in your MSP’s cybersecurity isn’t a piece of technology; it’s the human beings behind the technology. End users in particular are, with their dangerous downloading and careless clicking, an Achilles heel in even the most robust cybersecurity stack.

The best way to shore up your security, then, is to focus in on the weakest link: the people. Train your clients and your clients’ end users to be on the lookout for cyberattacks, especially phishing emails, which continue to wreak havoc in the business world.

Want to get even more specific? Don’t just resolve to hold training sessions, but schedule them. You can always add more – especially in response to emerging threats – but it’s good to have sessions on the calendar to get the ball rolling.

Higher-Resolution #3 – Invest in Marketing & Sales Publish One Blog Post a Week

MSPs that resolve to prioritize and invest in marketing and sales are on the right track – and a step ahead of many of their competitors. However, committing to marketing and sales is far too broad of a resolution, and we recommend replacing it with a more specific intention. There are so many possibilities for ‘specifying’ your marketing/sales goals, so think about what your MSP needs, and go from there.

But whatever resolutions you make, make them specific. Don’t, for instance, resolve to “boost your MSP’s online presence.” Instead, resolve to “boost your MSP’s online presence through regular blog posting.” Or better yet: “Boost your MSP’s online presence by publishing one blog post per week.”

It doesn’t have to be blog posting, but it has to be something – i.e., something specific that allows you to take actual steps toward bolstering your marketing and sales efforts. A resolution shouldn’t express what you want to achieve, but rather, how you want to achieve it.

Don’t have the time, energy, or expertise to level up your marketing/sales? Consider outsourcing your MSP’s marketing and/or sales efforts to a trusted firm with experience in the IT world. Handing over sales and marketing to professionals can make a world of difference, as many of The 20’s MSP members have learned, like Randy and Bill.

Higher-Resolutions #4 – Cultivate Entrepreneurial Knowledge Set Aside an Hour a Day for Learning & Reading

Did you know Warren Buffett spends five to six hours a day reading? It’s no coincidence that one of the most successful entrepreneurs and investors in human history is such a voracious reader. When it comes to sustained success in business, the name of the game is continuous learning and self-improvement. If you want to build a large and profitable MSP, take a page from Mr. Buffett’s book and set aside time each day to read, learn, and develop new skills.

The key here is to schedule it. Don’t just resolve to “read more” or “learn more”. Instead, schedule an hour (or whatever chunk of time is realistic for you) dedicated to your own intellectual growth. Your mind is your most powerful business asset, so keep it sharp in 2023 with a steady diet of written word and other educational content.

And for some good reading recommendations, check out this blog post.

Final Thought

Setting small goals isn’t as exciting as shooting for the stars, but it’s a lot more effective. If you can scale down your ambitions into bite-sized resolutions, your chances of actually sticking with your commitments go up dramatically.

And what is exciting is making real progress. So if there’s another piece of advice we have for MSP owners, it’s to track your progress. Measuring your progress provides that crucial feedback you need to stay motivated and engaged. And it’s like

Pearson’s Law (generally attributed to its namesake, the late statistician Karl Pearson) says: When performance is measured, performance improves.

Gearing up for a big 2023? Looking to grow and scale like never before? We encourage you to check out The 20. We help small and medium-sized MSPs grow, scale, and compete with much larger companies. Learn more about our game-changing approach to MSP growth here or schedule a call.

Meet Thaiza Patrone, Customer Success Manager!

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

What do you do here at The 20?

I’m a Customer Success Manager which I always describe as being the Quarterback for MSPs, they let me know what needs doing and I work with our team to get it done.

Describe The 20 in three words…

more, better, faster

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

The first job I wanted was to be a veterinarian.

What’s the most challenging thing about your job?

Finding solutions that work well for the MSPs and work well internally. This is also one of the most fun parts of my job because I love creative problem-solving.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Being a first-generation American, my family has always had to figure things out on our own and I’m really proud of how independent I am and being able to provide for my family the way I do.

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

Grit. Without a doubt, being able to continue to pick yourself up after you fail is what determines success.

What do you like most about The 20?

The people here genuinely care about each other and constantly hunger to learn and grow.

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

I love to read (fiction and non-fiction), work out, play video games, and do DIY projects around the house

Where are you going on your next vacation?

My fiancé and I are planning to take our honeymoon in Tokyo!

What is your top life hack?

Keyboard snippets! I tell everyone who types to use some sort of app or program (Macs have them in their keyboard settings) that lets you turn abbreviations into full phrases or templates. Huge time saver!

What are your favorite movies?

Moulin Rouge, Harry Potter Movies, The Batman (the new one with Robert Pattinson), and pretty much every Disney Movie.

Favorite artist/band?

I adore Taylor Swift, Panic! at the Disco, Billie Eilish, and J Balvin – according to my Spotify Wrapped

What is your favorite food?

It’s hard for me to find a food I don’t like, but I could eat at a Brazilian steakhouse for every meal of the day.

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

From Good to Great: Three Differences Separating Elite MSPs from Everyone Else

You run an MSP, and it’s a good MSP. And that’s great — no, wait, it’s not great. It’s good. Your employees are good. Your service is good. You’re good. But therein lies the problem …

Sometimes ‘good’ isn’t good enough — especially in an industry as competitive and crowded as managed IT services. More to the point, a good MSP doesn’t make any money!

OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration; good MSPs make money, but there’s money, and then there’s live-the-life-you’ve-always-dreamed-of money. There’s money, and then there’s retire-early-and-ride-off-into-the-sunset money. So, who is making ‘real money’ in the MSP game?

