90p Admin

Well, we almost lost a 90Minds member today and it wasn't one that I was hoping for. Wayne was able to convince him to give it one more year. John Shaver is not sure if he is a good fit for the group. It is more technical than his focus so he was thinking about to calling it a day. Read through the e-mail exchange. He would be receptive to heading up a ""value pricing"" group which might attract a different audience of participants. What does the group think?

John's proposal - And, yes, I'd be interested in exploring that idea. Maybe it would make sense to market 90Minds to owners or partners of firms (I know we have quite a few already) and expand the concept beyond tech folks at those firms. It may even make sense for those firms to include their sales folks in 90Minds. I think we may have inadvertently pigeon-holed ourselves since the outside perception of 90Minds is that we are a group of super tech folks and not much else. I've been thinking of starting some paid mentoring engagements with people who are interested in making the transition but who haven't quite figured out the ""how"" part of FOTF (I am asked the ""how"" question on a regular basis). Sort of like Alan Weiss does with consultants but without the arrogant-asshole part.

Robert's response - Amy gets her money's worth in support help every year. A value pricing group would be fine with me. Isn't that part of what the ""Business of Consulting"" was for? FOTF stuff?

Peter - I think the group has evolved in the brief time that I have been a member and I see it continuing to evolve beyond its origins of pure technical support. As we move into 2013, my guess is we will see more evidence of that.

Wayne - I told him 90 Minds is at it's core a shared technical support group and attempts to make or something different have not been successful. I hope he can find a way to light a fire but most of the people here joined for tech. I'm also missing exactly what I need a group to value price for.

Mark - He's not much different than me. I no longer ask or give a ton of tech advice since my day to day hands on with MAS is way down now as I juggle many different roles at Clients First among many different products. I find the value in the 'business of consulting' advice and feeling a camaraderie of like minded folks. I also think we all face an existential threat to our lively hood as the world of quality new deals is noticeably drying up, we know that orphans & support can't last forever, and think our collective reasoning can find new lines of business better than each of us on our own.

Just as Peter is exploring the idea of Sage 300 group, let's see if John will step up his involvement in the business of consulting group by becoming the champion of that group. If we don't get individual involvement to head up these areas, the group will remain Sage 100 technical.

I think we've informally talked about this. There are some competitive issues around sharing business practices (rightly or wrongly) and I think a much greater incentive to join and lurk exists for sales/marketing folks. Could we attract a lot of owners who want to see what everyone else is doing business wise? I bet we could. Could we attract a lot of open sharing? I have questions about whether we would.

I'd say, some rightly and some wrongly.

Also we need a catalyst to drive all of these new areas. Just inviting people has not worked. You need active daily contributions or people stop checking in. And I do believe the future of collaboration is in more closed groups such as this - free from Sage interference.

That would be John's challenge. If it works, great. If not, it will go the way of many ideas with good intentions. I am not advocating that the admin group spearhead it. Give him a reason to stay in the group.

Also Sage Leadership Academy seems to be starting up. Should we really compete with that? People start to tire of joining multiple groups unless there's a real value add.

The same rationale could be said of Sage's Community Forum. Do we compete with that?

This is partner to partner collaboration over technical issues - so I say that there's no competition.

I also call bullshit on the notion we haven't tried marketing collaboration (go ahead and say its not the same as a FOTF or pricing group - but I say you're wrong). I've begged, pleaded, suggested we start monthly webinars that the group could participate in. (Crickets Chirping) I've begged, pleaded, suggested we have an active blog. (Crickets Chirping) Except for sitting with their thumbs up their asses writing about error 47 or complaining about Sage (guilty, guilty) we make zero progress. Hey have about a collaborative KB. (Crickets Chirping) So think long about what has been tried and suggested and worked before channeling energy into a new area. Remember the definition of insanity ......

Not saying any of that isn't true. And that it will remain so in the future. You can only do so much. Throw the ideas out there. But one person (or three or four) cannot do it all, especially as a volunteer and if you have a day job. John commented that he didn't have much interest in the technical group so he was going to drop out. Well, throw John a bone and ask him lead the Business of Consulting goup. It might go somewhere, it might not.

Our #1 priority in 2013 should be to leverage the power of 90 Minds for members to gain business. I'm doing it now but I don't think enough members tell the story. Rather than shuffle my feet to the question of ""how big is your company"" I get right down to ""we have a 130 member group with specialists in scripting, sql, crm, custom programming and they're located in offices across the country"". I go on to talk about not recommending any solution until I find a reference for it in my group (a large pct of people I deal with have been burned before). It's all about telling a better story -- AND having the resource to back it up. We're foolish not to do that because I believe the 90 Minds story even beats the Sage story/video.

Putting aside John Shaver for a moment, I would agree with Wayne re: group marketing and collaboration efforts. I would extend that thought and suggest that the joint collaboration in the group has been done on the individual partner level vs the group as a whole. That doesn't mean it can't happen though. For example, on the marketing side, I have set a personal initiative to create a virtual conference for Spring next year with business-focused (ie, not product-focused) content. The intention is to line up vendors to subsidize the effort and line up partners to promote it (and drive attendees). I'm hoping that with something more concrete to rally around, more of the 90 Minds / OASIS members will express an interest. Who knows though? It may be a bust but I am not going to let that stop me from testing it out. To that end, tying together both Wayne and Jeff's thoughts, I think that these different, non-technical areas of the group have a chance to prosper but we need individuals to drive them forward. It may move forward in fits and stops but, my guess here, it will move forward as the world of reselling evolves in the coming years.