Recently I worked yet another weekend horsing around with our CRM system. As part of that database maintenance, I peeked and poked my way around our corpus. In that journey, I discovered that we have over 54,000 customer records. It immediately brought to mind the 1980s “Once in a Lifetime” song from the Talking Heads. In that sonnet, the singer utters: “How did I get here?”
Well I have some answers as to how we got here. It took a lot of “there there” to get “here here.” The bottom line was it was a lot of hard work. Before I list our growth strategies, note I share this with you as a Pocket MBA moment. You too can be me if you follow these simple steps over 15+ years (LOL!).
So we built this nation the following ways:
· Rock and Roll. We’re committed to cool. I’m not beyond sofa surfing at a reader’s home when I travel to both save money, remain humble and enjoy good company. Just ask the delightful SBS couple in Cape Town, South Africa, who has hosted each visit. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
· Writing books and magazine articles. For those I’ve not yet met, take a second and type my full name in the search field at Amazon.com. You’ll see a pillar of our growth strategies with my books listed. And a tip of the hat to Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine (mcpmag.com) for launching my geek career.
· Too many words. I never met a conference speaking opportunity I didn’t like. To get to 54,000 names, the road includes speaking one classroom at a time. Truly.
· Content, content, content. Each and every day we have to earn your trust again. We do so by speaking from the heart when we report what’s hot and what’s not in the SMB sector. That all begins at www.smbnation.com. Much of our growth derived from you “joining the SMB Nation tribe” at our site.
· Go organic. Somewhere along the way, we became the conference, magazine and community portal with daily content and news. How did I get here?
· Strategic vendor relationships. Truthfully, we couldn’t have done it without our vendor and sponsor relationships. Shout outs to D&H Distributing and Microsoft. Apologies for not listing all 300+ vendor sponsors here.
· Cooperate with your competition. We’ve found an open border policy results in gains for all. Happily we work cooperatively with ChannelProSMB, Redmond Channel Partner Magazine and Business Solutions Magazine. Sadly we’ve not had the pleasure of working closely with UBM and Nine Lives Media. Not sure we ever will.
· Work/life balance. An hour a day keeps the cardiologist away. We encourage all SMB Nation employees to work out and even subliminally shame those not keeping a work/life balance to grab a higher gear, take the weekend off enjoy the ride. People pick up on this “shiny happy” vibe and want to be part of the journey with us.
· Overposting. We are perhaps the most annoying motley crew you’ll ever met on social media. But everything helps everything as your building your customer list.
· Don’t sweat the small stuff. At SMB Nation, we do a great job of keeping each other in check. We all have those “annoyances” that can easily derail your day.
So what’s next for SMB Nation? I get that question a lot.
· Is SMB Nation finished now that Microsoft Windows Small Business Server (SBS) has been end-of-lifed? The answer is simple: NO! We specifically started our “SMB journey” nearly 14 years ago with a niche focused on SBS. But along the way, we have explored broader topics including certification testing, telecom, education, consulting and much more.
· IS SMB Nation going all cloud, all the time? The reality is that all cloud is not for all parties all the time. It’s clearly an option for customers, and we’ll respectfully report on that topic. Personally I believe that the truth is in the middle: hybrid.
· Forward-looking statements. Attend live or tune into our SMB Nation Spring conference that occurs later this week (May 3-5, Microsoft Redmond, spring.smbnation.com) for my guidance on the future of SMB Nation. We have some major announcements forthcoming. Stock trading will be halted during my keynote on Friday AM.
Onward and upward. Thank you for being our customer. We appreciate it. Your support in fact supports 10 families. Thank you.