Great MSPs, that’s who. This isn’t just some vague remark intended to motivate you, either. It’s a quantifiable fact: the best (top 25%) of MSPs are currently dominating the market — capturing the lion’s share of revenue and achieving unprecedented levels of growth and profitability. As for ‘the rest’ (the other 75% of MSPs)? Well, if you’re in that category, you already know the answer: it’s a struggle!

Truth is, most MSPs are scraping by, struggling to survive let alone grow. And, what’s more, most of these MSPs are good. Solid. Not bad. But as mentioned, that’s not going to cut it; if you want to make real money as a managed service provider, you can’t just be good. You’ve got to be great.

In this blog post, we’re going to talk about 3 Ways Great MSPs Differ from Good MSPs. But first, let’s explore a fascinating idea concerning the general difference between being good and being great — whether we’re talking about athletes, comedians, or MSP owners. This concept is a real mind-blower, so brace yourself …

Being Good is Harder than Being Great

There are a lot more good basketball players than great basketball players. Tons more good jokes than great jokes — just think of the dizzying number of groan-inducing ‘dad jokes’ being told this very moment! And finally, for every great MSP, there are a bunch of good MSPs struggling to break through to the next level.

In a word, there’s a lot more good in this world than there is great. And this is true almost by definition; to be great is to be special, rare, elite. A mountain narrows to a peak, reminding us: there’s not much room at the top.

OK, but what’s the lesson here? That turning your MSP into a great company is a statistical improbability? A pipe dream even?

No way! In fact, the lesson we can glean from the above observation is actually a very heartening and positive one. And it boils down to one simple concept: competition.

When you’re just good — i.e., when you’re ‘just another MSP’ — you face a lot more competition than you would if you were a great MSP. That’s because there are so many good MSPs, all competing against each other for the same opportunities.

Author and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss summarizes the situation perfectly when he says, “ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most time- and energy-consuming.”

Wow. When you settle for less, you face more — more competition, more difficulties, and more obstacles. And it’s all because most people don’t have the guts to really go for it.

So, even though it might be scarier to pursue greatness than to pursue goodness, it’s also easier in the long run, as very few people — MSP owners included — are actually willing to do it. At the end of this blog, we will discuss one reason why this truth applies particularly well to running an MSP — why running a great MSP is actually a lot easier than running a good one (hint: it has to do with scalability).

Want to learn more about why so few people are willing to pursue greatness? Check out this highly entertaining and illuminating animated video. But first, let’s get into the nitty-gritty. Here are three differences between ‘the best’ and ‘the rest’ in the MSP space. The differences, as you will see, are subtle, which means greatness is well within your reach. Your MSP can get to the next level. You’ve just got to go for it.

Difference #1: KPIs — Keeping People Informed

If you’re thinking that using metrics like Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is the mark of a great MSP, think again. Nowadays, most MSPs use some metrics (some use too many). In short, simply tracking and measuring data at your MSP isn’t something to write home about. All good MSPs enlist metrics to measure, monitor, and improve performance.

Where great MSPs differentiate is in the way they use metrics such as KPIs to drive continual improvement. An entire book could be written on the various ways an MSP can elevate its use of metrics, so we’ll focus on just one way here: the involvement of employees, and specifically, technicians.

A great MSP not only uses a variety of metrics — financial metrics, operational metrics, system metrics, security metrics, etc. — but also, involves employees in the process.

More specifically, great MSPs keep team members in the loop; instead of being something that management looks at every so often, a great MSP’s metrics are readily accessible to employees (especially techs) on a daily basis. And it’s ideal to set up a visual representation of metrics — at least key ones — that your technicians can easily see, process, and respond to according to a ‘corrective action’ baked into the metrics themselves.

That last piece is of particular importance: your metrics need to not only reveal when there’s a problem, but also, point to a corrective measure. When metrics not only capture what has occurred, but define a path forward, you will start to see real improvements on the operations side. That’s greatness in action.

Want to revamp your MSP’s metrics program? Here’s a list of twenty metrics that MSPs ought to consider tracking.

Difference #2: Playing the Long Game

Similar to the use of metrics, marketing is no longer the mark of an elite MSP, but a standard practice that practically every MSP embraces. Well, ’embraces’ might be too strong a term; sadly, many MSPs still view marketing as a necessary evil.

Perhaps that’s why so many MSPs fail to check the most important box in their marketing to-do list: KEEP GOING! Good MSPs market, and some market quite well, enlisting a variety of channels — email, social media, video, blogs, etc. However, only great MSPs market tirelessly, which is to say — they stick with it! They don’t get discouraged when the leads don’t start rolling in right away. They push and they push and they push, making adjustments as needed, exercising patience, keeping the faith — because that’s what it takes to truly tap into marketing’s power.

Our CEO Tim Conkle, in a recent interview with CanvasRebel Magazine, spoke on why a lot of business owners struggle with this aspect of marketing: “What business owners want from marketing is for it to work like a coke machine — put a dollar in, get something sweet right away. But in reality, it could take three months for that dollar you spend on marketing to yield something.”

So take Tim’s advice and “trust the process.” It takes time to get a healthy ROI on your marketing efforts, but then again, all great things do.

Difference #3: Improvement vs. Evolution

Good MSPs improve; great MSPs evolve. This might sound like a cryptic riddle, but it actually describes a concrete difference between good and great MSPs.

Good MSPs get better at what they do, grinding out gradual improvements that add up over long periods of time. They don’t fail big, but they also don’t win big — i.e., experience huge breakthroughs that catapult them to the next level. They improve, but they don’t evolve.

Great MSPs, on the other hand, grind out gradual improvements, but also, they take risks by trying out radically new things — a new product, a new tool, a new marketing strategy, a new support desk structure. Just as biological evolution relies on mutations — sudden deviations that introduce something radically new and different — so too does evolution in business. The gap between good and great isn’t huge, but it’s hard to close without taking the occasional leap of faith.

There’s just no way to sugarcoat this. If you want to be great, you have to think big and go big, which means taking risks and trying things that scare you. Burger King didn’t just improve by adding the Impossible Whopper; Charmin didn’t just improve by embracing ‘potty humor’; Apple didn’t just improve by focusing on phones back in 2007 — No, these companies evolved. They refused to keep chugging along, getting better at what they’d always done, and instead, chose to try something entirely different.

It paid off in the end, and strategic risk-taking can do the same for your MSP.

Final Thoughts — Learn to Let Go!

The differences between good and great MSPs covered here are not vast. They’re subtle. It’s not the case that great MSPs market, and good ones don’t. It’s not the case that great MSPs use metrics, and good ones don’t. And it’s not the case that great MSPs continually improve, and good ones don’t. The differences between great and good MSPs lie in the details — not in what great MSPs do, but in how they do it: how they use metrics, how they market, how they change and improve.

That said, when you add up all the subtle differences, they get to be a lot. This is especially true if you’re a ‘one-person band.’ Implementing changes across the board is too much for one person to oversee, which is why a lot of MSPs get stuck in a ‘good’ gear, never shifting to ‘great’ — the owners are afraid to let go and hand over parts of their business to others.

But becoming a great MSP means learning to let go. It means creating scalable processes that don’t require your direct oversight and intervention. Letting go is scary, but if you can pull it off — if you can make your business scalable and less dependent on you as an individual — that’s a huge step toward getting to that next level. Moreover, your life as a business owner will become immeasurably easier once you learn to scale and hand over parts of your MSP business.

The 20 helps small and medium-sized MSPs become great with its MSP blueprint. Instead of trying to figure out a recipe for success all by yourself, you can plug into our model and start operating like an

elite MSP right away. Will joining The 20 require making some big changes to your business? Of course! But as we’ve learned, this is a good thing and a key ingredient in a recipe for greatness.

Check out this 5-minute video to learn more about what The 20 is, and how we help MSPs grow.

What a Year!

Looking Back at the The 20 in 2022 — the Wins, the Lessons, and the GROWTH

What a year it has been! 2022 saw The 20 enter the M&A arena for the first time; implement large-scale operational changes; build out a new HR department; come together with our MSP community for a 3-day conference for the ages — in short, we’ve been busy!

We’re excited for 2023 and for the challenges and opportunities it will bring, but we want to look back at the past year before we tackle our to-do list for the new year. After all, that’s what the holidays are all about — slowing down, taking a breath, and reflecting on the journey.

So join us as we take a stroll down memory lane. Let’s go over the wins, the lessons, and the growth our organization has seen this year, before we start the next chapter in our story.

The 20 by the Numbers

We’ve been busy in 2022, doing our best to continually push the frontiers of managed services so we can bring our clients game-changing IT support that drives business forward. Just how busy though? Let’s see, in 2022 we …

Closed 53,492 tickets
Hired 100+ new employees
Expanded our footprint in 12 states and entered 14 new markets
Received 5 awards
Published 37 blogs
Held 50+ webinars
Produced 40 videos
Created hundreds of new pieces of marketing collateral for MSPs
Participated in 32 events (virtual & live)
Hosted 300+ VISION attendees
Forged 5 new vendor partnerships (NetSuite, Qlik, Zomentum, MSP360, Marketopia)
Featured in over 26 articles & publications (including Canvas Rebel, MSP Today, CRN, ChannelPro Network, Channel Futures)
Acquired 13 companies

Then there are the things that can’t be easily measured — the laughs we’ve shared; the moments of excitement when our MSP members got a big win; the ideas and a-ha moments — the list goes on and on.

But behind the above numbers is one number, the importance of which cannot be overstated. That number is ONE.

The 20 started as a company devoted to helping MSP owners conquer ‘the business side’ of IT. The experiment of bringing together independent MSPs and uniting them with a single tool stack and service delivery model has been a roaring success, and although there’s no single key to that success, there’s a case to be made for one of our core values: We Win Together.

The 20 MSP Group might consist of many independent MSPs, but we are, in the truest sense of the word, a community. We are one team with one goal: providing our end clients with managed IT services that are second to none.

M&Aking it Happen

The 20 entered the M&A arena in 2022, acquiring thirteen top-notch managed service providers and making significant strides toward building the first premium MSP with coast-to-coast reach. The companies we acquired (listed below) all came from our co-op group (The 20 MSP Group), and are now part of a single MSP (The 20 MSP). Welcome to the team …

Stratocent Technologies (WA, CEO – Jim Bachaud)
Cirrus Technologies (OH, CEO – Chris Traxler)
INGRAIN IT (WI, CEO – Gary Blawat)
Monroy IT Services (TX, CEO – George Monroy)
Network Management Solutions (CA, CEO – Darren Fippin)
Peterson Technology Group (WI, CEO – Kevin Peterson)
Your IT Group (FL, CEO – Michael Vu)
WOLFGUARD IT (MT, CEO – Chris Kimbell)
BOLDER Designs (DE, CEO – John Rutkowski)
Byte-Werx (TX, CEO – Michael Wayland)
JS Computek (MO, CEO – Caleb Brown)
Code Red Networks (MI, CEO – Dennis Ward)
CSP Technologies (AZ & NC, CEO – Chris Plouffe)

M&A activity is currently red-hot in the managed services space, but our approach to consolidation is fairly unique in that the companies we’ve acquired — and will acquire — all belong to The 20 group. As members of the group, these MSPs plugged into our way of doing things — the tools, the processes, and perhaps most importantly, the people-first culture that anchors our entire operation. This means that much of the integrative work that traditional mergers require was already done when we closed the deals. As we’ve learned, because we’re already lined up, it’s easy to roll up!

We’re incredibly excited to welcome our new team members. The thirteen MSPs joining The 20 team are operationally mature companies that understand the importance of building real relationships with clients. It’s been a pleasure to watch them leverage The 20’s business model to grow into industry leaders, and an honor to bring them on board.

The future’s looking bright, and we will continue to acquire MSPs through 2023 and beyond. Next year, we expect to add two to four MSPs a month.

VISION ’22 – Our Best One Yet!

With three keynote speakers, a plethora of panel discussions, breakouts galore, an impromptu fundraiser for a good cause, and of course, an awesome party to go out with a bang, VISION ’22 exceeded even our ambitious expectations.

The 3-day conference for growth-minded MSPs took place at the beautiful Omni Frisco Hotel in the heart of The Star, a 91-acre entertainment district built around the Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters and the Ford Center. The venue and setting were so perfect, we’ve decided to go back for VISION ’23 (more info here).

We cannot express how grateful we are to the wonderful people — MSP owners, sponsors, speakers, channel pros, hotel staff — who make VISION what it is: AWESOME! A Texas-sized THANK YOU to each and every one of you.

The MSP community truly is the heart of the channel, and our unmatched camaraderie was on full display at this year’s event. If you missed out — or simply want to relive the good times — check out our VISION recap video.

Sensational Operations

We implemented some sweeping changes this year on the operational side. The impetus for much of this change was the hiring of Ken Pecot in 2021. Ken is an operational mastermind who has, since joining The 20 as our new COO, taken our efficiency and service delivery to a whole new level.

Whether it’s restructuring our support desk or sharpening our analytics and metrics, Ken has impacted The 20 in numerous and profound ways. Tim Conkle, our CEO, called the hire one of the best business decisions he’s ever made, adding: “If you’ve ever wondered how to multiply magic, it’s all about putting the right people in the right seats.”

Expect us to continue elevating our operations and evolving our service delivery as we grow and deepen our national footprint. The managed services game is all about finding new ways to help your clients succeed, and here at The 20 MSP, we’re feeling excited to keep doing exactly that.

Final Thought

The title of this blog post says it all — what a year! 2022 zoomed by, and it’s hard to believe how much has happened in just twelve months. And while we’re not sure what the future will bring, we do know this much: we have an incredible community of MSPs who work together and win together. Knowing this is enough to give us the confidence that whatever comes our way, we’ll be able to handle it.

Here’s to growing, evolving, and changing what’s possible in the MSP space!

Meet Brandon Ford, Sales Development Representative!

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

What do you do here at The 20?

I’m a sales development representative.

Describe The 20 in three words…

Industry-leading, ever-evolving, collaborative

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

Forensic Investigator

What’s the most challenging thing about your job?

The most challenging thing about my job is sometimes the rejections, but you just have to remain positive and keep pushing!

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

My greatest achievement is marrying my best friend.

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

Perseverance

What do you like most about The 20?

I love the people I sit with!

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

I enjoy playing video games, watching sports, and traveling with my wife.

Where are you going on your next vacation?

Maine or Vermont

What is your top life hack?

Buy the largest size of wing stop ranch to keep in your fridge.

What are your favorite movies?

Billy Madison, Land of the Lost, Remember the Titans, and Hardball.

RIP G baby…

Favorite artist/band?

JuiceWRLD, The Weeknd, The Killers

What is your favorite food?

John’s of Bleeker Street Pizza

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

Differentiate to Dominate: How Your MSP Can Stand Out from the Crowd

Our own Tim Conkle spoke at Channel All-Stars, a virtual event hosted by Channel Program. He covered important topics such as competing at parity, differentiation, and common sales mistakes MSPs make. Catch up on key ideas from Tim’s talk here!

There are a lot of MSPs out there, competing for business. Some estimates put the number as high as 40,000 — in the U.S. alone! Needless to say, our industry has gotten crowded. It’s also gotten extremely competitive, with the bulk of business going to top-tier MSPs, the major players that gobble up available revenue and leave everyone else fighting over the scraps (the Pareto principle in action).

So how do you stand out as a smaller MSP? You want to win new business and grow your organization, and you’re confident in your service delivery, but …

How do you get potential clients to choose you?

Your MSP needs differentiation.

Our CEO and the man behind The 20, Tim Conkle, spoke on this very topic earlier this week at Channel All-Stars, a virtual event hosted by Channel Program. Tim shared his thoughts on differentiation, and gave actionable tips and no-nonsense advice to small and mid-sized MSPs with big growth plans.

Here are some key ideas from the talk, just in case you missed it!

Competing at Parity vs Pitching at Parity

You want to compete at parity. You want to keep pace with larger MSPs. You want to give clients 24/7 support. You want to enlist best practices and best-of-breed tools. You want to do what elite MSPs do, and you want to do it well. But there’s a problem with all of this.

The problem isn’t with pursuing parity per se — again, you want to keep pace with larger outfits and remain competitive and relevant. The problem arises when you not only strive to compete at parity, but pitch at parity, too.

A lot of MSP owners want to assure prospective clients that their service is just as good as the MSP down the street — perhaps a larger MSP, one of those revenue-gobbling ‘major players.’ And so, they spend their whole pitch talking about their 24/7 help desk, their tool stack, their shiny new cybersecurity toy — in short, the technical side of things.

