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Eric Anthony:
I don't know, like just call it Reddit roulette. We're gonna go through and find some interesting topics, talk about on face on Facebook, on Reddit today, and just see what happens. It should be exciting.
Justin Esgar:
Lightning round Reddit roulette.
Eric Anthony:
Sure.
Justin Esgar:
What's up everybody? Welcome back to the All Things MSP podcast. I'm your host Justin Esgar, and with me always is my good friend, og, host, and producer Eric Anthony. You have so many titles. Now, by the end of the, by the time we get done with this show in hopefully many, many years from now, it'll be OG host producer, good friend father of the bride brother-in-law, and Uncle Dunno how that works. And all around nice guy <laugh>.
Eric Anthony:
I think we just ought to start listing him down there underneath my name. You know, if you're watching this on YouTube you know, we do, we do this show for the podcast clients, but we also do it for YouTube as well. So if you'd rather watch us, I don't know why you'd wanna watch us, but you can and many people do. So feel free to watch us over on YouTube as well. Yeah. you know, as far as titles go oh, don't forget you know, sales Agent because know if, if, if you're a sponsor, if you're a vendor watching this show and you wanna sponsor us, I'm also the guy to contact about that. So just go to ATMs sp.link/sponsor and we'll get you hooked up
Justin Esgar:
And find all our other links@atp.link. You'll find our, our Facebook group, our YouTube, all the other podcast places, things like that. Today we have a great episode. Today Eric and I have decided to play Reddit roulette Lightning Round. Eric's gonna find something from Reddit and he is gonna ask me my opinion on it. And my word is Final <laugh>. And then we'll move on to the next question.
Eric Anthony:
It's only final until I argue with you, which I'm hoping happens a lot in this show. <Laugh>. 'cause that's, that's the only thing that's gonna make it as I just
Justin Esgar:
Feel like I wanna argue with you and I just roll over going. That's true. Like, it's, it's not an argument if I just give up <laugh>
Eric Anthony:
The exact opposite of what we wanted to do, you know, for this show. Anyway. so yes, let's go ahead. I have picked one, and by the way, this one is in your realm. Okay. We'll pick some that are more in your realm, some that are more in mine, maybe, I don't know. It's Reddit roulette, so it's whatever Reddit is putting up for the day. Anyway, let's do it.
Justin Esgar:
Let's do it.
Eric Anthony:
Okay. First question. Anybody managing Max out there, how do you handle Apple ID creation, phone number, et cetera?
Justin Esgar:
Apple ID creation? That's actually pretty easy to do. Apple has a, a tool, we call 'em managed Apple IDs, also known as maids. And you should be creating Apple IDs within Apple Business Manager. So if you're not an Apple consultant and you're starting to get into the Apple world, you can roll up Apple Business Manager for your clients. There's a process for them to go through if you're in the a c and you can work through that. There's other ways of doing it through Apple directly. And within Apple Business Manager, that's where you control where their devices are going as in which M D M it talks to. 'cause You could have a different M D M for computers versus iPhones versus iPads versus Apple TVs. You control their volume purchasing. So when you wanna buy an app for the entire organization, you can do it from there.
And you can control managed Apple IDs. And that's what we're talking about here. So you can either do it manually or you can federate from Google and I think Office 365 or Azure, depending on whatever framing it is. And you can bring in all those IDs so they have the same username and password. So this works with Apple Business Manager, and if you happen to be taking care of a school, there's Apple School Manager. It's basically the same thing. Different code of paint. And there's some technical differences. If you have to take the Apple test, you'll know this, manage Apple IDs in Business manager, you get five gigs of storage on school manager, you get 200 gigs of storage. But that's how you do it. And then you can do everything from within there. So that's that. I think that was pretty easy. Good start. My word is style.
Eric Anthony:
So I'm still I I'm still stuck on the fact that it's called Maids, which
Justin Esgar:
I think it's not, it's an acronym. We've talked about it, it's managed app, managed Apple IDs 'cause it's capital M, capital A, and then ID is capital I, capital C. Right,
Eric Anthony:
Right. No, I, I get it, but I'm still seeing a robotic made that Apple is gonna sell us in 10 years.
Justin Esgar:
Jetson.
Eric Anthony:
So I wanna pull something out from this because the, the, the second line of that's, or the first line below the title actually says, let me preface this post by saying we're a 99% PC shop.
