MSP Documentation Framework Consultant
35 Years Troubleshooting Experience Total
- 10 Years - Dedicated to MSP Documentation Strategies.
- 12 Years - Owning and running an MSP from the ground up.
- 6 Years - IT Consultant for KAZ Computers (Managed SA office)
- 7 Years - Electronics Technician - Navy.
Navy Years
Well before offering backups as a service or maintaining Windows servers, I originally grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, I joined the navy at the age of 16 and began a 7 year adventure that involved maintaining an Australian built sonar system called Mulloka along with other minor underwater weapons systems such as the Nixie towed array decoy systems and underwater telephones.
I got to a point where I felt the military forces you to grow up very fast at a young age however once you reach a certain point, it can cause stagnation. I was still young enough to get out and start a new career. I left Sydney and returned to Adelaide where I met the lady that would be my wife and then ex wife.
At some point in 1997 I came into contact with an IT recruiter who looked at my electronics background, the associate diploma in electronics and the trade as a radio fitter mechanic & he advised me that it was exactly the same sort of thing as I.T and if I completed an MCSE then he would guarantee me a job at $25 per hour. I thought I had hit the big time at that point. This was my first real I.T consulting role.
Before Y2K
I paid the $7000 required to take the course and within a short time had passed my Microsoft Certified Engineers course in NT 4.0. I went back to the recruiter and good to his word he got me a position in the Repatriation General hospital in Adelaide on contract.
Y2K was heating up and obtaining a job was relatively easy. Bare in mind at that point the only computer I had ever touched was a Rolm 80K iron core computer which needed to be booted up using a combination of 8 octal switches & 3 long segments of paper tape with holes in it.
My first day on the job & in fact my very first service issue was with a receptionist who had a computer that came up with a concerning error of "Invalid System Disk, Please Insert valid system disk and try again"
I spent a good 3 hours attempting to solve this Windows workstation issue before the receptionist came back from lunch, removed the floppy disk and restarted the machine. It was a little humiliating but served me well in that I always keep in the back of my mind, never assume you know more than anyone else.
Many more humiliations followed and each time they were slightly more excusable or I was able to hide my lack of technical knowledge by other means.
I followed a familiar trajectory that no doubt many have spent on average 2 years at each position, working my way up to a senior tech position.
Full Time House Renovation
There was a point somewhere around 2003 I became disillusioned with the IT industry, to the point where I complained about the technology industry which had, up until that point, put food on my table and allowed me to live a relatively comfortable lifestyle. I had achieved a position where those who had gone through university and I had assumed were far more intelligent were coming to me for answers to their problems. I left the days of managing cheap backups behind.
During my navy days and during this time I had collected 3 properties that I rented out. One of them was a large wooden home on 2 acres about 15 minutes from the city. One day I went up and looked at a concrete fish pond at one end of the house and thought "that would look nice if it was in a sandstone finish" 12 months later and with no actual intentional plan, I had finished renovating this house in a full time capacity.
It taught me several things, always have a plan, you can do everything yourself but hiring a professional will take quarter the time and the finish will be twice as good & do not put your own personal preferences into a house you do not intend to live in & finally I began to miss the old tasks I used to enjoy such as creating network diagrams and installing firewalls.
A few notable failures with the renovation was spending half a day attempting to render the wall with a bag of premade render. Getting to the point of tears and thinking rendering should not be this difficult, I noticed a corner of a bag in the main bag I had purchased.
Turns out I had been trying to render the wall with nothing but sand. The other notable problem was painting the exposed beams in this mission brown 70s house white. I had put around 3 coats of white paint yet it still looked almost off white.
I had used a primer and undercoat and could not figure out why the color was bleeding through. Turned out I had not been using white to paint but the paint that looked white but was used for adding other colors to.
The good part about that is after one coat of actual white paint, it looked marvelous. Many more smaller issues such as self leveling cement that did not work as advertised & a lot of run ins with brown snakes.
The house sold for a good profit however the truth was it had little to do with my renovating skills, the market went through the roof during this time & that was the primary reason for the price increase. I thought that even though I have no kids, this renovation will be a legacy long after I am gone. Then I was watching the news one evening as I watched it burn to the ground.
