Arlin Sorensen, CEO and founder of Heartland Technology Solutions and HTG peer groups, will be hosting a live meeting on March 24th for Microsoft as part of the 5W25 series on four plans to provide a well rounded look at life and business.

The plans we will discuss are:
- Business plan
- Leadership plan
- Life plan
- Legacy plan

Joining for the live meeting will be Jamison West from JWCS and Brad Schow from Compudyne. The event is code WES36PAL and it will be held at 9:00 AM Pacific that day. The session is titled Four Plans That Can Change Everything and that is exactly the potential outcome from the session.

If you learn to use these plans, you can change the result of your life and business. Without planning, you leave things up to chance and quite honestly have far less opportunity to achieve your dreams or succeed. We often spend a lot of time focused on our business plan but neglect the things that may be more important. Never forget your life will leave a record, a history and a legacy. Planning can help make sure those turn out as you would like.

Harry Brelsford from SMB Nation is looking for the 150 most influential people in SMB. I am not sure when the voting ends, but you can enter once only, so make it count. Who influences you. Take the survey here.

You can vote for up to ten people, including yourself. Who do YOU think are the top influencers in our space? Take a few minutes (literally - this is quick) and enter the names of those who influence you on a regular basis.

Time to give recognition to the folks who really make a difference. Less than 5 minutes if you type with one finger. Don't miss this chance to recognize those who are influential in your life!

CompTIA is sponsoring a Pre-Day Security Workshop ahead of the MSPU Dallas Boot Camp!
It will be held at the Omni Dallas Park West on Tuesday, March 16th. Following will be MSPU's
IT Solutions and Managed Services Sales & Marketing and Service Delivery Boot Camp on March 17th-19th.

Lot's of good training coming to a city right in the heart of Texas. Check out the details here and get registered to participate!

Did you catch the news? The SBSC program has released more funding that can be used to market your company. Up to $2000 is available and it is simple to take advantage of. Check out the details:

Offer #1


The More, the Merrier: SBSC Members Can Get up to $2,000 in Combined Marketing Development Funds Now!

This new offer is extended to all SBSC partners: Act now and you may get up to an additional $1,000 back on your Ready-to-Go Marketing investments in campaigns, events, or services. In addition to the SBSC1000 offer that has been in market since October, you are now eligible to apply for an additional $1,000. Use promo code 2010 when submitting your rebate to claim the 2010 promotion. Hurry! Offer is valid only while supplies last.

Reimbursements done through this "2010" promotion are valid for third-party reimbursement for campaigns (purchases done through http://www.mspartnerdirect.com/), services (purchased from a vendor listed at

Nancy and I are in Washington this week to meet with folks at Microsoft. As part of our trips, we often try and have dinner with the HTG members from the area, and tonight we met with a dozen or so HTG member companies in Redmond for some food, fellowship and sharing. We have built into our peer groups non competitive membership within each group. So inside our small communities of 10-12 companies, we work to make sure there are no conflicts from competing in the same market. But since we now have 22 groups, we have many markets that have numerous companies that serve that market. Seattle is one of the places we have a large concentration of HTG members.

A few years ago there was a lot of concern about having folks from the same market belong to HTG. Some were upset believing they owned a market and could serve all million or two or ten million people. But as our members have caught the Go Giver mentality and see the value of working together, there is a lot less concern about the other HTG members in their market. We see more and more members that were once competitors working together to help grow their companies. Tonight in Redmond we had a dozen HTG member companies from the same geography spending time sharing and learning from each other. They weren't sharing financials, but they were sharing things about their businesses and comparing notes on how they serve their customers. It wasn't panic about letting the silver bullet out of the bag. HTG members have figured out there really aren't any secrets in our business any more, and it is better to build relationships with those you can learn from than to isolate oneself from the world and try to go it alone. The power of community will always win out.