Justin Esgar:
Mm-Hmm.
Eric Anthony:
<Affirmative>. Okay. What is your advice for someone who is like in this situation where they only deal with Max? Because you have to, by the way, if you're a Windows M S P, you still have to do Max, otherwise you're not gonna go upmarket because every upmarket company I've been to, the C-suite uses Apple. Okay. Yeah. So you can't ignore it. But what's your best advice for somebody who primarily does Windows, but they need to manage those handful of Macs?
Justin Esgar:
Don't <laugh> call us. It really, well, hold on. It depends on, it depends on two things. One, it depends on really how many we're talking about. And two, how much you wanna deal with them. It's very it's very easy for a lot of people, and I get this from a lot of PCM MSPs, and I don't mean this offensively. I get a lot of PCM MSPs going, oh, I can do Max. They're easy. And if they were so easy, I wouldn't have been in business for 15 years, let alone a lot of my friends for as long, if not longer. And it's not a matter of the computers being easy or not, it's the same thing. PC or Mac, you're dealing with the same thing, which is you're dealing with the, the end user as being the problem. So let's, let's put that aside.
If it's not a lot of Macs, you should still be learning how to do things for the Mac training.apple.com/it will show you the new Apple certified support professional exam. There's courses there, there's sample tests. Even if you don't take the test and get the badge from Credly, it's good to go through that stuff and understand those things. Because even a PC shop, your users are going to have iPhones and iPads and you're gonna wanna know how to manage those. And you wanna understand how tools work like M Z M tools, AGY Kanji, Mosul, Jamf, simple M Z M, things like that. You wanna know how those things work. You wanna understand the core concepts behind A B m Apple Business Manager a d e automatic device enrollment, M D m, mobile Device management and V P P volume purchasing program. 'cause Those four things combine will give you the ability to manage and work with almost any Apple device that's out there and be able to take care of stuff for your client.
So start there. Learn what those four things are. Work with those, get Apple Business Manager. I mean, we make it a part of our business. Any new client who comes on board, if they don't have it already immediately are getting Apple Business Manager, you need it because it's the way how you push out apps to people. You need it because you want to do managed app IDs. You do it because there's functionality that's in there that you cannot get from Intune. If you want a basic M Z M, apple sells Apple Business Essentials. The reason I don't particularly like Apple Business Essentials, and I tell this very bluntly to the people who work at Apple, is that it only pushes out apps that are in the volume purchasing program. Zoom, for example, is not, so if you need to push Zoom, you can't use apple Business Essentials. So look at a better M Z M. We're an ad shop for full transparency, but like I said, Mosul, Kanji, Jamf is the big one. Look at those and learn about mobile device management, learn about configuration profiles, things like that you can learn all about. You can touch on it and become M D m Aware with things like the Apple certified support professional test.
Eric Anthony:
So, and as Reddit serves up a lot of different opinions, right? I was scrolling through as you were talking and and I, and I think I just have to point this one out because this is the attitude of many of the PC-based MSPs out there. Quote or not use Apple products as much as possible as I don't find them friendly for MSPs comparatively to Microsoft products. They're only not friendly. 'cause You haven't tried,
Justin Esgar:
I find this, I'll reverse that sentence. Don't use Windows products 'cause they're not friendly for the user. The amount of times I've gone for a client that I've opened up like Chrome and waited and pressed Chrome again and waited and pressed Chrome again, and then all of a sudden Chrome opened up four times. Like I understand how PC MSPs have jobs, right? Because Windows itself in and itself, windows is not a very well-made operating system and it's gotten better, you know, but I'm not here to ish on you the M S P I am here to ish on the big companies. I don't think, just because I'm an A son doesn't mean I'm diehard Apple, right? I mean, I am, but that's beside the point. But I have plenty of non-Apple things in the house. The, the fact is, is that I still think there's a lot of things that Apple does wrong, I think currently.
And, you know, just to go on a complaint rant for a second if anybody remembers this, what the, this, this is a true story about Steve Jobs, but they do it in the movie where he, after he gets fired from Apple and he comes back and he cuts the entire line down to four products, he makes that quadrant on the whiteboard home, pro desktop mobile four products. He cut the entire, this is going back years. He cut the performa, the central, the Quadro, all of those things. And now years after, he's no longer with us. I look at the iPad line for example, and you have the iPad air, the iPad Mini, the iPad, air V two, the iPad Pro, the iPad I iPad itself. They're diluting the thing again. And I'm very much against that because it makes it very hard for us to understand what products what and the right one for the right person.