The problem with this is that if you spend your whole pitch trying to sound just as good as the MSP down the street, you’re going to get what you wish for — you’re going to blend in with the competition. You’ve failed to differentiate, and the potential client has no reason to choose you — unless you’re the biggest or cheapest option.

So strive to compete at parity, but don’t pitch at parity. Pitching time is differentiation time; stand out, or lose the deal.

Let’s go over Tim’s advice for strengthening pitches to help achieve differentiation for your MSP business …

Tone Down the Technobabble

MSP owners generally come from technical backgrounds. They know computers. They like computers. And they like talking about computers. It comes naturally.

But during a sales meeting, your focus shouldn’t be on the technical side of your business — unless the potential client keeps steering the conversation that way (if you find a fellow tech person to geek out with, go right ahead!).

This bit of advice might sound counterintuitive. After all, you’re an IT company selling IT services. Surely, you want to talk about those services.

Of course, you want talk about your services and the technical side of your business — just be careful not to get carried away. Tim has, through The 20, worked with hundreds and hundreds of MSPs, and he’s noticed that a lot of them struggle with sales because they insist on keeping the focus on the technology, and not on what the technology can do and the problems it can solve. They make the age-old sales mistake of discussing ‘features’ instead of ‘benefits,’ and lose out on tons of revenue as a result.

If you can avoid making the same mistake, it can help you increase your close rate and capture new business.

Listen Up

Tim’s been selling IT services for decades, and has spoken with thousands of business owners. The conversations can go in all sorts of directions, but there’s one thing Tim always makes sure to ask a potential client: What’s your goal?

This simple question is a powerful one. It gets people talking. And it helps you better understand where they’re coming from and what they’re looking for. This is crucial, because you’re not selling technology; you’re selling solutions to problems. You can’t sell solutions to problems you don’t understand.

So ask prospects what they want. Ask them what they’re struggling with, what they’re looking for, what they picture when they imagine working with an awesome IT company. Ask away, and then listen. Really listen.

If you can do that, you’d better believe they’ll remember you. That is differentiation.

So, what do most business owners say? When Tim asks them, “What’s your Goal?”, what’s the response he gets most often?

“We Just Want it to Work!”

That’s right — by far and away the most common response Tim hears is: “We just want it to work!”

This is telling. Potential clients don’t care how their IT works, only that it works. They want computers that do what they’re supposed to do — and they don’t want to pay an arm and a leg for it.

This reinforces a previous point — tone down the technobabble! Technobabble is ‘how’ and potential clients don’t care about ‘how’ — at least most don’t. They just want assurance that your MSP is going to take care of their technology. Explaining how you plan to do that is putting the cart before the horse; before you get into any technical details — to the extent that you need to get into those details at all — you have to convince the person you’re talking to that you’re on their side and that you have their best interests at heart.

And how do you do that? By telling them how nice of a person you are, and how you’re not in this business to make gobs of money, but simply to help people?

No way! You convince them by explaining how it’s in your best interest to keep their technology running smoothly. In other words, you talk business alignment.

“This is about how we do business” – Shifting the Paradigm

As Tim reminded the Channel All-Stars audience, a lot of the business owners you (or your sales team) encounter in the sales process have had bad experiences with IT companies. They’ve been burned. They’ve been slapped with hidden charges. They’ve dealt with sluggish response times and unprofessional technicians. And they certainly haven’t experienced the type of robust business alignment that a really good MSP can give them.

It’s your job, then, to call their attention to the very possibility of such a thing. Really take the time to explain the difference between the break/fix model of IT support and the managed services paradigm. Explain how with your pricing model, you make more money when everything ‘just works.’ That will definitely get their attention!

Let your competitors brag about how their fancy solutions can keep things running smoothly, while you enlist a much more effective sales strategy: explaining why your MSP will keep things running smoothly. Put things in terms of incentives — in terms of goal alignment.

If you can explain the principle of alignment clearly, you can help business owners have an epiphany of sorts. They will realize: “This isn’t about price; this is about how we do business.” They will start to think about which MSP is actually going to give them this amazing thing called alignment. And they will think of you and your wonderfully clear explanation of how alignment works. You will stand out as the MSP that helped them see things differently — in a better light.

Final Thought

People remember people.

Think about movies you’ve seen. Do you remember the endings? The details of the plot? Maybe, but that’s probably not where your mind went first. What you remember — what pops into your head without effort — are the characters. Their faces, voices, ways of behaving. You remember the people.

What does this have to do with sales and differentiation?

Well … everything! When it comes time to pitch to a prospective client, you want to stand out from the crowd — to appear as a distinctive and appealing option and not ‘just another IT company.’ The best way to do that is by connecting on a human level. Don’t ‘pitch’ to prospects; talk to them. And don’t just talk; listen, too!

MSPs that are good at sales understand that the primary purpose of a sales meeting isn’t to impress potential clients; it’s to connect with them — to start building a relationship even before any contracts have been signed. Because in a sea of MSPs with similar-sounding services and selling points, a prospective client will remember the one with a human face.

VISION ’22 Recap

Our Best One Yet!

VISION ’22 is in the books, and this year’s event was truly one for the ages. It set the bar high for VISION ’23, and we’re already feeling pressure to start planning next year’s event!

But before looking ahead, we want to look back at last week’s events. So without further ado, here’s your recap of VISION ’22. If you were in attendance, we hope this is a fun trip down memory lane. And if you missed out … there’s always next year!