It is with great joy I can tell you that Brad Kowerchuk has accepted our request to join the HTG advisory council. Brad brings a vast array of experiences from his business in Canada to our council. Beside the wonderful success and growth he has achieved in his company since joining HTG, his facilitation and hard work as an HTG4 member and advocate make him an obvious selection to help direct our program for the coming years. I am excited he has decided to join our team and look forward to introducing him to everyone face to face in Dallas. Brad joins other council members Brad Schow, Dan Hay, Lyf Wildenberg and Robert Lindley who provide the HTG team strategic direction and feedback.

With Brad's appointment, we bid farewell to Stuart Crawford who has served on the advisory council since its inception a few years ago. Stuart was part of HTG3 before moving to help us begin our first international group in Canada, where he facilitated HTG10 for a year and a half. Stuart has a passion to help people, and caught the Go Giver bug in ways that became contagious. He leaves us to pursue his passion around social media and the web. He is consulting for businesses in his hometown of Calgary and around the globe as he serves people and their desire to learn how to leverage the communication tools of the 21st century. Thank you Stuart for your hard work and contributions to helping HTG become what it is today.

Have you delivered innovative customer solutions built on Microsoft technologies? Submit your company’s nomination for the annual Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2010 Awards program today! http://www.digitalwpc.com/awards Deadline is April 2.

Why not tell the world about the great things you are doing with Microsoft technologies in serving your client's needs. Not only can you submit an application for these awards, you can also create a case study around your nomination and use it for marketing to your current and prospective clients.

Every partner has delivered value that is worth writing about. Far too many never tell a soul, and miss one of the greatest tools you have in your arsenal, customer success stories. Take some time and apply for these awards and then repurpose your efforts and create a valuable marketing resource you can use for your clients.

Don't wait - do it today. Time goes quickly. http://digitalwpc.com/awards

I was blessed to spend a couple days this week with the HTG team and advisory council in a strategic planning session in Phoenix. Our mission was to step back and take another look at our course and make sure we were on track. It was a great exercise as we turned over every aspect of the HTG program and took a look at where we were, and more importantly, where we were going to be in 3 years.

After all, we continually press our members to do strategic planning. That has to drive every part of our businesses. It comes down to answering the "why" question. Why do we do what we do? What is the driving force - the end game - the desired outcome? Far too many businesses and organizations go through their lifecycle without ever really knowing why. They get up, go to work, take on risk, hire people, go through the motions day after day without ever really answering the question of "why". That is not the case for HTG.

IT Professional turned Social Media and Online Marketing consultant, Stuart Crawford is hosting a special Microsoft 5W25 seminar on Feb 24th at Noon Eastern/9 AM Pacific. Register today at http://www.mssmallbiz.com/training/.

Stuart promises this to be an action filed 60 minute webinar and will not be a "death by PowerPoint" type of webinar. He promises to get down and dirty about why many of us in the IT industry need to start looking seriously at the role social media plays in our overall communications strategy. Yes, that is right, once just thought as a marketing activity, online services is now critical to our overall corporate communications. How we communicate with clients, prospects, the community and even our staff.

Check it out on Feb 24th.

Microsoft currently has two sources of funds for select partners to spend on RTG (Ready to Go campaign) Marketing Services:

For “Managed Partners” only ( i.e. those who have a Partner Account Manager or Tele-Partner Account Manager)
$1,000 rebate offer, expires March 31, 2010
Promotion code: 2010
Please note terms and conditions page at: www.mspartnerdirect.com/2010

For Small Business Specialists (SBSC) Partners only ( i.e. those who have the Microsoft SBSC Certification )
$1,000 rebate offer, expires March 31, 2010
Promotion code: SBSC
Please note terms and conditions page at: www.mspartnerdirect.com/sbsc

HTS' popular e-newsletter service is one of the options for partners to use these funds toward. There are rules - see the links to the t's and c's - but it is really very painless to participate and get your newsletter service under way. Feel free to call Mary Petersen at our Harlan Office - 712-744-3619 - and ask any questions you may have. To get details on the Microsoft partner portal about the e-newsletter service - go