So I'm not complaining about you, the PC M S P or me, the Mac M S P, I'm complaining about Microsoft. I'm complaining about Apple. Apple is very good at what it does. The software does what it's supposed to do to a point. But that's where we come in. Same thing on Windows. So I wouldn't complain that it's one thing. And also, you know, there's that driving force. A C E O sees another C E O with a Mac product, they're gonna want a Mac product. It's just how it is. How many times has someone seen a new Apple product go, oh, that looks awesome. I want that. Yeah. So don't go off that. Learn both sides. Even if Apple's not your core, your core crux, or for the applicant consultants who are listening, PC is not your corr. Understand the basics of how it works and being able to manage it. We do plenty of PC stuff. It's maybe a 10th of their, our entire fleet. But like we had to learn how to use Datto or Ninja or enable. So learn it because you wanna learn it and it's gonna make you a better technician. Diagnostician it might not make you a better business person, but at least gives you the edge to be able to help. Or at worst case, figure out that you don't know what you're doing and know who to call.
Eric Anthony:
Yeah, and you know, I'll just go back to the, you know what I, I said for a long time and I got it from Dave Sobel. But you know, a good M S P solves technical problems. A really good M S P solves business problems. A great M S P contributes to the bottom line.
Justin Esgar:
Yeah.
Eric Anthony:
So I have another one. You ready?
Justin Esgar:
Let's go.
Eric Anthony:
Alright. this is actually one that I commented on earlier today,
Justin Esgar:
<Laugh>.
Eric Anthony:
So this is kind of an ethical one. Okay. So we don't have to go the Apple versus we PC route this time. We, you know, this one is, is straight up ethics working on other customers while scheduled for another. Now I'm going to add a couple of things to this, okay. So that we can talk about some, some different situations. I, while scheduled for another was, is kind of vague. So let's compare onsite versus remote work and talk about those two different situations separately.
Justin Esgar:
Okay?
Eric Anthony:
Thoughts,
Justin Esgar:
If you're doing it remotely, I don't think it matters as long as you can keep clear communication. There's been plenty of times where I've been on a Zoom with one client and remoting into another client doing something at the same time. But that is a trained and learned skillset onsite. That is a bit of a problem. If you're scheduled to go onsite to work with a client, unless it's an emergency, I think the person who's calling you, you have to say, Hey, I'm with somebody. I need to call you back. If it is an emergency, you need to go to the client you're with and say, Hey, I have an emergency with another client. I'm gonna deal with this real quick. I'm gonna pause your billing 'cause I'm not gonna bill you for the time I'm here. I'm not working on your stuff.
And they will understand because they expect that when they call you with an emergency, you're gonna do the same for them. So as long as you are very clear and and concise about it, and you explain things very clearly to whoever you're talking to, especially if you're in person, I think then it's okay to a degree, right? You should not be onsite at a client billing them while doing something else. I understand that like a lot of times we're waiting for things to install and you're like, oh, while I'm at it, lemme just go, you know, help two other clients while I'm waiting. I don't, from an ethics perspective, I don't feel that that's right. Have I done it before? Yes. but I don't feel that that's the right thing to do because you want your clients to believe that you care about them all the time and that you're not sidelining them for something else. Because that'll affect you and your business in the long run. Yep. So there's my, there's my piece.
Eric Anthony:
So I, I agree. My thing is, it's all about setting expectations, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I believe that if you're on site, you should be on site for that client. Okay? Now, emergencies happen, you explain it, you step away, that's fine. You stop the clock for the onsite client, whatever. But my mindset is if they're paying you for onsite service mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, which you should be charging more for, by the way, it should be focused, dedicated service. That's, that's just me. That's the way I would do it. Now, remote, it's different. I think everybody expects you to be multitasking while you're working remotely. You're installing patches on a server over here while you're remoted in trying to figure out why somebody can't open their you know, outlook profile over here. You know, that's just because those are outcome based, right? And it also depends on what your service model is.
