Newsletter 1.0 – Let’s Goooooo!

Welcome to my first newsletter. Thank you for subscribing! I started the idea around a newsletter at a silly time for my schedule. It was nearing my October Peer Groups week which is one of my three busiest weeks of the year. Then trying to squeeze as much life out of the rest of the year kicked in, and that’s why my first newsletter is like 2-3 months later than intended. In short, the reason this wasn’t out earlier was due to lack of planning on my part.

Planning is an essential piece of running any business, going on vacation, doing projects, and so many more things. Building a plan and executing on that plan will drive your business forward much faster than simply working on the issue of the day. The problem is, planning requires you to stop and think. And stopping is difficult when the hustle and bustle of life is constantly pushing you forward.

If you haven’t planned out what 2025 should look like yet, NOW is the time. We’re still in January (barely), so the year hasn’t gotten away from anyone yet. One thing I routinely find as I plan for the year is that the next quarter or two is pretty well locked in, but the further out the plan goes it gets a little blurry. At a high level, this is what my planning looks like:

1. Paint a picture of what I think a good year would look like.
2. Determine the gaps between where you are today and where you are heading.
3. Build initiatives/goals to bridge those gaps and layer them throughout the year.
4. Figure out the top ONE or TWO priorities are for the current/upcoming quarter. Avoid the temptation to try and do everything in the first quarter or two. There are only 12 weeks in a quarter, so don’t overload yourself or your team.
5. Then build out SMART goals and shift your focus to executing against your initiatives.

Then it’s time to execute on your plans, and revisit as you work your way through the year. The thing is, if you set a solid plan and stick your plan in a drawer for the year you’ll still make progress. Your brain wants to close the open loops from the plan.

Over the past couple of years I’ve been creating business planning assets in my day job at Pax8. I spoke at Pax8 Beyond in 2024 about the importance of setting a 5 year, 3 year, and 1 year vision for your company and built a plan to support this. I’ve spent the last several months evangelizing this planning document along with the importance of planning.

Below you will find a few links to the plan, a recording of a webinar I hosted with my Peer Group members, and the link to the official coursework in the Pax8 Platform. The link to the Pax8 Platform requires you to be a Pax8 partner, but the other two links don’t AND the only place I’m sharing those links is through this newsletter.

Here’s to a great 2025!

Links

• 5-3-1 Year Planning Document
• Planning Webinar
• Pax8 Platform Planning Link

Recent YouTube Videos

I’ve been talking about building teams and Service Managers in my videos recently. Here are some of the most recent videos:

• Make Your MSP a Good Place to Work
• Service Managers for MSPs: Success for the Service Manager
• Service Managers for MSPs: Why, When, and Who to Hire
• Grow Your MSP Team: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, and Beyond

If you haven’t already subscribed to my YouTube channel, please subscribe.

Thank You!

Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter. Look for about one of these per month. I don’t want to inundate your email feed, and want to deliver a bit of fresh content to you each month.