Venue — The Omni Frisco Hotel at The Star

VISION conferences are all about teaching MSPs to ‘go big,’ and the venue for this year’s conference was definitely in keeping with that theme.

VISION ’22 took place at the beautiful Omni Frisco Hotel in the heart of The Star, a 91-acre entertainment district built around the Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters and the Ford Center. The vibrant area is packed with restaurants, shops, and Cowboys-themed awesomeness. It’s such a cool setting, we’re pretty sure even non-Cowboys fans dug it!

A huge shout-out to the hotel staff for their consummate professionalism, punctuality, and warmth — y’all crushed it!

Main Stage Sessions

MSPs come to VISION because they’re looking to grow, and they know — or have heard — that our annual conference is packed with content to help them do just that. This year, our main stage speakers delivered the goods and then some! Some highlights …

Panel Discussions

Attendees were treated to two panels at VISION ’22. The 20’s own Crystal McFerran (CMO), moderated “Ain’t No Rabbits” – How Marketing Magic Really Works, featuring top-tier marketers Jimmy Hatzell, Andra Hedden, Emalee Sugano, and Dana Liedholm. The conversation was fantastic and chock-full of insights and advice for growing MSPs. And props to Dana for stepping in at the last minute!

The second panel – Actionable Strategies to Grow Your MSP – featured a group of MSP owners who are doing big things and growing their companies like crazy. Chris Traxler moderated the discussion, and was joined on stage by Eric Emerson, Christian Wartchow, Seana Fippin and Gary Blawat. As members of The 20 MSP Group, these savvy entrepreneurs have risen to the top of the MSP game, and at VISION ’22, they generously shared their knowledge with the MSP community.

Hot Topics

VISION ’22 gave MSPs fresh insights into a variety of timely topics …

Joseph Brunsman’s presentation, brought to attendees by MSP360, broke down cyber insurance on a level that impressed us all. The amount of useful and actionable information that Joseph shared was next-level!

Like cyber insurance, M&A activity is currently a hot topic in the MSP space. VISION attendees got to hear from Scott Renkes and Ted Gwara from Pinecrest Capital Partners, a PE firm that served as The 20’s exclusive financial advisor on our ten recent MSP acquisitions. We’ve benefitted immensely from their guidance, and so too will MSPs that caught Scott and Ted’s illuminating presentation.

The 20’s own Ken Pecot (COO) spoke to the MSP community about analytics — how to use them, which ones to use, and why they’re crucial to the success of any growth-minded MSP. No one understands this topic better than Ken, whose expertise has helped The 20 in profound and measurable ways.

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing are crucial to MSP growth, but MSPs tend to struggle with one if not both things. At VISION ’22, our very own Michael Bone delivered an energetic and engaging presentation that helped MSP owners in attendance see what successful sales is really about. And Nabila Moumen from HubSpot took a trip across the pond to give a wonderful presentation on inbound marketing and how to leverage it effectively using next-generation tools. After hearing from Nabila and Michael, we’re pretty sure VISION attendees are going to return to their own sales and marketing programs with newfound enthusiasm and confidence!

Two CEOs Raise the Roof … and Some Money Too!

What happens when a couple of straight shooters — and two of the most successful CEOs in the Channel — sit down to talk shop?

We found out at VISION ’22, where Fred Voccola, CEO of Kaseya, sat down with our own Tim Conkle to discuss the state of the channel. Fred and Tim rocked the house, shared exciting news about what their respective organizations have in store, and initiated an impromptu donation-matching exercise with the audience. The result was $140k raised for The Coventry Reserve, a community that helps adults with special needs live a full, active, and purposeful life.

The 20 MSP Members Only Half-Day

On Friday, it was ‘just us chickens’ (MSP members of The 20 MSP Group), and we wasted no time at all.

Our CEO Tim Conkle kicked off the Members Only Half-Day with an overview of what’s on the horizon for The 20 MSP and for our group of MSP members. Ken Pecot talked about service delivery and gave a preview of some exciting changes in store. Michael Bone and Andrew Churilla gave a powerful presentation on the “art of prospecting.” And Crystal McFerran moderated an excellent panel on MSP marketing, sharing with members both “hard and easy truths.”

It was gratifying to see our tight-knit community come together and get down to brass tacks. Collaborating, cooperating, and conquering this industry together is what The 20’s all about, it’s what VISION’s all about, and it’s why our MSP members are growing fast and having a blast. Good stuff, everyone!

Breakout Sessions

VISION ’22 featured six breakout sessions led by companies at the forefront of innovation in managed IT services: Marketopia, ConnectBooster, SpearTip, SaaS Alerts, Kaseya, Cytracom, and ThreatLocker. Participants got to delve into key topics in cybersecurity, sales, marketing, and more, and came away from the breakouts with actionable insights to grow their businesses.

We’d like to thank our sponsors for planning these awesome sessions, and for your overall participation at VISION this year. Your energy and presence were awesome! And a big thanks to everyone who attended the breakouts, as well. It’s great seeing peers tackle problems and questions collaboratively — hey, that’s what we do at The 20!

Three-note Speakers!

An Emmy Award winning reporter, a retired Navy SEAL lieutenant, and a bestselling author walk into an IT conference … No, this isn’t the start of a joke; it’s what happened this year at VISION ’22, where we were lucky enough to hear from not one, not two, but three outstanding keynote speakers:

Chris Gardner — Businessman, Entrepreneur, and Author of the Bestselling memoir The Pursuit of Happyness
Jeff Crilley — Emmy Award Winning Reporter and Publicity Mastermind
Jason Redman — Retired Navy SEAL Lieutenant and Leadership Expert

But wait, none of these people work in IT — what are they doing speaking at an IT conference? Teaching MSP owners how to kick a** not only in business, but in life — that’s what they were doing!

