Clearing the Clutter with MSP Consultant Todd Kane
Axcient is thrilled to host Todd Kane, an MSP consultant for our 2022 MSP Growth Series. This two-part growth-oriented event helps managed service providers take a lean approach to setting, reaching, and surpassing their goals. In case you missed it, watch part one here and register for part two “Maintaining the Lean Lifestyle for Quarterly Impacts” on April 7th.
Table of Contents
Meet Todd Kane
Todd is an MSP Expert, Operations Advisor, Project Manager, and Results Producer through his company, Evolved Management Consulting. He has spent over a decade creating a management framework that helps companies earn millions in higher-margin projects and operations. In addition, Todd guides companies toward better resource allocation by reducing employee turnover, boosting team morale, and increasing productivity.
Todd has led groups for large and high-growth companies, including EnCana, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, WestJet, Bell Canada, Long View Systems, and Fully Managed. Some of the companies Todd has worked with have been awarded industry recognition from Microsoft, The Globe and Mail, and Small Business BC.
“To be lean and slim things down is more difficult, but it will make your life completely different and feel much more controllable. This can be challenging in our industry.” – Todd Kane
Part 1: Clearing the Clutter & Setting Your 2022 Tone
Todd discussed the unique challenges MSPs face when setting business goals during part one. Due to the fast-paced and unpredictable nature of maintaining business continuity, it can be hard to dedicate time to achieving goals. Many MSPs get lost in the busyness of daily tasks, which is why Todd challenges organizations to #BANBUSY.
Busy is generally a useless adjective. Busy is not quantifiable. You can be very busy with stuff that does not progress you towards your goals. So what are you busy with? What are the things that are keeping you from accomplishing the goals of the organization?” – Todd Kane
Through the process of reducing complexity, Todd says MSPs can balance their signal-to-noise ratio to focus on goals. He explains, “The signal is the data that gives you actionable information to allow you to make good business decisions, good tactical decisions, and informs your strategy. The noise is just all the stuff that tends to crop up.” Todd recognizes that achieving your goals is not a straight line and provides strategies for pivoting, course correcting, and using data points to stay on track.
In addition to business strategies, Todd also explains how MSPs can apply these same techniques for personal growth. With parallel approaches, MSPs can mirror businesses’ successes at home and vice versa. With that said, these are not like the goal-setting strategies you might have tried in the past. Instead, Todd has a realistic approach to setting, working toward, and achieving the things you desire.
The idea that you’re suddenly going to change a lot of your behaviors because you make a very light promise to yourself one day – like tomorrow’s going to be different – there’s not a lot of follow-through in that. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s not strong enough to create a level of commitment.” – Todd Kane
Watch Part One: Clearing the Clutter & Setting Your 2022 Tone to get an MSP-specific design for setting both professional and personal goals and actually achieving them.
- Reduce complexity without letting critical things fall through the cracks so you can focus on bigger-picture achievements.
- Get goal-setting strategies and tactics specifically designed for MSPs that you can put into action immediately.
- Utilize systems to create different behaviors, develop positive habits, and foster team buy-in to simply and efficiently measure and adjust your goals.
If you’re going to set business goals and try to achieve things, all the same systems that you’re learning in order to do that are relevant in how you set, manage, and attain your personal goals as well. If you feel more successful and achieve more personally, you’re going to have more energy and more commitment to your professional goals. Same goes for your staff.” – Todd Kane
Part Two: Maintaining the Lean Lifestyle for Quarterly Impacts
Reflect on your progress, get questions answered, and see what’s next to continue toward success. Learn more about the best measures to understand where you are, how to keep your team and yourself motivated, and what you can do to increase your chances of achievement. Don’t forget about your personal goals too! With built-in alignment between professional and personal goal setting, this MSP Growth Series takes a comprehensive approach to achieve more.
About the Author: Carissa Johnson // Product Marketing Manager, Axcient
Carissa Kohn-Johnson has a background in behavioral and physical healthcare technology and information technology and currently works as the Product Marketing Manager for Axcient. She has a lot of MSP Channel experience from planning and attending hundreds of conferences and tradeshows, and found her passion in technology, and working with MSPs in particular. She serves on the Information Services Advisory Board for her community and feels most at home with other technology-forward people. Connect with her on LinkedIn – perhaps you can contribute to the Axcient blog?
More Great Stuff From Our Blog:
Check out some other interesting pieces from our blog: Get the skinny on how we can offer unlimited data retention and storage with no complicated tiered pricing (Seriously!), learn how you can ditch pricey on-site appliances with Local Cache for Direct-to-Cloud BCDR., we dove into how chain-based backup works and why chain-free is the way to be, we talked with Jason Phelps from Huntress Labs about planning for the next ransomware attack, and hear our CEO David Bennett explain why the current cybersecurity landscape means traditional backup is dead.