If your managed services and the remote work is free, client doesn't care, right? It's all outcome based because they pay one price for that. But again, if it's on site and on site's not included in your managed services, then that's, that's one case right Now if onsite is included in your managed services, which I don't suggest, but that again, personal opinion, onsite services, if they're included in your managed services, would follow the same rule, right? Because they're not paying you for your time, they're paying you for an outcome. And that's really where I make the ethical decision is are they paying me for an outcome or are they paying me for my time? And that's <crosstalk>.
Justin Esgar:
I can see your, I I see your point. I I, I wanna disagree with the on the onsite one only because they'll, they're gonna see you working about, they'll, they'll, they, there's a chance that they might see you working on another client's things and they, the client would probably get upset because you're not dedicating your time, even though it's free, you're not dedicating your time. And again, this is, this is very dependent on where you are in New York City. If you're not focused on that one client, they're gonna fire you on the spot because that's just the nature of that, of that area. But in, you know, I don't know, salt Lake City, Utah might not be so bad. So I think there's I disagree with you a little bit on the onsite one. I think you should be focused on the client unless you already set that expectation, which we talked about. I'm not gonna disagree that it's outcome-based versus time-based. I'm just gonna disagree with, if they catch you doing some, you know, working on somebody else's, they're gonna question it and they're gonna question your, your what's the word I'm looking for? Like
Eric Anthony:
Dedication, loyalty. Yeah. It's gonna fall in
Justin Esgar:
That loyalty, your loyalty to the client.
Eric Anthony:
Yeah. And, and I don't, I actually don't disagree with that. Right? There is going to be a perception that you have to be cognizant of. Yeah. Like, you have to understand that that perception that Justin just described is a very real possibility. And you have to weigh that against how much you are going to try and do on site. I almost said get away with which <laugh>, which kind of speaks to how it's gonna be thought of, right? Yeah. I mean that it's, you're, it looks like it, it feels like, and that's what this Reddit, I mean I
Justin Esgar:
Do, I have a story about this actually. I, I went to a, I had a client who's based in Florida and I went down for them for two days. And on my lunch break, which I never really took a lunch break, I was on the phone with another client having a conversation with them in the client, in the client who I was at in their conference room. And the person who was in charge of it at the end of the, the next day pulled me aside and was like, Hey, they heard you talking to another client while you're here. You know, why am I paying for your time if you're here? And I was like, that's fair. You're right. But I was on my lunch break, number one and number two, I stayed until 7:30 PM when you booked me until five, I'm not charging you that extra time. And he goes, Nope. Conversation's over, you're good to go. Right? There was the expectation, even though it's set imposed, so like you can get in trouble, they can catch you. You just need to set those, those expectations in place. So it does happen from time to time, you know? Yeah.
Eric Anthony:
And for me, I would make sure that whatever your policy is, is set out in your managed services agreement so that they get it in writing upfront.
Justin Esgar:
Right.
Eric Anthony:
And if they have a problem with it, you can discuss it before they sign.
Justin Esgar:
I'm taking it up with my lawyers.
Eric Anthony:
Well, there's, you know, you can always redline something.
Justin Esgar:
Well, we, we will bring Brad Gross on. He'll tell you that you shouldn't redline an M S A, but we'll have that conversation another day. Alright, what's next?
Eric Anthony:
What's next? I didn't look for another next 'cause I was hoping you'd go on a rant for a while. Anyway, so yeah, let's go find the next one. Alright, so let's do this one. Books for project management. Ooh, I like this one. Because project management is one of those things that a lot of MSP's technicians turned entrepreneurs. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, if you haven't seen the other episodes, read the e-myth, you'll understand. Project management is more of a business type thing than the technical stuff that we're used to. And very often, good project management can not only just make the experience and the satisfaction of the customer better, but it'll actually add to your profit margin. Yeah. So what's your experience Justin with, with project management? And they do mention a couple of books in here.
Justin Esgar:
Yeah. And the one that they mentioned is, I love that book. It's called The Phoenix Project. And if you haven't read it, do read it. And I make it mandatory for every employee who comes on board, actually part of our employee onboarding package. We send everybody a virtual hoodie and a copy of this book. The project, the, the Phoenix Project is about is, is really a DevOps story, but it's all about project management. I'll give you the layout. Day one, a mid-level IT person has now made c t O of the company and six hours later the c e o calls 'em into the office and says, we're three weeks late on the Phoenix project and it's all your fault. The guy's like, I've only been in this role for six hours. And the rest of the book is him breaking through, figuring out where problems exist, how to get through them, and how to lay them out properly through the guides of a project management.
I love the concept of project management. I don't love the concept of project management as software, to be honest. I've tried a lot of project management software and I find that like I fall out of it really, really quickly enough. Honestly, like, I love me, a good Kanban board. It's old, it works, it makes sense. I don't like Trello, which is a digital Kanban board. I like an actual K combine board. Like for those who don't know what a combine board is, it was a, it's a, it's a just in time project management solution that was invented, I wanna say, from the Toyota company Japan like in the early 19 hundreds. And the idea is you have three columns to do doing and done. And you literally write what you need to get done on a to-do list. And as it's being done, as it's getting through, you move to the doing.
And when it's done, it's done. And then you take it off the board. It is an easy way to manage your projects because you just list everything that needs to be done. Now granted, it doesn't allow you that ul granularity that a lot of project management software does click up, which is what our organization uses. You know, you have your task and you have your sub tasks, and you have assignments, and you have all these things and due dates and blah, blah, blah. And you can make waterfalls and all these pretty pictures and things like that. I use it as a to-do list to be honest. It's getting done and it, and then it's done. So the project management, a solid, solid read for project management skills. There's a second book by the same guys. I don't think it hit as hard within the, within our industry as the Phoenix Project did. But do I think it's called The Unicorn Project? Do check that out. And I'm sure that Eric's gonna have a whole list of books. But I also would suggest you go to LinkedIn learnings and do some LinkedIn learnings on project management as well. Did
Eric Anthony:
You read ahead
Justin Esgar:
Centralize? No, no, no. I literally, like, I I, I've been trying to become a better manager and business owner. And so I've been doing a lot of LinkedIn learning and I have project management is one of my like paths in LinkedIn learning. So for those who don't like reading which is probably the majority of us and wanna listen or watch a video, LinkedIn Learning, which I think is free as well. So those, those are gonna be my two recommendations. It has been decided.
Eric Anthony:
So, by the way, that was, that is the, and I think this is ordered by, you know, the, the most upvoted comments, right? And so the most upvoted comment is not a book, but LinkedIn does have some good learning modules on Lean Six Sigma, which Kanbans are a part of, right? Right, right. Kanban are something that is taught in Lean Six Sigma. I was first introduced to them for any of you who know me, I took a little detour in my career. I mean, I was still a C I O, but I did a lot more than that for this company. It was a pool table company. They manufactured pool tables. And so it was a man, you know, manufacturing floor. And I actually built a software system, a database to track how things moved through the factory. And we used a, a digital Kanban to do that. I love Kanbans. My c r m is the pipeline is done in Kanban format. Now I, because for those of you who didn't see because you're listening to this podcast, like you should be, instead of watching it on YouTube youtube.com/at all things msp like subscribe, do all the things. But what you didn't see if you were listening instead of watching was I thumbed up on kanon boards. 'cause I love Kanban boards now. He dissed, he dissed my Trello,
Justin Esgar:
He dissed
Eric Anthony:
<Laugh>. And I just like, I like Trello because it's simple, but it allows you to keep a lot of notes inside of it. I mean, I kind of get where, where Justin's going. 'cause Justin likes the very simple but organized three board, you know, to do doing and done. Right. It makes sense.
Justin Esgar:
I'm a simple man. I like simple pleasures.
Eric Anthony:
Well, <laugh> and you probably like the tactile piece of having a physical board.
Justin Esgar:
Yeah. Right or wrong. Yeah.
Eric Anthony:
You actually put sticky notes on a whiteboard somewhere when you're doing Kanban.
Justin Esgar:
Yeah.
Eric Anthony:
See, yeah. How
Justin Esgar:
Did I know? I also, for the same record, I also don't have a whiteboard. I will grab whiteboard markers and I draw all over windows, like my actual windows of my house and glass doors and things like
Eric Anthony:
That. I, I, I don't have those in this room. I, I had to settle because strangely enough, like every vertical surface of this room is covered with something. 'cause I collect shit like pirate posters, but <laugh>, you know, I, so I had to buy a rolling one, which kind of sucks. But, but that's why for many things I have to go digital, right? I use Trello if I'm doing that type of work. I tried click up, didn't like it so much. I don't know why I, I kinda liked it at first. It just, I, it didn't latch on like some other things. But then my other tool of choice that I loved, which is what I would use a whiteboard for is Miro. Miro is a great whiteboarding system. It works really well and sometimes what I'll do is I'll actually put it up on my larger TV here in the office so that it looks like a whiteboard even. And the other cool thing is it's real time now. It's kind of a problem with it too because you can't work on it offline. You have to be online to work it. But I can stand here with my iPad and be moving things around on the whiteboard and it shows it on the screen on my TV going through my Mac. So I know we're getting off topic, but No,
Justin Esgar:
No, I gonna say, I think my problem with all of these softwares is that like I'm the kind of person who needs to have a right in my face in order to remind me to get stuff done. And if it's on a webpage, it's not in my face. And I really don't want to go back to having 45 monitors, you know, with all this, with a full screen webpage for, you know, my click up or my Miro or whatever. To add. Another, another thing I think having the tactile, and again, this is just me and everyone's different, you know, the having the, the tactile one, I don't need to have to worry about having that page open and accidentally quitting Chrome. You know what I mean? Like, that's why all the answer is like, have it in a different web browser. That's not an answer. That's, that's a workaround. Yeah. And so I think that's my, that's my biggest problem with a lot of these softwares. You know, even with click up, I have it as an app. It's in my launch, it's in my login items. So like, it's supposed to launch when I launch my computer and then I immediately just close it. <Laugh>.
Eric Anthony:
Yeah, no, I get it. You, you are absolutely correct that if it exists in the physical world, it is much more in your face
Justin Esgar:
Yeah.
Eric Anthony:
Than if it's digital. And I like when I first took my last gig I did my first 90 days in Trello. Like I had a 90 day plan. I put it in Trello. I had actually multiple boards 'cause I was in charge of multiple things. And so I worked through that 90 days through those Kanban boards. But the hardest part was exactly what you're talking about. I had to discipline myself to open them up every day and check them and work them every single day. And I will tell you after that 90 days I did drop it,
Justin Esgar:
Right? That's the problem. I'd be, I was thinking about this as you were talking. I was like, if someone wants to send me like a nice flat, like a thin flat screen TV to mount to that wall right over there and I'll put it vertically with a MacMini and a keyboard and mouse and keep it open all the time. I would love it for it to be, 'cause I was just thinking like, oh my God, if I was Ironman, I'd make it so I can just use my Apple pencil right on the thing. Like that would be dope. And I would keep it open and have it there in front of my face. But the ability to close it means it's gonna be outta my sight, outta my outta side, outta my, but at the same time, there's a, a good theory when it comes to getting things done. G t D called the trusted system. Yep. And, and going back to project management is finding that trusted system and sticking with it. I think I stuck with Todoist as my trusted system for the long time of time. I gave that up because our company was moving to click up and I thought click up could be a replacement for it. I had Asana in between those two also. None of those thick, my to-do list is in my notes app or written on my notebook. Just
Eric Anthony:
It's there. So yeah, I'm, I'm, so, I, I have a story that's very similar but different. Okay. Because, and same thing to do like, to do problem. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> like my to-do list and my notes and my other types of lists. Like what I need to buy from Amazon or what I need to, you know, get from Home Depot. I love paper, I love a journal. Okay, here's, here's the one that I was using
Justin Esgar:
Right here, baby.
Eric Anthony:
Yep. Exactly. It was very hard, very hard for me to move away from this. I love bullet the bullet journaling method.
Justin Esgar:
Yeah.
Eric Anthony:
Right. So I did, I I I bullet journaled probably for five years. I have five years worth of bullet journals. The problem is my bullet journal isn't with me all the time.
Justin Esgar:
Yeah.
Eric Anthony:
And I never liked the ones where you scanned the pages and it made them electronic. You know? 'cause You can do that with like Evernote. So I started using Oh, oh shoot. Good notes.
Justin Esgar:
Oh yeah. Good notes is great. I love
Eric Anthony:
That. 'cause Good notes I can use on my Mac. Yep. On either of my iPads. 'cause I'm bougie like that. 'cause I have, I have a mini and a and a full size. I do not have a pro, I don't need a pro. I don't need that kind of power. Because with great power comes great responsibility. Boom. <laugh>. Anyway, go back to our Origins episodes and you'll get those. That's true. <Laugh>. and it's on my phone, right? Yeah. So if I'm in Home Depot, all the stuff that I wrote down wrote on my iPad last Saturday when I was measuring out the room or whatever I have on my phone. And so I love the fact that I now have that same information that I used to keep in my bullet journal with me at all times in a searchable format.
Justin Esgar:
Yeah.
Eric Anthony:
But I still miss and, and yes, I still get to hand write, right? Because Good Notes is a handwriting app, but it's not the same. I still, in fact, there'll be a new series coming out sometime in the future. I'm working on the basics of it now, on how I transition from using a bullet journal for my daily activities to using a bullet journal for actually journaling. So just a little sneak preview of that. My
Justin Esgar:
Thing with good, I I do like good notes. My thing with good notes is that my handwriting is atrocious. Good notes did not help it get any better. And I miss that. I just have a thing with that scratch. I dunno, maybe it's my neurodivergency, but that scratch really like, does well for my ears that that scratchy scratch that you get, they should add that as a feature, as like a like turn on turnoff ability of like, do you wanna make it sound like a pencil on paper? That would be, yeah.
Eric Anthony:
I mean, some of them try with the with the screen protector.
Justin Esgar:
Yeah.
Eric Anthony:
That, that feels like paper, but it does not make the sound right.
Justin Esgar:
The other thing is, I watched a lot of videos before I, before I settled the Good Notes. I, I did watch a lot of videos on like being productive and how to do things better. One of 'em was about good notes and the person who was doing the video had this amazing handwriting and they were laying things out with colors and all these things. And I was like, oh, I should totally adopt this. And I try to like do what that person did. And I was like, I can't draw. I can't write. I, my handwriting is garbage. And so my good notes look like good notes. Like, it was just horrible. And it just made me feel worse about myself. At least I know if I'm writing in a piece of paper I'm already expecting that my handwriting to be horrible. So I know it's not a book, but Phoenix Project's a great book. Linkedin Learning be and find a project management software of you're choosing. And the, the key to this is stick with it. Don't give it up after two weeks. You have to, you have to go with it for 90 days, like Eric said, and then make the decision. You know, do you want to pivot or not?
Eric Anthony:
Yeah. And so I think a good question to kind of end this all on and get some audience participation here. 'cause I think this could be a whole nother episode is what
Justin Esgar:
You say that to the episode, by the way.
Eric Anthony:
But that's okay because we need more episodes. Justin <laugh>, by the way, we do have more guests coming on. Don't worry. This was just a fluke week in where we didn't, you know, nobody signed up to be a guest. You can, you too can be a guest on the all things MSP podcast, ATP do link slash podcast. Anyway, I think a relevant topic would be, because we always talk about the tech tools. We always talk about our RMMs of our MDMs, you know, our firewalls and, and all of this stuff. The technical stuff, we don't often talk about the business tools that we're using. Yeah. And I think it's relevant, right? Yeah. Because we all struggle you know, or did at some point with sales, if you don't have a good c r m, you know, they're too cheap not to have one now. Really? Yeah. Like, I think I pay $12 a month for Biggin
Justin Esgar:
<Laugh>,
Eric Anthony:
Which I know it's a funny name, but it gives you a Kanban board for your pipelines.
Justin Esgar:
Oh, it's,
Eric Anthony:
And, and I do like it, it has some good integrations. It's by Zoho. But I think that would make a good episode. So if you're using these types of tools, if you're using click up or Trello or any of these things, how are you using them? Comment down below if you want to come on, on the podcast and talk about how you use one of those because you think you just use it. Awesome. Which by the way, I suspect a lot of you are we'd love to have a chat about it on the show.
Justin Esgar:
Yeah. Sign up atsb link slash podcast. Podcast.
Sign up. We wanna hear from you. We wanna, this is like MSP therapy. Well I think that's a good note to end this on. I promise everybody we'll do a better next time. That's what I make my promise every time I saw what did there're I think we're doing good with that. As always, go to facebook.com/group/all things msp follow along there to get more than just the podcast. You get the entire access to the group, all the other videos that Eric's putting out there. Go to youtube.com/all things MSP again, find all our videos, including this one. You can see my pretty face. Listen to our podcast on all your favorite podcasting apps. Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Google, Google SoundCloud ya's Podcast. Wherever, wherever you're listening to podcasts, we're there. Leave a comment, please review even if you leave one star this way. At least I know you're listening. And yeah, follow along. This is gonna be a fun journey. See everybody next time. Bye.