Chris Gardner’s presentation taught us what it means to dream big and what it takes to turn those big dreams into big wins. Jeff Crilley taught us that “marketing without money” isn’t an oxymoron, but something every MSP can do to stand out from the crowd. And Jason Redman brought us to our feet with his amazing story of survival, redemption, and the extraordinary power of positive thinking.

A heartfelt thank you to all three of our keynote speakers. Your words moved us all.

Party Time!

If three keynote speakers are better than one, so are three parties! There was no shortage of opportunities to have fun this year at VISION …

Rooftop Kickoff Party — Featuring the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad and live music from The Buffalo Ruckus
Happy Hour on the Field — Food and drinks out on Tostitos Championship Plaza
VISION PARTY! — This year’s VISION PARTY was so much fun, Zeke Elliott showed up!

Why so many parties? Because we believe having fun is an important part of running your own business and being an entrepreneur. Fun is what energizes and inspires you. It’s what keeps you going and allows you to face the next obstacle down the road. If you’re a business owner, having fun is seriously important.

Plus, we just like to party!

A Few Final Thoughts

Looking back at VISION ’22, it’s hard not to arrive at the following realization: when people get together in the spirit of cooperation and collaboration, something special happens. Magical even.

And let’s face it, running a business is hard work. It takes determination, perseverance, and guts. But the struggle, while often overwhelming to someone working alone, becomes something more when it’s shared with others. It becomes a journey, an adventure, a source of inspiration and fun.

So THANK YOU everyone for your presence and participation at VISION ’22. Y’all make VISION what it is — a celebration of community and the power of togetherness.

Now, let’s get out there and have ourselves a big year!

When Disaster Strikes: Disaster Recovery and Your Small Business

When it comes to preparing for the worst, strive to be the best. Small businesses that invest in a robust disaster recovery plan are much more likely to survive a major incident.

When disaster strikes, will your small business be ready?

Notice the word “when” in the above sentence. At some point, for some reason, your company is going to experience a disruptive event that puts some of your IT infrastructure out of commission. It could be a cyberattack, a natural disaster, or just good old-fashioned human error. But whatever it is, it’s going to happen.

And when it does, having a plan of action in place — a disaster recovery plan (DRP) — will, more than anything else, be the difference between weathering the storm and getting dashed on the rocks of misfortune. Whether your company has 5 employees or 5,000, you need to treat disaster recovery planning like the vital business function it is, which means actually investing in it. Failing to prepare means preparing to fail!

In this blog post, we talk about disaster recovery planning: why it matters, what it involves, and how to approach the task of creating a DRP at your growing business.

Small Businesses and Disaster Recovering Planning

While it’s true that there’s only so much you can do when disaster strikes — many things are outside of our control — it’s pretty clear that small business owners could be doing more. Let’s look at some numbers …

Back in 2015, a study by Nationwide found that 75% of small

businesses don’t have a disaster recovery plan. A more recent report from Shred-it found that 67% of small businesses lack an incident response plan, which suggests that smaller companies are starting to get their act together — although not nearly fast enough.

With so few small businesses giving disaster recovery planning adequate attention, it’s no surprise that 40% of small businesses close permanently in the wake of a disaster (source: FEMA). Without any kind of DRP, a small business is likely to experience lengthy downtime after a disaster, which is expensive — to say the very least!

So what can your small business do to avoid becoming a statistic? Well, the first step is to finish reading this blog post — sound advice is coming your way!

An Important Point to Keep in Mind

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of disaster recovery, a quick word on the nature of disasters. When you hear the word “disaster,” you likely think of dramatic, cataclysmic events — earthquakes, fires, maybe a sweeping cyberattack carried out by nefarious hackers.

But the truth is, the two most common “disasters” are simple hardware failure and power failure. These more mundane, day-to-day disasters might not make the news, but they will take down your IT systems and, consequently, bring your business to a grinding halt.

Keep this point in mind as you cultivate disaster recovery capacities at your own business; you’re not just preparing for highly unlikely and highly

destructive scenarios, but fairly likely (and potentially highly destructive) ones, too. In short, develop your DRP with an eye to the fact that you’re going to end up using it!

It Starts with Backup

The cornerstone of every DRP is a sound backup strategy. Backing up data just means making a copy of it. It’s easy to understand why backup is such a powerful tool in the context of disaster recovery. When disaster strikes and crashes your IT infrastructure, you can lose data. But if that data’s backed up, it’s not really gone, is it?

An analogy: Let’s say your car gets stolen, but you have the exact same car — down to the mileage. You can just start driving your backup-mobile and it’ll be like nothing happened. Problem solved.

Of course, things aren’t quite so simple. Just as having a ‘backup car’ doesn’t negate all of the negative consequences of your car getting stolen, having a backup of your data doesn’t negate all of the negative consequences of a data breach, natural disaster, or any other disruptive event that does significant harm to your business’s IT infrastructure.

That said, it does diminish overall damage considerably, especially in the case of ransomware attacks, which have become utterly rampant as of late.

Let’s review two topics pertinent to developing a sound backup strategy: the “3-2-1 rule” and RTO/RPO.

3-2-1 Rule

Whatever your business’s size or specific backup needs, following the 3-2-1 rule is a good idea when it comes to backing up organizational data. This rule states that businesses should maintain:

3 copies of data
2 (or more) of which are stored on different media formats
1 (or more) of which is stored offsite

The 3-2-1 rule gives your organization resilience. If a disaster wipes out one storage medium, you’ve got the other to fall back on. If a disaster wipes out all of your on-site data, you’ve got the off-site copy to fall back on. The idea is that whatever happens, at least one copy of your data will survive, allowing you to resume operations as swiftly and seamlessly as possible.

RTO & RPO

RTO and RPO are difficult to calculate, but fairly straightforward on a conceptual level:

RTO stands for “recovery time objective,” and refers to how long your business’s IT infrastructure (or certain parts of it) can remain out of commission before it starts to do serious harm to your organization.

RPO stands for “recovery point objective,” and refers to how much data — measured in time: minutes, hours, days, etc. — your organization can afford to lose, counting back from the present. If your company can function normally without data from the last four minutes and fifty-nine seconds, but it needs 5-minute-old data, then your RPO is equal to 5 minutes.

Let’s connect these concepts to backup and disaster recovery.

One thing you want from your DRP is the ability to recover from a disaster quickly. But how quickly? That’s the question that RTO answers by identifying how long is too long. If your RTO is 2 days, it means

you can’t afford more than 2 days of downtime following a disruptive event.

Your DRP should also include a backup solution that makes sufficiently frequent copies of your organization’s data. But how frequent is “sufficiently frequent”? That’s the question that RPO answers by identifying the amount of data your organization can afford to lose. If you can’t afford to lose more than the last 10 minutes of data (RPO = 10 minutes), you want a backup solution that makes a copy of your data (and stores it offsite preferably), every 10 minutes — or even more frequently than that.

Backup vs Disaster Recovery

A lot of explanations concerning the relationship between data backup and disaster recovery overcomplicate things. So we want to put it in plain English: Data backup is an important part of your disaster recovery plan.

See? Simple. Two words tell you everything you need to know: “important part.”

Data backup is IMPORTANT because if you can’t, following data loss due to disaster, recover your data via accessing a sufficiently recent copy of it, resuming normal operations is going to be tough, if not downright impossible.

But it’s only PART of disaster recovery because the latter refers to everything involved in making sure your business can bounce back quickly after a disaster. This goes well beyond maintaining backups of data — as we will now discuss.

Creating a DRP for Your Business

Here are 4 tips to help you get the most out of your disaster recovery planning.

Tip #1: Don’t go it alone!

Creating a DRP for your small business can be daunting — especially when you’re already knee-deep in the day-to-day — so our first piece of advice is simply: Don’t go it alone! Involve your employees (it might even be a good idea to create a “disaster recovery team” whose job is to oversee and develop the procedures included in your DRP), your in-house IT staff/IT provider, your insurance broker, and disaster, backup and recovery (DBR) experts.

Tip #2: Figure out ‘the what’ and ‘the who’!

When drawing up your DRP, you want to include very specific instructions detailing not only what is to be done following a major disruptive event, but also, who is to do it. In other words, assign particular tasks and responsibilities to particular people within your company — and put it in documentation. Who’s in charge of contacting clients after an incident? What about vendors? When disaster strikes and every second counts, you’ll be glad you don’t have to waste precious moments trying to figure out who should do what.

Another component of figuring out ‘the what’ is taking inventory of all the IT assets at your company: hardware, software, devices, etc. Furthermore, assign relative levels of importance to the different parts of your digital landscape. The more important an IT asset is to your organization, the more quickly you want to restore it to full functioning in the wake of a disaster. So establish what’s critical, so that your DRP can prioritize getting those things back up and running the fastest.

Tip #3: Put it to the test!

This is perhaps the most effective — and overlooked — aspect of disaster recovery planning. Small business owners will create a DRP and

then file it away to collect dust. This is a big mistake, because in a disaster situation, the last thing you want to be doing is trying out your DRP for the first time. Practice makes perfect, so run drills that force you and your team to put your DRP into action. Nothing exposes flaws in a DRP like actually trying to run it through. Test, troubleshoot, rinse and repeat!

Tip #4: Work with an MSP!

Disaster recovery takes time and resources. There’s creating the plan. There’s testing it. There’s training employees. There’s revising the plan in light of technological and other sorts of changes. It adds up — and can get expensive if you’re not careful in how you invest.

For this reason, more small and mid-sized businesses are turning to managed service providers (MSPs) for help with disaster recovery planning, training, and execution. A good MSP can help with every facet of disaster recovery and business continuity, and stitch together a DRP that’s tailored to your organization’s exact needs. Moreover, MSPs know how to leverage modern IT solutions like cloud computing and the automation of backup monitoring and reporting to keep your disaster recovery investment from outpacing your IT budget.

If you’re really looking to improve your organization’s disaster recovery and resilience, it might be worth looking into DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service), now offered by many MSPs. DRaaS is a cloud-based solution aimed at minimizing downtime caused by catastrophic events that disrupt IT functions. With DRaaS, a third party (your provider) copies your data and systems to a cloud infrastructure at a frequency in line with your RPO. If disaster strikes and causes your primary site to go down, your DRaaS will trigger a failover — the transition of your workloads from your primary

systems to your standby systems — thereby reducing, if not eliminating, unwanted downtime.

If you have DRaaS, you can rest easy knowing a whole team of experts is overseeing and managing every facet of disaster recovery at your business. Talk about peace of mind!

Final Thought

In the fast-paced world of business, waiting until you have a perfect grasp of something before giving it a try is a recipe for regret and missed opportunities. So don’t let the fact that you don’t perfectly understand all the ins and out of disaster recovery stop you from getting started on your own DRP. You can refine and learn as you go. What matters is that you take those first steps and get the ball rolling!