Starting My Own MSP
Once I decided to go back and find a job in information technology again, I did struggle with going back as a I.T consultant & thought that I was more than capable of starting my own MSP business at this stage. I went head first and made more mistakes in business than I had success.
With no business training or experience I invested quite a lot up front in the form of Kaseya and ConnectWise licenses and paid for an office on the edge of the CBD. Mistake number 1 - Overheads kill the ability for the business to grow and one lost client can easily see you losing more than you make.
At its largest I had around 8 staff & it was costing $40K just to open the doors each month. My income was just covering the outgoings & just as I felt like I was getting ahead the GST payments would come in and I would be back to struggling again.
I can say that when I was in my 20s I felt invincible and could achieve anything in life. It is not until later that you find out that while yes in theory you may understand the requirements and how to achieve those requirements, if it is in your nature to be someone that would struggle achieving the tasks you need to as a business owner then no matter what, eventually you will fall back to what is in your nature.
I learned 2 things as a business owner. You need to be excellent at sales and you need to be a natural leader with an ability to extract discretionary effort out of your staff.
I found over time that I was neither. I struggled with sales probably because whenever I got asked a question the answer would be "it depends" That works when potential clients are well versed in the topic being discussed however most potential clients looking for MSPs do not fully understand what you are selling them.
I have no doubt that the suite of services I offered would wipe the floor of the competition that often won the sale; however I lacked the ability to demonstrate why my offer was a superior option.
I learned later that leadership is so important as a business owner that employs staff. I was the type of employer that thought "I pay you 80K, I just want you to do the job I am paying you for" Even while I behaved in that manner, I knew it would not extract discretionary effort from my staff yet over the long term I could never consistently change my behaviour.
MSP Business Sold
Right around the time my wife decided things were no longer working & I came to the realization that the life I had worked 12 years towards was no longer in existence, I was in the office as I watched the owner of another MSP who I was involved with in an unofficial partnership sit with one of my staff.
I knew he was under a massive amount of pressure at that point in time & he sat there with my staff member as she had a great deal of difficulty comprehending a task with which he could have done with his eyes closed. He sat with her patiently going over the same tasks over and over again until it finally clicked with her.
At the end of it, she was clear on what needed to be done & would have jumped out of a trench to certain death for this guy after how he helped her. At that moment I came to the realization that I was not a leader & would never be a leader. I believe very few are but when you see someone who is a good leader, it is unmistakable.
At this point I had lost interest in the business which is a fatal condition that cannot be remedied easily. I probably held onto it for longer than I should have. I was not in the best interest of my clients of whom many were loyal to the end.
Realizing my situation, I decided that the best option was to sell the business and I sold it to the person above who had sat so patiently with my employee. I was just prompted to see how his business is doing and it appears as if it has grown significantly and operates Australia wide. I always suspected that he would be successful.
How I became an MSP Documentation Specialist
Having sold my business and no longer having to worry about the 1000 different things that could send me bankrupt, I slept more peacefully than I had in years. Having little to keep me in Adelaide, I made the move to Cairns in Far North Queensland, often known as the gateway to the Barrier Reef. It was without doubt the best move of my life. I have yet to miss the cold winters of Adelaide.
I continued contracting for midsized MSPs and found myself initially hired as a senior support tech and then finding myself working on the organization's documentation management. I fell into this underappreciated niche within the MSP space.
Since that time, I have helped around 10 organizations between 5 and 40 staff implement documentation strategies within their business that are effective and efficient compared to the existing strategy which is actually quite often non-existent.
I have taken experience from each of these engagements both from the situation as well as the people I have engaged with and gradually put together a strategy that I know works and that is an improvement over whatever system is currently in place.
So now we are at the present day & because I keep seeing the same mistakes made over and over again within service providers with regard to optimization of their documentation framework, I want to create a place where I can let the MSP community know some of the strategies that can be put in place to immediately improve the way in which your organization manages the documentation framework that your business runs on.
If you have read this far then well done & if you have any questions or comments then please do not hesitate to get in touch with me.
While you are here, Take a look at some of our MSP related articles below that may interest you: