Hi guys. Wondering how many of you are reporting or monitoring shadow AI in your client enviroments? If I asked you about X client could you pull up a report on their AI usage? I had a vendor on the webinar this week and we covered this topic. Biggest learning I have seen with this is that it's a great conversation starter with clients. A lot of them dont care but when you show them the data and who's using what they perk up. Anyway the main reason I'm asking is that I am thinking of building a free browser extension that I'd bundle into this group that would do exactly this - report on end point's AI usage. Something light weight and purley for starting the conversation. There are other vendors in the space but they are looking at this from a policy enformcement perspective where they actually restrict what goes into a prompt and lock down devices. I do see that as useful but only once you'ce sold your client on the need based on a report I could offer from the tool. Would love your input. PS this is not where the opportunity is in AI...had this exact conversation with @Chris Deitrick this week. We both agree it's the BPM play (business process maangment) which I've spoke with 2 others on yesterday and also getting nodding heads....The shadow AI is just the conversation starter.

Let's all welcome @Steve Taylor to the group! If you've followed him at RocketMSP (now with AlternativePayments) you'll know he's great at interviewing vendors and putting together some great content. I sat down with him yesterday here's what we covered: 1) Webinars fail when they turn into sales pitches… but when done this way, they become one of the most reliable ways to build pipeline. 2) You don’t need a big team or fancy setup a simple, repeatable system beats “trying random marketing” every time. 3) Even when people don’t attend, the right follow-up can still turn registrations into real sales conversations. 4) Most MSPs don’t actually have a lead problem but that shift in thinking changes everything about how you market. 5) One small action (done today, not “someday”) is the difference between talking about webinars and actually making them work. 6) Topic choice matters more than tech depth wrapping the right message around what business owners are already thinking about changes the results completely. Full video below

Hey everyone I want to be properly honest with you. I’ve been half-hearted with the group calls. At the start I tried to make them feel like a “webinar”. Then it became more of a support call. But the real issue in the early days was… sometimes nobody showed up. I’d be sat there on my own, it would sting a bit, and I started ducking out or finding an excuse not to run it. Then life piled on: flu around the house before Christmas, sick parents, and we had a brutal snowstorm that caused multiple repairs. The calls kept getting postponed or moved… and I know that’s frustrating if you were planning around them. So here’s my New Year reset: I’m restarting the calls, but not as “training”. Not even as “support”.The main point is to actually meet the community and get to know each other. I’ve put the next 10 calls in the diary. ✅ Every Monday ✅ You’ll find them under the Calendar tab If you’ve never joined one before, this is the perfect time. Even if you just pop in for 10 minutes to say hi that’s a win. One last thing before I sign off: if you ever wonder what I can help with inside these calls, here’s a real example from my last 1:1 call with @Brett Surinak . He’s running Facebook ads to a webinar, but his “thank you” page was only tracking as a Page View meaning Meta had no idea a registration had happened. So we walked through setting that thank you page up to fire a Lead event in Events Manager (so the ads can actually optimise properly). We also talked through improving webinar lead quality (moving away from instant lead forms to a landing page), and how to test “pattern interrupt” style creatives that stop the scroll. That’s the kind of practical stuff I love helping with. Anyway I’m back in the seat now. Mondays. Calendar tab.Hope to see you on the next one.

Wanted to share this resource with community. Karl Palachuk Founder, Small Biz Thoughts Committed to your success, Small Biz Thoughts has produced massive amounts of content and training materials for small business owners, primarily IT consultants, VARs (value added resellers), and MSPs (managed service providers). https://www.smallbizthoughts.org/

Always a big night here in Scotland, New Year's Eve or locally known as "Hogmanay" It's also the 7th day of the Christmas give away here at IT Rockstars. Today you can access 3 books I wrote in 2025 that are "private label" This basically means you can use the books in your IT business, brand them up and change them, publish them in your name. There's a few other MSP marketing services that have similar books, here's how mine are different: 🎅 Book 1: CEO's Guide To IT Providers: This is based on my own sales experience of selling managed IT services to small and medium business owners. Bascailly hits on the pain points on why they change IT provider and why they should choose you. 🎅 Book 2: CEO's Guide to MS Copilot: yep a book wirtten about AI, but instead of useful tips this is more about what CEO's should be thinking about when it comes to AI for thier business, it also covers useful tips on Copilot, the big time savers for businesses. 🎅 Book 3: CEO's guide to Cyber Security: again this is from the CEO/business owners perspective, the risks they face in their business, the unknowns, what they don't know, we address them in the book and why they should chosse your IT business. You can access unde the classroom tab Just a quick reminder this will disappear on 5th January, so make sure you grab it before then. Here’s what’s already been released as part of the Christmas drops: 🎅 1st Day of Christmas: Copilot Revenue Roadmap (How MSPs can generate new revenue with AI) 🎅 2nd Day of Christmas: AI SEO for MSPs (How to get your website mentioned by ChatGPT in a weekend) 🎅 3rd Day of Christmas: MSP Video Academy. (How to build a local audience of prospects with video) 🎅 4th Day of Christmas: MSP SEO Masterclass (Foundational SEO tactics to beat your competitors in the search) 🎅 5th & 6th Day of Christmas: 5 Part MSP Lead Generation Guide (Simple steps to generating leads, and what's working right now for members in our community)